Emily Goes to School

We've enrolled Emily in the same school Sydney attends. It's basically daycare at Emily's level, but the school uses organized and free play to teach lessons and skills, starting with motor skills and continuing to the affective and cognitive domains. Sydney has flourished at the school, and Emily appears to love it, too. The two girls attend two days each week, which gives Mom and Dad a much-needed break two days a week. Since I work from home, the two days the girls attend school become major work days - I have found I can accomplish amazing things in those hours!

We've received Emily's passport, which means that our next step is the state-level re-adoption petition. In this step, we petition our state to accept Emily's adoption as a U.S. citizen. Although Emily is a U.S. citizen, she does not have a U.S. birth certificate. And since she has no Chinese birth certificate, only a declaration of abandonment, this lack of a birth certificate will become problematic later in life. Since the state government, and not the federal government, has authority over birth certificates, Emily's U.S. citizenship certificate is recognized as legal proof of identity only by the federal government. Once the state accepts our petition, Emily will be issued a state-certified birth certificate that indicates her birthplace as China. The re-adoption petition process is lengthy and convoluted; for Sydney we hired a lawyer who appeared to do little more than run papers to the county courthouse, so for Emily we plan to file the papers ourselves and save a load of money!

Receiving Emily's passport is important as we have an overseas trip planned. No longer can U.S. infants and children travel on their parents' passport - children must have government issued identification as well for overseas travel. I thought this decision to be bone-headed until I realized the rationale behind the decision - too much trafficking in children worldwide. I will gladly pay the fee for our daughters' passports if it will help reduce the proliferation of child trafficking.

Emily is doing extremely well, and we are very proud of the way she and Sydney now interact -- entirely and completely as sisters!