Little Acorn

8 More Sleeps

Yikes! Only 8 more sleeps until we're on our way. I'm not freaking out yet, but I reserve the right to freak out at any time. There's no way you're getting a coherent post from me today, so what  you're in for is a fairly random list of things I'm doing, things I'm obsessing thinking about and a few photos.

1) The Vietnamese Embassy is awesome! We got our passports back with visa's attached in an amazingly short period of time. That's one less thing to worry about. We also have airline tickets and a hotel booked. On the way over we have a 7 hour layover in the Hong Kong airport and I don't even want to count up the total travel time, but I know we leave on the 17th and we don't arrive in Hanoi until the 19th.

2) I've been filling the big freezer downstairs with food so that hopefully I won't have to really cook for a month when we get home. Lasagna and spaghetti sauce. Won tons and pot stickers. Meat pies. Knaedles (a German gnocchi-ish dumpling). Cookie dough (new dads need cookies). Soup. Homemade waffles. Tasty, comforting, easy dinners.

3) So the other morning I woke up obsessing thinking about Christmas. We always dreamed of having our girl home for her first Christmas, but didn't really expect it to happen. We really expected a sad and lonely Christmas this year while we missed our girl who was a world away. But we'll be home - and it will be her FIRST Christmas. And of course, I want it to be PERFECT. But David reminded me that it doesn't have to BE perfect, it just has to LOOK perfect in the pictures, because she won't remember it anyway. So as long as we have a tree to pose in front of, new pajamas and a Christmas dress, a picture with Santa, a stocking and a few presents we're just fine. The whole house doesn't have to be decorated, I don't need to do a bunch of baking or make a lot of food because she'll still just be on the bottle and the most important thing is to spend the day as a family, remembering how lucky we are to have each other for this Christmas and all the special days to come.

3) My packing piles are getting HUGE. I'm putting everything I want to take into the piles and then I will edit as I put things in the suitcase. I'm willing to spend the entire 3 weeks in the same outfit if it means I can cram in more small cute clothes for the small cute person...

4) Her room is very close to being finished. David is just finishing painting the new shelves and then I can put things on them. We have no art work/mobile/mirror, but that can wait until we get back.

5) We do have bedding though. I made the duvet cover last night in record time. I was looking through my fabric and found what I wanted to use, but it was mostly vintage tablecloths which all have stains, which means I would have to strategically cut them and make the cover patchwork style. It didn't take me more than a few minutes of thinking before I knew now wasn't the time. After we're back I'll work on that one, but last night I just took out the Alexander Henry Calico Cats and their matching backing fabric, cut 2 lengths (luck was with me and the width I needed was exactly the width of the fabric), seamed them up and added velcro. Voila! A puffy happy colourful duvet. I don't know if she'll even sleep under it for awhile though as she has some cozy sleep sacks which are safer and will stay on, but I do look forward to cuddling up with it while we rock in the rocking chair.

6) I don't think I obsess about safety enough sometimes. Then I obsess about not thinking about it. Then I obsess about thinking about not thinking about it when I should be thinking about other things. I mean we've got the basics - a rocking awesome car seat, a gate at the top of the stairs, locked up poisons, etc, but some people get so INTO the safety and baby proofing. Am I a bad Mom because I think everything will be okay and I don't think of the world as out to get my baby?

7) I've found a little time to make a few small things for the small person, including some small softies, soother clips and a wrist rattle. With the wrist rattle I did make sure that those bells weren't going anywhere. They are in their own triple stitched bag inside of the triple stitched outer part. And the bells are small enough anyway that they wouldn't cause choking and would likely be swallowed and passed.
With the soother clips I know they are possibly (only a very small possibility though as I made them very short) a choking hazard so she'll only have them when she is awake and supervised. I don't know if Lam will want or need a soother, but she is going to be going through so much of an upheaval in her world and everything is going to be strange and possibly frightening for her, so if she will take comfort in a soother I certainly wouldn't deny her that.

8) It's not too late to get the log-in information for our private travel blog - just send an email using the link below tea-drinking Lisa over in the left sidebar. 

9) Did I mention it was only 8  more sleeps? Last night I had the first of those dreams - the one where I've forgotten I have a baby until I hear her crying and then I can't find her, then I can't find a bottle to feed her, etc. I know it's a very typical new Mom dream. The funny part - in the dream I realized that the baby could talk in full sentences (she told me when she grows some hair she wants it long with layers) and I thought "Well at least now we can ask her what name she wants!". David and I have a list of 5 that we're taking to Vietnam with us to see which one suits her, but it WOULD be easier if we could just ask her what she wants.

10) My list is as long as my arm today, so I'd better get busy, but I thought you all deserved an update!

