He's back

Spenny the cat showed up about 5 lbs lighter on our back deck yesterday afternoon after an 11 night walkabout. Henry and Holden call him a kitty hobo. The first frost was forecasted for last night, so we thought he was a goner. We can't be more pleased. Bo crawled right over to him and he loved her attention Then he snuggled up surrounded by an electric heating pad after feasting on cat kibble, tunafish, whole milk yogurt and leftover pot roast....

Autumn

Well, we have enjoyed a 10 day stretch of outstanding New England fall weather. It is supposed to get cold this weekend, but it has been so nice. We had a great visit a couple weekends ago with Aunt Kathy in Portland. We took the baby to Gritty McDuffs for lunch and she got to sit in this cool highchair the hooked right onto the long wooden tables. Holden is all better from his bout with Lyme. Thanks you all for your nice notes about his progress. He had to take 6 bottles of bubblegum ammoxicillin, and he actually looked forward to pouring his one does twice daily. While I was poking around the fridge this morning I found the 6th bottle, oops, - lost in the yougurt area. it was supposed to be taken as a continuation from the 5th bottle which he completed last Thursday. Oops!
We hosted a wonderful Cider party on the 4th, we had 46 kids here, and 41 adults. It was a hit. We are still drowning in cider. If anyone wants some come over before it turns.
Last Wednesday I took the kids to the Topsfield Fair. It was really fun, but holy pricey! Bo enjoyed her first taste of fried dough. She was taking in the whole lights and sounds thing and was really happy in her stroller. I brought the backpack thinking she'd be happier there, but she loved the stroller. Unfortunately when we got back on Wednesday night we realized that our indoor cat Spencer had gotten out and we haven't seen him since. We have searched the woods, neighbors yards, put up posters and flyers, called animal control, the police, the DPW, etc. I have been sick about it. We are still holding out a little hope. It has been much harder on me than on the boys.
Happier thoughts...Henry had no school on Friday and we took Bo to Cider Hill Farm and picked apples, ate cider donuts, played in the pumpkin patch and met up with three other adoptive families. Seh also made her first trip to Maine over the long Columbus day weekend. We went to the Terry family cider press and then to a great big dinner party that night with them.
I sent Bo's 2nd update off to LTC yesterday, with more photos. She is doing so well overall, happy and content. She is pulling ot stand way more, and we have had to childproof accordingly!

Photos from our Cider Party on Saturday 10/4

crawling in the upstairs hallway

Wow, how time flies when

you have a 5 year old with Lyme Disease...last week Holden was diagnosed after a sore arm, a 3 day fever, and then eventually a bullseye rash over his whole body (not just at the bite site, which was news to me). He is on heavy antibiotics for 3 weeks but they say it was early enough to prevent any long term worries. Interestingly enough the woman who treated him on Thursday was the very same woman I had met and chatted with at the adoptive parents playgroup the day before. She is a Pediatric Nurse practioner and has an older bio son and a Korean daughter. She also looked at Bo's nasty diaper rash and turns out it was a reaction to her antibiotic from her ear infection. At least we killed two birds with one stone. After having been pediatrician visit free since February 08 and before that October 07, 5 visits in 2 weeks is plenty for a long time. We did have a crazy week, that is for sure. Bo is continuing to adjust well, she loved meeting her Aunt Kathy on Sunday and really enjoyed her Babies and Book's class we started yesterday. Having a third child with older ones, meant she spend a lot of time in the carseat, and last week she had a lot of interupted sleep time. I am working on getting her a more solid afternoon nap so she can make it through dinnertime without being a puddle. She has been putting herself to sleep in her own crib for over a week straight. She usually stirs and needs comfort at about 3 or 4. She isn't hungry, but sometimes her diaper is sopping. The past few nights I haven't brought her into our room, and she has been going back to sleep on her own after a few whimpers. Not really crying, thank goodness. I keep talking about posting more photos, but honestly can only do it from our downstairs computer and haven't really gotten to it.

Weekly blogs...

