Crossing the Ocean

Sheref emailed me this picture of his plane before boarding in Atlanta. He's now been in the air for about 5 hours.

He also email me the picture below. He was able to book a bulkhead seat in advance for the return trip. The bulkhead seats, besides extra legroom, also have built-in bassinets for babies, so I'm guessing they took pity on him and went ahead and reserved him a seat. For the way to Korea, he was told he'd just have to arrive early and take his chances on getting an exit row. This morning, he was thrilled to get an exit row seat for those long legs. I know how uncomfortable flying is for a small person, so I'm so happy Sheref got a little extra space for his long flight to Seoul.

Gute Reise

We just finished packing Sheref's luggage for Korea. And, yes, we are toasting our last night as a family of 5 with some bubbly...I always planned to toast our biological children's births with good wine, but the morphine, vomiting, magnesium and blood transfusions sort of put a damper on that. So thank you, Charlie, for the opportunity to be healthy, non-drugged and in good spirits for your arrival!! I am on call tomorrow, so I'll be gone as of 7am. My mom arrives around noon, shortly after which Sheref will leave to drive to Atlanta in preparation for his flight Sunday am to Seoul.

I packed the larger suitcase, which mainly contains baby items for Charlie, gifts for our adoption agency's facility for babies who do not have foster families (which is called the reception center -- "orphanage" is far too draconian for this facility that provides excellent nearly one-on-one care for the kiddos), and gifts for everyone in Korea associated with Charlie's care. Sheref packed the smaller suitcase, which is his clothing and personal items. His comment after trying to fit clothes for a week into the suitcase: "Wow, I am entirely too large. My clothes are huge." For those of you who do not know us in real life and may be wondering why I keep perseverating on how huge Sheref is, he is not really all that HUGE. He needs the "big and tall" stores only for the "tall" component. Still, his clothes are, indeed, HUGE.

My "assignments" for Sheref in Seoul -- very modest indeed. I've commissioned him to buy us and every one of our children a set of Korean wedding ducks (apparently a Korean tradition -- a pair of ducks to symbolize the marriage union, and I plan to give each of our children their set when they get married -- if they do not get married, then at some major life event. Ducks remind me of my maternal grandmother and I have several of her very nice, fancy ducks in our home, so double nice connotation there for me). Additionally, he is to look for Korean art. Beyond that, I've "commissioned" him to have fun, enjoy the food, soju and culture, and just in general have a great, fabulous trip.

Boo!

Today is Halloween dress-up day at the girls' schools. Ella's school allows kids to dress up, with the caveat that they have to dress as a book character. Last year she was Laura Ingalls (note that the dress she wore, which was supposed to represent 1870s pioneer fashion, was actually an old dress of mine -- let that be a reflection on my mother's fashion sense, not mine:). But I digress...

Anyways, this year she is Kaya from one of the American Girl books. Originally the outfit was intended to be Sacajawea, and she will still be Sacajawea on Halloween. However, to meet the school requirements, today she is Kaya.

Sweet Rosie is a kitty. She's feeling good in her costume! She is particularly enamored with the giant black bow I put in her hair. You can't see it in the picture, because it is holding her ponytail back, but it is HUGE. Doesn't really fit with the whole feline theme, but she wanted her bow...

Finally, Miss Lucy is a ballerina. I'm a little worried about the fact that her underwear shows under her leotard. We had a little talk that the tutu must stay on the whole day so she isn't flashing the class her Dora underwear...Lucy had a little moment this morning where she was momentarily concerned that Rose's costume was "cooler" than hers. A little swipe of pink lipstick and a bit of sparkly blue eyeshadow (yes, I do just happen to have sparkly blue eyeshadow in my make-up stash -- don't judge) quickly nipped that in the bud. As you can see in this picture, she is feeling like hot stuff!!

I am also going to take a moment to revel in the fact that every single item in all 3 costumes was already in our house...

Oh Happy Day

Ella is ecstatic...

These former cueballs are

the babies of the family no longer...

Baby Charlie is coming home! We had imagined, best case scenario, that Charlie would be home for Halloween. That goal won't quite be realized, but it won't be terribly far off. Sheref will be leaving on Halloween and flying non-stop to Seoul, South Korea. He'll sight-see and feast on Korean food for a few days, and will then meet Charlie and his wonderful foster family on Thursday. I'll drive and meet Sheref and Charlie in Atlanta Saturday evening November 6th, and we'll either drive the 4-5 hours back that night, or if it seems like the better plan, stay in a hotel and drive back Sunday morning.

