Questions

We were finally submitted for fingerprinting, and are planning on showing up at US.CIS before our fingerprinting appointment, just to see if they'll let us in a bit early.  We shall see.  I'm now somewhat obsessively checking our bank account to see when the check clears, which means the paperwork is moving along.

In the meantime, we are choosing 10 questions we get to send to the orphanage.  The information and picture we have of Little Guy is from last April, so pretty darned old. We may get a response and we may not.  It sounds like most people get one update, so we really want to make these questions count.  We are gathering input from doctors, other adoptive parents, social workers and those who have 2-3 year olds, to see what they think would be important information for the future and for the transitional time into our home (if any of you have ideas or things you wish you had known, please send them over!). 

Since we only get 10 questions, they are currently along the lines of:

Please provide any updated medical information, including height, weight, head circumference and imaging, along with known allergies, sleep schedules, favorite toys, transitional objects and favorite foods.  Plus names of favorite caretakers and things you will remember about him after he has transitioned.

That counts as one question, right?

General Update

Where we are:

1. Little Guy turns 28 months tomorrow.  We would really like to meet him before prom.
2. We have not yet been submitted to immigration, to begin the next step in this adoption.  We had been waiting on a clearance from Montana, which took far, far too long in my adopting parent’s (so, you know, totally rational) opinion.  It was received on Thursday, and today we found out they were missing a document that was not listed on the instructions.  So we turned it around in an hour and it's on its way to the agency.  Once it is received, we can be submitted. 
3. 2 months ago today we were preliminarily approved to pursue this adoption.   This gives us 4 more months to be submitted, fingerprinted and approved by immigration, authenticate everything in Olympia, authenticate everything at the Chinese Embassy, and get everything to China.  Immigration alone took almost 3 months last time.  In the past two months, we’ve had our homestudy update, and that is it.  Seems like a piddly amount to have completed when the clock is counting down
4.  Little Guy has a doctor’s appointment—here in the US!  Seattle Children’s is notoriously difficult to get into, so on the advice of a friend that waited for months to get her little guy seen by a specialist, I called and booked him an appointment in September—the docs were already booking into August.  Really, really hoping he’s here by then.  During the call, the scheduler asked for the name and birth dates of the parents.  So I launched into a big explanation about Chinese adoption and that we really don’t have information on birth relatives, and she gently interrupted me and said, “No, I mean you.  You’re the mom.”  Oh.  Huh.  And then, of course, I got all teary (and I absolutely realize that I’m not the mom.  But maybe someday will be).  Is anyone else sick of random crying jags at inappropriate times? She was really nice about the weirdness of the moment, and then proceeded to inform me that now I’ll get pregnant, you know, since I’ve stopped worrying about things.   Worry-free, that's me! IIIII'm breezy! (name that 90's sitcom)
5. We have finished our dossier, and have the Montana and California docs authenticated and ready to send.  We are ready to roll with the next step. 

Question:  Has anyone out there just shown up at US.CIS (once their info has been received, of course) and asked to be fingerprinted on the spot?  I’m willing to give it a shot, but not sure if there’s a point.  Just wanting to speed this process along.