I think I'll be a realist and try to blog once a week now. It seems I am absorbed into all the activities and new schedules with the boy's school and activities. At the same time I am trying to enjoy and get to know Bo while I am on leave. This all makes blogging sort of hard to get too.
Last week we had some visitors, including Sue, Becca, and Joanne. I also had lunch with Sarah and had delish dinners prepared by Anna & Kelly. Thank you ladies for making my life easier and for being so welcoming to the baby. Holden is offically now in full day K after a ease in schedule. Of course he is home today with a fever. He started Karate last week, and Henry started his swim team practices last week in the evenings. On Thursday Bo had to get some blood drawn, which was a dreadful hour and 20 minute process that required 5 different nurses to get involved. We had our first post placement visit with Jean, and everything is going really well as far as her eating, sleeping, attachment, etc. We found out what the next steps are to her finalization in the US court, including revised birth certificates and passport/citizenship. Thursday night we had our first outing and went to see Cirque Du Soleil's Kooza. It was great. I went solo to a wedding of a good friend from high school on Saturday night. I am bushed to say the least. I have downloaded more photos and also reviewed the photos that came on CD with Bo's luggage. I will add more photos and a movie clip (if I can figure that out) soon. I have a new adoptive parents playgroup that I will meet on Wednesdays/Fridays starting this week. Should be fun. I want to go exercise but it won't fit in today, ugh!.

Update

The last of my friends got her travel call, their first child, a son, will be coming home tonight.
Unbelievably we had Bo's physical yeterday and she has gained over 2 lbs! She is getting her chubby cheeks back and is growing like a weed. She is eating everything in sight. I will try to post pictures this week. Busy, busy.

Two more travel calls

Two more Love the Children babies are home (9/3) or coming home this week (9/9). one more friend is still awaiting the "call"

Her nursery, overdue

Here is her nursery. she has been really needy the past two days, wanting to be held only by me every second of the day. She has also been pulling both ears so she may have her ear infection still. We have a full physical tomorrow at 9am. She has whimpered so much her voice is hoarse... poor thing. In the travel bag from her foster mum, Mrs. Lee, I found a CD of pictures of them both, it made me so sad to think of Mrs. Lee missing our little cherub.

Yesterday was Holden's first day of Kindergarten

Pictures with brothers....

Holden brushing Bo's teeth with an infant finger toothbrush

Henry holding Bo and a purple bear she brought with her on the airplane

Such a great few days

Every day she is adjusting and getting more confident of her surroundings, she is now exploring all around on her time, and clinging to me the rest of the time. She is really showing her fuinny personality, with lots of snuffling laughing, giggling, and the coy short lived smile. We have introduced her to some friends and negihbors and she has been a delight. The stroller is a big hit. And anyone who knows wher ewe live can believe that we actually used mosquito netting on our wal to the Parker River bridge tonight. She is sleeping and snuggling and allowing the boys moree time to play and interact with her before she'll crawl into me and want to come up, She is now enjoying her bath. She doesn't eat a lot of spoon fed foods, but prefers to feed herself. She is really not into the bottle, she only drinks formul when starving, and never has the sucking motion. She won't even reach for the bottle unless starved, and even then I have to cradle her and sort of of keep pushing the bottle in. She has enjoyed avocado, baked sweet potato, roasted mushrooms, tiny pieces of pizza and bagels with cream cheese. She does not like our yo baby yogurt, or cheese. She has also been eating boiled carrots that we have frozen, green beans, CHEERIOS, rice wheels, anything starchy, including the crust of bread...but not rice????

We have millions of photos, I just have been too busy enjoying her, the first few days of 2nd grade and kindergarten, and keeping up with the house that I haven't yet sat down and figured out how to get the photos and videos off the borrowed camera from Dottie- our just over a year Casio Exlim died last week, typical! More later, and of course a montage of photos....

High chair

Welcome Miss Bo!

