Cocooning

We are leaving for Korea in less than 24 hours so this will be the last blog update until we get back, and we probably will not be able to update the blog right away because we will be a bit tired and busy with a little one!

So I am taking the time to let you know what our plans are after we get back. Our agency has done a wonderful job educating us on adoption issues, Korea, multi-racial families, and attachment.

Attachment is the one I want to talk about now. Our son has been taken care of by his foster mother for the past 8+ months. The only mother he knows is his foster mom. And she is doing a great job spoiling him. She is carrying him around all day, feeding him lots of food, playing on the floor with him, and sleeping with him in her bed. And then one day (one day soon!) he will be handed over to us! And we do not look, smell, sound, or act like anything that he is used to. We are probably the last people he would think of as his parents.

The agency said to help with the attachment process, the family should take some time to "cocoon". Cocooning is when the new-family gathers together and bonds with each other. The first week we get back we are just going to stay home and be with our baby. We are not going to go out and we are not expecting any visitors. We need time for our family to figure ourselves out. Our son needs to be able to have time to process who his primary care givers are before we introduce a bunch of new people. As a mommy who has had her son in FULL TIME daycare for the first 9 months, I am going to be a little selfish and take some time for my family to bond alone! Plus I think that we will need some time to recover from our trip and the 14 hour time difference. But it is only a week, so please have a little patience with us, and it will be over before you know it! : )

This brings me to the next couple of weeks. So after Week 1, we are going to want to get out of the house and show off our cutie! BUT there is a catch! We will still be bonding with our child and he is still learning who his Mom and Dad are. For the first month or so, Jason and I will be the only ones holding, feeding, bathing and changing our child. We need to be the ones who fulfill his basic needs so that he knows who to trust. This is really important to us. Since I have not been the one holding my son for the first 9 months of his life, forgive me if I am a little hesitant to hand him over to someone else once I get a hold of him! : ) Again this is for a short amount of time and it will be over before you know it!

So, please do not be offended if when you ask to hold our child we kindly say "no" it is not you, it is us!

I am off to finish packing and cleaning!

WE GOT OUR CALL

We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!! We got our call!!

Oh, in case your have not heard, we got our call to travel on Friday Oct. 24th! This is probably the second most important call that we have ever gotten (the first was getting the referral!)

I was teaching my first hour and my phone rang in my classroom. I knew that it was an outside ring (it double rings if it is an outside ring) so I answered it and it was the director of the Korean program! She said "are you ready?" I said "yes!" and she said "go! and call me back!" I was shaking and crying and I had to teach the rest of the day. The next thing that I did was call Jason and tell him. Than I had to call my parents and siblings (except Justin- he lives too far away and I do not have a number for him- but I did send him and e-mail). Jason did the same for his family. During my prep time I call personal to let them know that Friday was my last day and that sub would be starting on Monday. I than called my sub to let her know. I finish the day teaching the best that I could under the circumstances. To be honest, it was not a very educational day for my students, and they were ok with that! :)

We have our plane tickets. We decided to get 3 seats. We wanted to just have 3 seats on the way back but it was less money to get 3 round-trips seats so we will have extra room on the way there as well, which will be nice! We leave Wednesday Oct 29th and come home Wednesday Nov. 5th. We will will arrive in Korea on Thursday evening and meet our son Friday! We are so excited and it is really hard to believe that in less than 1 week we will meet our son!

Please pray for safe and stress-free travels (well, as stress-free as possible with a nine-month old) Please also pray for good bonding with us and our child.

I just have to say it one more time: WE GOT OUR CALL!!!!

I think that it is called "Nesting"

So, nesting is not just for pregnant women. It is not a hormone thing; it is a mom thing. I have been going around the house cleaning things. I cleaned the kitchen floor (my baby is not crawling on a dirty floor!). I reorganized the kitchen cupboards to make room for all the baby dishes and bottles and such. Jason and I cleaned out the Jeep, we vacuumed, Windex-ed, and Armor-all-ed the inside to make it "shine like the top of the Chrysler building!" We also put in the car seat. It is a little weird going from no car seat to driving around with an empty car seat. We rearranged the living room to make room for toys, toys and more toys! We put up safety gates and safety locks on the cupboards, oven, and refrigerator. The Baby's room is READY. We also put together our high chair, exersaucer, and pack-n-play.

So basically, we are pretty ready. I am going to clean the bathrooms and vacuum the house about 100 more times to get the last of the dog hair.

So, we are still here, waiting for the call! As Scarlett would say, "After all, tomorrow is another day!"

