Bluegrass Baby and the Bad Day

Poor Quinn.
This is how his evening ended last night. I hate it when I spill perfectly good popcorn too. He just couldn't get a break yesterday. He fell in a hole in the back yard, shut his hand in a cabinet door, got his finger stuck in the bathtub drain, had an exploding diaper at nap time and proceeded to roll in his poop in his sleep, got the big "no no" from mommy for pulling the cat's tail, had a cow when he realized that we were out of bananas, and spilled his popcorn on the floor.
Earlier this week we were winding down our day with a little channel surfing and came across "O, Brother Where Art Thou" on TNT. Quinn was in his jammies and we were just about to put him to bed when the song "Man of Constant Sorrow" came on. The couch started shaking and I thought maybe we were experiencing some seismic activity. I looked to my left to see Quinn standing up on the couch rockin' out, full on head thrashing, jamming to the music like he was in the front row at an AC/DC concert. I was waiting for him to take a header as he attempted a stage dive onto the floor. We play music around the house all the time, but this was the first time I ever saw him do more than a little head nod. We got quite the giggle out of this. We kept rewinding the song (thanks to the DVR) and he danced for about 10 minutes. I guess bluegrass is his kind of music! Who woulda thought?

It's Official!!!!

Well, it happened! The adoption of our son, Quinn, is final! It seems so strange to be some one's mom. I can't imagine ever being without him.

The adoption itself was very short. The Williams family joined us at the courthouse and the morning began as I broke into a cold sweat because our lawyer had not yet arrived with the paperwork. As we waited we watched as several others showed up for their own obviously not so happy cases. Compared to the current company we were keeping in the hall outside the courtrooms, we felt a bit overdressed, content and strangely stable......grateful I guess is the appropriate word here. Plenty of other lawyers were showing up to whisper in corners with their clients about how they should behave and what they shouldn't say in court. Finally when I had decided that it was already too late, and this adoption would never happen (drama, drama drama), our lawyer finally showed (whew).

After it was over, the judge posed for a pic (expertly taken by Melyssa) and we were parents!

Wow, no labor pains, no stretch marks or anything. Our lawyer collected the papers and said "I will be right back with copies of all of these divorce papers for you." WHAT?!?! Did I hear that right? I came into this courtroom to gain a son, not lose a husband!!!!!!!!! Did I just get a divorce by accident? Luckily it was just a slip of the tongue, but I looked over those documents just to make sure. We celebrated Quinn's adoption (and the fact that we weren't divorced) with BBQ ribs and way too much food and cake.

Our Fairy Tale Begins...

We are about 49 days away from officially filing to adopt

Quinlan Jack Kohler (to be).

All is in order so far and we should be completing the preliminary paperwork at the end of the month with our case worker. What a crazy ride this has been! It is very exciting for us and we fall in love with Quinn more each day. He is happy, healthy and just enough of a stinker to be a true Kohler.

For those of you who may not know the whole story, I will give you the super-condensed version:

Foster parents, allowed foster licence to expire, not foster parents,

a baby to be adopted, re-licenced as foster parents for quick adoption,

Texas, baby born, birth mom changed mind, whew (crazy situation averted),

back to Wyoming,

2 weeks later a call for foster placement, 9 month old baby boy placed in our home,

birth parents relinquished rights, baby needs a permanent home,

really glad we re-licenced as foster parents or we wouldn't have had this blessing!

(God had it all worked out obviously)

Did you get all that?

Now we just wait until May for everything to be finalized!

This will be the longest 49 days...

In the meantime, Andy is heading off to China in mid April while I head to Indiana to introduce Quinn to his new grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc.

Stay tuned for more!