To spank or not to spank--and other such fun questions

Well, we did it. We are officially complete with our home study, and the adoption process from here on out looks like one giant mound of paperwork.

Today was our last visit from our case study agency!! After a quick inspection of the home (even the baseboards were clean!), we answered about 100 questions ranging in topic from our childhoods to our discipline strategies. Bret, thankfully, refrained from using terms of endearment like "The Hammer" (see previous post if confused), so I was thankful.

Our home study case worker told us that she thought we were "darling." Let's say that together... D-A-R-L-I-N-G! According to my good friend Webster, darling is defined as: "1. a dearly loved person or 2. favorite." You know what you can call us... the poster couple for adoption, baby!

While we are excited to have all the psycho-social (emphasis on the psycho) finished, we are still knee deep in paperwork. I'll give you an example of the process:

Step 1: Bret and Erin obtain letter of employment from their prospective employers.
Step 2: Bret and Erin have the letters officially notarized.
Step 3: Bret and Erin send notarized letters to the Secretary of State's office in order for the notarized part to be "certified."
Step 4: Bret and Erin send notarized and certified letters to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago (and LA... we "get" to work with two different consulates because I grew up in sunny CA). Once at the Consulate, the notarized and certified letters are "authenticated," and the Consulate checks to make sure the secretary of state seal is official. (quick question: who has a stash of fake secretary of state seals...???)
Step 5: repeat entire process for like 40 different documents

As you can surmise, this process is best suited for the anal-retentive, hyper-organized, engineer type individual. Good thing I've got one of those handy.