Kyan's first Thanksgiving

Ky had his first thanksgiving yesterday! It was very laid back. We went to my parents house at around 2 pm, ate turkey and other yummy sides at 3pm. My mom makes the best thanksgiving meal! I look forward to it for months and this year she did not disappoint! Everything was so good, I am drooling just thinking about it!

While growing up my mom always had a little craft for the kids to work on after the dinner was over. Having a house full of wild kids running around was not my mom's idea of fun, so she tried to plan something constructive for us to do. This became something that we all looked forward to. Each year my mom would find some kind a ornament for us to make/decorate. This year was no different. After dinner we all sat down to paint some wooden ornaments that were also frames. Here are how mine turned out.

I can't wait for Ky to be old enough to participate (more than just watching from the sidelines!)

After the craft, we had some pie and it was time to head out because it was Ky's bedtime.

It is so cool how holidays become more meaningful with a child. I am so looking forward to the whole Christmas season!

Our Korea Trip

I said a few weeks ago that I would update you all on our trip. Well, it took longer than I thought, but I am finally blogging about Korea. I will try to keep to the "Reader Digest" version, so it will not be a monster blog. (Editors note - it turned out to be a monster blog! Sorry, there is so much to tell!)

Day 1 (Oct 29th- USA time)
We get dropped off at the airport at 6:30 AM, and we get on our flight to Chicago. Once there, we have to go to the international terminal (which means we have to go through security again- so that apple juice I bought and barely drank has to be thrown away!) We get on our flight to Korea on Korean Air. We have a 14 hour flight ahead of us. We each have our own touch screen with movies, TV shows and games. It even updates us on the flight pattern. We also have an extra seat so we have room to spread out! Jason watches Iron man, Get Smart, and Kung Fu Panda. I watch Ironman, Maid of Honor, a Friends episode, and a documentary on J.K. Rolling (author of the Harry Potter books- which I LOVE!) We also get fed 2 meals and sleep some. When we land it is 5:30 pm Oct 30th Korean time. We go through customs, get our luggage, find our driver and rent a cell phone. Our driver leads us to the van and we start the 1 hour trip to the agency. This trip makes me sick and I almost throw up in the van, but I hold it in and we make it to the agency! We get our room (# 508). The driver brings up our luggage and gives us a letter from our social worker telling us what time our first meeting with Kyan (of course his name at this time is Min Kyoo) was and where it would take place. It was set for 9:40 am the following morning. We are so tired that we end up falling asleep at 8:30. I should probably mention here that I had motion sickness from the long flight and the van ride. Also, I had some serious nerves about meeting our child for the first time.

Day 2 -Friday Oct 31st Korean time
We woke up around 6:30 am. We were still on MN time so it was hard to sleep in. But we stayed in bed, and lounged around. Jason playing Spider Solitaire on the computer, and I did a few Sudoku puzzles. We did get up and get ready for our meeting with Kyan. The Korean culture is very formal, so we were told to dress-up for agency business. So Jason wore ties and I wore blazers. Gifts are also a big part of Korean tradition. We were told to bring gifts for everyone who was involved with our son's care. So we also got those gifts "wrapped" in some gift bags. We went down to the Social Workers' office and met with Mrs. Oh, the person in charge of the Visas. She had us fill out some paperwork, and she gave us our travel documents. Then we were lead to an observation room. We were pretty excited and nervous at this point. We were told that the baby would probably cry the whole time since we look and smell so different, so we were gearing up for that. The social worker came into the room followed by the foster mom holding Kyan. He looked very similar to his 5 month picture. The social worker took Kyan and gave him to me to hold. The first thing that he did was lay his head on my shoulder. How sweet. We then went up onto the platform that they had with some toys for Ky to play with. We all sat down on the floor and the foster mom started to tell us all about Kyan and tried to show us all the "tricks" that he could do. Then the social worker gave us 20 minutes alone with Ky. He let me hold him, kiss him and Jason was able to get him to laugh and smile. It was awesome! After the 20 minutes they came back in and we set up our next meeting to be on Monday at 1:30. We were also told that right after this meeting we had a meeting scheduled with Dr. Kim and Dr. Kim the founder of the agency and his daughter who now runs the agency. So we went up to their offices and met with both of them. We found out that it was a Christian-based agency. "Old Dr. Kim" (that is what they call him- I am not making it up) is 93 years old and is the sweetest man that I will ever having the honor to meet. His daughter is a very caring lady who gave us great suggestions for site seeing and shopping. We went back to our room and took it easy for the rest of the day. I was still not feeling well from the trip.

