Kazakhstan it is!

Today we spoke at an information seminar put on by our adoption agency. Included in our presentation was the "announcement" that we had decided on Kazakhstan as the country for our second adoption and would, of course, be using Adoption Horizons as our agency again.

There we have it. Decision made. On to more paperwork....

Speaking of paperwork, it has remained in the form of a mountain on my desk for weeks. In order to kick start the process, we hired a babysitter (our friend, Rome, who has been on March break for the last two weeks) for a couple mornings to entertain Zoe, giving me several hours of uninterrupted time to tackle it. Mission almost accomplished. Just a couple more tasks and we will be back in the role of waiting.

We are probably still several months away from getting Ontario approval. Only then do we begin to work with Adoption Horizons again to compile our dossier (i.e. another mountain of paperwork). That can take a couple months. Then it is sent to Kazakhstan... and we wait some more. So as you can see, our second trip is still a long way away.

Here is Rome contributing to our adoption effort! Zoe wanted Rome to hold her while splashing water in the sink. Rome, being the good sport that she is, was happy to oblige. Zoe started the day with a shirt on but it was soon soaked.

Zoe at a recent play date with her two closest friends and one's baby sister.

Who needs a potty to play potty?

Relatively speaking, we are not a television family. We never have the TV on during the day when Zoe is awake and Zoe has never shown an interest in it (though the buttons on the remote control have always fascinated her). There have been those rare desperate moments when one of us needs a 10-minute time out and we have resorted to the television as a way to occupy Zoe. Even then she doesn't last more than a minute or two in front of it. Alas, as nice as a short break would be every now and then, we are naturally happy that the TV is not her thing. (Yet.)

Recently, however, Zoe discovered YouTube. More specifically, music videos. Her favourites are The Wiggles, The Wombles, and Barney. Over and over and over. In the TV versus YouTube debate, we are not sure exactly which is more mind numbing, though after a half hour of Wiggles and Wombles you can guess where our vote is!In the non-music genre on YouTube, Zoe has discovered videos of cats (which she calls meows) doing a variety of interesting (or not) things while their owners video them. Did you know that cats can poop in the toilet? Combining Zoe's new interest in cats with her growing potty training vocabulary (most of which we try to protect our blog audience from), her favourite non-musical video request is "meow poop see." The "see" specifies a requirement that she only wants videos in which the endproduct is visible. We keep telling ourselves that it is just a phase.