A Happy Day, with Cupcakes

I don't know what you guys did, but some combination of wishing on stars, letters to Santa, good thoughts and crossing fingers has worked and we received our travel dates on Friday! Thank you! I thought our absolute best case scenario was to be in Vietnam in late December and January, but instead we are going IN JUST OVER TWO WEEKS. We have a flight booked to Hanoi November 18th and we will welcome sweet baby Lam into our family forever on November 23rd when she is just 15 weeks old. Our return to Canada is scheduled for December 15th, but there is the possibility that we could be finished in Vietnam a week earlier or we may need to stay a week later depending on how fast her immigration paperwork is processed. Either way though, we should be home for Christmas. Home for Christmas!!! There is a possibility that our departure date could be pushed back, so since all your positive thinking worked to get us this far, if you could all take a moment to fix November 23rd in your mind and send along a wish for us, we'd appreciate it. November 23rd is already an important anniversary to us and we celebrate it every year - our family was founded on November 23rd, 2000, when David and I first met and it would be extremely special to have Lam join our family on that day.

Needless to say, David and I are frantic, grinny, spinny messes. There are pages and pages of lists and honestly there are many things that will be left undone which as a perfectionist is really making me anxious. All that really matters is that our girl is coming home. After much discussion, we've decided that our travel blog will be separate from this blog, and it's where we will post a lot of photos and there we will share more personal details about the adoption and our experience in Vietnam. The travel blog will be password protected and I am happy to give any of my readers (even you lurkers) the password so that you can follow along. Just send me a quick email (link is in the sidebar below the picture of me drinking tea) and introduce yourself and ask for the password and it's yours. If you don't want to follow the travel blog, there will be some quick updates here at Little Acorn and of course I couldn't deny you a few photos of our beautiful little one and her happy family. Once we are home then it will be business as usual here at Little Acorn, but with a whole lot more baby girl cuteness and a little more sleep deprived/jet lagged/new parent craziness! 

These cream filled chocolate cupcakes with whipped ganache frosting* were made for a potluck lunch we attended today which was a happy, busy, noisy, gathering of families with children from Vietnam. We're so lucky to have connected with these great people and I love the thought of all the babies growing up together. We thought we'd be there to celebrate our friends who will be meeting their daughter in Vietnam on November 16th, but we never suspected that the celebration would be for us as well!

Okay, off to tackle some things on my list...

* Recipes are available at the Martha Stewart website  cupcakes, cream filling and frosting

I have seen the future...

...and the future is cute!

You may have wondered why it got so quiet around here all of a sudden, and some of you might have guessed the reason. Last Tuesday, at 5:07 we received the email that changed our life, telling us there was a baby waiting for us in Vietnam. We have been waiting until a Doctor specializing in internationally adopted children could look at the medical reports and give us an all-clear before we shared our news with the world. Our plan was that as soon as I saw that it was "the email" I would turn off the computer without reading it and call David immediately so that he could rush home and we would open it together and see our child's face for the first time and find out if it was a boy or girl together. My heart was beating so loudly I could hear it and after not being able to figure out how a telephone works for a few minutes I finally managed to call David at work where he was just finishing up for the day. He rushed home, but that still takes 20 minutes, so I did some manic tidying up while my thoughts raced. Is it a boy? A girl? How old? When David got home we set up the video camera so we could capture our reactions as we opened the email... A shout went up from David almost immediately - "It's a GIRL!". There was instant crying (me), ear to ear grinning (David) and an attempt to distract us by walking in front of the computer screen (Musette). We found out her name and that she was born July 27th. Then there was a minor panic as we realized that there was no picture or medical file attached. Finally we noticed that a large file was downloading and all of a sudden there she was... So so beautiful. Some wispy black baby hair. Sleepy eyes. A button nose. A perfect rosebud of a mouth. A sweet double chin. OUR BABY...a very small person. We have just one tiny, blurry, low resolution picture, but as soon as we saw her we started to fall in love immediately. She just looked right and it felt like we recognized her. We continued to videotape ourselves for about half an hour as we laughed, cried, hugged, exclaimed "She's so beautiful!" and "It's a girl" over and over. Her Vietnamese name is Lam, which means Forest, and she is just sweet baby Lam to us for now. We are working on her Canadian name but we still have a long way to go before we have it decided. We hope by the time we arrive in Vietnam to have it at least narrowed down to a one page list. The Vietnamese government discourages the public sharing of photos before the adoption is complete, so as much as I want you all to see how lovely she is, I just can't take the chance of making anyone mad, so here is just a wee peek at our sweet daughter.

What's your story little baby? Where did you come from? What have you seen in your little life?  We feel so honoured to have been given the important job of being your parents. We're going to love you SO MUCH.

Good News!