Day 3- Nov 1st
We decided to get out and see Seoul that day! We were ready to brave the subway and try to get on the Seoul City Bus Tour. We got to the subway station, but could not communicate with the ticket agent that we needed a "t-card" (a prepaid card for the subway). I finally heard some ladies speaking English and asked where they got their cards. She helped us get 2 cards and we found out that she was from South Africa. She was teaching English in South Korea. Now that we had our T-cards, we could go any where! We got to the tracks figured out what train to get on and we were on our way down town. We found our stop on the subway, and were able to find the Seoul City Bus Tour. This tour took us around to all the city's "attractions". It had 27 stops in all. We got off at the Korean War Museum, Itaewon shopping street, Seoul Tower, and the Chaggyeonggung Palace.
The Korean War museum was HUGE. It had several different war vehicles to look at from all over the world. Itaewon shopping was a bunch of little kiosks on the street selling clothes, socks, purses, knick-knacks etc. We did not buy anything here, because most of the stuff we could get in the USA.
Seoul Tower was much like the space needle. It has beautiful views of the city. It also had a pretty steep walk up a hill, which I saw Korean women walking up in high-heels. Chaggyeonggung Palace was my favorite stop. It was beautiful. Once you were inside the walls, it was like stepping back in time. It had beautiful trails to walk on and a cool buildings. It was the peak fall time of year for Korea and the leaves were so pretty. We got back on the bus and rode it back to the starting place. It was getting dark and we were heading back to the agency to get some dinner. The bus ride was pretty jerky so I was not feeling well at all. I knew that we had to get back to the room fast, or I would be sick. Unfortunately, I did not make it. I ended up throwing up in some bushes alongside the sidewalk. Probably one of the lowest moments of my life! But it was evening, and no one seemed to be bothered by it. They probably thought I was drunk or something. After that I did feel better, so we were able to make it back okay. Jason went and got some food for himself, we watched a movie, and went to bed.

Day 4 -Nov 2nd
I woke up feeling sick again! I was pretty fed up with not feeling well, and not being able to eat anything for the whole time I was in Korea. Jason and I were also going to go shopping at the South Gate market that day. We had heard that this was one of the best places to go and were really looking forward to it, but I could barley even sit up without feeling sick. Jason went to send out an e-mail asking for prayer for me, and when he came back we decided that we would walk to the market and to a department store (we were told that was were we could find a podeagi). Since I had felt the best when were walking around the palace the day before, we thought this was a good idea. We brought some water with us for our 5 kilometer (one way) hike. Once we started walking I did feel better. The fresh air was good for me. We were able to find our way though Seoul (thanks to Jason's awesome map reading skills), and made it to the South Gate Market. We were able to find all of our gifts for our family here. We then made our way to the Galleria department store. Once we were there, we found the baby section and found the Podeagi. On our way out of the store there was a smoothie shop. I saw and felt hungry for the first time in Korea. I told Jason that I wanted a smoothie, so we got one to share. It was soooooo good! The best smoothie I have ever had. After that smoothie I felt good the rest of the trip. We now refer to it as "the magic smoothie". We walked back to the agency and watched movie. Later that night, we walked to the Baskin Robin Ice Cream shop for some ice cream. Now that I had my appetite back, I wanted some ice cream!

