New choice for retail therapy!

Be still my heart - a new concept store from Gymboree.

www.crazy8.com

Wheeee!!!

Amazing -- a whole week of fantastic big referral batch rumors and the roller coaster still has not taken any big dips! This is FUN!

On the less fun side of adoption, today I went to the doctor for the annual health exam needed in our state. Last year, through some stroke of luck, I was able to get by with a note from my doctor (seriously, he wrote a note), but this year it was back to the full physical with lab work and TB test. No fun.

More books ... and some music too

Today we resumed our Borders habit with lunch in the café and a little book shopping. I bought myself a Chinese page-a-day calendar on clearance for $4 and got two new books for Nora - Zen Ties by Jon Muth and You're Never Too Little to Love by Jeanne Willis. They are both great and the second would be a fantastic Valentine's gift for a little one if you're looking for something.


I was also at Borders last Monday (I had the day off for MLK day) with my 40% off cd coupon and bought 3 new cds for Nora. Nora has very little music of her own - just a few cds and some stuff that I downloaded from iTunes ("Octopus's Garden" - Ringo Starr, "Rocket Man" - Elton John, "Merry-Go-Round" - Antje Duvekot and "Yellow Submarine"* - Ringo Starr) - but I'd like her to have more. Sooo, I've added a new blog page for Nora's Music - there's a link in the sidebar to the left. If you have any suggestions for great children's music, I'd love to hear them!

* Paul has said that he wrote "Yellow Submarine" as a children's song for Ringo to sing. I'm choosing to believe this, rather than the alternate interpretation.

What happened to my ticker?!

I just noticed that our ticker has been recalibrated. Apparently this wait has become so long that the ticker has decided that instead of measuring time in months and weeks that it now needs to measure in YEARS!
If you haven't seen it, the actual ticker is at the bottom of this page, scroll waaay down. I think it must have changed when we passed our 2-year LID-iversary.

Two tickets please!

It's that time of month - when the CCAA is rumored to be working on matches for the month and the entire China adoption community speculates on the number of matches made and the LID cutoff date. And - boy - are there some wild rumors this month. First there was some indication that 12/22/05 LIDs would be "in", then a rumor of 12/30/05, followed by a rumor of 12/27/05.

While any of these would be VERY good news (expectations have been set to expect only through 12/20/05) - the possibility of getting through 12/30 has me excited beyond all belief! 12/30 would put them within 17 days of our LID for Nora.

Rob says that he doesn't want to ride this rollercoaster anymore. Luckily I have my friend, J, at A Lesson in Patience who's going to ride with me this month. So we'll take two tickets, please, and we'll be sure to hold on to our hats.

For the latest in rumors, visit the Rumor Queen at www.chinaadopttalk.com or the RQ forum at www.chinaadopttalk.com/forum.

Dresser indecision!!

The dresser that we were rebuilding/refinishing for Nora's room has been a comedy of errors. Long story short - the drawers don't fit right and Rob is not too keen on re-rebuilding them, so I'm dresser shopping. I'd really like one in green milk paint, but those are all really expensive, so my finalists are all antique white like the crib.

As a refresher, this is Nora's crib (a very old picture):
The three dressers I'm currently considering are:

(1) Madeline - Chest of drawers matching Nora's crib. This is 45"wide, 20"deep, 43.5"high - the largest of the three. I can make it fit, but you should know that Nora's room is more cozy and charming than huge.

Pros: matches crib, provides a good amount of storage

Cons: largest of the three options, most expensive

(2) Berkeley - Chest of drawers from the same store as Nora's crib, but in a different style. Size of this one iz 38.5" wide, 18" deep, 32" high.

Pros: paint color likely matches crib, smaller size that would work well next to the chair

Cons: least storage of the three

(3) Jenny Lind - Chest of drawers from different store than the crib. This one measures 37" wide, 18.5" deep, 34" high.

Pros: Traditional style could be repainted and used pretty much anywhere, smaller size that will work well next to the chair, deeper drawers, optional accessory top available

Cons: paint may not be exact match to crib (although both are described as antique white so I think it will be close)

I like #1 and #3 better than #2, but I'm having a hard time deciding between those two. I like #3 a lot and it is the truer match to my personal style, but #1 matches her crib.

Thanks for your input! This poll closed on 1/26/08 - results are shown below:

P.S. I ordered dresser #3 (which is the 3-drawer Jenny Lind dresser with accessory top from Land of Nod).

Making your own luck

If it should turn out that ladybugs really are lucky, we'll be in good shape! Our secret pal sent us a whole package of ladybug luck this month - Shaoey and Dot (the quintessential China adoption storybook), a ladybug necklace and the cutest ever ladybug footy pjs. I'm not sure I have ever seen jammies so cute and I do love jammies.

Thank you very much secret pal!

Well, this is it.... 24 months

24 months today. Unbelievable.

First we thought that the wait would never pass 12 months. Then we thought it would never pass 24 months. Never say never.

When this wait ends, however long it takes, Nora will be home with us and it will have been worth every minute.

The principal part of faith is patience.
~George MacDonald~

From bottles to sippy cups...

