On the Long Road

Version 2.5

2012-01-12T20:17:00.002-06:00

My little man will turn 2.5 next week already. He is changing a lot right now, and I know that I have neglected my blog during the holidays. I thought it would be fun to write a few things about Kellan these days :)

Suddenly, we are in the middle of potty training. One day, he wanted to wear "unnies" and we haven't looked back since. He is doing awesome! The only issue is that when he throws his 2 year old fits, he forgets that he isn't wearing a diaper. Some days, this means that we change a lot!
Kellan is our resident expert taco eater. He loves food, and he is an exceptional dipper. Anything that he can dip into ranch or sour cream, he will eat.
He is a really big lover of babies. He is extremely caring and nurturing. I picked out a baby with a stroller for him for Christmas and he LOVES it. I even caught him giving his baby a time out yesterday for not using her words. The baby's name is Princess :)
We've let Kellan's hair grow out. It has a personality of its own. Some days it is "rocker" and some days it is "business".
Recently, Kellan got another ear infection and 10 days later he was full of welts! This is my first exposure to medication allergies, and I'm hoping that it will be my last as a mom. I swear, I could take a job as a pediatric nurse after having these two kids.
Kellan still sleeps in a crib. I'm wondering when the best time to move him to a bed would be. After having Ben (who would get out of bed for hours), I'm hesitant and want to keep him in his crib until he's 10. By then, I figure I can bribe him with technology.
His language still amazes me each day. He can be difficult to figure out, but I am an expert in Kellan's speech. He told me the other day that my hair needed fixing while I was unloading the dishes. Two minutes later, he arrived with the blow dryer and curling iron from my bathroom and warned me that every thing was VERY, VERY HOT. And then he said "Do it now Mommy!". Beauty expert :)

All in all, I can't believe how big he is getting ~ I'm already questioning myself about sending him to preschool next fall. With his birthday being in July, many of the kids are several months older than him. At the age of 3, it can be a big difference. I don't want to move him too fast! We'll see in the next 6 months if he is ready or not. I'm okay with keeping him out of preschool for another year.

Tough Talks

2011-12-02T20:40:00.003-06:00

"Mom, when are you going to adopt me?" This was how a conversation with Ben started at 7:15 a.m. in the car on the way to daycare. I never quite anticipated it. As an adoptive parent, I thought that it would be Kellan asking why he wasn't my biological child in a few years. Isn't that what the adoption books say? The kids who are adopted are the ones who may feel left out?

That's simply not the case here.

Ben has started asking about Kellan's adoption more often. The conversation usually starts with the picture of Kellan's foster mom on our fridge. "Why does he have three moms and I only get one?" or "Kellan has more than one mom that he lived with."

My thought is that this is Ben's way of sorting through all of the information that he hears fairly often about Kellan's adoption. There is a lot of attention that is spent on Kellan when we are in public. In the grocery store, we will hear He is ADORABLE! Where is he adopted from? and Oh my gosh! He is SO CUTE. When did he come home? The interesting thing is that I love to talk about Kellan's adoption. It is fascinating to me and I love to share a little information about Kellan being from South Korea with people who are genuinely (and I mean genuinely) interested in our story. I love that adoption is a part of our home, in people and animals.

And, obviously, Ben wants to be a part of that story too.

So, I'm going to start telling him more about his birth story. I'm going to put together a photo book with ultrasound pics and baby shower pics, as well as the pictures from his first week. We're going to talk about how Mom couldn't have any more babies in her belly because it was broken after he was born. We're going to talk about how Mom and Dad had SO much love for him that we knew we wanted to find another baby for our family to love him too, which led us to adoption. He was a part of this, which is not hard to talk about.

The sad thing is that I will never be able to create this same type of book for Kellan. I only have two pictures of him before he was 4 months old, and then only about 25 until he was 10 months old. But, it is something. I just wish that I knew more information behind the pictures! I hate to create ideas behind the pictures when I don't know.