Day 5 -Nov 3rd
We were invited to lunch that day at the agency. They serve a traditional Korean lunch to the adoptive parents. We were able to eat with others who were adopting children, and hear their stories. It was a really yummy meal. I was so happy that I was feeling better so that I could eat it! After lunch we had our second meeting with Kyan. This meeting started out a little rocky. Ky was fussy and started to cry when we tried to play with him or show him a toy. His foster mom seemed a little more on edge that day too. The social worker came in, and suggested that we walk Kyan up and down the hall to calm him down. This seemed to work and she handed Ky to Jason. Jason continued to walk with him and he was getting more settled. When Jason passed Kyan to me he again laid his head on my shoulder and fell asleep. It was so precious. I held him asleep in my arms loving every second of it. We think that he was a little crabby at the beginning, because he was so tired. We found out at this meeting that we would get Kyan on Wednesday (the day that we leave) at 8:30 (the time and we leave for the airport)

Day 6 -Nov 4th
This is our last full day in Korea. We went to Kyobo Book Store, which is one of the largest book stores in the world. We were able to find some books that had Korean and English. Jason found a book about a daddy fish and his son. It has a really cute story about how much the daddy fish loves his son. It is so perfect. I really wanted to find a mommy and son book, but I had to settle for some cool pop-up books. We later went out to eat with our friends Peter and Ashleigh. They were our neighbors at the guest house. They were adopting a boy just 5 days older than Kyan. They are Korean-American, and Peter had family that he had visited while staying at the agency. They live in the Washington DC area. They brought us to a restaurant that serves omni-rice. It was fried rice wrapped in egg (like an omelet) with different things served with it. Jason had a chicken quesadilla style one, I had steak style one, Peter had a cheeseburger style one, and Ashleigh had sweet potato style one. They all were really good. We were able to get to know Peter and Ashleigh better, and felt a real connection with them. It is amazing how God blessed us with friends while we were half-way around the world. We are still e-mailing updates to each other and sharing prayer requests.

Day 7- Nov 5th - Gottcha Day!
It starts out early. We got up at 6:30. We got dressed, finished packing, and headed down stairs at 8:15 to get ready to have the prayer service for Kyan. Old Dr. Kim prays for each child that leaves the agency. They helped us load our suitcases into the van, and then we met with the Foster mom, social worker and Dr Kim for our Prayer Service. This was very special and emotional time for me. I cried the whole time. Peter and Ashleigh happened to be down in the lobby at that time, and were able to take pictures for us, which is so special! After the prayer, we got in the van and the foster mom handed Kyan over to Jason, who passed him on to me. Up to this point I had been really nervous and not feeling well (again!). Once Ky was on my lap I instantly felt better, and my nerves seemed to disappear. Everything was just the way it was supposed to be. We were off on our 21 hour trip home. I blogged about this trip in this post.

It was an amazing trip! Jason and I are already talking about what we want to do and see when we go back!

Sick Daddy

Jason was sick last weekend. He got some sort of flu thing. So that meant that he was in bed all weekend. This was very sad, because he really wanted to spend some time with Ky since he had to work last week and did not get to spend the time that we wanted.

Since Jason was sick I got to be a FULL time mommy, day and night (Jason is really good about helping in the evening and night!) Ky and I stuck together and we got through the weekend. But, by Sunday night I was in some desperate need of some Fawnda time. Ky and I were pretty much glued to each other at the hip (especially since I was using the Hip Hammock) all weekend. It seems as though Kyan and I were protected from whatever Jason had, because we have not gotten sick as of yet!

Ky has been sleeping at night really well. Every night he seems to get a little better. Last night he slept from 8:00 to 6:45! That was awesome! I think that he is figuring out when "night time" is. Now, if I can just get him to figure out when "nap time" is. Since he has slept good at night, he has not been taking any naps. This leads to a pretty crabby baby by the end of the day. But a crabby day with Kyan is better than any day at work! He is the cutest crabby baby I have ever seen!

Tomorrow is our 2 week mark! It is amazing how much I have learned in the past 2 weeks! I know what toys he likes, when he wants to be held (pretty much all the time!), what his hungry cry is, his tired cry, and what his crabby cry sounds like. What makes him laugh, what makes him scared, how to calm him down, when he wants to be in the hip hammock, and so much more. I love him more and more every day! We are so lucky!

7 hours of sleep!

We have witnessed a miracle! Ky slept for 7 hours straight last night. He went down at 10:00 and woke up at 5:00. I got 6 hours because I went to bed at 11:00.

I wish I could say that it was something that Jason and I did in our infinite wisdom, but it wasn't! I believe that it was that prayers from our friends and family so, keep them coming!

