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Since I haven't even mentioned Emjay on my Blog yet, it is time to admit that I've been terribly negligent in my electronic duties and get to the business of making amends.

So... the drive-by version.

I had mentioned in a previous post (many long moons ago when the world was young...er) that Fuego and I were anticipating a call "any day now" to let us know we had been matched with a baby to adopt.

The call came almost exactly three weeks after our home study was completed. Our social worker, Stork v1.0, woke us up Thursday morning (12 April) to let us know she thought she had a match for us in a beautiful little girl who at the time was two-months old. She sounded perfect, and it was a low risk case, so Fuego and I felt confident saying "we don't need to 'think about it,' we want her!"

Six days later we drove up to Feliz-ville and met Emjay for our first visit. She was everything we could have imagined and she seemed to be very comfortable with both Fuego and I. Since she was from a different county, we couldn't be "placed" with her until a court hearing was held to determine that she could be placed "out of county," but she did get to come home for the whole weekend on another "visit." Although it was very difficult to take her back to her foster home, we got to pick her up again the following Friday for another weekend visit and were told that our "visit" could last until the court hearing on 2 May (so our weekend was from Friday to Wednesday).

That Wednesday we got a call asking if Emjay was here... it was the court social worker. She said "good... she's home, you can keep her!" We signed the foster parent agreement the following day and Emjay was officially "placed" with us (i.e. we're her Foster Parents until all the pending court hearings and due process happen to make Emjay legallyl elligible to be adopted by us).

Suddenly I found myself in the position of being a Papa *dramatic "dun dun duhhh"*!

For those of you who know Fuego, it's no surprise that she was (and continues to be) ecstatic and quite natural at being the world's best Mom, but I really didn't know what to expect from myself, having had no real previous experience with infants. Fuego actually had me "practice" changing diapers on a cabbage patch kid before Emjay arrived so that I might at least be able to pretent I knew what I was doing - it was still a couple of days before I was ready to go solo on the diaper changing... but there were no catastrophic failures ;o)

Emjay has been home now for about two and a half months! She is now five and a half months old, she has gained five pounds, and has grown out of all of her 0-3 and 3-6 month stuff. As for me, I am officially a pro at diaper changing (both disposable and "Fuzzi Bunz"), I get up most mornings to dress Emjay and play with her before I go to work and then play with her again when I get home until bath time when Fuego and I share in giving her a bath. We take turns with her bedtime feedings and I get up in the night if she wakes and needs a bottle (happens very seldomly -- we're pretty stoked about that!). I made her laugh for the first time, filmed her rolling over for the first time, and got to wear her in her sling for the first time. All in all, I'd say I'm doing okay so far... and I love being a Papa!

More later!