And it begins...

My Mom is a little bit overly excited I think. I haven't even moved in with her yet....but she's just rearing to go. So, I guess we'll give you an idea of how the last week has been.

My new Mom came to visit the home that I've been living in with a bunch of other kids whose birth parents aren't able to take care of them. It's a really nice place, even though we miss not having Moms or Dads around. I have lots of friends that I play with there.

Well, anyway...she came to visit, and quite frankly I didn't really think much of her the first few times I saw her. I was doing my own thing on the floor, and didn't want to be interrupted, and I told her so! But, she just kept coming back and every few days, there she was again. Eventually, I just felt sorry for her and figured I should reward her tenacity (are you so impressed with my vocabulary at only 14 months?) and so I let her pick me up. Then, she wanted to keep doing it! Well, what's a guy to do....

So, the director of the baby home, Cradle of Love, told my Mom about my predicament and how my birth Mom is really sick. She loves me a lot and is trying to do all the right things for me...but she wants to find someone else to take over her job because it's too hard for her to be a Mommy when she is so sick. So, they talked it over, and this lady who keeps picking me up and walking me around decided that she would like to be my new Mommy. So, she met with some official lawyer people and learned how to go about it. The most important thing is that my birth Mom has to sign a paper saying that she is relinquishing her rights to me to my new Mom. If that paper doesn't get signed there is big trouble. The Tanzanian government won't let someone new adopt me unless my birth Mom has signed. I have so many friends at Cradle of Love who have no family to sign that piece of paper for them, and they are sort of stuck in limbo! That's hard, because while it is a very nice place to live, everyone should still get to have a family and a home. So, they made a date for my birth Mom and my new Mom to come together with the lawyer and sign the paper.

But, we hit a small snag. My birth Mom, Lillian, didn't show up. The Director of my current home, Devona, thought that maybe she just hadn't gotten the message, but my new Mom was worried. By the end of the following day, my new Mom was getting frantic. What if something had happened to Lillian, my birth Mom before she was able to sign the papers?? After making some phone calls we figured out that Lillian had gotten pretty sick and was in a hospital somewhere, but we weren't sure where. My new Mom spent all day today driving to hospitals around the area trying to find Lillian. Finally, they found her! She's pretty sick now. She is positive for HIV and has active AIDS. Right now she is in the hospital with typhoid, malaria and pneumonia. I guess those are the sort of things that happen when your immune system is really in bad shape. My new Mom said that Lillian was really nice and is very pretty and I'm really lucky to have had such a nice birth Mom. She says that she can see where get my long face from now, I have Lillian's face. She also said that Lillian was happy to sign the papers, and wondered if she might get to visit me from time to time. Both myself and my new Mom are really happy about that. We are really hoping that she gets better and is able to leave the hospital.

Well, once the papers were signed, we just have to pick the date when I'll move to my new house. They all talked and decided that I will move into my new house with my new Mom on the 1st of December. I'm really looking forward to it. I will miss my nice home at Cradle of Love and all my friends, so we'll have to see what we can do about making sure I'm not too lonely without all my friends.

This is only the start of the adoption process though, and I have to live with my Mom for 3 months and then they will go back into Court and finalize everything and I will be officially her son. That will be a very exciting day. But, for now, we are just pretty excited that we are starting out the process. Oh, and guess what? I have a dog! I'm so excited to meet her. My Mom says she likes kids and is really nice. I sure hope so.

So, that's my story! I hope you'll stick around and keep reading about me. I'm not totally sure yet, but it seems like I might lead a pretty interesting life.....stay tuned!