Final Care Package

We hope the title of this post rings true and we are finally sending our final care package to Korea, although I realize  we have been saying this for a long time. This is the 9th care package C has received from us. (I’m so glad we were’t limited to 1 like we were originally told.) Since we know we won’t be traveling for at least another 2 months and we were given the opportunity to send something to C we really couldn’t resist. All of our previous 18 month clothing was for colder weather, but according to my iPhone app Seoul is currently in the 70s during the day and our little boy needs to have some cool styles for the new spring season!

Care Package #9

This package was heavy on the clothes.  C will be receiving 6 tops and 3 shorts/lightweight pants, and two pairs of socks. The green onesie that looks washed out in the photo is very adorable. There is a little martian and underneath it says “Hello Earth.” Too cute. We hope that we might receive some of these clothes back when we pick up C because it would be the icing on the cake to see him IN PERSON in these clothes we picked out just for him.

J really, really wanted to find some toys to include, but we have sent over so many toys I really don’t think C needs anything else to keep him entertained. Plus, so many of the toys which are made for his age range are way too big to fit in a one gallon size bag. Not to worry, C has an abundance of toys waiting for him already at home. More on that in an upcoming room post.

We also included some toddler snack puffs as we anticipate having these around the house when C arrives. We thought it might be helpful if he had a taste of home while in Korea so at least one thing would be familiar.  I won’t kid myself into thinking my recent dabble into Korean cuisine will live up to the real deal made by his foster mom.

We are hopeful we are nearing the end of our long, 13 month wait to pick up C!

Timeline Update

Remember that adoption timeline over on the right side of the page? Don’t worry…it hasn’t been updated in so long it makes sense that you haven’t checked it in awhile. Since our wait has extended longer than we anticipated we had to renew our fingerprints for the I600 paperwork that we completed last year.

The initial process involved sending a letter to USCIS requesting to be re-fingerprinted. About two weeks later we received a letter in the mail with the date and time we had to be at our local Department of Homeland Security for our appointment.  I took the day off from work, and J and I were there bright and early at 8:00AM. I think they must schedule about 15 people at the same appointment time because even though we were there right when it opened it appeared like everyone was there to get their prints taken. Once again, however, the process was pretty streamlined and we were in and out of the building in about an hour.

I hope that the next time we update the timeline it will be to tell you our EP (exit permit) has been submitted to the Ministry in Korea. We know we are approached the end of our wait, and we are as anxious as ever to bring C home.

Agency Workshop

Early last week our agency had another workshop scheduled for waiting families. This was the third one since October, and I think it was actually my favorite. J said that was because this wasn’t as clinical as the other two and people got to share their stories (which I do enjoy), but I just thought the variety and wealth of information was really great.

A Mom who has one little boy from ESWS and another on the way started the evening off. She had prepared some amazing Korean food for us all to try. She also had put together an 8 page color handout listing her favorite Korean staple ingredients and location of local Korean restaurants and grocery stores. She even offered to host a kimchi making party at her home! How cool is she, right?

Next, a family shared a little about their transition when they brought their son home in October. Although I have heard and read lots of stories just like this I personally always find it interesting and helpful to hear how the journey to expanding their family went. This particular family shared great details about the initial meeting, handoff, first two weeks home, and “hot topics” like food and sleep. I appreciated their insight and enjoyed hearing their advice.

Third, a Korean speaking couple had prepared a handout with common words our child probably already knows and phrases he may be used to hearing. We each tried to pronounce the words after the native speaker, and I must say if C can understand a word I’m saying it will be a miracle because I sounded nothing like her! I am thankful that we took the Korean 1 class a year ago because several of the words I was familiar with and already knew, and just hearing the language over that 10 week course helped me feel more comfortable to tackle some of the new words she taught us.

Finally, another adoptive Mom who spoke is a speech language pathologist and taught us all some simple baby sign language we can use with C when he first comes home. I have always been fascinated with sign language and taught myself the American sign language alphabet as a fifth grader so I really enjoyed her presentation as well.

It’s hard to believe we fit all of this into an evening that lasted just over an hour! I know I was excited to see the other waiting families since our last meeting in April, and the information was great, too. Hopefully next time we get together for a summer BBQ C and most of the other babies will be home!

