Baby Training...in progress

I received a phone call late Thursday night from Sherry. They had had a death in the family and needed to drive to Kentucky first thing in the morning. She asked if I would pick up Rosa (sorry I don't have any recent photos of the sweetie...or as I call her, The Rosa). All I had to do was go to the day care after work on Friday, but I knew Sherry meant business when she met me at work early the next morning to have the car seat fitted into my own car. She also handed me a detailed list on her care and baby do's and don'ts. And an insurance card. Yeah, that freaked me out a little bit. All I could think was that I would really suck as a babysitter if I had to take their daughter to the ER.
I got off early Friday afternoon and snuck over to the daycare before 5 pm. The caretakers said they knew I was there to pick up Rosa because as I pulled up Rosa was pointing to me from her seat on the swingset. She hugged me as I picked her up. We had dinner together, took a stroller ride/walk, played a bit and watched our first episode of The Simpsons together. By then it was 7:30 and although I didn't want to put her to bed (she was so content sitting on my lap!) I knew it was time. She was tired. I rocked her, sang to her, laid her down. She began screaming the second her butt hit the bed, but I followed Sherry's advice "back out quickly and don't look back!". By the time I reached the kitchen table to pick up the baby monitor, she was asleep.
Tonight was had a church picnic and I met Brandy and Steve and their 3 boys. The youngest is almost 9 months and I had the opportunity to hold him and feed him his dinner. It made me want to have a son so bad! It's so strange...when I started down the adoption road I had my heart set on having a girl. Now that I know I am having a girl, I also want a little boy!! I really do have my heart set on adopting from Vietnam next. I am guaranteed a son since so many parents want little girls and they have so many boys that need families. Anyway, I may be babysitting for Brandy and Steve's older boys on Friday. They have to go out of town and the big kids get to stay behind. I'm not sure it will work out, but if it does, maybe it will cure me of my baby boy blues.
Terri requested a garden update so here goes...we had a bit of a drought over the last 4-6 weeks. It finally started raining regularly about 10 days ago. As a result, when I was in WI some of my plants got cooked. I lost some beans and rhubarb, but I think the rest will survive. The corn is getting quite tall. My biggest problem right now is weeds. I've got some sort of wild violet growing crazy all over the yard, but especially in the garden. If I attempt to pull it up when it is young, it just breaks. I have to wait until it's a bit taller and I can grab the roots as well.
Evidently today is "Everybody ask Erica about her adoption Day". I had a woman at church asking me about it this morning and she asked if I would be receiving a boy or a girl. I told her that China will only allow single parents to adopt children of the same sex so I will have a daughter. She then proceeds to open her mouth and insert her foot, "Well, that's good. Since you aren't married it would be hard for a boy to not have a daddy." It must be easier for girls not to have daddy's? I was nice and told her that my children will have plenty of positive male in their life. Does she think I'm taking a stand by being single? I would love for my children to have a father, but I really don't have any control over that. She kept digging herself in further, but I'm not even sure she realized what a jerk she was being. I guess adoption seems pretty weird for the average person, so single-parent adoption must be unfathomable.
I received an e-mail from my agency saying that the CCAA was requesting information from parents with dossiers logged in June 2006. That's progress! Everything I've read indicates that October/November 2005 and March/April 2006 were the biggest months for dossiers. Once they finally finish matching parents to babies in these months things should pick up, although we are still looking at an 18-24 months wait.

For those wondering why I have a photo of a car seat and no photos of Rosa, I can explain. Rosa stayed so close while I was babysitting that the best photo I could have taken would have been of the top of Rosa's head as she had her arms wrapped around my thigh, or worse, my butt.