Can 'limbo' be FINISHED now? Please?

On and on and on it goes. Almost five months have passed since I applied for Emilio's U.K. citizenship, that which is supposed to take up to six months to process. That which I sent further paperwork for to plead our case for expediting it. You know, so we could get on a plane and get home to Scotland and have a bit of support, see our family, get something of a 'normal' existence in this pandemic after an enormous amount of time of just being us two. Well, here we are almost five of those six months down the line absolutely no further forward whatsoever. When I started writing this blog, it was a way for me to document the bureaucracy leading up to becoming a mum; a Single, a Foreign and an Altogether Unlikely Candidate for being accepted as an adoptive parent over here in Peru. I can remember exactly the night I sat down and started typing. I knew, then, that this was going to happen for me and I wanted to share my experience and have something to look back on and maybe something to show my future child. It then morphed into the process of matching with Emilio, bringing him home and starting our lives together. 

Not once, in any of that time, in any of the moments of fear, of uncertainty, of feeling like at any second they would reject me, did I think THIS is where we would be a few years down the line! (Actually, it is right around this time three years ago that I found out I had been accepted. How funny.) Never did I think that I would be sitting in a house in Miraflores, my beautiful boy asleep, my three dogs sleeping by my side, wondering when on Earth we would be getting our passports back. Flipping out about where we are going to be living in a couple of weeks. Stressing like a stresshead about the vague possibility of not getting to our next country and having to teach online from Peru, nine hours behind our new country. Agonising over whether to put the dogs into an hospedaje when we move to our temporary Air BnB, even though we are still going to be in Lima, or to keep them with us because, even though it will be a nightmare in the tiny apartment, they are our family. I think we all know what I'm going to decide and no, it's not the sensible option. (Having flashbacks to a conversation with my mum and dad when I was trying to decide between Vietnam and Venezuela...My dad said, 'At some point, Marianne, you're going to have to grow up a bit and start listening to your head and not your heart.' And my mum said, 'But we know that this is not that moment and you're going to choose your heart so just accept the job in Venezuela now.' Where would I be if I'd listened to my head, Daddy Kelly?!).

Anyway, the point is, this is not where I thought we would be and I am finding it all far too much, most of the time. Feeling this powerless is not something I think many people are comfortable with but I am particularly used to sorting my own shit out. You spend a life getting into all sorts of predicaments, you develop a certain skillset. But my skillset is rendered useless at the moment and it is not sitting well at all...so, Home Office, be a doll and JUST SEND US BACK OUR PASSPORTS SO WE CAN LEAVE THE FRIGGIN' COUNTRY, INNIT?!

The advice I'm being given is mainly about making lists and doing one thing at a time and chunking things and all that. Great. First step - get passports back. Excellent. Right. Nope. So... 

Second step. Wait for confirmation that visa offices have opened in Oman and we can get those visas and get on a plane and go to Oman. Nope. Because first step is still negative. And visa offices are, indeed, still shut.

Third step. Figure out what the deal is now with Emilio going in on his Peruvian passport and not a British one because, oh, that's right, WE DON'T HAVE OUR PASSPORTS AND HE ISN'T YET APPROVED AS A U.K. CITIZEN. Mother of all that is holy in the world.

Fourth step. Sort dogs travel. Can't do that either because of the first two. Absolutely no idea when/if we are leaving Peru and getting to Oman so absolutely no idea when to get them on a plane either. 

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all of his carpenter friends (line stolen from a hilarious Irish comedian whose name I've forgotten). Really, though. Really. And if I hear one more time that 'it'll all come together', I will actually punch something. I know it bloody will. I successfully navigated the Peruvian adoption system on my own and have managed to keep us relatively safe and mostly happy (hah!) through a global pandemic, with next to no physical support: I am fully aware of how many mountains I can move (she says absolutely cockily!). IT DOES NOT MAKE IT ANY EASIER TO DEAL WITH. Being told you're strong doesn't make you feel any frigging stronger when you are literally the only person you can rely on to do all the stuff. Every single bit of the stuff is up to me. Never before have I felt the weight and the loneliness of that than right now. Solo Mumming is brilliant most of the time and I love our wee team - I would not change this for a single second. But man alive, I've had enough. I just want to go home and see my mum and dad and have a cup of tea and let my wee boy play with his cousins while I hug the bejesus out of my sister. I just want to be held up for a tiny wee while so I can catch my breath and carry on because this is the hardest thing I've ever done. Ever. All these blogs and groups I read about being a single parent...there aren't too many (none) who are stuck on the other side of the world with an autistic child who hasn't set foot inside a school since March 2020, having spent the Christmas/summer vacation already together 24/7. That's the other thing about being on the southern hemisphere in this pandemic. We had just started back to school so we have basically been in each other's pockets since December 2019. No wonder we are losing the plot. 

Anyway. This has just become a bit of a WTF outpouring of nonsense and that is ok. Maybe not that interesting, but stuff I wanted to get out of my head. Onto better things. 

What's the boy up to at the moment? Well, I have gone from being 'Nunny' to 'Monny' which I'm trying hard not to relate to the amount of American TV he watches...but if the shoe fits... 

He is absolutely obsessed with Lego right now, a surprise to exactly no one, and nearly lost his mind when we went to the Lego store a couple of weeks ago. The utter joy! Obviously, the instructions were just slowing him down so they have been abandoned and there is so much creativity and engineering going on that I feel a little less guilty about everything he's missed from school and activities and just bask in his brilliance instead. 

'There you go!' is a current favourite phrase which is the cutest thing ever and also makes me ever so much more aware of his copycatting (F button OFF, Maz). 

We have a new show on the go but generally introducing new things is an absolute NOPE at the moment; choose your battles. This is not the right one for the moment. 

Park trips are still hard but have actually been a LOT better since the last blog...though some dog walks, I have been offering his new wee buggy thing I got for travelling (PAHAHAHA!) because I'm just exhausted with the trying to keep everyone from dying on the streets of Lima. 

He's a negotiator extrordinaire! 'TV is going off, Emilio,' says I...'Five more minutes and then shoes on,' says he. How can I argue?? 

There's a whole lot more but I'm losing the will to type right now. It is mighty hard and I'm mighty exhausted and some days, so is he. But as we drove up past his 'first home' on Saturday, something we haven't done before, and I thought about that tiny little boy who was locked far away in another little world...there aren't really words. What a brilliant light he is and I'm going to make sure he keeps shining through the hard stuff. Go and someone send me a wee torch for myself though, eh?! 

xxxx