Wordless Saturday

2011-10-29T08:29:00.000-05:00

Kellan's alternate Halloween costume

October

2011-10-28T14:18:00.007-05:00

Last weekend we braved some shaky forecasts to go to the pumpkin patch ~ we actually won the lottery, no one was there and we had lots of space to roam on our own! Compared to last year, Kellan is SO much more independent, he had a blast running around the place. Here he is with his dad on a "dia", which is the consistent word for "tractor".
At least 30 minutes was spent in the corn box. I'm still finding kernels of corn in my car and in the house :)
Look! Kellan is almost 3 feet high! Can't believe how big my little man is getting!
This is his first introduction to a horse. He was fascinated yet frozen with fright. He seemed to have a 3 foot radius with all of the animals.
Ben wanted to add a kitty to our family. Unfortunately, our Manny cat is enough for us right now. But, I tried to find a good home for these two babes (a.k.a. Tun & Kadi's house). We'll see!
Yesterday, I took a few hours and painted our bedroom a gray/blue color and I really like it! Over the last year we added a new bedroom set, so I wanted a change with the color scheme. I tend to always make sure that the kids have a nice crib/bed, drawers, lamps, etc. ~ and nothing that matched in my own bedroom. I'm slowly working on it, but it is hard to do now that Kellan can climb up on my bed and launch himself off of it!

300

2011-10-16T19:51:00.002-05:00

Can you believe it? 300 blog posts? I must have a lot to say (with not a lot of material folks!). Andy is taking a break with his friends in Las Vegas this weekend, so the boys and I are flying solo. There is typically some sort of mishap that occurs during these time periods, mainly a furnace failing, nail in a tire, or satellite malfunction (the WORST to me!), but somehow we've made it through without any of these . . . or barf/fever/squirts either. Thank you.

Fall harvest is upon us and my family members (of the male gender) are pretty much gone most of the time hauling corn and soybeans to the grain elevators during the day and night. Luckily, with two boys, I can join in on the fun. I always find it interesting that they can sit and watch tractors, trucks and farm equipment without boredom! They are fortunate to have these experiences, and I am thankful that my uncles, grandpa, brother and dad are welcoming Ben and Kellan to tag along. Maybe farming is in their future :)

I attended Ben's IEP meeting for his qualification of Deaf/Hard of Hearing for school this week. He did end up qualifying under "speech perception" for some services. Ben (with his one good ear) hears well in a quiet environment, but once the volume increases, he finds it difficult. I notice this in several different situations ~ the main ones being when he is in our house playing hide-and-seek when he has difficulty locating my voice with our hardwood floors, at swim lessons he finds it hard to hear over the echos in the pool area (and over 50 kids in the pool at one time) and he does not always properly locate the directionality of cars (which makes him riding his bike far away from me a "not-so-carefree" time). I knew this was coming ~ we've prepared for it since he failed his newborn hearing screening in May, 2007 ~ but it is another thing to go to a meeting to hear that your child finds something difficult in life. I hated it. We are closely monitoring him to see if he needs an FM system (which is a mic on the teacher piped into a tiny hearing aid for one ear). It is one thing to listen closely for 3 hours, but it is another thing to listen for 7.5 hours next year in a classroom with double the amount of children. Thankfully, I know he is in good hands!

My back is BACK :) It was a bitch of a week, but I am in a better place! I think that my feet problems pretty much made my body scream STOP! but I continued to push my normal 25 miles on them. It wasn't pretty. I am trying to rest a bit and let things heal before starting again. I'm also going to get some custom orthotics, so hopefully they will help. I don't ever want to be in that position ever again.

Ben, of course, wondered why my hands were "broken" and I couldn't use them. He asked if my "bender-downer" was broken and if we could buy a new one at Tar*get.

Because there isn't much in my world that can't be purchased at Tar*get these days.

Stealthy Monster

2011-10-06T20:03:00.002-05:00

He's quick. He's quiet. He's inventive. Kellan is getting to be so big these days. He is able to communicate in his own way ~ "apple" for fruits and veggies, "NO, BAH!", "ooooos on, pweees!" ~ it is easier to see him as a boy than a toddler right now.

He is silly. Kellan loves to be funny and he eats every ounce of attention up that anyone will give him. To not give him attention is a punishment. In fact, I've found the the most effective way to get him to stop a tantrum is to take him to his room, tell him that he can cry in there and then come out when he is done. It is amazing that the lack of attention and comfort of us around him zaps him right out of the crazy tantrums that he has sometimes.

