It's now the end of September and our biggest news by far is that we went to court this morning to witness the judge finalizing Alexander's adoption. For people who aren't really familiar with the Korean adoption process, I'll briefly summarize things. When you adopt a baby from Korea, you actually bring the baby to Canada as a Permanent Resident through the same immigration process you'd use if you wanted to sponsor a family member from another country. Once the baby is here, your social worker does follow-up reports 2, 4 and 6 months following placement and it's only after that period has finished that you actually go to court for things to be finalized. Some families have to wait a long time for a court date, and some have their adoption orders signed by the judge without even appearing in court, but since we live in such a small community, the judge fit us into her schedule on very short notice and also allowed us to take some pictures!
We've put some photos in a new family photo album and included some pictures from this morning's court proceedings as well as some other pictures from the past month.
We saw my family to celebrate Anne's birthday in Toronto at Benihana and then spent the next day with our extended family celebrating two cousins' birthdays.
I've been doing a fair bit of scrapbooking if and when I have time, so it'll be nice to finish Alex's adoption scrapbook now that everything's finalized (it'll be the last page in the scrapbook and then I'm done!).
Another fun thing we were able to do was to celebrate Chu'sok, which is the Korean Thanksgiving/Autumn Moon Festival. This festival is based on the lunar calendar and is celebrated in different ways in countries like China and Vietnam. We integrated some Korean traditions by going to the gravesites of my family here in Cambridge and paying our respects. We then went and joined a group of other families with children adopted from China (and a few from Korea) and had a fun time playing in a park and sharing a pizza dinner before the full moon came up.
The next day, we got to spend a wonderful but bittersweet afternoon with Chris' family as we scattered his parents' ashes. It was great to see all of them, and we shared a lot of funny and sad stories about Chris' parents, so it was a really special day for all of us.
We had a lot of fun last weekend going to our monthly Seoul-Mates playgroup where a bunch of families who've adopted from Korea get together at different places for the kids to play and the parents to get caught up on things. It was so amazing to see all of the new babies, and also see how much the other ones have grown since we last saw them a couple of months ago. We included a couple of pictures of that gathering in the most recent family photo album here on the site.
We also go to share in the joyous homecoming of the newest son of friends of ours. They already have a little boy (another Alex) from Korea and this is their second adoption. Their son Derek came home on Wednesday night with two other beautiful babies so it was lots of fun at the airport - everyone was full of smiles and laughter and tears of joy and it was so nice to be able to share that special moment with our friends as they were there for Alex's homecoming as well as so much of our adoption journey.
We'll be sure to post more sometime soon as we've got lots of things planned this month with Alex's first Canadian Thanksgiving and his first Halloween!
Friday, September 30, 2005
Sunday, September 4, 2005
The End of Summer *sobs*
It's hard to believe that it's already September. The summer just flew by, but it certainly is nice to have some cooler nights as well as days that don't make you feel like you're going to melt.
We've had a wonderful month with Alex. He's trying to say lots of new words, but mostly he's learning new sounds. He understands EVERYTHING we say and is great at following instructions, and he's obviously trying to communicate with us more and more as he gets older.
Over the past few weeks, we've had lots of fun doing different things. We began to take Alex more regularly to a local playgroup and he's having lots of fun there, but wasn't ready at first to be left with the caregivers, so I've been staying in the room with him so he gets more comfortable with things. He's probably ready now for me to drop him off and go participate in other activities in the centre (you drop the kids off in their playrooms, but have to stay on-site in case you're needed), but we're waiting until the re-open the playgroups in a week or so before we take that step.
Another big highlight in August was the annual Korean Culture Camp that is run by the Korean Canadian Children's Association. This annual three-day event takes place north of Toronto and is an amazing way for adoptive families to get together and learn a bit more about Korean culture and for the kids to play together. Unfortunately, Alex had a fever from two vaccinations he'd had two days before the camp, plus he had two teeth break through that very day, so he was simply not himself. We went for a few hours, but when his fever came back and he was obviously not feeling great, we went home early and he had a really rough afternoon and night from the teething pain. Alex now has 7 teeth, but I'm sure lots more will be coming through soon. It must have been hard on him to go from having only four teeth, to having three teeth come through almost all at the same time.
On the day after Culture Camp, we went to Chris' company picnic and had such a good time there. It was wonderful to see all of his co-workers and their families and all of the kids seemed to have a great time.
The next day (August 22 - Our "Threshold Day") was a very special one for us as it marked the day that Alex had spent more of his life with us than without us, so we met Chris for lunch and celebrated with a Korean meal at a local restaurant. Everyone in the restaurant fussed over Alex and he flirted a lot with people and stuffed himself with bulgogi and rice.
Another fun time was when we got to spend some time with my sister, Kathy and her daughter, Sarah at the African Lion Safari. Alex and Sarah had lots of fun, and the parents did too.
With the cooler weather, we've been going more often to the park at the end of our street, and Alex has such a good time there. He seems to hate the swings, but he loves the slides and digging around in things, and he's also discovered the joys of running down hills.
Well, that's it for now. We'll be sure to post more pictures in the coming weeks and keep this site updated as often as possible.
We've had a wonderful month with Alex. He's trying to say lots of new words, but mostly he's learning new sounds. He understands EVERYTHING we say and is great at following instructions, and he's obviously trying to communicate with us more and more as he gets older.
Over the past few weeks, we've had lots of fun doing different things. We began to take Alex more regularly to a local playgroup and he's having lots of fun there, but wasn't ready at first to be left with the caregivers, so I've been staying in the room with him so he gets more comfortable with things. He's probably ready now for me to drop him off and go participate in other activities in the centre (you drop the kids off in their playrooms, but have to stay on-site in case you're needed), but we're waiting until the re-open the playgroups in a week or so before we take that step.
Another big highlight in August was the annual Korean Culture Camp that is run by the Korean Canadian Children's Association. This annual three-day event takes place north of Toronto and is an amazing way for adoptive families to get together and learn a bit more about Korean culture and for the kids to play together. Unfortunately, Alex had a fever from two vaccinations he'd had two days before the camp, plus he had two teeth break through that very day, so he was simply not himself. We went for a few hours, but when his fever came back and he was obviously not feeling great, we went home early and he had a really rough afternoon and night from the teething pain. Alex now has 7 teeth, but I'm sure lots more will be coming through soon. It must have been hard on him to go from having only four teeth, to having three teeth come through almost all at the same time.
On the day after Culture Camp, we went to Chris' company picnic and had such a good time there. It was wonderful to see all of his co-workers and their families and all of the kids seemed to have a great time.
The next day (August 22 - Our "Threshold Day") was a very special one for us as it marked the day that Alex had spent more of his life with us than without us, so we met Chris for lunch and celebrated with a Korean meal at a local restaurant. Everyone in the restaurant fussed over Alex and he flirted a lot with people and stuffed himself with bulgogi and rice.
Another fun time was when we got to spend some time with my sister, Kathy and her daughter, Sarah at the African Lion Safari. Alex and Sarah had lots of fun, and the parents did too.
With the cooler weather, we've been going more often to the park at the end of our street, and Alex has such a good time there. He seems to hate the swings, but he loves the slides and digging around in things, and he's also discovered the joys of running down hills.
Well, that's it for now. We'll be sure to post more pictures in the coming weeks and keep this site updated as often as possible.
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