Besides the obvious giddiness at knowing how soon we'll meet little Jin-yeong, I am having fun imagining my giant 6'8" husband in Korea. While I am probably the exact size of an average Korean woman, Sheref is, umm, not the size of typical Korean. Or a typical, well, person. I'm picturing the constant stares at a ridiculously tall semi-Middle Eastern-looking man in Korea. I'm also envisioning people being very impressed with the fact that he truly loves Korean food, and also with the sheer amount of it he will eat. They will also be impressed with how nice he is, how polite, and how much he loves that little boy he will meet for the first time next Thursday.

Rewind -- Halloween past

For the past 2 years or so, all my girls are old enough to choose their own Halloween costumes. I'm pretty sure 2007 was the last year I chose Rose & Lucy's costumes. The reason behind that might become obvious in just a second. That year, I found a cute dragon costume for Lucy and this adorable (fine, that might be debatable depending on your perspective) pink poodle costume for Rose. As you can see, Rose loved it. If I'm honest, when I brought the costume home from the used clothing store where I bought it for $9.99, Sheref thought it was a joke. He thought I must be kidding -- would I really dress my child in this ridiculous pink poodle costume? Yup, I sure would. And did. And Rose loved it. That should be obvious from the picture.

Down by the river

We live on an island. Technically, and also in name/address, we really do. I, as a born and bred "Yankee" (yup, people really call Northerners "Yankees" down here) used to be really impressed by that fact. Now I'm pretty much over it. For those of you non-coastal dwelling people, it is not quite as exotic as it sounds. That said, our "island" neighborhood has quite a few beautiful parks, trails, and quirky little "extras" that give our neighborhood some charm. This picture is of the girls in a public treehouse overlooking the Ashley River, which feeds into the Atlantic in downtown Charleston, about 1/2 mile from this spot.

Confession: as natural, good clean fun-ish as this picture looks, do you know what they are doing here? They are watching some Scoobie Doo movie on Sheref's iphone. Yeah, way to take advantage of our beautiful surroundings, I know.

Class B Arrives in Korea

I'm only writing this post to remind myself later of the timeline leading up to meeting Charlie. If FedEx is to be believed, our class B waiver arrived in Korea today (which was yesterday, sort of, in Korea as Seoul is 14 hours ahead of EST in the U.S.). I think it arrived at Holt, our adoption agency. From there it goes to the embassy or somewhere else official. Then Charlie's visa gets issued. Somewhere in there is the "visa interview," which is an appointment for which Charlie's foster mom has to take him to an "interview" for his visa. Imagining how this goes down just cracks me up. I imagine a stern, mean-faced official staring down Korean babies, getting up in their little faces, and giving them the third degree about why they want to emigrate to the United States -- "so little baby, why do you want to leave Korea and go to the U.S??" Hopefully not the way it really goes down...yeah, probably not.

Anyways, so we wait. Hopefully sometime next week we'll get the call that we're all clear to go get little Jin-yeong.

Over the ocean...

Our class B waiver, which is just another (pretty silly) paperwork step to bringing Charlie home, should be on its way to Korea right now. Or at least on a FedEx truck on its way to the airport...

We received our class B waiver (which, for any adoption people reading this, is a super anti-climactic looking single sheet of paper with only a few sentences of text and room for signatures and notary stamp) yesterday, had it signed, notarized and on its way to our adoption agency's headquarters in Oregon last night. Today it arrived at our adoption agency, was blessed by them as having been filled out correctly, and should be on its way to Seoul right now.

We are estimating 1-2 weeks before we get our travel call, permission to go to Seoul and meet sweet Charlie!

A first for our house...and random musings...

I did something today that I have never done before. I washed, dried, folded and put away a load of little baby boy clothes. We have gotten so many clothes for Charlie from other people, that we honestly haven't bought him any clothes ourselves beyond the few things we sent over in his care package. Our friends the Williamsons just had their 4th (and apparently final) baby, a girl, a few weeks ago. Their only son is now 3, so they have kindly given us all his 12+ month clothes. I say their new daughter is apparently their last child because Bridget told us very firmly that she does not want the clothes back...

Anyways, I've always thought that little girl clothes are so much cuter and more fun to buy than little boy clothes. That may be true, but there is something so...I don't know...fun about PJs with monsters on them, little t-shirts with applique trucks and fire engines, soft little sweatpants with football logos. Today I am enjoying boy clothes. And waiting for our little boy, who right now has likely just eaten his breakfast in Seoul and has no idea that he is going to have to switch languages, cultures, continents in just a few weeks. As excited as we are to bring Charlie home, we have to acknowledge that Charlie is likely quite happy where he is. Although Sheref and I, his foster parents, and all the social workers and adoption personnel realize that he cannot stay with his foster family and there literally is not a family for him in Korea (we know this because each Korean child is held for adoption in Korea for 6 months, after which time, only if no family has been found in South Korea, the child is released for international adoption), he doesn't know this. As much as people say that kids and babies are resilient, changing your whole life, sights, sounds, smells, touches at nearly 1 year of age is a big deal. I'm not really worried. I think in the long run Charlie is meant to be with us, and that he will adjust and be a happy kid (did you see the joyous kid in the new picture below?). But he is about to undergo a life-changing, stressful event. He is not an abandoned orphanage-dwelling child. He is a happy, well-cared for, and loved child. And he will not for one second stop being that, but his little world is about to be turned upside down. We are praying for a smooth transition for him, and if anyone reading this would like to do the same, that would be, in the words of Lucy Unal, "totally rockin'."