Kellan pretty much wants to do everything that his brother does. He loves Ses*ame Street, his family, his babysitter's house and anything that has to do with trucks/trains/various transportation modes. Kellan has also started to sit for longer periods of time to read books, which makes me happy :)

My job as MOM has been challenged this week. I bent over to pull something out of the dishwasher and I pretty much couldn't get back up! We were planning to go to the pumpkin patch that afternoon, but I sadly had to cancel our trip because I couldn't figure out how to get my body to sit in the car. I've had some problems with my feet over the summer (some tarsal tunnel, tendonitis, collapsed arch, etc.) and I figure that this tipped my body over the edge of the cliff. And I hate it. Andy had to dress me on Monday before going to work and for two days I couldn't really sit for any length of time. It isn't good when you are the only one in charge of getting everyone ready/clean/fed and out the door in the morning!

I'm having Andy help me and some chiropractic work done, so hopefully this will be in the past SOON. I certainly don't know how my toilet paper rolls will be refilled due to the bending involved in getting them (and I seem to be the only one who can do this job!). Wish me luck!

Boys

2011-09-29T20:06:00.004-05:00

We really have our days here. Some days, the kids play together so well, I can actually talk on the phone for 3 minutes (for the 4 people who do really call me, you know) and clean the toilets. Then . . . there are days like this!

I'm really good at doing the laundry, but I am not so good at actually folding it and putting it away. The boys find this mountain of laundry (probably 6 loads!) very fun to jump into. Kellan relishes in rolling around in it, and Ben finds it frustrating because he wants.to.go.RIGHT.NOW. This is where the mood can go from giggling to screaming in 1.2 seconds.

I know we are heading into the fall/winter weather of being inside. I may just have to figure out how to re-work the dynamics of this extremely fun bridge jumping escapade :)

Other than that, school/daycare is going smoothly for everyone now. The only issue that I have now is carving 15 minutes of alone time into my schedule between work and home. Andy's job is scheduled in a way that he leaves super early in the morning, so it is my responsibility to get the kids out of bed, ready, fed and dropped off. I also have a student teacher at work this semester, so unless I use the bathroom at work by myself (again, a stretch some days), I really don't have 10 seconds alone unless you count the 8 minute drive to daycare. Andy has helped out with this by taking the kids outside or downstairs to play for 15 to 20 minutes so I can clean up from dinner by myself. I'm familiar with being around kids 24/7, but it gets to be overkill when I'm talking to someone all day long. Those 15 minutes go a long way!

Ben has also asked me to teach him to read. I'm excited to watch him learn this skill, but I'm also nervous to be teaching him. Right now we are working on creating a sounds book with photos of his choice, from there we will work on some easy sight words. Wish me luck. Like Andy says, you do this EVERY day, right? What he doesn't understand is that the students that I work with each day don't see me as their mom . . . the mom who Ben routinely says NO too!

September

2011-09-10T20:10:00.006-05:00

Well folks, things have definitely changed in the Peterson household in the past few weeks. Our summer together has officially ended, and Ben and Kellan have gone back to full time daycare and I've gone back to teaching. Bittersweet, but in the end it was Kellan who had the easiest transition. Seriously, I would never have thought that he would be the one who just waltzes into daycare like he did the first week of June! But, I'll take it. At the end of the summer, we had his second tear-free haircut (one year in the making) and I told my hairstylist to cut it really short (without the threat of lice, mind you) because his hair grows at this lightning speed. I didn't like it (see above pic), so this time we're going to let it grow out a bit. He looks like he is in the army :)
Out of the entire family, Kellan is the most excited about our community sponsored agriculture share purchase this year. Every other week we get a box of fruit and veggies and he LOVES to comb through to see what can be eaten instantly. Sweet corn is a huge hit for him, he often will eat ears of corn for his entire meal. I think that he has a future as a chef.

