Wow -- what a day!! I feel like I keep saying that, but it really was! Things went smoother among the three boys than they have in the last few days, so that was wonderful in and of itself. I don't know if the two older boys were trying a little more, or if Noah seemed to understand better, or if it was just a shower of grace from heaven, but whatever it was, I am thankful. They had a lot of really cute moments of play together, and not nearly as many bad moments. Things are definitely progressing on the sibling front.
Mario and Erik finished all their school work, which is awesome, except Mario still has some cursive writing practice to do. He's not been liking it very much, so has been putting it off until manana pretty much every day. Tomorrow is the last full day for them here, so he's going to have to do it! I am extremely grateful to their teachers for preparing school work packages for them. It required a lot of planning and photocopying on their part, and it has really helped the boys not fall behind. Plus it definitely helped us structure our days. And I got to work with them on fun things like alliterations! On a few different occasions while we were waiting for Ileana to pick us up, we took turns through the alphabet coming up with sentences that had alliterations. It was fun seeing who could come up with the wackiest one.
Then this afternoon, within an hour of when Ileana was going to pick us up and take us to Noah's medical appointment, we learned that we had I-600 approval!! This is a BIG deal!! For most people that we know, it has taken one or two or three weeks to get approval, so we were extremely pleased that it took just three days. Course, one friend we know only took one day, but hey, I am not complaining one single solitary bit! So I quick-fired an email off to the immigration section at the Embassy asking for our visa appointment. They don't generally hold visa appointments on Fridays. Ileana thinks she knows of one family that had one on Friday, so I thought I would give it a try, and asked to possibly get an appointment for tomorrow since my husband and the other boys were leaving on Saturday, they are very attached, would cause confusion with our new little two year old, etc etc etc. I figured it was a long shot, since it was after 1:00 at this point, and Ileana was going to pick us up at 2, and we might be gone for several hours at the doctor's office, but I figured it was worth a try. I didn't hear a response by the time we were out the door.
We headed to the medical center, and the lab folks took a look at Noah's arm where he had the tb test. All clear! Then we waited for the doctor. He was to arrive at 3, and I think we probably got there around 2:30. Because of our son's young age, they put him at the front of the line, even though we were not the first people there. I was extremely grateful for that. Anyway, we headed in to the doctor's office, talked with him a while, he examined Noah (who really didn't want to have his shirt removed), then the nurse gave him a couple shots. The doctor followed this up with candy for all the boys, and gave us the famous sealed envelope that we are not to open at all under any circumstances but to bring it to the visa interview. I just put it in our folder, and will not touch it. I won't even let anyone else touch it or so much as breathe on it. We thanked the doctor profusely, and headed out the door. I can't believe how painless that was. Well, I guess one member of our party didn't think it was so painless, the one that was on the receiving end of those shots, but it could have been much worse and taken much longer. As it is, we were back at the hotel by 4.
I ran inside to our apartment to see if we had heard anything back about the visa interview, but no such luck. Ileana took us for a diaper run to Walmart, and since we were so close to McDonald's, well, you know what happens next. We actually didn't stay very long this time as it was much more crowded in the play place. Like it normally is, I suspect. So we ate a little, played a little, and headed back home. Chocolate ice cream to go please. Checked email again, and still no word about the visa interview. In fact as I am writing this later in the evening, we still haven't heard anything. Not that I expect embassy workers to be still at the office at 9:00 at night, but anyway, I think that means that Jerry and the older boys will be flying on Saturday sans Mommy and toddler. This means that we definitely have to have Jerry sign power of attorney for me so that I can take Noah out of the country. We hear that they are very strict about that around here at airport immigration, so that is a definite for the to do list.
I just can't tell you how thrilled I am that we have I-600 approval. It is such a huge relief because it gives me somewhat of a sense of how much more time Noah and I will be here, and it is not much longer! Sure, it would be way cool to fly home on Saturday with the rest of the family, but I think we will make do just fine for another few days. Either that or all the Coke Zero that I drank this afternoon has gone to my head.
Here's hoping and praying that tomorrow we'll hear back from the immigrant visa section that we have our appointment on Monday.