Rose & Lucy's Birthday Party

Rose & Lucy's birthday party was last Sunday. We invited all the girls in their class, plus 3 girls from last year's class. After much discussion about where to hold the party, and what sort of party to have, Rose & Lucy decided they wanted a dress-up party at our house. To which I, surveying our cute but small 1800 sq ft house and imagining it filled with fourteen 4-5 year olds, their parents, and dress-up parephernalia, said, "Uhh, no way." I casually suggested a local park with a playground (which just happens to be free), Rose & Lucy liked that idea, and so our non-themed park birthday party was born.

My mom came for their birthday, and made this doll cake. She used to make similar cakes for my birthday. In fact, I'm pretty sure we have pictures of my fifth birthday and a remarkably similar looking cake. My mom said she found this Barbie doll at her house, so I'm guessing this might even be the same poor legless doll.

Anyways, the cake turned out beautifully and all the girls loved it.

Barbie's close up...

Rose & Lucy had SUCH a great time at their party. In fact, they are not generally hyper kids, but they were so thrilled and excited at their party to the point of bordering on hyper. Of course, it could have been the 6 juice boxes they each had...or the cake...or the candy...

Anyways, the only part of the party that got out of hand was the gift-opening. Rose and Lucy were so excited that I was unable to slow them down enough to make note of which gift came from which friend. Oops. Another lesson I learned is that when you invite 14 kids to a twin birthday party, that equals more presents than is decent and healthy for 5 year olds who already have a teeny little tendency to be materialistic (Lucy has already told me about 50 times what she wants for her next birthday). I'm pretty sure if I received an invitation to twins' birthday party, my first thought (yes, terrible to admit, but this would be my first thought) would be "ugh, I have to buy TWO presents?" If Rose & Lucy's friends' parents had this thought, you couldn't tell by the gifts -- really nice, generous gifts for each of the twins from each friend. Picture of the loot below. We only let them open about half the gifts so far, and will dole out the remaining ones slowly. We are working hard on (really nice, hand-made, but generic -- did I mention I'm a horrible party hostess and can't remember who gave them what gift?) thank you notes!

I have a lot of really cute pictures from the party, but since the pictures all include Rose & Lucy's friends and I'm guessing the friends' parents don't want their kids' pictures posted on the internet, I'll refrain. Suffice it to say it was a gorgeous day, all the kids had a great time, and I vastly overestimated the amount of goldfish, grapes, and baby carrots 4-5 year olds consume...

Emigration Permit

Last Thursday we were notified that Charlie's EP (Emigration Permit) was approved on September 15th. His visa physical is scheduled for this Wednesday. Once the visa physical is done, it takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get the "Travel Call." The travel call is notification that we are allowed to go to Seoul to meet Charlie and bring him home. Due to a few scheduling issues, Sheref will not be able to leave until late October, so we're tentatively expecting Charlie to be home shortly after Halloween. We are very grateful that our process from match to travel has been (thus far) relatively smooth and quick. Although there are a few families whose process has moved quicker than ours, there are also many families who have been waiting quite a while and continue to wait. For all those families we are wishing some good news very soon.

We are so excited to meet Charlie and bring him into our family.

Happy Birthday Wondertwins!

Rose & Lucy are our Wondertwins. Based on many obstetric issues, they are not supposed to have been born as far along in gestation as they were (still not quite 34 weeks and just a little over 3lbs each, but even that was far better than expected), or healthy or "normal." Despite all that, they were and are "normal" and, in fact, far better than "normal." These two are special. They like to call themselves "Wondertwins" (anyone recall the cartoon "Superfriends"??? Yeah, embarassing, but I watched it, umm, A LOT as a child), and they truly are our little Wondertwins. Wondertwin powers, activate. Happy Birthday, sweeties!

Got somethin'

Although I was greatly looking forward to repeatedly posting "ain't got nuttin'" ad nauseum until we got somethin', I am happy to announce that we did indeed get a little somethin' today. It was not the EP approval I was hoping for, but these pictures are pretty d*mn good.

I'm sorry. I know I am biased. But how d*mn cute is this kid? Oh. my. goodness. I am not a touchy-feely, swoon over pictures, gushy type of person, but these pictures just tickle my heart. What a sweetheart.

