-Brian
The woman who shares our duplex, who we occasionally cat sit for, showed up with this fun book for Button and the note said, “Welcome home! I can’t wait to be your neighbor, Love Anne.”
Over the past year I have been able to renew a friendship with a girl named Juliane who grew up in the same church as me in Orlando. Our parents are friends and she has followed our blog and sent many encouraging notes. She and her husband have been on their own adoption journey and have recently brought home their beautiful daughter Caroline, who Juliane named for her mother. Button received a fantastic package with scads of bath toys from Juliane and Caroline!
Then as if he wasn’t drowning in riches, Button got the loveliest clothes all the way from SOUTH AFRICA! The magical, mysterious Mireille, my beautiful fellow blogger of Funky Doodle Donkey fame, sent the absolute cutest little outfits (complete with hat) from local South African designer 
With a grateful heart,
–Rosemary
Isn’t he adorable? Of course, we know you all agree! For all of you waiting parents who are curious about these things, the progress reports have a bit of basic info about height and weight, body measurements, eating and sleeping habits and any special needs that Holt may be keeping an eye on. Some of the reports may take the time to comment on personality and disposition and some of them don’t. Our report this time said that Button is cheerful and active and makes many funny gestures and plays harmoniously with other children. We are incredibly grateful because these are far and away the best quality pictures we have ever received of him and they are only 2 months old so hopefully this gives us a clear idea of his little face (and clothes size) as we go to meet him IN JUST ONE WEEK!!! That means so much to us since children change on a near daily basis.
On cloud nine,
–Brian and Rosemary
Considering that it is such a mind-bending trip everything went very well for us. We stopped in LA and got to visit and rest with two of our dearest friends, Tiffany and Brittany, who have just been amazing and supportive of us through this whole journey. Then we hopped on a non-stop 17 hour flight straight into Bangkok. For my money, non-stop is the way to go. I know some people like the lay-over’s to stretch their legs but I just want to take my medicine and get it over with as quickly as possible. We flew Thai Air which is always a delight. Everything from the service to the food to the in-flight entertainment was top-notch. I was able to sleep several hours which is pretty good for me and, of course, poor exhausted Brian slept the entire way. He even slept through the food. It was like a bear in hibernation.
Now we are getting settled in at the hotel and trying to keep ourselves awake through the daylight hours so we’re headed out to rustle up some food and a massage. Perhaps a swim this afternoon? After the unending winter we’ve had in Virginia this year, it’s so lovely to be enjoying this 90 degree weather!
We’re in Thailand and sooner than we can even believe it we will meet our son. Today we are so very blessed!
–Rosemary
When we arrived at the hotel our room wasn’t ready yet because it was only 8am so we left our luggage with the concierge and went exploring. We are in a nice little area a few blocks from a subway stop and a small night market. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of tourist action. After about an hour (and several wrong turns) we found our way back with a pretty thorough understanding of our surroundings. There is a 7-11 only a couple of blocks away which sells many helpful things for adoptive parent shoppers like poki sticks, diapers and juice.
Getting unpacked took forever because the whole thing was completely surreal. We kept placing toys and toddler clothes in drawers and then realizing that Button would actually wear these clothes in just a few days and play with these toys in this very room. So then we had to take a really long time deciding exactly which drawer we should put the toys and clothes in. The whole thing was ridiculous and hilarious so finally we just put our bathing suits on, grabbed our ipods and went to numb out by the pool.
After a swim and some sun therapy we got cleaned up and went in search of dinner. We found a lovely little open air Thai style restaurant called “Mali” just down the street where we were seated in quite possibly the world’s smallest booth. Brian says he is still unfolding. Bri had the red beef curry and I ate vegetable tempura while we enjoyed the street scenes come to life around us.
After dinner we walked to the end of the street and discovered a little massage sign beckoning to us so we went in and enjoyed an hour long Thai massage in a couple’s room. I don’t know how they do all that bending and twisting but those treatments are perfect after the cramped plane ride. For everyone, who is about to make this trip and shy of getting one my recommendation is: just try it! Of course, that’s my recommendation for everything, isn’t it? Anyway, the massage shops on the street are always about 1/2 the price of the hotel spa’s, they do a better job in my experience and I think tales of “misconduct” are highly exaggerated. Beside if a masseuse ever confuses the situation and offers something inappropriate one can use their car-date voice and say, “NO THANK YOU”. I am a solid believer in the power of the firm car-date voice in all awkward situations.
The dining room doesn’t open for another hour and a half so it looks like I’m going to be eating Button’s poki sticks. Now I wish I hadn’t been such a strict Mommy and insisted we forgo the chocolate covered poki in favor of the plain pretzel poki. First parenting lesson well learned!
–Rosemary
Enter the stroller purchase! I had only three concerns 1.) It had to be parent facing to encourage bonding. 2.) I had to be able to lift it (I’m weak like a smurf). 3.) I had to love the design in every way. Brian had a host of other concerns that I won’t bother detailing here because I never understood them. I will say this though: As much as I tease him, I am grateful to the man for making some semblance of order out of the good time parade that is my life!
So the stroller shopping basically started and ended like this:
Roses: Ooooooh, I really want the Stokke Xplory stroller.
Brian: That is an insane amount of money and totally impractical in every way.
Roses: I love the design!! It’s so tall and I’m so short that Button and I will practically be face to face!
Brian: It has terrible fold down and very few abilities.
Roses: I love the design!!!
Brian: It is a financial QUAGMIRE!
