Our Nomadic Adventures

I am writing this update from the lobby of the guest house at Jeff's lab. I am waiting for our social worker to arrive for her first post-placement visit. I have baby-proofed our hotel room in an attempt to prove that homeless parents can be good parents too. We are completely out of our apartment and almost done dealing with our management company. Hopefully negotiations over the security deposit will go smoothly. We left the apartment very clean, so they should. Jeff stayed up all night on Monday spackling and cleaning and moving the last of our stuff.

We spent a few very restful days with a family from church who generously opened their home to us, fed us, and cared for us. We had been feeling so weary, but their hospitality refreshed us. It also didn't hurt that the dark shades in our room inspired Tommy to sleep in. I am planning to buy some similar shades as soon as we move into our new place. Also, Tommy was in heaven playing with all the kids (nine!). Seeing the older kids run around really encouraged him to stand up and do some serious walking. He is so close to giving up crawling...my baby is growing up!

Yesterday we packed our bags- our many, many bags-stuffed our little Corolla to the gills, and drove down to our new county: DuPage. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. I know it is sick, but I am so happy to be in the suburbs, and not just because sales tax is somewhere around seven percent. A very small patch for gardening awaits me at our new place, along with a scrap of grass for Tommy to play on. The houses are far apart, and there aren't apartment buildings wedged in every vacant space. Every place I could ever want to go or shop is within easy driving distance (no more LONG trips to Costco or Trader Joe's). I feel just like I am at home, and by home I mean Torrance.

Jeff's mom has arrived for a visit, so we are all staying together at the hotel. Thankfully Tommy is behaving very nicely for his Grandma. I was a tiny bit concerned that he might not allow us to all get enough sleep, or that he might not adjust well to yet another change of scenery, but so far so good. Today we took a nice walk at Waterfall Glen, the forest preserve that surrounds Jeff's lab. We never made it to the waterfall; since it is man-made we weren't excited about it enough to walk six miles to see it.

We still have no idea when we can move in to our new place. The best case scenario we were given was the 13th, worst case, the 19th. Hopefully we will have some idea soon.

An update on Tommy's health: all his bloodwork came back clean, and his parasite tests came back negative. The only problem they found was very mild anemia, which means we will have to test for sickle cell, but anemia is common in orphans and could be caused by his diet/former parasites. I am optimistic on the parasite front, but still cleaning up very carefully as false negatives are common. His stomach issues are intermittently ongoing. They could be caused by a parasite we did not detect, exposure to new foods, stress, or damage caused by his former parasite. It will probably be some time before he is normal in that area, but things have improved a lot, especially since he started his no fruit except bananas diet.