Prayer Requests-Month #22

Just writing twenty-two in the post title leaves me a bit melancholy. It just reminds me of how long this process has taken, and I think I once again find myself at my wit’s end waiting for the wait to be over.  Here is what is on our hearts this month as we wait:

1. After a flurry of activity in March with the first group submitted and approved in three weeks and a 2nd batch accepted into the ministry, there has been no news out of Korea.  Since March. This is really hard to understand at this point.  Please pray that batch 2 would be approved quickly so batch 3 can be submitted. We keep thinking we will be in batch 4, but we won’t really know until the dust from batch 3 clears. We just want C home.

2. C is turning 20 months old this month. We know he is being so well cared for and loved by his foster family, and we are so grateful for this fact. Please continue to pray for his good health, happy  days for him, and that his heart would somehow be prepared for the big change which lies ahead.

3. We pray for C’s foster family and the transition they will need to make when C leaves their family. They have taken care of every need for much longer than they originally anticipated since they first took him into their home in 2010. I can’t imagine the grief they will feel when they no longer receive the blessing of hearing his laugher every day. We are praying for this selfless family.

4. Please pray for C’s transition home to our family. I guess there are lots of things to pray for: the handoff at Eastern from foster family to us, the first night as a family of three, the 12 hour plane ride home, C’s grieving over the loss he is experiencing, and that the attachment process begins quickly for him and us.

5. We realization has sunk in for us that we will not receive C by Father’s Day, as we were praying. This has been a hard thing for me to accept and come to terms with over the past few weeks. We are now praying C will be home by July 4th. Even this date feels like I’m grasping at an unrealistic timeframe, but it’s what I’m praying for nevertheless. Please pray that the Ministry would expedite the process of approving EPs quickly and that batches would be large so families can finally be united.

Third time is the charm

I cooked our third made from scratch Korean meal a few weeks ago, and it was BY FAR the best one yet. The romanized name for the dish is Sokalbi Chim, or Stewed Beef Ribs.  The dish smelled A.MAZ.ING while cooking, and the taste didn’t disappoint once it was finished. Although I followed the recipe exactly to serve 4, J and I ate the entire thing (and we typically aren’t huge eaters).

The only downside to this dish is the length of preparation time. I made this dish over my Spring Break two weeks ago so I had lots of energy, but I can’t imagine making it while chasing around C or after working all day long. Between chopping the veggies, prepping the meat, and simmering the ingredients together the entire process took almost 2 hours. I can’t wait to cook this dish again, though, because even writing about it making my mouth salivate.

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Dak Chim

Our second Korean dish, Dak Chim, was another success. Looking at the recipe I think we both were extremely skeptical. It called for ingredients we like a lot independently but don’t usually serve together: chicken, potatoes, carrot, and squash simmered together with a sweet soy base with red pepper paste.  Once again the sauce smelled extremely strong and had a very distinct smell and we weren’t sure how the tastes would blend together.

Surprisingly, once the dish was served the sauce had formed a glaze over the dish and soaked into the vegetables and chicken. However, the taste was very mild. In fact, it tasted more like a chicken and potato dish you could find at any American restaurant so I’m wondering if it has a more sweet and spicy flavor traditionally. As made, this would be an extremely approachable dish for eaters who might not have ever tried Korean food.  I think we preferred our first dish over this one, but it was different and we would probably make it again.

Let’s Eat!

J and I thought that since C will be very used to the tastes and smell of his FM’s cooking we should probably begin to cook more Korean food at home.  So far we have only made bulgogi from scratch twice, and it was quite a bit of work to prepare. We began to rely on the T*rader Joe’s pre marinated bulgogi as our one Korean staple dishes, but since I received a Korean cook book for Christmas I suggested that we cook a few Korean dishes each month until travel call. This might be a lofty goal for us, but we started off the month strong by picking a dish we thought we could both enjoy. I am not a particularly adventurous eater, so we definitely played it safe with this stir fry dish. The cookbook romanizes the dish’s name as goongjoong tteokbokki.

We stuck pretty closely to the recipe, and it took about 30 minutes to prepare the meat and cut the vegetables.  As we began to heat the sweet soy sauce which the vegetables and meat would cook in our whole house began to smell like a Korean restaurant. The aroma was very strong, and I think we were both a little worried how the final product would taste. Once it was time to actually cook the stir fry it went very quickly. We both sat down to the table and were very happy with the final product. The meat was tender, the vegetables weren’t too soggy and weren’t too hard, and the taste was quite good. Hopefully we can keep this trend going at least a few times a month until we travel to Korea.