Travel Window

Our travel window is now open. We could get the call to travel any day now (please let it be tomorrow!). It is a weird feeling being "on call" this way. It is hard to make plans. I am still working, but my long term sub is all ready to go. Any day could be my last day at work. We still want to do things with our family or friends but I find myself saying "We'll be there, unless, we are in Korea"

Our travel window is 4 weeks. So that means for the next month I could be waiting. Waiting for the call to come any day! UGH! Honestly, I am SICK of waiting! I am ready to go, so, lets GO! And I am sick of the expectant look on every one's faces when they say "any news?" I just answer "If I had any news I wouldn't be here right now!" I try to do it in a sweet voice and add a smile - it is not their fault that I don't have news- but I am sure that there is a twinge of annoyance in the sound of my voice- sorry, I am only human!

So my prayers is now "Lord, let us get the call to travel SOON- meaning tomorrow! You know my heart and my heart wants to go get our son!" Please pray for us this way!

On a side note, tonight I am trying a Korean Short rib recipe! Maybe this will help me wait!
-sigh-

Stimulating the Economy

You should be happy to know that we are doing our part to save the economy. We have been buying so many things to get ready for our son! In the last month we bought a pack-n-play, crib, glider rocker, safety gates, dresser, diapers, and several other baby items. We also bought things for our house to get ready for his arrival. We got furniture that will be child friendly and have storage for toys. We started a bathroom in the basement, got a new tank-less water heater, and we will be buying plane tickets to Korea in the near future! Jason also found us a new digital camera to buy as well. Not to mention, people are throwing us showers, so we are even encouraging others to buy! Who knew we were so patriotic?

We are feeling the pressure of becoming parents soon. Just yesterday, I bought my first box of diapers. Now the baby can come home! I have diapers, a pack-n-play, a stroller, and safety gates (what else could a person need?!?). I am also starting to think about what it is going to be like to be a parent. I know one can never be fully ready for what is to come and I am starting to wonder what I have gotten myself into. I mean, I am going to come home with a child and I am going to be in charge of it all the time. Am I prepared for this??? [rhetorical question - no need to comment on this] I am so excited to be a mom, and every night I fall asleep dreaming of holding and playing with my son, but I know I have a lot to learn about parenting. I can probably only learn it by being one!

Challenging things have also been happening as we are getting ready. A couple weeks ago, I got strep, followed by an ear infection, which took me out of school for three days. Last week, we found out that Jason and I are not the only ones living in our house. We have some uninvited house guests: mice- and NOT Micky and Minnie! We have declared WAR on the mice, and have several traps and mouse poisons spread throughout the house. We are hoping to kill the little guys before our child comes home, because we will definitely be pulling the traps and poison once he gets here. We did get one so far! Today I slipped on some water on the floor at school and twisted my ankle. It hurts pretty bad and I can not put much weight on it. I have a doctor appointment tomorrow, hopefully it is not broken because that would really stink to have to travel to Korea with a cast!

Our travel window opens one week from today. Please pray for us as we get prepared for our trip and journey into parenthood.

A peek at the baby's room

We are almost done with the baby's room! I love to just sit and look at the room! So I took some pictures to share with all of you!

I did say it would just be a peek! We will eventually post pictures for all to see but, for now we would like to give real-life tours! We want to see the look on your faces when you see it.

It is now October, the month that we have been talking about since we received our referral. I cannot tell you how many times I have said, "We will hopefully be traveling at the end of October." Too many to count! And now October is here! Our travel window opens after October 15th, which is less than 2 weeks away! We were told that we would most likely travel between 10-14 weeks after signing our official paperwork accepting the referral. That puts us traveling between Oct 15th and Nov 12th. We will get a phone call that will tell us to get our tickets ASAP, so NO, we will not save money on tickets and No, we have not bought them yet!

Now that we are getting this close we are starting to get a little freaked out! We have talked about traveling for so long. We have been looking at the pictures of our baby boy, and talking about bring him home for a while now too. But talking about it and doing it are two different things. We have some MAJOR child-proofing to do! I still have our car seat and pack-n-play in their boxes. The baby's room is ready, but I need to wash all the clothes, and put them in the closet or dresser. I need to get some diapers! I need to transition the back part of the living room into a baby-area. I need to pack a bag for the baby, and for us. I need to get some extra sleep, because we all know I won't get any after the baby comes. We need to pick a name for our child! And, I need to mentally prepare myself for the 20 hour flight home with a 9 month old (this is the part that freaks me out the most!)... not to mention the jet lag we will all have when we come home!

Next week I will be interviewing for my long-term sub, and hopefully training them the following week so it will be a smooth transition out of the classroom. I was granted my FULL 6 weeks paid maternity leave (Hooray!) and the unpaid family leave after that. What a blessing!

