No news yet and we don't expect to hear anything until we receive our LOA - hopefully in February. I still hope to travel in March. Only time (and the CCAA) will tell. We will keep you posted!
When I was pregnant with my son 14 years ago, I was more worried about getting through my last few college courses, graduating and finding a job than decorating a nursery. Good thing - because there was no nursery to decorate! We lived in a tiny one bedroom on-campus apartment and Ben spent his first 2 months in a bassinet at our bedside while my husband went on job interviews looking to support his new family. There was barely any room to walk around the bed to get to the bathroom and the changing table was smushed between our study desk and the bathroom.
As I recall, when we moved into our first 'real' 2 bedroom apartment in Atlanta that summer, we figured out that we were missing all the screws/hardware for our hand-me-down crib and it took a while to order the missing parts from the manufacturer and finally get the crib put together. We didn't have any living room furniture either, until Uncle Mike and Aunt Susan generously bought us some (our very first NEW furniture - they were the source for the crib and changing table/dresser, too - what would we have done without you guys????) Our old college boss had given us our bedroom furniture and my mother had purchased a rocking glider for the nursery and some 'pre-owned' bookcases and coffee/end tables from my sister's friends. We pretty much came with the clothes on our back and a newborn baby, and everything else was donated to us and transported in a U-Haul! Ahhh - to be twenty-something and in love! :0)
It is a slightly different story this time! Still in love, but we are no longer twenty-somthings, (quickly running out of thirty-something), we certainly can't use a U-Haul to move our household any longer. I am not a student or 'working outside the home' any more. That is PC-speak for "I am a stay at home Mom" (and wife, and daughter-in-law, and the CEO of my household). My 'newborn baby' will soon be 14 years old and is taller than I am now. We have a lovely home in the 'burbs and my husband is an executive (of an actual corporation, not just a household, like me)! Wow - what a difference 14 years can make! Now that the dust has settled from our move to VA and from having my mother-in-laws' household join ours, and now that our son's bar mitzvah is a beautiful memory and the great adoption paperchase is behind us, I am turning the house absolutely upside down in anticipation of the arrival of our beautiful daughter! I am having a blast!
The weather was freakishly springlike a couple of weeks ago and I tried to take advantage of that to clean out our garage. I am glad I did, since we have had snow/ice on the ground for a full week now. I have already had one large charity donation pick-up. The basement is next. It is amazing how much junk you can accumulate in 14 years when you never throw anything away, and then combine that with the junk your mother-in-law has accumulated for...more years than I will tattle on here...and you get an idea of what our basement storage room and garage look like. I am determined to reorganize, donate, recycle and pitch out until it is all cleaned up and organized. No closet, cupboard or drawer is safe from me right now. I have been shopping for all things pink - bedding and more clothes - and more hairbows. I have tested out the new child carrier on our dog (at 24 pounds, he was a much better test model than my 115+ pound son). I am pleased to report that I carried him around with ease - including up and down stairs - and that he actually started to doze off after about 10 minutes. He will probably be jealous when he sees me wearing Eliana around the house! Don't worry - we have pictures of this.
Confession time. Somehow, I have also put on what I am calling "pregnancy weight" during the past several months. This is an unwelcome side effect of the adoption process. Those of you who have known me a long time know that my weight has been a struggle since the "Freshman 15" in college. Genetics, I am afraid. I am still down 35+ pounds from my (non-pregnancy) all-time high. In truth, that would be the highest point I am aware of since I avoided scales and cameras like the plague for about 10 years, but I am up almost 15+ pounds in the past 8 months since Ben's bar mitzvah. Like I said - pregnancy weight! Back on Weight Watchers plan I shall go and see how much I can drop before our trip to China. Clearly my weight is something I will have to proactively manage for the rest of my life. (I must repeat the mantra - "It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle" Maybe I will get the message this time around). Yes, I realize that I am publishing this info publically for the world to see, but I find that having more people know that I am trying to lose weight helps keep me motivated. Accountability and personal responsibilty for our actions - it's a wonderful thing! I haven't had to break out the stretchy pants yet (they are going in the donation bin), but I can't fit into all the cute 'skinny clothes' I bought last year, either, which is really a bummer. Those WILL NOT be going in the donation bin. Wearing too tight pants is also a good motivator!