I do not think that he has officially changed over to our time yet, nor do I expect him to sleep through the night every night but, it is a step in the right direction. And I am basking the the glory of 6 hours of sleep!

We survived!

We survived Jason going back to work and me starting my new job as Full Time Mom!

Jason went back to work on Thursday. We were both pretty nervous about this. I was nervous because Jason is usually the one who can get Kyan to fall asleep at night (see earlier post for details) and He was nervous for me and about getting enough sleep to be able to focus at work. Jason was also sad to leave Kyan.

So Wednesday night we went to bed. Ky woke up at 12:30 as usual and I gave him a bottle and he put up a very small fight and murmured off to sleep. He slept until 3:00 and than woke up. I was able to rock him back to sleep but when I put him in he crib he was all ready to play. He was cooing and looking at the bummer. I was able to walk slowly out of the room and he cooed himself to sleep. But he did wake up at about 3:45 and would NOT go back to sleep. He was crying and Jason couldn't sleep. I kept telling him to go down stairs and we will get through it but he really wanted to help. We kept at it until 4:30 and decided to bring him to our bed. Kyan was content to roll back and forth between me and Jason until 5 am and I decided to get up with him.

Jason went off to work and Ky and me had the day to ourselves. he took a few good naps, which means that I got a few good naps! We had some mommy-n-me play time and he had some individual play time (in the sit-n-spin). The day went pretty well. We had one minor melt down when I tried to take a shower and Ky was not asleep like I thought. It was the fastest shower I have ever taken! Other then that it was a good day,I was even able to pick up the house before Jason came home.

Thursday night went pretty well. Ky slept from 8:30 - 1:30, I got him to sleep on me from 1:30 -3:30. He cooed himself back to sleep in his crib until 4:15. I was able to keep him a bay until 5. He was awake but not fussing and I was happy with that. We got up at 5 again this morning. It is funny that I now consider 5 AM a decent wake-up time. I never would have thought this in my former life (BC- Before Children). : ) Ky took good naps again today and we even ventured out to Target today. It was short trip, but he was in wonder of the big store.

Tomorrow is Saturday and Jason is home again! We are both happy about this. Jason has had a rough time being a work while his wife and son are playing/napping at home. If you ask me, I have the better gig right now!

Now that I have survived these two day I can always think "I made it through before, I can make it through today!"

a fork in the road

My baby is on a completely different time zone. He is 15 hours ahead of me. Which means his night is our day and vice-versa. Each night I come to a fork in the road. I am walking down the path of motherhood happy as can be and then my baby wakes up at midnight and I find myself looking at one of three paths:

#1. let my baby stay awake, he is in such a great mood and laughing and talking, how can I resist such a cutie? so I start down that path... but I find myself rethinking my choice. What am I teaching him? That we can all be awake at midnight. So I retrace my steps and look at my other options.
#2. try to make him go to sleep by holding him and rocking him the the rocker. This does NOT make him happy and he starts to cry! Yelling for "Eomma" which means Mama in Korean. He is not calling for me, he is calling for his foster mom (Who, I am sure, would have chosen path #1), this is probably the most heart breaking thing for me yet! I walk this path for a while thinking, "he is ok, he is just making himself tired, he will tucker himself out and then fall asleep." After what seems like years, my heart is breaking for my baby who not now piping mad at me and who is looking for some other lady to come and save him. Most times we both end up in tears. When I can take it no longer I again turn back on this path and look a my options again.
Which brings me to path #3. Laying him in his crib to let him cry it out by himself. I look at this path and in NO way does it look desirable to me. I have not walked this path yet. I can not think about leaving my baby to cry by himself thinking that I have abandoned him. But that path is there.

There I am, going back and forth between path 1 and 2, hoping, praying that they will come together and he will fall asleep.

So, what is the lesser of the 3 evils? stay awake and prolong the schedule change, try and force my baby to sleep while he cries for "Eomma" or lay him in his crib to cry himself to sleep thinking that I don't care. None of them seem like good options. I just want to do what is best for my son!

