Is It Spring Yet?

It seems like it’s been such a very long time since I last posted some pictures and did a journal entry. We’ve had a lot of fun with Alex, but we’ve also been struck by quite a few bugs and viruses.

Both Chris and I celebrated our 40th birthdays since my last entry, and Kathy and Jenny organized a party for both of us and our cousin, Patti (who was also celebrating her birthday). The party was tons of fun and it was great to see lots of family there. Chris’ cousin, Steve and his wife, Elaine, were able to come to the party and almost everyone from my mom’s side was able to make it as well. Alex had tons of fun and he was very social and outgoing.

Within a day or two of the party, Alex got hit with a bad cold/cough bug, and Chris ended up coming down with it soon after. Taking care of one sick male is hard enough – taking care of two was an adventure, but they both started to feel better within a few days... just in time for me to start feeling under the weather. Unfortunately, my cough hit really hard and I ended up at an emerg clinic being hooked up to yucky things to help me breath, and after a few hours (and threats of getting me admitted to the hospital if things didn’t improve *yikes*), I was sent home with a bagful of meds. It took me longer to feel better, but within a week I was back on my feet and was able to breathe again.

It seems like it was only a few days later that Alex woke up in the middle of the night with the stomach flu. He was up most of that night, and almost exactly 48 hours later, both Chris and I woke up within 15 minutes of one another with the same bad stomach flu. Unfortunately, young kids seem to bounce back quicker than adults do, so both Chris and I felt utterly wrecked for a day or so.

We got past that fun little bout of the flu only to have Alex cut two teeth the next week, so he wasn’t always sleeping well, and he had a runny nose and a fever on and off. Once the teeth were in, he seemed much more settled, but he then came down with yet another cold and very mild cough, so once again he and I weren’t able to get out to our normal playgroup activities.

In the midst of all of these bugs and germs, I did manage to get away with a girlfriend of mine for a scrapbooking weekend. Chris had bought me the weekend as a gift for our anniversary (should I worry that Chris’ anniversary gift was to send me away for three days???), and my friend and I had a great time with about 45 other women at the resort. We had lots of fun, did lots of scrapbooking and enjoyed some great food.

Another fun thing we were able to do was to host our Korean playgroup, Seoul-Mates, earlier in March. Each family takes turns arranging a place to go and organizing all of the details, and we’d volunteered to organize the one for March. We booked a playroom at our local Early Years Centre, and the staff and manager of the centre were simply wonderful! We had about 12 families join us and the kids all had a great time.

My biggest stressor this past month was an issue with my leased car. To make a long story short... the dealership knew I wasn’t keen on leasing from them again as I was miffed with some of the things that they’d done (or not done) over the course of my lease. I brought my car in for the lease-end inspection and was told they’d charge me $200 for a couple of scratches they considered “excessive” but if I didn’t buy/lease another car from them, they’d charge me over $500! After countless phone calls, letters, faxes, etc. to Mazda Canada and Mazda Credit in an effort to get permission to return my car to an alternate dealership, the net result was that I still had to return the car to this problematic dealership, plus they’d been told about my complaints. So... when we took the car in to return it, the charges they wanted us to pay were now over $2000! We had to go back to Mazda Canada and Mazda Credit, and the end result was that they sent out an independent inspector who assessed our car as having no excessive damage, so we were able to return the car without having to pay anything.

Needless to say, we didn’t buy another Mazda! I ended up getting a great deal on a new Ford Fusion and I’ve had it for a few weeks now and I love it.

Our other big news for this month is that we’ve decided to enroll Alex in daycare on a part-time basis. My work is getting busy enough that it’s hard for me to do the work while Alex is napping, or in the evenings, so we’ve found a place that will take him for two partial days a week. It’s a heart wrenching decision to make, and I’m sure it’ll be hard when we take him for his first day in April, but we are confident the place will provide amazing care and we both think he’ll actually love it there as they do so many different activities. I’ll be taking Alex for a few short visits to the centre to get him used to the caregiver and other kids, but it’ll still be a tear-filled day (for me at least) when we actually drop him off to be on his own.