Update 2...long

Sorry for not posting earlier, we were busy getting to know Bo and enjoying the glorious weather. Well, obvisouly we are home. She is a perfect joy. I will figure out how to load pictures a little later. I had meant to post from JFK as we waited to meet Wayne the greeter, but at 9pm on Friday night while we sat in a terrible airport restaurant I turned on my computer and just couldn't bring myself to type anything. Our Jetblue flight was a little delayed leaving Boston, but it got us to JFK with about 2 hours to spare. We found the spot where we were to meet the greeter, and then went back to the shopping/dining concourse. Kip bought himself a new diaper bag while we waited and we had a little bite eat. Unfortunatley the waitress forgot to put in anything but our shared appetizer order, but we survived. I checked with Northwest and her flight was scheduled to be in 33 minutes earlier! We got to the "spot" under the big orange question mark and met the other family K and P. We also met Wayne and Kevin our greeters. I ran to the restroom at about 10:30pm and I heard the flight announcement that the flight had landed. As I was running out of the ladies room I saw Ash, our car service driver. He took our luggage cart, and we went over to the domestic arrivals elevator to wait. We waited about 10 minutes, which seemed like forever, when the two escorts and the baby's in carriers came down the escalator. The whole thing was quite surreal. Bo cried as soon as she was placed in my arms, and continued to for about 45 minutes, all the way out to car, and up highway, it was a sob-filled gut wrenching cry. It'll be interesting to see the pictures and movie, it all happened so fast. The greeters took some photos with our cameras, because we were A LOT overwhelmed. Our escort asked for my email address to send me some pictures of Bo on the flight, I hope she follows through. Also, the other family had brought a friend with them that took a lot of video, he asked for our mailing address to send us a copy of the video. Kip held her as she cried, sobbed, & hiccuped until she fell asleep for about 2 hours. She finally took her bottle and enjoyed crunching on the rice crackers she came with. She has 8 teeth, 4 top, 4 bottom. The two on the bottom are still cutting through and making her miserable. We stopped to stretch our legs in northern CT and she awoke and cried again until I took her out for a little walk around the car. She drank the rest of her 200ml (about 7 oz) bottle in my arms and fell back asleep until we got pulled over by the MA state police. Yup, that is right, we got pulled over for driving with only the parking lights on. Apparently the driver forgot to put the lights on after our stop. How dreadful. Luckily we were 45 minutes from home and he let us go on our way. We stumbled into the house at 4:30am and Gammy was awake waiting to take pictures and meet Bo. She enjoyed some jarred carrots, more rice crackers and we gave her a quick tub because she was ripe. She didn't really sleep again until 6-7am. She ate more at 8 and we took her to her first Pediatrician's appt. Dr. S was thrilled with her growth, motor, and verbal development. She does have a little ear infection, so she was prescribed amoxicillin, tylenol & motrin. Since then she has eaten, slept, played. She loves her big brothers already, loves music and LOVES being held. We have been wearing her on a front and back pack. She is napping in her pack n play and nights in our bed, she likes to pat us for reassurance as she stirs. So far we have gotten good stretches of about 5 hours, up for food and play and then she'll go back to sleep. We are catching up on sleep and enjoying every minute as she adjusts. She is becoming more confident being put down and playing without being held. She loves to crawl, pull up on her knees from sitting, and if near any object, pull herself up to stand. She doesn't like to be on her back at all which makes giving her medicine and changing her diaper a gymnastics exercise. She giggles, laughs and babbles when she is happy. She went on her first outing yesterday and slept both ways on the carseat, a surprise since she has likely never seen one before. She likes the stroller only if we keep it moving. All for now.

Update 1

We have decided to have the car service drive us all the way home, so I am blogging from the CJ Trailways bus that is bringing us to the airport, who knew the bus would have wi-fi??? The whole experience feels surreal. I wish we had longer to pack, I have already forgotten the travel pillows and the baby sling carrier. I woke up at 4 in the morning with terrible butterflies in my stomach, not going into this with much sleep, great. I forgot we'd have to check a bag with the liquid formula, juice, baby food, etc. And by the way, what do you wear to pick up your child at the airport? A skirt, jeans, who knows? that stumped me as we were rushing out of the house. You'd think after waiting 4 months I'd have thought about it. More later, I don't want to get bus sick.

