How to…

During my elementary school years, we had a weekly contest called, “Blanton’s Best”. Every week, each grade level had to write a paper on the same subject matter, or using the same prompt. Each teacher would pick the best paper from their class, then someone would pick the best from the grade level.

The best of the grade level got a HUGE bear stamp that said, “Blanton’s Best” on the front of their paper and it was posted in the foyer of our school for everyone to see. Then Mr. Waters, our principal, would pick the best two papers to read over the PA system during announcements.

I desperately wanted to win. Week after week, I would turn in my paper with hopes high. And week after week, I wouldn’t even get the best paper in the class. Most of the time it was a creative writing challenge. I thought I was SO creative and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t pull out a win! Then my week came. I won.

I was SO excited, until I remember the prompt from the week before… “How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich” – LAME! How uncreative can you get. A “how to” paper. I found the paper a few years ago in a box at my Nana’s house. I had painstaking written out EVERY detail. Not only, “get a knife” but, “get a knife out of the drawer that is located on the far right drawer underneath the microwave – oh, and don’t get a steak knife or a sharp knife, but a butter knife. And don’t just get one knife, but two, you don’t want to get jelly in the peanut butter jar or vice versa.”

So, if you know me, you might know that not much has changed. I am a little detailed oriented. Sometimes I feel like my life is one giant “how to” paper with mistakes made and noted along the way. So, I am going to approach my first blog series on adoption the same way, in the form of a how to paper, having hopes that one day, it might help someone along the way.

Here is the subject matter I hope to cover over the next two weeks:

• Deciding to Adopt
• Making the Tough Decisions: International vs Domestic / Country / Girl vs Boy
• Choosing an Agency
• Application to the Agency
• Money
• Round 2 of Tough Decisions: Waiting Child Program
• Choosing a Guardian
• Dossier Gathering in Austin, Texas
• Books and Resources on China and Adoption
• Becoming Asian – incorporating Chinese culture into our family

Please know as I share our story over the next two weeks, it is meant to serve as an encouragement to a family who wants to adopt, but is fearful, paralyzed, or hopeless. I realize (and hope you do too) this is not the “right way” or “only way”, it is just simply “our way”.

Jenny - elementary school

Next up: “Deciding to Adopt”