We’re off to Kingston this weekend to visit with Alex’s grandparents, so I will be sure to take tons of pictures and post them when I can.

January News

We've had such a fun month with Alex. We've been able to spend a fair bit of time with family, while also balancing Alex's schedule, Chris' hectic work schedule and Julie working a bit more here and there.

Grandma and Grandpa came out to Cambridge for a visit and were able to spend a few hours with us going out to lunch and then coming back to play with Alex. Not only have his toys taken over our family room on the main floor, but we also have some amazing and much bigger toys in our basement rec. room - so Chris likes to call the basement "Zanderworld" in honour of the fun zone we've created down there. He's got a big train table, a small inflatable tent with balls in it and a climbing toy, so there's lots to keep him busy.

Perhaps our biggest event was celebrating the one-year anniversary of Alex's homecoming. We got together with Julie's sisters, brother-in-law and nieces at a lovely Korean restaurant in Little Korea (located in Toronto). Everyone enjoyed the Bulgogi, Kalbi and seafood (well... Chris, Steve, Jennifer and Sarah enjoyed the seafood). It was all cooked at our table and was a delicious treat. We were also able to get together with Chris' sister and her family for a celebratory dinner at a restaurant in Cambridge and we all had a wonderful time there too.

Julie continues to take Alex to playgroup at least once a week, and has also registered him in a reading/music/craft program at our local library. Alex has a ball at these events and it's a great opportunity to meet other people from Cambridge.

Julie is still scrapbooking when she can and is eagerly awaiting a weekend away with some friends to a scrapbooking weekend at a resort in Ontario.

Chris has been away a little bit lately with some overnight business trips to meet with clients in Windsor and Fort Erie (mostly equine vets) and will be again in the coming weeks with two big veterinary conferences in Toronto.

This past weekend was pretty calm, but we did get down to Oakville for a wonderful visit with Chris' cousin, Steve and his wife, Elaine. Alex warmed up pretty quickly and was soon flirting shamelessly with them (when he wasn't sampling the snacks on the table).

We hope you like the pictures in the latest family album and we'll be sure to post more at some point.

Our First Christmas and New Years

It's hard to believe that a new year has already started. In less than 2 weeks, we'll be celebrating the anniversary of Alex's homecoming (January 15) and much of this past year seems like it's a blur now.

We had a pretty busy December with getting ready for the holidays and some fun social events.

We got our Christmas lights up early, but didn't get the inside decorations and tree up until later in the month. My first effort at tackling a holiday task was to bake 10 dozen cookies for a cookie swap at the playgroup I take Alex to. I had it all organized and planned and was using a great recipe that made wonderful, soft sugar cookies in a spiral pattern.

Unfortunately, Chris accidentally put my cookie magazine away with his equine magazines and so I had to frantically find another recipe... and even more unfortunately, the cookies were utter cr*p. Sugar cookies are usually soft, sweet and melt in your mouth... not these cookies. Not only didn't they look all that great, but they were pretty darned tough. I just hope that the women at playgroup will forgive me for baking such little delicacies that should only have been used for paperweights or perhaps for propping up wobbly tables in restaurants.

Once I recovered from that debacle, we focused more on the holidays and shopping, shopping, shopping. We had fun putting up the Christmas tree (topped by an angel made for me years ago by my friend, Moe) and Alex was quite taken with a little decoration I got a few years ago that plays Jingle Bells when you squeeze the snowman's hand (pictures in the latest album).

We quickly learned that wrapping presents was much easier without a toddler tearing up paper and unwrapping things as we wrapped them, so most of our wrapping was done after Alex was asleep in bed.

For the holidays, we went to spend Christmas Eve with Chris' sister, Karen and her family in London. Alex loved spending time with his cousins, Amanda and Sarah and he flirted non-stop with his Aunt Karen and Uncle Lew. After a lovely afternoon/evening and a great dinner with the family, we drove to Toronto and tried in vain to get Alex to sleep. We finally did get him settled and then got organized for Santa's imminent arrival.