Change in plans

After thinking about it last night Kip and I have decided to forgo the Hertz rental car and have a car service drive us from JFK to Boston Logan. More later.

Pediatrician visit

We have scheduled a Pediatrician visit at 9am on Saturday, we'll be tired but happy to have her checked out, hoping to avoid an ER or emegency doc visit. The paperwork suggests that after the long flight and the dry germy airplane air that she may have a cold, or even possibly an ear infection. They have no immunity to "american" germs so they say to keep her home for a couple weeks as she is adjusting.

Part 3 of 3, comfort and adjusting

We have been given a lot of advice from both Jean, and Cecelia on how the babies adjust. As well we have done a lot of research on what happens in the baby's mind at 9 months old when she is thrown into a different culture, with different sights, smells and language. There is one escort per child, and travel time is typically 18 to 20 hours. Total time from foster home to our arms will probably be between 30 to 35 hours. We have specific instructions for in the airport: "NO CRYING, no tears (joy or otherwise)." This process is confusing and can be upsetting to the children, and babies can feel our nervousness and hear crying. Cecelia tells all new parents to "try to be calm, reassuring, warm, loving, secure, for these exhausted, frightened, confused children." Our faces, our language, our clothing is strange to these children. They suggest calm low voices. Once Bo is home with us, we will continue the attachment process we started when we first meet her at the airport. Love the Children recommends that we limit visitors and trips in crowds, as well as "holders" for the first two weeks or so. Bo will more quickly come to know us, our feel, our smell, and our voices if Kip and I are the ones primarily holding her during this early time. They recommend skin to skin contact and the use of a baby carrier. We can expect no real sleep patterns at first and Jean suggests carrying and walking with the baby. I have set up a pack n play in our bedroom, with the bassinet section installed. She may only want to sleep with us or on the floor at first, since that is customary. She says to keep an eye out for dehydration in the first few days, we have been told they are mostly on soy formula. We have set up the high chair and bought some baby cereal and jarred fruits and veggies. Due to the long travel time, they also suggest a pediatrician visit, we have one scheduled at 9am Saturday.

Part 2 of 3, travel logistics

We debated this topic quite a bit yesterday. Due to some of the suggested adjustment methods (see part 3) we originally had planned on making it a small welcome party for her on her homecoming day at JFK in NYC. We had hoped it would be Me, Kip, Henry, Holden and my mum, Gammy. Well after lots of thought we have decided that just the two of us are going to go. The flight gets in really late and there is no way to fly or train it back. Due to it being Labor Day weekend, the roads will be insane in and around NYC. So the short story is Kip and I will drive to Logan, fly down JetBlue at 5pm on Friday night into Terminal 6. Gammy will stay here with the boys. Kip and I will pick up a rental car, park closer to Terminal 4, grab dinner and meet the "greeter" Wayne under the big orange question mark at 10pm. We will then be given a large brown envelope with 3 things in it, 1) Bo's up to date medical card, including all her immunization records so they don't have to be repeated here 2) Her schedule as completed by her foster mum, including sleeping, eating, napping, comforts, bath, etc. They are fairly gernous with the information about the baby's routines. 3) A present from her foster mother which will include more pictures of her and her 1st birthday Hanbok. A hanbok is a traditional dress for them to wear on their first birthday to celebrate (more on that topic later) After we review the envleope we will wait on the plane. Since the plane is already in the US, she will have gone through the long customs process in Detroit, so she should be brought our pretty soon after the plane lands. Cecelia told us that there will be one other LTC baby on the flight with another escort. He is going to a family in PA. He is only 3 days younger thatn Bo. We will show ID, sign some forms, and get her to the rented infant seat in the Hertz as fast as we can. Then to avoid a hotel room and traffic we will head straight home, expecting a 4-5 hour drive. An all nighter.... It will be wonderful to arrive home though and introduce the baby to Gammy and the boys. We will be keeping the visitors to a minimum the first 5-15 days, more on that to follow.