Ben started 4 year old kindergarten on September 1st. He is in the afternoon group and he gets picked up by the bus at his daycare provider's home. I guess it is a big production when everyone waits for the bus with you (babies included!). My only issue with busing is that he is riding for 1.25 hours in the morning and then about 40 minutes after school, with three hours of instruction in there too. There is also a bus transfer that he has to do with about 500+ kids that makes him very nervous (and his tears are my tears too), but within the first week all of the kinks were worked out and his anxiety level decreased. All of these changes have caused him some sleep issues, we are finding him out of bed at night wandering his room and he also tosses and turns in his sleep (I hear him hit the wall often). I'm hoping that this will settle over time, I know that this is the same way that Kellan processes changes in his life.
Other than those issues, he loves school, which makes me happy. Ben is deaf in his left ear, so we are working on getting him an FM system for school time. This is where he wears an earpiece in his "good" ear and the teacher wears a necklace with a microphone on it. Our meeting is in three weeks to figure out if it is necessary for his hearing in the classroom.

Learning to Fly

2011-08-22T20:09:00.007-05:00

As the end of the summer is nearing, I'm a bit sad. I've enjoyed *almost* every moment of the past 10.5 weeks (minus the really challenging days of Kellan's tantrums, I can't wait until we are beyond this stage). It is hard to think that summer 2011 is behind us as of Thursday morning. And don't even ask how I will ever plan to get out of the door by 7:15 a.m. I still have no clue how that will happen.

I was at a good friend's wedding this past weekend which gave me a great chance to experience adult conversation. I don't get much adult conversation during the days at home, so I kind of pine for some intelligent thoughts from people who understand the amount of pauses to put in their conversation, that there is a natural give and take in talking, and they have a genuine interest in what you have to say! I don't get that all the time. :) Anyways, I am always floored by how much people are fascinated by Kellan's international adoption. They are pretty polite about the difficult questions and I know that they ask because they are curious and interested, not because they are wanting to know private information. But . . . there is one question that I do get asked at least a few times a year (Hey, I don't really talk to adults, remember?) and it is an interesting one.

Are you scared that Kellan will resent you for his adoption and want to go back to Korea?

I kind of just smirk at the thought. It is kind of the same thing when I had Ben and people said But, you can't have just ONE, what would happen if he dies? Again, another smirk from me. Seriously, can you replace a child with another one?

First and foremost, if Kellan grows up to resent me for his adoption ~ then I have failed him. He was a baby in foster care who needed a permanent family. There really was no option other than growing up in the system in Korea for him, if adoption into a family wasn't a choice. Will I ever know if moving him to Wisconsin made him a *better* individual? No. Andy and I wanted to simply give him the unconditional love that every child deserves in life. If he resents any part of his adoption, we will seek out additional support to help him through it. If he wants to travel to or live in South Korea, I would be completely supportive and never take it as a negative. What an awesome opportunity for him! As long as he is happy, healthy and knows he is loved and supported by us in life ~ this is all that matters. I find it funny that some people consider their children as possessions and that if they move far away or have some difficulty in understanding their personal identity ~ they are a failure, and this is the worst.thing.ever. However, I've always felt that Ben could resent us as parents too, there is very little control over free will and thought. Biological or adopted . . . everyone has their own stuff to sort through in life. Hey, Ben could hate me for making him try a few bites of pizza ~ we've got to make the therapy interesting, right?

Throughout the past 5 weeks of summer, I have been exposed to at least 769 viewings of the movie R*io. For those of you who haven't seen it, the main character, Blu, is a native baby bird in Rio and is sold by poachers. He is dumped off of a truck by accident and is raised by a girl named Linda in Minnesota. They grow older together, have a routine and understand and love each other. Eventually the plot returns Blu and Linda to Rio to slow the extinction of this exotic bird species.

This story reminds me of Kellan's adoption each time I watch it. This scared, tiny baby bird is taken out of a cold box and given the love and attention that he needs to blossom into a happy and content adult bird. But . . . he can't fly. He's kind of handicapped by his situation in Minnesota ~ it being cold and remote, unlike Rio. Until he returns to Rio, he never understands why it is important to learn to fly.

