Sunday, May 28, 2006

". . .under the name of Sanders"

Sunday, May 28, 2006 by Dawn B
Some of you have asked about Althea's nursery, so I thought we'd show you. For those of you allergic to cute, scroll down to other entries.
Early on in the adoption adventure, I asked Andrew if there was a particular theme he would like for the nursery. "Well," he said, "I don't know if we'd be able to find such a thing, but it sure would be great to decorate with Winnie the Pooh." (Yes, he was completely serious.) Obviously he hadn't been near a baby aisle in the store for a long time. Andrew and I are both big fans of the bear, so despite his "pooh-biquity" that's what we went with. Here is the result:

Here is a shot of her crib.
We painted the ceiling and upper walls a periwinkle . . . purple . . . blue sort of color (Perennial Sweetpea), and repainted the rest of the walls a warmish white (Light Navaho White).



The shot to the right features the ceiling fan Althea's daddy installed. Handsome and handy too!


Here is a closer shot of the crib:


Here's a closer look at the absolutely adorable border:

And, finally, a pic of the chair that we're planning to put into the nursery before we travel to China (right, honey?). It's a wonderfully comfortable rocking recliner. Somehow it got temporarily moved into the basement rumpus room and into a prime position for the viewing of Kung Fu movies.








Silly old bear!

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006

We're going to China!!!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 by Dawn B

Woo hoo! We finally have gotten our travel dates fixed and today we ordered tickets.


Here's the basic plan:
  • June 20: fly out of Sioux Falls (1:12 pm)
We then fly literally and figuratively "into the future" by way of Minneapolis, Tokyo, and Guangzhou--finally arriving in Beijing on the morning of June 22.
  • June 22: settling into Beijing
MUST STAY AWAKE, then collapse when darkness falls
  • June 23: Panda Zoo and Summer Palace Trip
MUST STAY AWAKE to look at Pandas, then hopefully sleep when it's dark
  • June 24: Great Wall Trip
MUST STAY AWAKE and not fall off of wall. (I plan to repeatedly shout out to all those around me: "Hey everybody! This is the Great Wall of China!" Just like Big Bird in the now epic tale Big Bird Goes to China.)
  • June 25: Orientation with Adoption Staff
Apparently, there really is no pun intended.
  • June 26: Travel to Hunan Province
O.k. . . o.k. . . .trying to stay calm, but this (or at the latest the 27th) will also be
Gotcha Day!!!
Otherwise known as the day we finally get our darling little Althea!
  • June 27-29: Bonding in the Province Days
Not as much detail for this part yet
  • June 30: Head down to Guangzhou for more paperwork. Yum!
More details about this time will come later too.
  • July 6: The journey back home begins!

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Thursday, May 18, 2006

Closer . . .closer . . .

Thursday, May 18, 2006 by Dawn B


Well friends! We just got a much closer estimate for our travel dates.

It looks like we'll be headed for China somewhere around June 20, arriving back in the US somewhere around July 7.



So it looks like we will spend my birthday (June 23--my mother's birthday too!)
and the 4th of July in China! I wonder if there will be fireworks?

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Saturday, May 13, 2006

Where in China will you go?

Saturday, May 13, 2006 by Dawn B
Having received this question quite a bit, we thought a map or two might be helpful:


Stop #1 will be in Beijing--the capital city. We will spend a few days there getting past the worst of the jet lag (hopefully). (By the way, any getting-over-jet-lag tips you might know would be greatly appreciated, just hit the "comments" button below.) We will get to do a couple of touristy things like see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. There we will also have orientation (no pun intended) with our travel group.
City #2 is Changsha in Hunan Province. The first thing on the agenda there is getting our daughter! Woo hoo! (or perhaps I should say, "Waaaaaa . . .whew!" We expect rather a lot of crying.) Right now our daughter is in the city of Yuanling in Hunan Province, but she will be brought to us in Changsha. Yuanling is 370 kilometers northwest of Changsha. We will spend about 4 or 5 days there, getting to know each other, then we all fly down to . . .
City #3--Guangzhou This is the site of the US Consulate, and therefore the place to finalize Althea's visa and immigration paperwork. We will be there about a week. Finally, we'll be ready to head for home. So after a quick flight hopping over to
City #4--Hong Kong we will head back for the good 'ole U S of A!

And for those of you curious about the relative travel distances, here's an interesting map of the US superimposed over China:



When you look at relative latitudes, it's sort of like flying into Pittsburg, then down to the Florida panhandle, then way down to the Florida keys. Hot and sticky in late June, but well worth it!

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Friday, May 05, 2006

"How Pound?"

Friday, May 05, 2006 by Dawn B
That question is a family joke that came out of Andrew's parents' tour of Asia with the USO. Apparently, this was a question Andrew's dad, Jim, was frequently asked. For those of you who don't know Andrew's folks, his dad is very similar in size to Andrew. At one point in their trip, they got into a cab, but before the cabman drove away, he got out to look carefully at all his tires!





All this to introduce the question--how big is Althea? How much do you expect she will weigh when you bring her home in June? Many of you have asked us this question, with the comment that she looks really quite big in her photos. Apparently, she is not in fact very big at all. The measurements we do have come from January, the same month in which the photos were taken. At that point she was 4-1/2 months old. Her weight at that time was 6.0 kg (a bit over 13 pounds) and only 58.7 cm (or about 23 inches.

I have found height and weight charts for Southern Chinese girls (isn't the internet amazing?). Acccording to these charts, at 4 months, Althea was average in weight, but actually quite below average in height.

Now, using these charts, and assuming that Althea has continued to grow at the same rate (perhaps a silly assumption, but it's all we have), our prediction is that, at age 9-1/2 months, when we will be picking her up from China, she will be approximately 16.5 pounds and a bit over 25 inches tall. Skipping to the key question so many of you have asked, what size clothes will she wear? Given these estimates, we predict she will be in 6-9 month clothes when we go to get her, but expect her to move rapidly into the 9-12 month range (especially once daddy starts pumping her full of protein).

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Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Web Nesting?

Wednesday, May 03, 2006 by Dawn B

Like the new look of the blog? Andrew says I've been "web nesting."
Deb Rienstra, a dear friend of ours, wrote a wonderful book called Great with Child, in which she reflects on all the amazing experiences and funky realities that pregnancy brings to one's life. She has a chapter called, "Nesting," where she says:
"The traditional wisdom is that nesting is primitive behavior related to our animalian ancestory, in which the female of the species prepares a place to give birth. Makes sense. But I can think of some pretty uniquely human motivations, too. For instance, if I don't clean out the house, where on earth are we going to put all the baby paraphernalia?"
(To find out more about all the wonderful books Deb has written, visit Debra Rienstra @ Calvin .)
Along those lines, we have been doing more to our house over the last few months than the first four years we lived here combined. But more than that, the "nesting" urge seems to have spread into the blog. I was perfectly satisfied with the blog until our adorable daughter's picture was on it. Then I was suddenly struck by how plain and prosaic it was--not fit for our daughter's image!
So, I've been learning (obsessing?) about "blogskins." And with many, many thanks to a blogskin designer named Debashish Chakrabarty, who adapted a design by a fellow named "BigheaD" we now have a new look. What do you think?

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