Earlier in the evening, we'd put out the cookies for Santa and the carrots for the reindeers. We'd all gone to a pottery place to decorate plates for Santa, and Alex did one as well so we used that on Christmas Eve and hopefully we'll keep it forever and use it every year.

Christmas morning was spent at Kathy's in Toronto with the whole family and we ended up staying overnight rather than drive home. Our plans all ended up changing, and the family all ended up in Kingston for a couple of days after Boxing Day, so overall it was a very relaxing holiday and we were home on the 28th.

We had a very quiet New Year's and stayed up watching a movie and then "jumped" into the New Year before going up and wishing a sleeping Alex a Happy New Year.

Things are now back to our normal routines with Chris back at work after having had a bit of time off, and Alex and I will be back at playgroup when their programs restart next week. I've also signed him up for a toddler storytime at our local library, so that should be a lot of fun.

Alex is still a delightful little guy. Other than a bit of a bug that we all had at the beginning of December, he's been very happy and healthy. He's into EVERYTHING now and is a great eater and sleeper. He's trying to say more words all the time and we can usually understand what he wants.

I've put a bunch of new pictures into a Christmas album in case you want to see the latest pics of the family.

All the best to everyone for a wonderful, happy and healthy 2006.

Winter Arrives

Another month has zipped by in our household. We're trying to get ready for Christmas, but so far we've only succeeded at getting the outdoor Christmas lights up.

I've continued to take Alex to playgroup at least once a week. It's an amazing program where he is dropped off with other toddlers to play and socialize have a snack. All moms/dads/caregivers have to stay in the building, but it gives us a chance to chat with other moms or do some reading, etc. It took me a while to get comfortable with the idea of leaving Alex out of fear he'd cry, but he's actually done really well with it. He loves going to playgroup and doesn't really cry when I leave. He plays, has a snack, does activities and has a great time. We've found that Alex is really being less shy overall - he's more comfortable with groups and with strangers and seems much more confident. Not sure if it's his age, or that he's learning to have fun with someone other than mom and dad, but it's been amazing to see the changes in him in the last month or so.

Chris or I often take Alex to the same facility for their evening program at least once a week. It's a "Family Playtime" where you stay in the room with the kids and it's mixed ages. Chris does it more often than I do as it's fun for them and gives me a bit of a baby break.

We've had a lot of fun with family lately too. We spent an amazing evening with Chris' sister and her family in London two weekends ago. Not only was the dinner one of the best I've had in eons (I had seconds even!), but it was so much fun to have Alex flirting and playing with his aunt, uncle and cousins. We had planned the evening to celebrate our niece, Amanda's, birthday and it was great to see them and hang out.

We also had another Seoul-Mates get together with other adoptive families. It was a holiday party with a gift exchange and Alex had a great time. Right after that, we went up to Aurora to watch the Santa Claus parade. Alex had a lot of fun until he got a bit bored with sitting still, so we started to leave after about an hour... but then saw Santa coming down the road, so we were able to wave to him before heading back home.

The next day was Chris' company's family party. It was a wonderful day with Chris' co-workers and their families. Alex had a riot and didn't sit still for more than a few minutes, except when pizza and cake were served. At the party, we got to meet Santa and he gave all the kids presents... let's just say that Alex was NOT impressed with Santa, although he loved the toy (picture in the latest folder).

That same weekend was our first nice snowfall. The snow was so light and fluffy, so we bundled Alex up and got him outside for a bit so he could explore the backyard. Let's just say that Alex seems to really like the taste of snow.

Our other big event this month was the Christmas party hosted by the Korean Canadian Children's Association. It's a huge party for adoptive families and people from the Korean community and it's an amazing night with cultural dances, Christmas songs and lots of Korean food.

We're hoping to get Alex to the mall to see Santa sometime soon... and we hope this visit will be a bit more pleasant for all involved.

I've posted a bunch of pictures of Alex and us in the latest family album in case you want to check it out.