What usually happens is a rescue vehicle to come to my aid. A knight in shining armor, my husband (AKA "the baby whisperer") comes into the room and takes over for me. He can usually get the baby to fall asleep in about 15 min. I have worked for 2 hours with no luck and he takes over and that baby is asleep. This has been great for the past week, but Jason goes back to work TOMORROW. The rescue vehicle is going to be put int the garage. I'm sure not totally, as he is a wonderful man and will still help, but he is going to need his sleep more than me and he can't nap when the baby naps.

As I sit and reflect about this I am thankful for a few things. First off, I am thankful that I have a baby to take care of. I know there are lots of women who would love to be up at night with a restless baby, but are unable to have children. I was in this situation not that long ago and I know the heartache! I love my son and would not trade him for the world! Maybe I should be saying a prayer for these women (some of which are my dear friends) as I sit up with my baby boy.

I am thankful for my wonderful husband who is a great father! He loves my son and me so much and he has such a way with babies! I should be praising the Lord for him as I wait for Kyan to go to sleep.

I am also thankful for the foster mom that took care of Kyan before we got him. She loved him like her own son and she treated him like the king he is. I know that she misses him and was so sad to see him leave. I should praying for her and the new baby in her foster care. So I will try to think on these things as I am up most of the night with my wonderful son!

The longest day ever!

Literally, Nov 5th was the longest day of my life. I am pretty sure that it lasted about 38 hours with the time changes (counting from mid-night to mid-night). But it is our son's Gotcha Day and that is a good day to have a few extra hours in! Here is the detail of that day:

Jason and I woke up in Korea at 6 am Wednesday Nov. 5th, which was 3 pm Tuesday Nov 4th back here in MN. We got ready, finished packing our things and at 8:30 We went down to the lobby to meet with the foster mom, social worker, and Dr. Kim (the founder of Eastern Adoption agency) to have the prayer ceremony before taking custody of our son. After the prayer they quickly ushered us and all of our luggage into a van. Jason and I were in the van and once they were ready to close the doors, the foster mom handed over our son to us. Up to this point (basically all morning) I was so nervous. I was worried about how our son would attach to us, I was worried about the flight, I was worried if I would make a good mom. As some of you know, my body handles stress by making me feel nauseous, so that morning I was feeling a bit queasy. But, as soon as the foster mom placed Kyan in my arms, I knew that everything was alright. I did not feel sick (even driving in the back seat of a van). I did not feel worried, because all was well. Kyan just sat there taking in all the new sights. He did not fuss at all. Of course the whole ride I was kissing and hugging him and he tolerated me doing so. In the van with us was another couple from Chicago that adopted a son as well.

Once we got to the airport we got in line to get our boarding passes. We bought an extra seat to give us some extra space on the way back. It ended up being cheaper buying 3 round trip tickets as opposed to 2 round trip and 1 one way. This "extra seat" caused us problems at every stop on the way. Every time, the ticketing agent had to figure out what to do and each one ended up talk to a supervisor. This was understandable on the way TO Korea, but we thought that with Kyan it would be no problem. Not the case. They had to check with the supervisor, and they finally gave us our tickets, but as Jason was walking away a lady came up and told him that those tickets would not work and we needed different ones. So we had to take a seat and wait. There was only an hour and half before our flight took off and we still had not gone through security. Finally, they got the tickets figured out and we were off to the security checkpoint. Once we got through the checkpoint they sent us to the Immigration office to get cleared to leave the country, which meant more waiting... they cleared us and we were off to find our gate and some water for Ky's bottle. We got to our gate with a 1/2 hour to spare. We found a drinking fountain and I was able to feed Ky a bit of "cow milk powder" (formula) before boarding the plane. Since this is our first child I did not know how much attention one gets when walking through the airport with a baby. Everyone asking us how old he is, telling us how cute he is, and making funny faces.

The nice thing about have a baby with is you get to board the plane first. No waiting in line, worrying if there will be room for your carry-on. I have to put in a plug also for Korean Air. It is by far the best airline that I have been on. The stewardesses were WONDERFUL, the plane was clean and big. Each seat had it own touch screen where you could play computer games, watch the latest movies and tv shows, and keep track of the flight pattern. The seats were very roomy and had a good amount of leg room. We had a 12.5 hour flight ahead of us. We were armed with toys, food, and blankets. When we got in our seats we found that we were sitting right behind the couple from the agency who rode to the airport with us. That was so great! We were able to talk and support each other through this long trip.

