Ri calls herself "Rihanna Bird-a-well", no matter how many times we have
corrected her. (Secretly I love how she says it...it always cracks me up!) We are so excited that both Ri and Alana are officially, legally, and forever BURWELLS! We had Rihanna's finalization in December, and Alana's was Tuesday. (Finalization is adoption-ese for: all the background checks, home studies, paperwork and check-writing are FINALLY over and you FINALLY are Mom and Dad, pronounced to be so by the state of Georgia!)
Finalization day is kind of like raising four children....a little bit stressful but a lot of fun.
Stressful. Really, much of the stress is probably due to the fact that we have to finalize at the Fulton County Courthouse, which happens to be about 100 miles from our house (Not really....but it feels like it.). After 90 miles of HOV lanes (again, not really) we find Central Avenue. Then find a parking spot in a packed garage. Then find our way out of said garage and to one of the courthouse entrances. Then an extensive security check. (Even Alana was checked. Really.)
Then up to the 7th floor to wait outside the judge's court room. Eventually, we are called into the judge's "chambers", meet the Honorable Judge, and I silently pray
that I don't say anything stupid. You know, anything that might make the Judge
say, "Hmmm...are you sure that you are fit to adopt this baby?" We are
sworn in, with raised right hand and everything! We are asked a bunch of
simple questions, but with your lawyer and the Honorable Judge watching, it
is hard to remember even your address! The Judge listens, asks a few questions,
and then finally finally finally the moment we have been waiting for, for
months and months!...She signs the papers and Alana is ours, ours, ours
forever!
Fun. We all stand and pose for the must-have-picture-with-the-Judge. Then
we walk out, lighter than air, because nobody took that baby away and now
she is ours.
We head to the bakery for a cake, because my goodness, I don't know how to celebrate anything without a yummy cake! I find one that is light on cake, heavy on icing, and I know this is the one we must have.
We get home, devour our slaw dogs (yes, I am quite the cook), and then light a
candle for the cake. We sing "happy adoption day" to Alana, and then Will blows out the candle. (that is code for, spits on the cake; ah, little boys!) As I feast on my third piece, I think, What fun to celebrate this baby girl in our family forever. I see God's hand all over it...this baby girl whose conception was a "mistake", a one-night stand gone wrong...but God had her in His heart and in His Design for the Bird-a-wells. Our Angel Baby.
Life in the "new" Bird-a-well house: crowded, noisy, messy, stressful!...but beautiful, wonderful, and fun!
P.S. One more story for you about how we welcomed Ri to the family after her December finalization.... In Georgia, the law states that as long as you are guardian (and not parent) to a child, you are not allowed to spank him or her. Since May, we have punished her with things like time-out and sweet probation (which is actually a VERY effective consequence in the Burwell family). So, on the way home from the courthouse with Rihanna, we reminded her how much we love her and that God had brought her to our family and now--officially-- she was staying forever, and then we broke the bad news to her: "Now that you are forever and ever a Burwell child, you are going to be punished like a Burwell child. You know how Cate and Will get spankings when they disobey? Well now, when you disobey, you will get a spanking."
As much as we did not want to spank her that very evening, we suspected that we may have to. Sure enough, within 30 minutes of arriving back home, as we had a little family celebration dinner in Ri's honor, she disobeyed. Of spanking...she was not a fan. A few days (and a few spankings) later, she declared, "I don't want to be spanked like a Burwell child anymore! I just want to be punished!" It's not always easy being a Bird-a-well.