On Friday morning we got some awesome adoption related news. No, it's not THAT news, but it's good news. Great news, even. The group before us received their proposals, including a beautiful, healthy one month old baby boy from Lang Son province for a really great couple who live here in our city. This little guy will be the third baby from Vietnam to join their forever family here in our hometown this year, and we're really enjoying getting to know the other families. Saturday we all got together at a birthday party for the first of the little ones to turn one, and there was a lot of joy and excitement as we all celebrated the birthday, met the newest arrival from Vietnam (she has the chubbiest most smooshable cheeks EVER), and oohed and ahhed at the picture of the next little guy who will join his family and come to Canada in October.  We think it's amazing and wonderful that these children who have so much in common and such a shared history will grow up as friends. The group before us getting proposals made it very REAL for David and I. Very real in a "did the earth just shift a couple of feet and leave me standing in a whole new place?" kind of way. Really real. On Friday night we were all giddy and grinny and a wee bit nauseous. "NEXT" we kept repeating, "NEXT". Not maybe, not someday, not if, not we hope, but NEXT. And SOON. I didn't fall asleep until nearly three. My busy brain just wouldn't shut off and I made a million lists, asked myself a million "what if" questions, and had a million fantasies about all the things we're going to do as a family of three.

Next.

Soon.

I can't wait.

A post so monumental that I can't even think of a title...

You may have noticed that things have been a wee bit quiet around the Little Acorn corner of the web. You might have thought that I'd run out of things to talk about, but it's far from the truth. In fact, BIG THINGS have been going on at our house. BIG BIG THINGS that will change our life forever but that I didn't feel ready to talk about. Mostly because these BIG THINGS are also GOOD THINGS and we were afraid that it wouldn't work out. Nothing is ever totally guaranteed,  but things are looking pretty certain now, so we thought it was time to let the world in on our news. David and I are giddy with joy to tell you that soon a baby will be joining our family through adoption from Vietnam. This will be our first child and we have all the excitement/fear/happiness/apprehension/brain fog/glee/worry/joy that all expectant parents have. We've been in the process for quite awhile now. Anyone who knows anything about adoption knows that there is much red tape to be navigated, many forms to be filled out, doctors to visit, social workers to impress, government departments to be wrangled with, home inspections to pass and many flaming hoops to be jumped through in order to prove that we are suitable to be parents. We have been judged worthy, and now we wait to be matched with the little one who will become our child.

Do you know who the baby is?
Nope. Not yet.  We do know that the baby will be a boy or a girl, and he or she will likely be about 4 to 6 months old when we bring him or her home from Northern Vietnam.  We hope to have the adoption completed by the end of this year, but it's unpredictable and it could end up being a little or a lot longer than that. The baby that will be our son or daughter is likely growing in their first mother right now, soaking in the sounds of their family and Vietnam, growing strong and getting ready to be born. With all the joy that we are experiencing in preparing for a baby, we never forget the birth family and the hard choices and losses that will lead to the formation of our family.

When will you know?
In the autumn we should get the news that our application to Vietnam has been approved and that we have been matched with a baby. 2 to 3 months after that we will travel to Vietnam for 3 or 4 weeks to complete the adoption and have the baby's immigration paperwork processed so that he or she can come home to Canada. During our time there, we also hope to be able to explore the city of Hanoi and the surrounding area, while at the same time transforming into a family of three.

Why does it take a few months to be able to travel to get the baby?
Once our daughter or son is identified for us the final parts of their adoption is processed in Vietnam. There is just as much paperwork on the other end as there was for us. Just as we had to prove to our government that we are suitable parents, the baby must be proved to be truly in need of a family by the adoption authorities in Vietnam.  There are also medical checks to be done and paperwork to go back and forth between Canada and Vietnam before we are ready to board that plane. That wait to travel will undoubtedly be the hardest part of the process - although we're also not looking forward to 30+ hours of travel time home with a possibly screaming baby.

So is this going to be an adoption blog now?
No. There will be the occasional update on the adoption process as we wait and of course you'll share in all our good news as it comes, but the focus of the blog will still be crafting, homekeeping, gardening and cooking. It is definitely going to be a "crafting for baby" and a "decorating for baby" and a "getting the house ready for baby" blog for awhile. I've been busily sewing and knitting and crocheting, and the room we were painting on Canada Day wasn't just the small bedroom, it was the small bedroom that our wee one will sleep in.  Before now I couldn't show you anything, as you are all smart enough to figure out that something was up, and it might have made us break our news before we were ready. Now that it's out there I can start sharing all the projects I've been working on. Right now I am making things for both girls and boys as trying to just be neutral is too difficult, especially when just about everything in my fabric stash has blossoms on it. Anything that isn't gender or age appropriate once we find out who our baby is will likely be sold on Etsy.

So there. It's out there. ME - soon to be Mama.
Eek.