Vocabulary to enlighten your day!

I've been busy getting everything ready for our accountant, so adoption stuff has been on the back burner for a few days. Eventually, everyone needs a break from the adding machine, so here I am. My adding machine has tape. Do they still make those? It was my grandmother's when she worked as a secretary many many moons ago. Come to think of it, most of the stuff in our house is old. Our living room couches are the ones we bought when we got married--nearly 20 years ago. Up until about 6 years ago, they were pretty new as we were hardly home to use them. When we moved from Dumas, we had some senior high school boys help us. This one kid, whom I had taught, would pick up things that looked antique, and ask, "Is this iron older than I am?" "Yes, I took that iron to college with me." Loading up the huge 100lbs. speakers he'd ask, "Are these older than I am?" "Yes, Doug bought those when he went to college 21 years ago." Of course, my favorite was when he asked what the record turntable was for. "I know this has to be older than I am!" And that led to a discussion about 8-tracks and cassette tapes. I referenced our computer in another post. Since then, the iron blew up, the speakers are waiting for the garage sale, the computer is sitting in the barn, but we still have our 1990 style couches! Whoo Hooo! Making progress!


This has been one of my many reads on adoption. Those of you who know me well, know that I read, read, read, research, research, research before doing something new. (I read book after book after book on how to ski before I went skiing the first time as a kid. Somehow, Jean Claude Kelley made it look a lot easier in the book than it actually was!) Although just beginning this adoption journey, I have already had to learn new vocabulary. Here are just some of the terms:

USCIS: United States Citizenship and Immigration Services--These guys are part of the new Department of Homeland Security--that sounds so ominous doesn't it? They are the ones who give us a visa for our child. They also decide if we are capable of parenting an adopted child as well as making sure our child can be legally adopted.

I-600A: This application determines our ability to parent an adopted child. Our home study will be a BIG factor in getting approval. (Doug asked me the other day if people can really flunk the home study??!!)

I-171H: The form you get when USCIS approves of you. Russia will want a copy of this one!

I-600: This application is used when we get our referral, so the USCIS can determine if this child meets the definition of an orphan.

Apostille: (a-pos-teel) Everything that goes to Russia has to be notarized and apostilled. The apostilled is essentially a notary of the notary. Russia wants to make sure that you didn't buy Granny a fancy stamp at Office Max and have her witness all your signatures. Once we have everything notarized, we send all the papers to our Secretary of State's office who will apostille them. Thankfully, our fun stops here. We are considering ourselves lucky in this regard. Since we live in Texas, our notarized papers head straight for Austin. Other states, like Oklahoma, have you send them to the county clerk's office then the state. Some countries then have you send the state apostilled documents to the US State Department. It gets better. Then those documents are sent to the Embassy of Foreign Affairs to get authenticated.

Pop Quiz on Friday!