So after multiple rejections on both sides Brian finally came up with this little beauty:
The Mutsy 4Rider. Ladies and gentlemen, a compromise was reached! It is a very cool (mostly unheard of) stroller that has great fold down, parent facing options, removable wheels, fantastic maneuverability, and the website has all the usual accessories available for purchase. I can personally assure you it is pretty light for a stroller. They all weigh a ton, in my opinion, but I can lift this one so that’s saying something.
My favorite feature is that the child’s seat sits pretty high which moves Button closer to my eye-level. Brian’s favorite feature is that the handle bar moves in and out at the touch of a button so we can each use it at a comfortable height. This is important for us since he is more than a foot taller than me.
So anyway, if you are on a stroller hunt of your own – good luck! If you get the Stokke send me pictures of you and your tot taking it for long walks in the park. I know the Stokke (especially the yellow one) will be happy in a park…
–Rosemary
**A special word of thanks goes out to my parents, Button’s Papa and Gai Gai, who lovingly bought us our stroller as a baby gift!! Thanks, Mom and Dad!
Of course, I know that there are a lot of adoptive parents who are more than willing to work with unethical agencies and play their part in coercing young/uneducated/poor women into giving up their children when it is not in the best interest of the original family. The “Juno-esq” adoption scenario of meeting a woman who has had no counseling or legal representation, showing a giant house and empty nursery, making her feel bad for not being among the working wealthy and saying, “How sure do you think you are that you’re going to give us your baby?” is a completely unethical way to conduct an adoption and should be illegal. In fact, I would say that behavior would definitely fall in the category of an adoptive family building itself on the destruction of a biological family. That doesn’t mean that the first mom would have turned out to be a saint or that the adoptive parents are evil I am merely referencing the starting point. However, there are many, many adoptions the world over that are conducted ethically and with the best interests of the child in mind.
I do not think there is a blind corollary between adoption and first family loss because I see children loose their biological families constantly but rarely do they acquire the benefits, and admitted difficulties, of an adopted family. So I guess how I would change the prior statement, ““In order to adopt a child you must first destroy the biological family,” in discussing the topic with our son (at an appropriate age) would be to say:
— Rosemary
Some of the main ideas expressed by the Kabat-Zinns are the importance of daily meditation in the parenting journey, the quest for non-judgemental mindfulness, and devoting oneself to the act of parenting purposely instead of simply carrying through with the motions. I found a lot of inspiration in this book and in the Kabat-Zinn’s clear and deep love for their grown children. The book also covers practical daily issues of parenting like bedtimes, nutrition and schooling. Here is a quote from pg. 182 to give you a general idea of their philosophy, “Mindful parenting simply calls on us to pay attention to what we are doing, including the choices we make, and to examine in an ongoing way the effect our choices have on our child. It involves a continual inquiry into what we are doing and why.”
Everyday Blessings starts off slow and I nearly gave up on it. It truly took about 60 pages for me to find my way into a real rhythm with this text but once I got there it was worth it. I think the authors have a lot of great ideas and an interesting expression of them but, in my opinion, they could have used a different editor to cut out a lot of bulk that weighed the concepts down and made it a longer book than was needed. I wouldn’t recommend this book to people who feel negatively toward eastern ideology.
Happy Reading,
–Rosemary
We will have survived the trip. Which in case you are our curious our round trip schedule includes: a 45 minute flight to Charlotte, a 1 hr layover, a 7 hr flight to LA where we spend the night with my dearest friend Brittany to break up the trip and rest a bit (fatigue is VERY BAD for my seizure threshold). The next morning we board an 18 hour non-stop flight to Bangkok.
We have purchased our plane tickets. We have made our hotel reservations. We have emailed old friends in Chiang Rai and told them to expect three! We are making the much dreaded trek to Ikea this weekend. Button has a pediatrician’s appointment for the week after homecoming. We have our first post-placement social worker visit scheduled for two weeks after we get home. We have booked the cat-sitter. The Duchess is picking us all three up from the airport and bringing us home to a warm, food-filled house!
The arrangements are all made. Now why do I feel so completely unprepared and confused? I woke up at 4:00am last night. Stress insomnia; my old friend. Before we got married I practically stopped sleeping all together and lost ten pounds for no other reason than forgetting to eat. I wasn’t scared to marry Brian – Brian was my person always had been – I just didn’t know how to be married. That’s how I feel now. I’m not scared to be Button’s mom because he is already my son. I’m just afraid I don’t really know how to do the job justice.
–Rosemary
Allow me to introduce you to the ladies of the World Elephant Polo Association. I am not making this nonsense up! These adventurous women (and men) travel to exotic countries, don spiffing uniforms, climb onto the backs of elephants and play polo (on very big fields). Yes, the whole thing does reek of colonialism and while I normally would eschew any club of such an obviously “exclusive” mentality let us remind ourselves that since this is my FANTASY sport we don’t need to worry about any of that. My whole life, I’ve been looking for an activity that would allow me to dress fabulously, keep a pachyderm as a pet, and exercise as little as possible – I absolutely cannot believe I’ve finally found it. The girls of WEPA actually practice for their matches by riding on top of slow moving Jeep’s and hitting soccer balls with their giant mallet-thingies. Doesn’t that sound hilarious? This is the sport for me!!
Now all I have to do is get freakin’ super rich, buy an elephant (best part of all), hire a trainer, fly all over Asia for “the season” and get in with the classy WEPA crowd. I’m sure they would just love to have me. Who else is up for it? As long as we can get 6 ladies we can form our own team!
–Rosemary