Happy Birthday to.........Us???

Today is Elijah's birthday, but we all got a bit of a present today. As noted yesterday, we decided to take a flyer to see if we could get our fingerprints redone (or is it rerererereredone?) early. This would accomplish several things. One, they can be being processed at the same time our daughter's passport is being processed. Two, there is still a very real possibility that the prints will be rejected as we did not have all the typically (but not completely mandatory) paperwork redone. Getting these prints done sooner will allow for extra time if there are problems.

The story about today is a rather neat one. In co-op this morning, Maren had one mom ask if we were taking the boys with us to the printing. We really didn't want to for ease sake and hoped to pass them off to someone. This mom (thank you Amy) was interested in taking them but the logistics just weren't going to be easy to pull off. Maren then was able to ask another mom (thank you Kris) who would be able to take the boys skating with other kids but would not be able to be fully hands on to help with Elijah. The next person sitting with them was able to provide the extra attention he would need with skates (thank you Katy) and happily rounded out a multi-mom effort to make our trip easier. It turned out to be a bigger deal than any of them realized at the time.

Once I got home from work, we blazed down to the federal building, and found a spot on the street just about a block away from the building. Because we were kidless, we could briskly walk down the sidewalk and cross the streets to get to the building. We quickly determined that the police officer looking through the bushes using his baton immediately in front of the federal building was not exhibiting enough alarm to keep us from entering the building. After I got a preview of what TSA pat-downs might be like (don't forget to put your phone in the bin...it makes the bomb- checkers a wee bit tense), we rushed into the room at approximately 3:43pm.

One person was just leaving while another met us at the bullet-proof window. Well, I don't know for sure that it was bullet proof, but testing it probably would have made the bomb-checkers a wee bit tenser. Anyway, the nice but exasperated lady inquired about our business. When we made our very humble and very apologetic case, she hollered back "We've got another one". I don't know exactly what the unseen man several rooms over hollered back, but his tone of voice suggested it probably wasn't, "Oh goody. I hadn't fulfilled my desire to help humankind enough this week, and I was really hoping someone would rush in at the end of the day, on a Friday, the start of a long holiday weekend (MLK Day), WITHOUT AN APPOINTMENT, and ask us to do something we have already set aside time to do in several weeks." Maybe that was his response, but I really don't think so. While this was all happening, we looked on the wall to see a very clearly written statement that really did say something like, "There WILL BE NO fingerprints taken after 3:45 pm". We looked at our watch which said, "3:45". Well, technically it didn't say it, as I have graduated past talking watches, but you get the picture. At some point in this, the manager guy showed his face (not the rather unhappy man mentioned above), realized we were adoptive parents seeking our prints, and really did say, "We tend to treat our adoptive parents really well." He hopped the other two into high gear and had all three of them working super-fast to get our work done. Just as Maren's was getting finished, it was discovered that one of her social security number digits was wrong. The man commented that if that had not been caught, it would have caused major problems. Thank you Lord for all that went well today. By the time it was all said and done, we were actually there probably less than ten minutes! Apparently the end of the day before a long weekend can be a pretty powerful motivator!