Back in August when I was first worrying about polycarbonate baby bottles, Annette mentioned that Thermos has a line of kids' products called Foogo, which use all child-friendly materials. Back then you needed to order them online (at least in our area you needed to order them). Today, though, when wandering aimlessly* through Target I found them in both pink/purple and periwinkle/yellow. I bought the periwinkle/yellow sippy cup (pictured in this post) for Nora.

If you're looking for them, our Target had them in the sporting goods/outdoor section by the other thermos bottles and Eddie Bauer outdoor gear. They are not with the other sippy cups in the kids' section.

* note to Rob and my Dad -- See! proof that sometimes you just need to browse!

The next thing in baby bottles

I must be getting old, I'm like the safety monitor.

I was out shopping over the weekend and found these great baby bottles (at the toy store!)

They are glass bottles (no evil plastic leaching into baby's formula), with a silicone sleeve that makes them easier to hold and I assume helps prevent breakage. The ones that I saw at the store - also pictured above - are the Wee-Go bottle from Baby Life.

Silikids has a similar product, called Siliskin. I don't think they're quite as cute as the Wee-Go bottles, but the price is a lot more attractive. Siliskin is about $12/bottle and the Wee-Go is around $18/bottle. It's a lot, I know, but baby's brain development is surely worth the price.

A previous post on this same topic can be found here (click on the word here). It seems that I haven't worried about this since August. That's pretty good for me!

Door lock update

Thanks, Alyson for your comment on my previous post! I can't believe that it didn't occur to me that our security system could be set to beep when a door opens. Duh! Obviously that is not a feature that we use. Until now we have viewed the security system as something to keep people out, not keep them in! A baby really does change everything, doesn't it?!

As Alyson mentions in her comment, you can also get inexpensive travel alarms that can be used either at home or while traveling. Here's one example that I found at Walkabout Travel Gear.
You can find some others at My Precious Kid or just google "travel door alarm".

Important saftey issue - check your door locks

There was a horrible story in the news here last week. A 2-year old boy woke during the night and somehow got out the door while his mother slept and couldn't get back into the house. He froze to death overnight in the snow. They interviewed neighbors for the news - this boy's mother was very cautious and always watched him closely. It was not a lapse in parenting, it's just a terrible tragedy that could have possibly been prevented by a secure lock out of the child's reach. Here's a link (click on the word link) if you're interested in reading the story.

One of our doors has a lock that's very easy to open from the inside and very difficult to open from the outside. Previously I thought that was a pretty good thing - in case of fire, for example, you want it to open quickly and easily but default state of "locked" is generally a good thing. Now, though, I'm rethinking my opinion on this lock. A 2-year old probably wouldn't even be able to reach the doorbell to let you know they were locked out, which is another concern. Even if she could reach it, would she think to ring it? What do we teach her? Bang on the window? Maybe I should put something noisy someplace outside. I guess I can also hope that Maddie (our dog) would hear her trying to sneak out.

A dismal three days

It's true. The CCAA has matched only from Dec 15 - Dec 19 this month. Two of those days were on a weekend and the others did not appear to include many dossiers (and none at all from our large China-only agency, whose next LID is 12/20).

I'm sad for us and even sadder for the 12/20 families who had hoped to receive a referral this month.

While I continue to hope for the best, I'm also beginning to mentally prepare myself for a referral in late Summer or Fall. October in Guangzhou sounds a whole lot more pleasant than August, doesn't it? (How's that for a glass-half-full perspective?!)

Hugs to all the other waiting parents! Believe me, we feel your pain!

New Years Resolution

I'm not sure if it's really fair for me to give up Diet Coke as a New Year's Resolution, since I technically quit on December 10, but this is hard for me so I'm counting it anyway. I even managed to resist while we were in NC visiting Rob's DC-addicted family for Christmas.

I haven't given up caffeine - tea and coffee are still ok in my book, but the chemical goodness of DC is off limits. I'm also off most other carbonated beverages, but did make an exception for a couple of cans of Canada Dry during my recent bout with the flu. It was better to not get dehydrated than to rigidly stick to the no-carbonation thing. We'll see how I manage when the stress of work returns.

Just a little sad

You know what, I didn't really think that Illinois would beat USC, but I'd hoped that we'd do a little better than this. Still, this season was WAY more than any Illini fan could have hoped for. They should be very proud of their season and really looking forward to 2008!

I'm even sorrier that the CCAA seems to have only matched through 12/19/05 - this was actually worse than the RQ horrid case. Ugh. My current guesstimate for Nora's referral is now - gulp - August. Or later, if they really do stop referrals from May - August due to the Olympics.

Baby girl, I really hope that you're here for Thanksgiving and Christmas - you have lots of people waiting to meet you!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone! Rob and I are very excited for 2008 -- this will be the year that Nora joins our family!

I'm also hopeful that this is the year that Illinois wins the Rose Bowl! We're 2TD underdogs against USC, though -- so go put on your orange and blue and get ready to cheer your hardest for the Fighting Illini in Pasadena!

Click on the console bar above for the Illinois War Chant. I know it's not so politically correct, but it always gets me in the spirit of the game!