First Canadian Halloween and Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe that another month has passed us by. The time seems to just fly now that we're so busy with Alex. He's doing wonderfully well and learning lots of new, fun, entertaining things and he's trying to communicate so much with us and you can see he gets so frustrated at times. Overall, he's doing very well with how many words he can say and how much he understands, so we're trying to work with him so he doesn't get frustrated too often.

I've put up a new photo album, but the pictures aren't in order. I put the Halloween pictures from last night at the beginning of the album, then went back to our Thanksgiving pictures and some of our outings with Alex this month.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We all ended up in Kingston as it was my Dad's 75th Birthday that weekend. He didn't know we were planning a bigger surprise party for him later this month, so it was fun to celebrate his birthday with him and the whole family.

Alex beat out almost everyone else for the amount of food he consumed that weekend. He loved the turkey, the sweet potatoes, the corn, the broccoli, stuffing, etc. He also got to have some birthday cake, and he had a great time eating that, even if he seemed to get more on him than in him.

That weekend was also exciting for us as we left Alex with Kathy and Grandma for an hour while Chris and I went out for a quick lunch, and then the next day, we actually got to go see a movie (Serenity - highly recommended if you like sci-fi/adventure!) while Alex was watched by his Aunt Mary.

A week or so later, we took Alex out to a local place called the "Yee-Haw Adventure Farm" so we could all get some fresh air and exercise. The day was actually colder than we anticipated, and the wind was really fierce at times, so we didn't stay too long, but Alex had fun walking around and checking out the animals and then playing a bit in the toddler section of the barn.

Our next weekend was really busy as we went out for dinner with Chris' sister, her boyfriend, Lew and our nieces Sarah and Amanda. Alex had a great time and it was wonderful to get a chance to see them and have some laughs.

The next day was busy as it was our monthly Seoul-Mates gathering where a bunch of adoptive families with children from Korea get together at different places. This month, we went to another outdoor farm called Kim-Glo and it was an amazing time for everyone. The weather was cold, but still very nice and Alex had a great time wandering around, going on his first pony ride and checking out the animals in the barn. It was so nice to see so many of the other families and their beautiful children and we cherish those relationships as we learn so much from the other families.

We celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary that night with a fun dinner for the three of us. Our actual anniversary was the next day, but we had Bob's surprise party on that day, so we celebrated a day early. For the party, we went off to Toronto to celebrate with family, including my Uncles and Aunt from Winnipeg and family from the KW area. It was a great party and Steve's cooking blew everyone away.

I'm still taking Alex to playgroup, and have now been able to leave him in the room twice! This is a HUGE step for all of us as we were waiting for him to be comfortable with the caregivers. He cries for a few minutes when I leave (I don't actually leave the building - I just go into a room with other parents/caregivers) but then he's happy to play with the toys and have fun until I come back about an hour later.

As I write this, it still surprises me how much our life has changed in one short year. Last Halloween was so tough on both Chris and me. Our file had been in Korea for 4 months at that time, and we'd heard nothing from Korea even though our agency had sent off faxes, e-mails and had called to find out what had happened to our application. I was convinced we'd been turned down, even though Chris was still hopeful. It was such a hard night for us as we dearly hoped no one would ask us about the adoption (I would have burst into tears on the spot), and although we had fun with the kids, there was still so much pain inside us from not knowing what was going on with our file.

It was the very next day (November 1st) when we go the call from our adoption agency telling us that they'd received an e-mail from Korea (finally!) that said they'd lost our file and had located it and would match us up to a child as soon as they could! I remember calling Chris over and over again (he was away in Sarnia/Windsor on business) to give him the amazing news and then telling close family and friends.

It was only a week later that we actually got the call about Alex (November 8) and got to see his pictures, so both November 1 and November 8 are big days in our household!

This Halloween was obviously very different for us. We took Alex into Toronto and had a quick dinner with Kathy, Jenny, Steve and our nieces, and then took Alex out to a few houses for trick or treating. He looked adorable in a little puppy outfit his Aunt Jenny had bought him, and we all had a great time.

Adoption Day!!!

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!

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.