Presenting our Pre Post-Placement Post

Greetings and Salutations to our family, to our friends new (silver) and old (gold), to internet gadflies and to those who have inadvertently strayed into our li’l slice of cyberspace. Me and The Mrs. welcome you to the blog to end all blogs about New Englanders who fall in love with a Kazakhstani from the Steppes, name her Thumblini (among other things), and live ever after as they comment in perilous detail about the mundanities of life, adoptive parenting, the world at large, current events, politics, sartorial missteps, and the merits of the Diaper Duck. Yeah, one of those blogs. Oh, and we’re also planning to let it all hang out. You might find yourself encountering something that rings true for you (even if you’re not an “AP” as they say, or even if you’re not from Kazakhstan), or you might find something that’s more raw and emotional than you expect. We aim to please all comers.

In a previous blog, we documented the last six months of trials, travails and travels encountered on the road to meeting Thumblini (* more on the name in a moment). Home from Central Asia just five days, we already have to prepare our first of many post-placement reports spanning out into the future until the Little One is Of Age at 18. This first report is due in two weeks (!) to our adoption agency, which will forward it on to some Faceless Bureaucrat in the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education, Eastern Division. We figured this blog might be a good way to document what happens in-between these mandatory disclosures about how well we’re looking after the baby. If we have to submit these regular, official time capsules of checkboxes, short essays, frozen-smile photos and notary stamps, we thought we might at least digest, reflect, and make something of our parenting experiences that won’t fit on any form.

* Thumblini: contraction of “Thumbelina” (cause she’s tiny) and “blini” (cause she’s probably mostly ethnic Russian - and she seems to like pancakes).

Editorial note: We’re presenting this blog as a catchment for the slice-of-life moments we encounter and dream up, but as it’s fully public, we’re taking a lower-than-usual profile. To this end, we’re sticking with our noms des plumes and also (it is an autocracy in blog-land, after all), we’re pre-screening the comments. Feel free to comment early and often, but try to avoid mentioning us or using language that we simply can’t abide (there are minors involved, people). In advance, then, we apologize if your carefully-crafted comment is mysteriously disappeared. Likely, you inadvertently included names, home address and phone number. Oops!

- CM & DD