Paperwork, Certificates, Interviews, and Classes (I refuse to add "Oh my!" to the end of this)

Here's an update as to where we're at this moment.

Paperwork: We have completed all the paperwork required thus far from AAI. We're now waiting for our Dossier paperwork to arrive. I have no idea what it is, but they told us to be expecting it. We'll all learn what it is together!

I heard that we need certified copies of our marriage license and birth certificates for the Dossier so I went ahead and got them. (4 copies of each, to be exact. They don't require 4 copies, but I don't want to have to get more copies in the future.) We had to send a letter to Wyoming to get Zack's birth certificates and they should be coming sometime this week. For mine, all I had to do was drive up to the court house in Farmington to get them. That's also where I got copies of our marriage certificate. I was glad I went on the last day of June because prices went up on July 1st. It totally saved us $12!! (On a side note, I renewed my passport and it arrived in the mail last week. I'm totally approved to jet out of the country!)

This Thursday we meet with Suzanne over at Families for Children. She's doing our international homestudy. She'll be coming to our house on Thursday afternoon to interview us and to inspect our house so you can pretty much guess what I'll be doing for the next 3 days. That's right. Cleaning. Nothing like a shot of motivation to help you finally get rid of the pile of stuff that's been sitting in your hallway for the past month! (And, Allie, I'm going to wish I had your foam pieces again.)
In the next month we're expecting to have to go somewhere to get fingerprinted and also go to the doctor for physicals. Other than that, the future is kind of hazy. Hopefully we'll have more direction once the dossier packet arrives.

While we're waiting on paperwork we're also taking an online class that is required by AAI. They give you 3 options for classes. We chose to take the class entitled "Because They Waited: A guide to adopting older infants and children." The class consists of a set of 4 DVDs and a supplemental study guide or what we like to call a "workbook". The class is divided up into 4 modules. You basically watch the DVD on that module (which is basically a lecture), using the workbook to fill in answers and such, and then you go online and take a test for that module.
4 modules=4 lectures= 4 tests.
We did the first module yesterday after church. Despite the fact that Zack wanted to shout "Amen!" and "Hallelujah" several times during the presenter's lecture (she was quite dramatic), it was a really good class.
I won't give you all the boring details because that would take a long time, plus I just don't want to write it all down, but I will list a few useful things we learned.
(A lot of this stuff is scientific, so brace yourselves.)

1. A lot of advice from people with biological children doesn't apply to people with adopted children or older infants. (Note: they didn't say ALL advice, just a lot...)
2. Babies are born with all of the brain cells they will have. Most of these cells are connected, except for in one area of the brain. These brain cells become connected through experiences a child has. We call these connections "brain building experiences".
3. Brain building experiences occur through sensory input and emotional components. In layman's terms, they happen when you combine sight, touch, taste, smell, sound, or movement with an emotion (joy, anger, fear, happiness, etc.).
4. Sensory rich and emotionally nurturing experiences build healthy, good connections in the brain. Sensory lacking and emotionally negative experiences build unhealthy connections.
5. The development of the brain:
Brain stem: Develops pre-natally to birth. Controls heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, and temperature.
Midbrain: Develops from birth to about 1 month. Controls appetite and sleep.
Limbic: Develops from 1 month to about 18-24 months. It's the seat of emotion, impulse and affect regulation.
Cortex: Develops from about 2 years to 5 years of age. Controls abstract thought, logic, planning, and cognition.
6. The most important thing for us to know about how the brain develops is that what happens in the early stages has an impact on the latter stages.

So.
After we learn about all of this we then get to apply it to parenting.

When you adopt an older infant you don't have any control over what happens to them during the early stages of their brain development. This means that any negative effects that occurred in the early stages of their life will eventually show up in the latter stages of life. The good news is there are things we can do to prevent or help eliminate this.

Our brains can be re-wired through repetitive, positive, sensory rich and emotionally nourishing experiences. The more you do something the more it is ingrained in your brain. The brain also does something called "pruning" at around age 5 and 12 where it prunes away the weak and less deeply ingrained connections in the brain.
Also, up until age 3 the brain has a "window of opportunity" where it is more open to change.

What does this mean for us?
Well, it means we need to provide as many sensory rich and emotionally nurturing experiences for our child as we can so as to create or reinforce good wiring.

The best way to do this is to have the primary caregiver (the one who spends the most waking hours with the child) capitalize on everyday life to create sensory rich, emotionally nurturing experiences. This can only be done when the parent is THERE. Giving a child an educational toy and then leaving them alone will not do the trick. Sending the child to a great class and then picking them up when it's over won't work either. The key to making any experience a positive brain-building one is that is must be parent inclusive.

Here are a few sensory rich, emotionally nurturing experiences.
-Instead of giving your child a toy and letting them play by themselves, you play with them.
-Classes that involve the parents as well as the infants (mommy and baby music classes, daddy and baby swim classes, etc.)
-Wrestling and tickling
-Holding, singing, rocking and talking to the baby while feeding. They also say for us to hold the bottle even if the baby has been taught to hold it themselves or can take a bottle that is propped up.
-Playing together in the mud.
-Massage
-Showering together (I still don't know how people can shower with their baby. How do you not drop them?)
-Basically any positive thing that involves using the senses and mommy and daddy.

What I'm getting out of all of this is that is looks like I'm not going to have a lot of "Me-time" once our baby comes. I know that's true with every baby, but it will be even more true with ours because we'll be working on re-wiring their brain instead of just wiring it like most people do.

After Zack and I took the class (watched the DVD and filled out the workbook) we went online and took the test. We both scored a sweet 100%. We're totally 1/4 of the way qualified to parent our baby. Woot!