ROOM UPDATES: I hope to get Eliana's room painted before my mother arrives for a visit a week from today. There is a slideshow of the room in progress below. Isn't Eliana's new crib pretty? The drop side can come off to make a daybed in case she is already a climber. We will have to wait and see. The twin/daybed and bookshelves were mine as a little girl. I still need to paint the room and probably repaint the shelves, put up new window treatments (instead of the roller blinds that are falling apart), hang the growth chart, frame the Chinese silk embroidery (instead of leaving it tacked to the wall in it's celophane wrapper like it is now) and more securely affix the flying butterflies to the ceiling and make sure they are out of reach from the crib and when 30" tall people stand on the bed. Don't worry - that floor lamp isn't staying in there in reach of the crib - I just need it for lighting while I am working. Eventually we need to get an electrician to install overhead lights in all of our bedrooms. I went to the Pottery Barn Outlet and did some damage at their 40% off everything sale. Eliana now has the sweetest little kitchen (sink, stove, fridge) from Pottery Barn Kids and a tea set (of the plastic/unbreakable variety - from Walmart). A princess tea party is definitely on the horizon this summer. Butterflies are in flight in her room and we have a pretty new growth chart to mark her progress.
My cousin Kelli is making a quilt for Eliana. She does such a beautiful job! Ben still has his baby quilt which she made for him 14 years ago and it has held up through being his constant companion and uncountable washings. I picked 2 fabrics I thought were really sweet and Kelli is working the quilt design around those and incorporating Chinese characters into the quilt stitching. I can't wait to see it!
I have started receiving some little things I custom ordered (from Ebay & Etsy) for Eliana and will post pictures as they arrive. I ordered a little capri pants outfit for Eliana out of the same 2 fabrics as her quilt. I will have to take a picture of her in her outfit with her new quilt (she can be camoflauged when she lays down on it)! Here is the matching outfit:
Isn't it sweet? It was made by Jennifer at Fly Away Home clothing. She has adopted one daughter from China and in the process of adopting her second child from China. She makes these beautiful clothes as a way to raise some money towards their adoption expenses. Her prices are very reasonable and they are great quality (serged seams, etc). I also bought this ladybug jumper dress from Jennifer for Eliana to grow into (it is a 2T):
Look at the piping and ladybug button detail on the back. And this dress was on sale for under $20 - what a bargain for a handmade item!
Here is a link to Jennifer's store - Fly Away Home. Another adoptive mom made the hairbow - Ladybug Bowtique - it has the exact same ladybug button on it as the dress (that was a coincidence)!
Speaking of hairbows...Eliana has lots. You may have noticed in her most recent photos that she is sporting a closely cropped "Julius Caesar" style hair-do. I am hoping that there won't be anymore head shavings before we arrive to pick her up, but there probably will be. I ordered some stretchy headbands that you can clip hair bows to, in case there isn't enough hair there to clip. I can't have anyone mistaking our new daughter for a boy! To organize all of her hair do-das, I ordered this customized hair bow holder to hang on her wall. It was shipped today and I can't wait to hang it up! You clip the hair bows to the ribbons that hang down from the wall plaque. I ordered this from (you guessed it) another adoptive mother. Her shop is on Etsy, which is one of my new obsessions - a place to buy handmade items, sort of like Ebay, but not auction style. Here is a picture of the bow holder and a link the the shop, My Little Cuddle Bugs:
It is a little hard to tell in the picture, but the name plaque is a cream color to match the background on her butterfly duvet and her quilt, and the ribbons are bright pink (they look red in the photo). I think it is so cute! And also very reasonably priced for all that hand painting - again, under $20.
Did I forget to mention that I sent off 2 care packages? The package for Eliana contained 2 very practical outfits (as opposed to what is waiting for her at home), a disposable camera for her caretakers to take photos for us, a photo album of our family for her to see our faces and hopefully get used to her daddy's beard, a ladybug ball to share with her friends, a small soft bunny 'lovey' and a small teddy bear to keep her company and to get used to our smell (I washed them in our laundry soap and fabric softener). I have duplicates of the ball and teddy bear that I will bring with us to China - just in case they don't send them with her, at least we will have something with us that looks & smells familiar. The second package contained items for her orphanage - a large inflatable physical therapy ball and air pump, and some special baby bottles for children with cleft palate. I had inquired through Half the Sky Foundation as to what her orphanage needed, and that is what they asked for. Half the Sky trains the caretakers at Eliana's orphanage and provides some other support.
Well, THAT was a long post! But I had a lot of catching up to do. I will post more room photos when it is finished.
Eliana is 18 months old today!
Eliana - December 2007