Part 1 of 3, the bag

So here is what we are packing in her bag: 2 jammies (but they recommend not changing her immediately out of her travel clothes unless they are filthy, because the scent is familiar), pink cardigan, 2 bibs, 2 bottles, soy liquid formula and a can opener, apple and grape juice, pedialyte, assorted pacifiers(not sure about if she uses one), blanket, hats, burp cloth, baby tylenol and motrin drops, diapers, wipes, Baby Bjorn carrier, camera, film, batteries, cell phone, chargers, 2rattels, soft cloth book, board book. Anything we are missing?

The Call

She's coming home Friday Night- Northwest Flight 897 through Detroit arriving at JFK terminal 4 at 11:04pm. First I got a call on my cellphone from Jean, our social worker, at about 10:15am, she told me she spoke with Cecelia yesterday and that things were close. She advised me on what to pack her, how other families traveled to pick up their babies, and how to comfort and basically get through the first few weeks. Thirty minutes later Cecelia called on my cell phone, first asking about my Dad's health, and then providing flight info, and lots of moral support. She is such a professional. More on what to expect, what were are doing to prepare later, just wanted to get the post out as soon as possible.

No baby news...

We have no baby news today, but have been tending to a very sick Grandy last week who is suffering from pneumonia and a myriad of other complications. He seems to be on the upswing and should be moved from ICU after 8 days, to the medical care unit. The only good news is that we all got to visit with Aunt Lippy and Uncle Totus in Maine between meetings with the doctors. His wife Dottie is doing a great job keeping him strong.

Big Brother's are anxious...

Good news!

I got this email from the US Embassy this morning - "Greetings from Seoul, Thank you for your fax of Aug 8, 2008, concerning the immigrant visa (IV) case of Jeon, Bo Mee. I am pleased to inform you that Jeon, Bo Mee IV was issued on July 23, 2008, and was forwarded to the adoption service provider, Eastern Social Welfare Services, on the same day. Please contact Eastern for further information. I trust this information helpful to you. If I can be further assistance, please do not hesitate. Best regards"

Jean spoke with Kip last evening and said Bo has likely already had her pre-flight physical, now we are waiting on arranging an escort and flights! Soon I hope.

Isabel Dory

My Dad has commissioned a rowing boat, to be completed sometime at the end of the summer that he has named the "Isabel." We chose the paint color over the weekend and it is a beautiful boat. A 9 month old with a boat named after her, how spoiled already.

Fun and busy week last week, big SPSS 50th Anniversary party in Small Point on Saturday, trip to celebrate Pamela's 40th birthday yesterday. We opened a big package of baby girl stuff from Nana and Grampa yesterday, what a treat. I am still not believing that our baby's visa has been issued. I am hoping I can get confirmation this week. The sooner the better...I try not to get excited, but whenever the home phone rings M-F 9-5 I run to see if the caller id says Love the Children. I am being unrealistic to think we'll get the travel call before September 1st, but I cannot see why she isn't here yet! This wait is killing me.

S

Punchlist

The Punchlist is growing by the day- stuff to do around the house, stuff to do for the baby, people to see and visit with, Lake time, Beach time, Music Concerts to attend, Amusement and Water parks to go to. Three weeks until the end of summer, it is already cooler in the evenings and we have had a cold snap, it is starting to feel like Fall.

So Overdue

It has been a whirlwind- sorry for the delay in posting. The good news is that Cecelia called Korea yesterday on our behalf and all of Bo's paperwork has been completed and they are getting her ready to travel. They expect it could be as soon as 2 weeks, but I think it is more likely 3-6 weeks. All is a go though, nice to have the reassurance. I am not sure I really believe it yet, and won't unitl she is in my arms at the airport!
Camping was great, but it went by too fast. Kip brought a picture of Bo with us - we brought her to the lake, on the boat, to the pool. We bought her a little Danforth Bay shirt to wear next year. We have been reading the storybook Katie-Bo - An Adoption Story by Iris Fischer to the boys. They are pretty much fed up with the wait and ask every day "when will she be here!" We hope to have her home and settled before school starts, but who knows....

Happy 9 month birthday sweet girl

Happy 9 Month! Hoping to have you home for your 10 month....