When we were settled into our seats we found that Kyan had on a couple layers of clothes. Korean mamas think that babies need to be kept warm at all times. So, Ky had on 2 pairs of pants and 3 shirts (all long sleeve) so we stripped him down to just one layer of clothes. The long flight consisted of Jason and I feeding Ky, holding Ky, or walking up and down the isles with Ky. I made a few diaper changes as well... Jason claimed that he was not good enough at the diaper changes to try on the airplane! The very first time I changed Ky, he peed all over me (a little hazing from the baby I guess)! While I was in line for the airplane's lavatory with the changing table, some of the stewardesses were asking about our baby and told me that they thought it was cool that we brought our baby to Korea. I then told her that we went to Korea to adopt him and she told us that we were the nicest people ever, and that our baby was really lucky. I told her that I was the lucky one! Throughout the fight the stewardesses would stop by to see, talk and play with the baby. It was nice to have a fresh face for Kyan to see. Jason held Ky on the descent, because it was really bumpy. I ended up throwing up once we were on the ground. Once that happened I did feel a bit better.

Now, we were in Chicago, USA, which means CUSTOMS! We had our travel papers (the ones that you don't lose or open) We get up to the customs agent and he sends us and our paperwork to the customs office. The funny thing is the couple that was with us did not have to go to the office. They got to go right on through, and their papers looked just like ours. We only had to wait a couple of minutes and we were cleared to enter the country. We had to claim our luggage and get off to our connecting flight.

We had to get boarding passes for our last flight from Northwest and of course, the 3rd seat was a problem. Finally they figured it out and it was through security again. Security is not fun by yourself but it is really hard with a baby (as many of you know!) We left Korea at 11:40 AM Wednesday and after traveling for 12.5 hours we arrived in Chicago at 9:17 AM Wednesday We had to ask the customs agent who the new president was, since we were on the plane when it was announced, and we could not get the news while we were in the air. We made it to our gate with a little over a half an hour before boarding. We got on the plane and it was pretty much empty. there were probably only 15-20 people on the plane including us. This plane ride was SO bumpy. I could not even sit up for it, it made me so sick. Jason had Ky the whole ride -bless his heart! While the plane was bumping up and down, I was sure that I was going to lose my stomach again, and Ky was laughing the whole time. Once we landed I did end up getting sick again, but that was fine because I felt better after that too. We went down to get our luggage and we found the carousel that it was on and all three of our suitcases were just sitting there waiting for us. There was no one else from our flight with any luggage. It was nice that we did not have to wait.

Our dear friends- the Sorensen's- drove our car to the parking ramp for us so we would only have to pay for 1 night stay instead of 7 nights stay. So we were able to walk out to our car and load it up. We put Ky in his car seat for the first time. Jason rode in back with him since I get sick in the back of a car, and I drove home. We arrived at our house around 3:00 PM Wednesday.

The Norman family is home!!

Jason figured that we were doing some sort of traveling for 21 hours. So here is the break down of the time for the day!

Wake up and pre-travel - 2.5 hours
Travel from Agency in Korea to Norman house- 21 hours
Home at 3:00 and go to bed at 11:30 -8.5 hours

Total awake time= 32 hours.

Three words: TOTALLY WORTH IT!
And yes, I would do all over again!

We're home!

Hi all!
We are home! We are all tired and happy!

Jason (our stats guy) figured that we were in the air, on a rail or in a car for 21 hours. Our son did WONDERFULLY! He was a little trooper. And we found that he travels much better than Fawnda (who got sick twice).

We will update on how the our trip to Korea went, in the next few days, but wanted to let everyone know that we are home and safe!

Our son is named Kyan MinKyoo

Kyan means "little king"
Min means "clever"
Kyoo means "brave" (pronounced like the letter Q):

MinKyoo is our son's Korean name. We are going to call him Ky for short.

FYI we are in discussion as to if we are going to post pictures of Kyan... We are just not sure about it yet... new parents are so cautious some times!

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!!!!