These pictures, however, do make me wonder who the heck the kid is in the only other picture we have received of Charlie since his referral pictures (striped shirt being held by his foster mother -- shown in a previous post). These pictures look like the referral pictures, whereas the second picture looks like some other child entirely. Mystery!

I just cannot look at these pictures without smiling. Once again, how cute is this kid?

Ain't got nuttin' Rewind Post

Since we still ain't got nuttin' (not to harp on this grammatically incorrect theme or anything:), another rewind post to chronicle a few things from the pre-blog era. Most families adopting internationally, once they are matched with a child, send care packages to their new son or daughter. We found out that we were matched with Charlie on Friday, June 25th in the afternoon. I was at work, but Ella, who had the day off school for some reason, had gone to work with Sheref. Sheref works only until noon-ish most days, so he and Ella were having lunch when they got the call from Jessica at Holt that Charlie was ours (he was a photolisted waiting child, and we thought we were going to have to go to committee for him, but Jessica called to tell us we were allowed to skip the committee part and Charlie was ours!). More specifically, they were having lunch at Olive Garden. I really don't like Olive Garden (more because I hate waiting -- have you ever noticed how busy Olive Garden always is?? -- than because I dislike their food, though I don't think the food is all that great either). Anyways, so now Ella, who loves Olive Garden, tries to tell me that Olive Garden is part of our family history and we therefore need to frequent Olive Garden a lot more.

But I digress. The point of this story is that the day we found out we were matched with Charlie, Sheref and Ella were at Olive Garden, which is very close to a large mall as well as Babies R Us. So they went out and bought Charlie a bunch of cute clothing, toys, blankets and a "lovey." All of us took turns sleeping with the froggie "lovey" one night, theorizing that it would make it smell like us. I'm not sure if this works for human babies, or if that theory only applies to animals (I grew up on a farm, and I have an applicable, yet probably not really appropriate, story about sheep...I'm just going to stop there), but it makes sense and makes us feel like Charlie might feel more comfortable coming into our home because of the lovey.

The one gift that I sort of agonized over a little was the gift for his foster mother. I wanted something generic enough that most women would appreciate it, unique enough that it would be clear we spent some time thinking about what to get her, and obviously small enough to easily ship to Korea. We live in a fairly large, resort-type town with a lot of local artists and a fantastic downtown farmers' market which runs from April-December. I bought this necklace there. It is prettier than it looks in the picture. The pendant is glass, with splashes of color that are mainly orange and greenish "earthy" tones. The chain is tiny very pale orange glass beads. In the package is a small card explaining the artist's work and our region. I know Charlie's foster mother is unlikely to understand the artist's card, and may not truly like the necklace, but hopefully she appreciates the thought behind it.

We know Charlie and his foster family received the package, because Holt sent us a photograph of Charlie and his foster mother with the package contents. The photo is posted somewhere in one of the earlier blog posts. We hear that very often the care package items are not given back to the adoptive family, which is totally fine with us. I'm assuming that the foster families keep the items for use with future foster children. I actually really love the idea that future Korean babies waiting on their adoptive families will be wearing the clothing and playing with the toys we bought for Charlie. Just hopefully not the lovey:) Since it smells like us and all...

Ain't got nuttin' Part II

I'm considering posting this same thing every day until we get some news from Korea. Ok, not really.

I had a great day today at work and have the weekend off, so I'm overall in a pretty good mood. Still, I'm a little annoyed that we heard no news at all from Korea today, or any day for that matter since August 10th. And I will admit that I'm being bratty about this, but really, I just don't understand why it is difficult to get paperwork done and forwarded on in a timely fashion. I originally typed a bunch of whiny details right here about what exactly isn't getting done in a timely fashion, then thought better of posting lots of tiny little whiny details, so suffice it to say, things aren't going as efficiently as I think they should. I have high standards, but still.

Ok, changing gears, this weekend is "Girls' Weekend" at our house. Sheref is going to SF to a conference, so it is just the girls at home this weekend. Rose and I went to the grocery store tonight and spent (gulp) a lot of money on mainly junk food. Stuff I normally do not buy, do not eat, and do not let my children eat. We will, however, be eating it this weekend! Rose was totally shocked when I kept saying yes to ice cream, cookies and chips. Her initial request when I asked her what she wanted to eat this weekend was "fresh fruit and celery" (seriously?), but she quickly came around when she realized I was open to a much broader definition of "anything you want." Also, pretty much every weekend I have off, I still work -- reading, studying, writing, working on projects. This weekend, for the first time in a really really really long time, I will not be doing any work at all. Pure spending time with the girls, eating crappy food, and being mad about lack of movement on the adoption front (just kidding).