Kellan will need this too. It may not be in physically traveling to or living in Korea ~ it may be something else. Maybe it is wearing purple shirts on the third Wednesday of July in the correct moonlight . . . we've all got our own *things* that make us whole and complete. My job as his mom is to support him while he finds these "things". And then ~ we can watch him fly. :)

Heavy Heart

2011-08-04T07:13:00.004-05:00

I've had it. I'm done with the ups and downs of my weight loss. If you've been reading my blog for the past few years, you are familiar with my battle. And that is what it is, a battle. I don't seem to struggle with the actual weight loss part of the equation. I'm pretty good at it once I put my mind to it. But, the major struggle for me is the maintenance of all of it. I was on the right track last year. I even made goal at Weight Wa#tchers in March 2010. I felt on top of the world! I ran three half-marathons last year (well, two full ones and a 20K) and I could miraculously pull out my summer clothing and know that all of it would fit with some room to move. Fast forward to now . . . and that is not the case.

Over the past year, a lot has happened beyond Kellan's adoption. And it has not been easy for me. I fell into a "funk" for about 10 months. I didn't really have a passion for anything, even running or my family (pretty much the two main things that define ME). I didn't stop running, but I wasn't putting forth much effort to train for events. Things used to excite me ~ like a new book I wanted to read, online shopping, going to dinner or a movie, or doing something fun with the kids ~ but, none of this excited me during that time period. In fact, it had the complete opposite effect on me ~ I complained and basically said "I DON'T WANT TO!" Work also had its complications ~ with one major event in the spring that almost completely devastated me professionally. In other words, there was not one aspect of my life that I was doing well with. And I felt like a failure, and acted like one too.

If you know me IRL, this is very unlike me. I am typically a very confident, non-teary, excitable and talkative person. I keep myself decent looking and take pride in my efforts. This has not been the case in the past year.

I have gained 22 pounds.

And I hate that fact. I hate even having to type that sh*t.

Thankfully, around the later part of May, things got a lot better. Within a few weeks, I felt myself coming out of my funk ~ happy ~ yet apologetic to those who had to deal with me during this time. Some people experience this type of "unveiling" feeling and I never believed it. I was ashamed that it happened to me. Terrified that it might not be a permanent change, is more like it. Do you know when you are the crazy lunatic? I don't know what it was (does this need a label?), but I know that I haven't looked back since then. I'm back on the "wagon" (if that wagon is made of low-fat, power foods), but still treat myself one day a week. Ben even calls it Donut Day. Hey, don't judge. Donuts are a treat that I still want to enjoy and they are a delicious part of life. If Ben grows up knowing that he can't eat donuts every day, then I have done my job as Super Mom.

So, here we are. Back here again, yet happy. But, I'm just ecstatic to be back here again even if it is in double-digit pant size!

Kellan ~ Version 2.0

2011-07-28T09:08:00.007-05:00

I have anticipated Kellan's second birthday for a few months, but it was a different experience it. Since I have been home, I'm seeing him in a totally different light. He has his toddler days (which are now in bad mornings or bad afternoons), but for the most part he is utterly and completely a TWO year old. Now I know ~ some of you are going "Yeah, idiot mom, he's two years old". But, to really write this in a way that I can express it correctly without sounding harsh . . . his developmental age hasn't always matched. According to most adoption literature, this is very typical. I think part of it is the transition and adjustment of the last 14 months home, but he is now developmentally with his peers. He plays with his brother. He watches him with an eagle eye and mimics everything he does. It makes me smile.

He likes to watch small amounts of television and he is obsessed with S*esame Street. Particularly Oscar (which I find hilarious, because he is a grouch that lives in garbage) and Elmo.
Manny, thankfully, did not destroy the cake this time. I kept it in my car until the *second* we were going to cut into it. Darn cat is lucky I love him.

And of course, Kellan and Ben enjoyed being a part of the spotlight. Everyone who came to the party really enjoys the Korean food that Andy prepares. It is really a special meal for us to share our love of Kellan's Korean culture. And it just happens to be delicious! I joked this year that Kellan will probably ask for pizza next year, he certainly enjoys his American cuisine too.

