Just a Blur!

December has been a busy, busy month for the B Family! I think our usual pace is more active and on-the-go than the average family--with the addition of the holidays and preparing for a trip to Ethiopia and the arrival of a new baby in the house, it's been downright crazy! We've been running on adrenaline with all of the fun, excitement, anticipation and activity. Upon our return home with Miss V, we've been encouraged to "cocoon" with our family and limit outings and high stimulation activities for 3-6 months to help make the transition easeir for her and to foster bonding and attachment. The concept sounded challenging at the start of our adoption education. Now, we're thinking we might just be too pooped to want to do anything other than hang out at home!

We did simplify some things this year. Whereas we usually go all-out with multiple themed trees and decorations inside and out, this year we left all of our boxes of Christmas decor stored away. We picked up a bunch of cheap white lights that we wouldn't mind throwing out with the tree (not environmentally conscious, I know, but my sanity is taking priority these days), set up the girls' craft table with construction paper, glitter, yarn, glue, crayons, markers and pipe cleaners and let them go to town making ornaments. As they've brought home Christmas-themed projects from school, we've hung them on the tree. It's turned into such a special tree--one of my favorite trees ever.

Even more out of character is that we opted not to send cards out this year. I usually spend months picking the perfect picture and trying to come up with a creative card that will stand out from the rest. Receiving cards from friends and loved ones is one of the highlights of the holidays for me! Even though we keep up with many of our friends and family through blogging Facebook, I have a special place in my heart for stationary, address labels and stamps--there's just nothing like receiving a thoughtful letter, note or pretty card in the mailbox. So, if you're usually on our Christmas/correspondence list and you're wondering what happened--you haven't been forgotten! And you will be receiving a special adoption announcement in a couple of months!

We also declined to attend several Christmas parties over the last week. There are a few that we look forward to every year and a couple of new ones that sounded like so much fun--but, it was important to us to make last week a family week since we will be missing our girls on Christmas Day!

Here are a few snapshots of some of the fun we did enjoy together this month:

We picked out the perfect tree and the girls had a ball decorating it. We visited Santa. Miss A requested a Barbie Horse and Miss M requested a stuffed zebra (Marty from Madagascar). They are so cute in that they only request one thing and are always genuinely surprised when Santa leaves a bunch of bonus toys around the tree. Miss M was a stroller/narrator and toy soldier in the Nutcracker

and an angel in her kindergarten class nativity!

Miss A was cute as a button in her preschool's Christmas program.

She was so excited about finally getting to be the one performing on a stage while Miss M sat in the audience! And we were so proud of Miss M when she reminded us that we'd need to pick up some flowers to give to her sister "after the show" and when, without prompting, she hugged Miss A afterward and told her what a great job she'd done.

And I celebrated another birthday.

It's been a fun month fun, and the best is yet to come! We'll be joining our families bright and early tomorrow for breakfast at Cracker Barrel before heading to the airport. Miss M said she "might miss us a little bit" while she and Miss A are having their own adventure with family. We'll be missing them a lot more than that and will be looking forward to coming home and easing into 2010 as a family of 5!

Please keep us in your prayers--traveling mercies for us, protection for our girls, and a smooth transition for Miss V.

Sunbathing and Massages Every Day! Partying All Night!

No, I'm not talking about some Hollywood diva. Just a day in the life of our little Miss V! We just received a pre-travel update from our agency. Check out our baby girl's schedule:

o 6-6:30 AM: Wakes up. This is followed by a feeding
o 6:30 AM: Bath
o 8 AM: Feeding
o 8--9 AM: Nap
o 9 -11:40 AM: Outside playing/laying in the sun, massage, etc.
o 11:40 AM: The babies go inside for a nap and feeding in the living room/nursery.
o 4:30 PM: Upstairs for a bath until 5:30 PM and pajamas.
o 6:30 PM: Feeding after bath and bedtime.
o 10-11 PM: Wake up and feeding, diaper change, etc.
o Wakes up 3-4 times per night for diaper changes and for feeding


Picturing those babies laying out in the sun and getting massages is just too cute! But waking up 3-4 times per night?!?! Lord have mercy, I better try to get some rest over the next couple of weeks! And 2 baths a day? I've always considered it an accomplishment if Miss M and Miss A both have one a day! As far as transitional homes go, Hannah's Hope is tops in terms of care. I'm so thankful that Miss V is getting so much attention and pampering while she waits for us.

The update also included this information:
HOW TO APPROACH CHILD BASED ON HIS OR HER PERSONALITY
You can pick her up and hold her, she has joyful personality. If she is stressed or tired, she sucks her thumb.

PERSONALITY
[Miss V] is a content baby. She is sweet spirited and adorable. She however, does not easily go to people she is not familiar with. So, we expect that she will have difficulty transitioning into her new family at first until she becomes familiar with you.

Bless her heart, I hate that she is not going to understand who we are and why we're disrupting her little life. She's suddenly going to be taken away by a strange looking couple that look different, smell different, talk different and care for her differently than any of her previous caregivers. We're prepared for her to be upset about the changes and grieve the loss of her routine and the special mothers she's grown attached to. We will love and comfort her through the process and do our best to meet her needs and help her to build trust in us, but we understand that healthy attachment and bonding is a process that may take time.

LIKES
Classical Music – baby lullabies before bed while being rocked.

We have a music player set up next to the glider in the nursery and a selection of classical lullabies ready for her enjoyment. Looking forward to listening to them as we rock our little Miss V to sleep!

