Visiting Santa

We went to the mall today to get Oliver's Christmas stocking embroidered (how sad is it that I have a stocking with Emma Claire's name on it and not one with Oliver's name?) and we also visited Santa and Build-a-B*ear (how'd that happen? I got hoodwinked).

Its amazing how jaded kids can become so quickly. In B-A-B, Chloe pointed to a stuffed animal and declared it was LAME! "Where did you hear that!?" I asked. "Oh, I just knew it," she claimed. Right. I know exactly where she heard it---SCHOOL. Yes, kids certainly learn more than the 3 R's at school. It's a blessing and a curse.

Then, when we were in line for Santa, Chloe asked, "Why does some man want to dress up like Santa Claus? Is this his job?". I told her it WAS the real Santa Claus and that she better be nice or she would certainly end up on the Naughty List. Seriously, its like she went from sweet toddler to teen angst and she's only six! I'm beginning to understand why some parents choose to homeschool.

Anyway, Oliver was mesmerized by Santa. It took about 10 attempts before we finally got him to look at the camera and not at Santa's beard and glasses. Somewhere on attempt #5 Santa told the photographer to hurry up because Oliver was "squirly" and he would hate to put a baby on the Naughty List. Chloe laughed and told Santa Oliver should already be on the Naughty List.

I realized today that it was one year ago in Ethiopia that Oliver officially became our son. Our court date for our adoption of Oliver in Ethiopia was November 30, 2009. Of course, the phone & internet lines went down in Ethiopia and our attorney in Ethiopia couldn't relay that we passed court until later in the week. We were in limbo for a while and our agency thought that we were missing something in our file but as it turned out, it was another family's file and not ours. We had to wait almost a week to find out we passed and even then our agency didn't know the correct date of our court date. We only found out when we went to Ethiopia and got all the court documents that we did pass court on November 30 and were officially & legally the parents of Oliver.