I am now 7 weeks into my summer break with the boys. I only have 4 left and I am totally sad about it. To be honest, I wasn't sure how I would like being home ~ as most people know, it is much harder work to be home than at work. I have really enjoyed seeing Kellan ask his first questions ("Bah go?", "Manny down?"), Ben learned to swim this summer with a noodle and we've taken some great bike rides together to the park. We have carved out a little piece of the day that is just ours. Now don't get me wrong, there are challenges to being home, especially when it involves two boys who are still very "ME!" oriented. I've joked with Andy about medical emergencies ~ I could fall, have an open fractured leg that is spurting blood ~ and they both would be demanding "I WANT WATER IN A CUP WITH A TOP, PLEEEEEEEEASE!!??". There is not very much give-and-take with me, as their mother. Why don't they ever ask where I want to go for the day????!

I'm thinking it will be a loooooong time before that comes?

Lazy Days

2011-07-14T20:08:00.002-05:00

Well, part of that is right. I'm pretty lazy with my blogging lately! We are still here, enjoying every moment of our summer. Andy is in the middle of switching jobs, so he took a week off to be at home with me and the boys. It is the first time since Ben was born that he has been able to take time off (minus all of the sick time that kids require), so we've been living it up. We traveled to Madison to visit the zoo and we've gone to local pools with deeper water and slides that I couldn't possibly manage solo without the support of high dosage anti-anxiety medication. As a result, Kellan had a bout of swimmer's ear, but it is par for the course with kids and summer!

We are planning to celebrate Kellan's birthday on Saturday. I could not be more excited to throw him a birthday party this year. He understands most of the birthday concept and even knows how to sing the song (modified to 2 year old standards). We will see how Ben handles a party that is NOT for him. I have a rule at our house that there are no personal toys, the toys belong to our family and we can all play with them. It took a while for Ben to get this concept, but I always remind him that he can play with any toy at his daycare provider's home (who has two children of her own) ~ this seems to squash any hurt feelings that he has.

Kellan has had a language explosion since I have been home for the summer. He now says "sentences" (I say this lightly), such as "Mommy, mouse here" while reading a book, or "Daddy home now" when Andy pulls into the driveway. It is so much nicer to have him be able to say that he is done eating, wants more food, or ask for water ("mo awa peas") when he needs it. Not to say that we don't have any tantrums or typical 2 year old behavior ~ we caught him scooping water out of the toilet and placing it very nicely on our hallway carpet this week ~ he is totally a normal 2 year old!

Beyond being lazy with my blogging, I also have an online class that is due August 1st that I need to tackle and SOON. No more putting it off!

Summer - Vol. 1

2011-06-26T19:43:00.002-05:00

I'm excited to report that summer is going very well this year! Both boys are enjoying their time with me and we've had some well deserved time off from the daily grind of school and work. Finally. My first goal with both kids home was to establish a schedule with some fun in it. I will be a teacher to my death! Ben has started swim lessons, so I built in some time for everyone's "jobs" after breakfast and then we are out the door for the pool. We come back home for snack, some outside time and a lunch on our deck. Kellan has settled into his naps (around 2 hours) and Ben does his own quiet time in my bedroom for an hour. I'm reading some great summer books (beyond the class that I'm taking, thankfully) during that time. Every afternoon we are doing a "choice" time for our free time. I give them two options and every other day one gets to choose where we go for an hour in the afternoon. Some of the options are library, bike ride, park, Grandma's house, our play set or our basement. Kellan always chooses the last option in the set that he is given :)

I hate to say this out loud . . . but I am so unbelievably happy that last summer is completely behind me. It was probably the roughest summer I've ever had in my entire life! I am just so elated that Kellan is happy, content, adjusted and an integral part of our family now. If you asked me last year, I wouldn't have seen that in the horizon. So for those of you that are in the process or within your first year home . . . it happens! He is a very happy little bugger now who smiles most of the day (not saying that we don't have wing-dinger fits here, that would be lying). Ben is just SO big, his interests in books/shows/games is changing. He is ready for school. Ben asks a lot of questions, some over and over, and he reminds me of my own students at school.

Well, there you have it. I'm not in the nervous hospital yet, I haven't gone completely off the deep end (except during mealtimes, that is). But, this is only volume 1. Stay tuned!

Dad's Day

2011-06-19T08:12:00.009-05:00

This year Andy made an executive decision to buy a share in a local farm co-op. Every other week we travel to a local store to pick up our fresh fruit and veggies. I have to say, I was skeptical ~ it seemed like a lot of money for fresh produce that we could technically get at a farmer's market ~ but I have been pleasantly surprised. We haven't ended up with too much of one thing and it also lends itself to some great Korean food!