We also received a few new pictures of our sweet baby girl. She's grown and changed so much in the last few months! She's chunked up and is just as cute as a bug's ear! Another group of families is leaving this week to pick up their children--I'm crossing my fingers that they'll get to hang out with our girl a little bit and return with even more details about her daily life and personality--and maybe even a few more pictures to help tide me over until we leave (2 weeks from today!).

Travel Dates!

We received our travel dates Friday afternoon!

We are required to be in Addis Ababa by December 26th and we have an appointment at the Embassy on December 28th. I was really expecting to not be able to travel until January, and it made me so sad to think of our baby girl spending her first Christmas in an orphanage. Turns out, just like Santa Claus, we will be flying around the world on Christmas Eve! Perhaps we'll be able to wave at him through our plane window! Santa will be busy delivering presents, and we will be on our way to receive our most precious Christmas gift of all--Miss V will be placed in OUR ARMS!

We just booked our flights today! We're scheduled to fly out of Tampa on Christmas Eve, we will spend a week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, leave for home on New Year's Eve, and arrive back home on New Year's Day! What a memorable Christmas it's going to be!

Both Hus-B's mama and mine have been quietly lobbying for months to convince us to leave the girls with them; the volume was turned up when it was announced that we'd be traveling over Christmas and cousins, aunts and uncles joined in.

We had few reservations about taking the girls along. Even though our agency discourages it, it was important enough to us that we negotiated the option early on in the adoption process. Hus-B and I have traveled abroad extensively and have dealt with enough airports, train stations, public transportation, missed connections, lost luggage, language and currency differences, etc.. that it’s just not stressful to us. And our girls are super little travelers—they’ve always done well with long plane flights, sleeping away from home, schedule and time changes, new food, etc… It is always a joy for us to have them along. Miss M’s spent so much time flying around Addis Ababa on Google Earth in the last few months that we've actually been counting on her to be our in-country navigator!

On the other hand, our extended family has many fun activities and outings planned over the last couple of weeks of December, and the girls really have been looking forward to participating in everything and spending time with some of their cousins that they only get to see a few times a year. We’ve traveled a bit without the girls and they do regular grandparent sleepovers, so we don’t have any worries about them staying with family. It will be easy for family to care for them during a time when work schedules are flexible, most of our visiting family will be here on vacation and the girls don’t have school or extra-curricular activities going on.

After much discussion over the weekend, Hus-B and I were still not sure what to do. Miss M is pretty mature for a just-turned-6 year old, and Miss A can always be counted on to voice her own little opinion, so Sunday evening we called a family meeting, presented the girls with their options and let them make the call. They opted to stay home. In making her decision, Miss M was sure to confirm that she would not be missing opportunities to see giraffes or zebras in Africa. In the end, cousins, playing with Gabby's adorable new dog and trips to Sea World and Disney's Animal Kingdom (where Miss M WILL get to see giraffes and zebras) definitely sweetened the stay-home deal from the girls’ perspective. They will receive tons of attention and their days will be so full of fun that we may not even be missed! And Miss V will get mommy and daddy all to herself for a week of bonding.

If the girls were joining us, we were planning to stop on the way to Ethiopia and spend a couple of days at a resort in Dubai going to the beach, riding camels, taking a desert safari out in the sand dunes and adjusting our body clocks. With family starting to arrive next weekend and with the girls not joining us, Hus-B and I will just be doing one overnight in Dubai to avoid waiting in the concourse during a 13 hour layover (we slept in enough airports back in our backpacking days!), and will limit our trip to travel time and the required week in Ethiopia.

Although we were excited about including the girls on the journey to bring home their sister, we have already been planning to take periodic family trips back to Ethiopia as Miss V grows up--so this will likely not be Miss M and Miss A’s only opportunity to see the country their sister is from (plus, those trips would have the benefit of more flexibility in scheduling and more time to tour the country). The week we will be spending in Addis Ababa this month will not be nearly enough time to really get to know the country.

It’s really happening, y’all! And REALLY SOON! We will be busy, busy, busy the next couple of weeks—not only with the typical shopping, baking, gift exchanging, programs, parades and parties that are jotted in virtually every square of our December calendar, but also with wrapping up and delegating work matters (I’ll be out of the office for at least 3 months)--and last but not least--PACKING! Whoo hoo!

A Miss V Update!

Over Thanksgiving weekend, our agency's first travel group since the court closure returned home from picking up their sweet children. Hop on over to Shauna's, Theresa's, Mitzi's, and Audrey's blogs and read all about them meeting their sweet babies. Have some tissues handy!

Earlier this week, we received the following in an e-mail from one of the travelers, whose baby happened to be roommates with our Miss V:

She is super cute... She looks great... she makes eye contact, can sit up on her own and voices her opinion! ha. She didn't like to not be entertained it seemed, so if someone put her in the bumbo seat and walked away, she squawked to say, come back and entertain me! ha. As a result, she gets held and picked up quite a bit... She is drooling.. and has a bit of a cold (they all have a cold... impossible not to pass it on to each other...) but, she seemed really happy and content.

Oh my goodness, y'all! I'm sure Miss A and Miss M will provide lots of entertainment for demanding little Miss V! I like that she's not too timid to assert her needs--a little bit sassy and spunky--she's going to fit right in with her confident and too-independent-for-their-britches sisters! Oh, I cannot wait to eat that sweet little girl right up!

I also got a picture of her little bed at Hannah's Hope! It's the one in the corner. Looks like someone's been playing with the curtains and peeking over her crib bumper. She's getting bigger. She's exploring. She's curious. I just love it!

We're still waiting on the court to issue its official decree so we may proceed to an Embassy appointment. There's a chance we could travel over Christmas, but early January might be more likely.