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...