The one person living in this townhouse had bought it from its original owners and, after a couple of years of re-doing the multiple "honey do" projects she had found around the house, repainting the house, putting new floors into the house, and making tweaks here and there (plus replacing the microwave oven that simply up and died one day in the middle of preparing dinner), she had everything the way she wanted it to be...
...except for one thing. And to solve that particular problem AJ filed the papers neecessary to being the process of adopting a baby girl from China. (You thought I might be writing about someone else's townhouse...?) Unlike her brother, AJ was a fastidious housekeeper, and I often (only half-jokingly) commented that she was expecting the House Beautiful Magazine photography team to show up any day now; as it was, Dad took a bunch of the required photos of the house (and of AJ gardening, in the kitchen, etc.) that were a required part of the adoption paperwork. As everyone except AJ expected, she passed her first home study[1] in November of 2005 with flying colors -- I'd laugh about some of the things she fretted endlessly over pre-study except they were pretty mild compared to stories we'd heard -- and we all settled in as The Wait began.
As I've written before, The Wait went on... and on... and on... with one delay after another in the process piling on top of each other until AJ's original paperwork began expiring, so she underwent a second home study in June of 2007 (again passing with flying colors as she again fretted over nothing being good enough). We continued to wait, there were continued complications, an agency change, and much renewal of paperwork until AJ passed her third home study in January of 2009. Because home studies were often done far in advance of the actual adoption taking place, it was generally understood that the adoptee's room would not be ready when the home study was conducted, and this was definitely the case with AJ's paperchase. Even so, she had always planned on converting a specific bedroom into her daughter's room and had slowly begun cleaning it out in preparation.
Work on "the baby's room" moved forward in drips and drops until March of 2009, when AJ had decided the wait had gone on for so long that she probably should begin at least preparing for the final adoption preparations, and we spent a day rearranging furniture, deciding what should stay & what should go, and so on. Even Dulce Cat lent a (supervisory) hand...
Of course, we all knew there would still be plenty of waiting to do (and we were unfortunately right about that), so the final bits of decorating, setting up a crib, and so on remained undone.
Fast-forward to June 20th, 2010, and putting the finishing touches on Miri's room moved into high gear. The last few pieces of furniture stored there made their way (not without some measure of bangs, ouches, and cussing) into their final new locations within the home, the crib (assembled by AJ and one of her friends a few days earlier) was put into its final place, and a majority of Winnie the Pooh's friends & neighbors (along with two versions of Pooh himself) moved into their new home.
There was still work to be done and a few final tweaks to be twoken, but the Pipsqueak's room was finally ready to welcome her home.
PRESENT DAY - JUNE 20, 2020
the 20th is the Pipsqueak's official birthday, and with the COVID-19 pandemic pretty much eliminating any possibility of a real party we did what we could to make the day special. Early in the day, Miri admitted to me (in a text message) that it wasn't feeling very much like a birthday. Last year, when she turned 10, it was kind of A Big Deal because it was her first double-digit birthday... but for her 11th this year... well, things were kind of blah.
Mom spent some time decorating the old homestead inside & out and we all got together around 5:30pm -- which was quite a bit later than planned because AJ & Miri had stopped to pick something up at the local Home Depot store and -- as usual at this location -- the whole "curbside pickup" process rapidly devolved into a time-consuming mess. A few planned birthday phone calls from out-of-state relatives had to be rescheduled but eventually all five of us were sitting together in the same room. We had told Miri she could choose anything she wanted for dinner, and she surprised us by wanting a chicken tenders platter from Outback -- so I spent the next 15 minutes herding cats... er, trying to get the rest of the family to focus while I used the restaurant's app on my iPhone to place an order for pickup[2].
Upon my return with our birthday feast, Miri got the first of several "happy birthday" calls from other parts of the family, and moments later one of our MIT families pulled up to the house with a big tray (unexpected) cupcakes along with homemade birthday cards for Miri and Father's Day cards for Dad and me. We finally all sat down at the dining room table and (after the usual round of assorted quotes of, "Mom, sit down and eat, I can do that for myself!") dug in for far too much food that turned out to be well worth the cost & bother. The birthday cake (compliments of Costco) was equally good and so rich that Miri decided to save half her piece for breakfast, and then she opened her presents.
Afterwards, we settled down for a family movie. The original plan had been to watch the final Harry Potter film -- Miri is really into the series now and it's the only film she hasn't seen yet -- but she surprised us by wanting to watch Frozen II (third time for her & AJ, first time for the me and Mom & Dad. We all enjoyed the movie (despite having to periodically squirt Tigger with water so he'd stop nipping Mom's ankles until we paused the movie to feed him) and everyone finally headed home (or upstairs) to their respective beds a little after 11:00pm. The best part was that Miri told us her birthday had started out as nothing special but that by the end of the day she'd had a good time and her 11th finally felt like a "real" birthday. Mission accomplished. :-)
We're getting together again for a Father's Day dinner this evening... I'll post about that soon. Until then, I wish y'all good health and good weather, and I'll see you again soon! 
[1] A "home study" is a required part of the adoption process that involves a social worker (possibly specially trained, depending upon the jurisdiction) conducting a first-person inspection of the home to ensure it is a suitable physical environment to bring an adopted child into, and interviewing the prostpective adopter(s) to ensure they fully understand the needs, effects, etc. of bringing an adoptee into the family. The social worker will also usually interview at least one friend or knowledgeable neighbor (without the prospective adopter present) to gain further insight on their suitability as an adoptive parent, and will finish up the process by double-checking that all required paperwork has been completed properly, that required classes are completed or underway, etc. There are stories of home reviews amounting to little more than a social worker walking in, saying "looks good," and signing the papers, stories of social workers literally running a white-gloved finger over the rubber seals of a refrigerator/freezer to check for dirt, and stories of otherwise undisturbed adoption processes being brought to a screaming halt when the social worker's interviews showed that one spouse was "all in" whie the other really wanted out.
[2] I now have a new "least favorite parking lot" on my list. Halfway in, I was suddenly blocked while turning in to the parking lot, leaving my car blocking one lane of a busy major road and people honking at me. The idiot blocking everyone from moving finally got to where he wanted to go, leaving me having to stomp the brakes twice as other people backed out of parking spots without looking. I have to drive down the wrong aisle in the lot because it was the only way to dodge a speeding idiot in a heavily-dented "pocket rocket." All the curbside pickup spots are filled with cars just parked there so I pull up to the front of the restaurant & tell the staffer standing by the door I'm there for curbside pickup and he directs me to the other end of the building. I pull into a now-empty curbside pickup spot & sit waiting for a couple of minutes, then finally mask up & go to the pickup window. I return to the car with a big bag of food & someone pulls into the pickup spot next to me, almost clipping my side mirror; maybe 20 seconds later (as I'm checking to make sure I have the entire order) the gal from the restaurant staff who had just handed me that big bag of food comes out to talk to the other driver, then is very surprised when she comes to talk to me and I already have my food. I have to take the long way out of the parking lot because the usual path to the exit is blocked by a large family standing in the middle of the driving lane, purposefully ignoring all the cars trying to get past them. About 50 feet short of the exit I have to again slam on the brakes to avoid getting hit by an idiot speeding out from behind the building who wanted to beat me to the exit (he was going so fast that his tires squealed when he tried to stop at the driveway). I watch the same idiot force his way across three lanes of traffic to make an illegal U-turn just a few cars behind a police car busy pulling someone else over while waiting at the light because another large family is sauntering across the road so I can't do a right turn on red. I remember thinking that the food better darn well taste frakking amazing...
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