Even though we are totally FREAKING OUT, we are beyond excited for our boy to come home!

A Shower and Travel Orientation

A lot has happened this week so I am updating two things in one post.

First off, my family threw us a baby shower this weekend. The food was awesome (Asian themed) the decorations were beautiful (thanks Jake for the sign)! And my sister surprised me by video taping herself doing a devotion so that she could "come" to the shower too. Of course I cried! We were overwhelmed by everyone's generosity! We got a lot of really nice stuff! Our little guy is going to be styling in all the cute clothes and he is going to have the best stuff to play with, to take a bath with, and to cuddle with! I can't wait to start using it!

We also went to our travel orientation on Tuesday. This was a meeting at the agency for couples who are waiting to travel to Korea to pick up their child. The program director gave us information on what to do when we get the call to travel. What to do when we get to Korea. We found out that a driver will come and get us from the airport (I am so relieved about that!). We also found out what to pack for us and for the baby. Since the meeting is for parents waiting to travel we were in the same boat as everyone in the room. We all had pictures and we were just waiting to go and get our child. It was fun to talk to other families and to see the pictures of their child, and share our experiences with each other. Every time I leave the agency I feel re-energized about our process and feel like we are getting closer to traveling. It could just be a little over a month now!

WINNER!!!

The winner of the first ever Norman New's blog contest is......


KELLEY!

Congrats! I will send you an e-mail with your choices for scents and I will get an address from you too!

Everyone put a lot of thought and care into their answers, and we will certainly use all of your ideas! Thanks so much!

Ever felt close to a stranger?

Today is September 10th, which means that our baby boy is 7 months old today. I feel like I'm praying for him all of the time, and Fawnda and I make a point of praying for him every night. I'm always looking at his pictures, and we have some limited information on him that I have read through a number of times. So, in a way, I feel that I am already close to him. Then there's a couple of facts that I cannot forget. 1) He's only about 6,221.2 miles away and 2) We've never met.

Among other things, these 2 points seem to continually ignite my burning desire to get over there to get him. I know that this is all part of the adoption waiting game, but I cannot help but feel like I'm missing out on his life. 7 months is a long time to be out of someone's life, and the first 7 months are incredibly formative. For example, at 7 months a lot of infants are experiencing the following:

• He's probably developing his own personality.
• His sitting should be getting better as his lower back gets stronger.
• He might be ready to get moving!
• He might be pushing up on hands and knees and creeping along the floor.
• He may try to stand by himself.
• He may try to balance himself and sit for a while with no support.
• He may like finger foods that let him practice picking things up and feeding himself.
• He may enjoy playing with a spoon and a cup, but will probably not be good at using them yet.
• Seven month-olds often like to be included in family activities, enjoy looking in mirrors and at pictures of other babies, and like to grab, shake, bang things, and put everything in their mouth.

This list makes me smile, but it also makes me sad that I'm not there for all of it. He will most likely be about 9 months old when we bring him home, and both Fawnda and I are super excited to get to know his personality. Rest assured, we plan to make up a lot of ground right away. In the grand scheme of life 9 months is a relatively small amout of time, and we will have plenty of opportunities to make our own memories after he's here.

It's just that on our little guy's 7 month birthday, I wish I was there to have some of the cake.

Please don't stop reading here!

The Travel Thoughts post contains an exciting contest!

Travel Thoughts- with a contest!

We got invited to our travel orientation today. The meeting is set for Tuesday Sept. 16th from 8-10 am so that means that I will have to miss a day of school (bummer!) At the meeting they will give us information on what we can expect once we get there, what to bring for ourselves and our child, information on tours and on how to get around while in South Korea. We are very excited about this and I will probably start to pack a bag for the baby. So since we are thinking about traveling TO Korea, that also makes us think of traveling BACK from Korea and how that trip will be a little more interesting. It will be about 20 hours on a plane with a 9 month old. We are very open in saying that we are a little scared about this part! So, it inspired me to have the FIRST EVER NORMAN NEWS CONTEST! The rules are easy:

• Leave a comment with an idea of how to keep a 9month old busy/happy on a plane.
• Leave an e-mail address for me to contact you if you win!
• US addresses only

Any idea will enter you into the contest. Names will be entered into an excel speadsheet (by the EXCEL master Jason) and a random program will be created to choose the winner. The winner will be announced on Monday Sept 15th after 9:30 pm.


Here is the prize:

• Homemade soap and bath salts by me!


• I will let you choose the scent from what I have and the color! I will mail them to you!

Good luck everyone!!