Well, I can only say I hope our parenting skills are better than our blogging ones. This blog has sat idle for a year and a half. And what a year and a half it's been. Bad, bad bloggers!
When Wade posted the last update below on Jan. 4, 2009, our beloved Shelby Doggs was still alive (but I was on the verge of one of the worst weeks of my life), his mother was still alive, Stacey was our social worker, we still resided in a townhouse in South Brunswick, and, oh yeah, we didn't have a son in Korea! I also think I was 20lbs thinner, but let's not get into that. Now sadly Shelby and Bette are no longer with us, but Chloe Doggs is; we are single-family-detached-homeowners in lovely and scenic OBNJ; Social Worker Stacey left our agency and put us in the good hands of Social Worker Lisa; and Sean Seok-min Olsson is with his foster family in Seoul waiting for us to travel to get him. I'm torn between back-filling and back-dating the information to keep a better record, or just blurting it all out here and now...
Well, if you've stumbled upon this blog, and while reading this entry, you've noticed that there are quite a lot of entries between June 30, 2010 and January 4, 2009, you'll know that I've simply gone in and back-filled. Or, maybe I'll just delete this entry, and you'll be none the wiser about what horrible bloggers we actually are. :)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Painting Sean's Room
My awesome sisters bought me the bedding set we picked out for Sean's room, and I used it to match paints. (I really hope this kid likes dogs. And I don't mean, you know, for dinner.) The set came with a border though, so I thought we shouldn't have to settle on a single color. I measured as best as I could on the bumpy walls that have probably seen about 20 coats of paint over the last 40 years and using the laser level, sectioned off the walls about midway between. Painting the ceiling sucked, but then it always does. Then it was time to start on the walls. Light green went on top:
Then the dark blue went on the bottom:
And the we added the border:
I'll take more pics when the furniture is in and everything is all set up.
Then the dark blue went on the bottom:
And the we added the border:
I'll take more pics when the furniture is in and everything is all set up.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The Illicit Package
It's weird knowing that your child is somewhere very, very far away and even though you haven't met them yet, there is a very strong need to somehow try to connect with them. From the message board groups we'd been on, and even in the classes we had to attend, we were told that it was quite normal for parents to send a small package of goodies overseas to their child.
After the acceptance paperwork was taken care of, I contacted the staff at our agency and asked for the address and any information they could give me with regards to sending the package. They pretty much flat out told us not to send anything. I won't quote directly from the correspondence, but the gist of it was that they can't guarantee the package would even get to the correct child, and that the workers in their Seoul office have much better things to do than to hand-deliver hundreds of care packages to children who have shown up at the offices for the well baby visits with their foster moms.
We were a little shocked and surprised. I had spent quite a long time working on a photo book to send. I included pictures of the immediate family with the words for each family member printed below the photos in Hangul and their first names in English. (You can view the whole book here.) I figured I'd make a few copies of the book, send one over and hope for the best, and then bring one with us when we traveled (and also have one at home in case something happened to the first two). Now we were being told not to send anything? Because they couldn't guarantee that he would get it, or return home with it? Who cares!!? Don't they understand that we had to at least try!?
Someone nameless, and off record, basically told us to just go ahead and send a small package anyway. But do so knowing it may never get to him. We bought a small stuffed dog, two pairs of pajamas with dogs on them, and a Rutgers University onesie. I stuffed all this into a gallon zippie, got the address of the Seoul office from a nice person on a message board (thanks again!!) and sent it on its way. Here is what everything looked like before I crammed it into the plastic bag:
We knew it probably wouldn't make it in time for this month's well baby checkup, so we are setting our sites on the one for early July. Keep your fingers crossed for us that he gets it!
After the acceptance paperwork was taken care of, I contacted the staff at our agency and asked for the address and any information they could give me with regards to sending the package. They pretty much flat out told us not to send anything. I won't quote directly from the correspondence, but the gist of it was that they can't guarantee the package would even get to the correct child, and that the workers in their Seoul office have much better things to do than to hand-deliver hundreds of care packages to children who have shown up at the offices for the well baby visits with their foster moms.
We were a little shocked and surprised. I had spent quite a long time working on a photo book to send. I included pictures of the immediate family with the words for each family member printed below the photos in Hangul and their first names in English. (You can view the whole book here.) I figured I'd make a few copies of the book, send one over and hope for the best, and then bring one with us when we traveled (and also have one at home in case something happened to the first two). Now we were being told not to send anything? Because they couldn't guarantee that he would get it, or return home with it? Who cares!!? Don't they understand that we had to at least try!?
Someone nameless, and off record, basically told us to just go ahead and send a small package anyway. But do so knowing it may never get to him. We bought a small stuffed dog, two pairs of pajamas with dogs on them, and a Rutgers University onesie. I stuffed all this into a gallon zippie, got the address of the Seoul office from a nice person on a message board (thanks again!!) and sent it on its way. Here is what everything looked like before I crammed it into the plastic bag:
We knew it probably wouldn't make it in time for this month's well baby checkup, so we are setting our sites on the one for early July. Keep your fingers crossed for us that he gets it!
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