For Father's Day, the co-op offered its members the first strawberry pick of the year. So we gathered our pails and drove a few miles to pick some fresh berries. I only have a vague memory of doing this when I was young, but I was so surprised how juicy and sweet these strawberries were this year! It was a great activity to do with Grandma and Grandpa Goose.

Ben probably had the easier time picking the berries, he was much closer to the ground!
Kellan had the luxury of riding in the backpack. He wasn't all that thrilled with being in there, he would rather have eaten his way through the rows and stomped over the plants on his way! He did get to enjoy the berries for lunch.
This is one of those FAKE pics that I had to take. Ben has no desire to eat anything without coersion these days if it doesn't have peanut butter and jelly involved (or chocolate). I tried to tell him that the jelly is made from strawberries, but no dice . . .

Both kids are really into spaghetti these days, but it is SO much of a pain to feed them and clean up. Of course, they don't want the decoy "big" noodles, they want the real spaghetti noodles. Kellan and Ben both can eat two bowls full of it, but half of Kellan's share ends up on the floor.

Ben's face is simply red for the rest of the day! The joys of feeding times!

Happy Father's Day to everyone out there. I know that both Andy and I are thankful that we have our own dads around to enjoy. They are both wonderful people who have guided us through our own lives. And to my own husband, who is an awesome dad . . . you are the best. I am so happy that these two boys will know what it takes to be a "daddy" some day :)

Freak

2011-06-13T19:43:00.005-05:00

So, let's talk about my small issue with control. I have just a teensy-weensy bit of a problem with letting things "be" and it can cause some major problems in my everyday life. For example, I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch. Every day. Dinner can change (within reason), but breakfast and lunch seem to be stuck inside of a rock. I also have to have the same routine before bed. I need to read a book (for enjoyment, I can't stand it when I try to read stuff for classes or school and I have a hard time relaxing) for at least 15 minutes and I need to fall asleep in silence. Any noise will drive me bonkers and it will take me awhile to fall asleep through it. Hence, my constant need for the air conditioning at night.

I know ~ I'm a freak.

All of my control issues have slowly seeped into every aspect of my life . . . I have a "no eating" policy in my car, I can't stand cheap toilet paper, I refuse to go to Wal*mart, and don't even ask how I feel if a book is ever ripped in my house! But, because I know that I have this freak control issue, I also understood that I needed to change these things before my summer break and full time mom mode arrived. So, I decided to read up on some Love and Logic philosophy and strategies. Ben is very familiar with Love and Logic because his pre-school and his daycare provider both used this philosophy in their behavior management. I really like what it has done for him. I ordered some books, read them and now I am putting the strategies to use.

Most people think that I should have this down pat. After all . . . don't I have a master's degree in this stuff? Well, yes. Does that mean that I know how to manage two different maturities and personalities at the same time? Umm . . . no. Because of my little "control freak" problem, I can't stand it when the kids don't eat a meal, scream/yell/hit/throw/tantrum, or generally be "a pain in the ____". In fact, if you were my neighbor, you may or may not* have seen me throwing Ben's dinner off of our deck one night saying some colorful words while both kids were inside screaming at the dinner table because he refused to eat it. You also may or may not* have seen me in the grocery store looking haggard, staring forward and wondering how many grocery items I will actually leave the store with because both kids are tossing them over the sides while attempting to kill each other. But, these are totally fictitious (insert sarcasm here). I decided that I needed to give some of my control back to my family.

I can tell you that things are going well. Although, I do have an issue with Ben dressing himself. He looks like he woke up late for work, dressed himself in the dark and happened to grab sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt on a 99 degree day. Ugh. I've let Kellan choose not to eat his breakfast and scream through Ben's swim lessons for 45 min. at 9 a.m. because he was hungry. He surely made a better choice at lunch! And I'm impressed with how much both of them are able to do when I tell them that Mom's car is leaving in 20 minutes (I only had to back out the car from the garage ONE day for that one). We'll see what other advantages I can find in the next 11 weeks. Summer break is finally here!

*Ben has never eaten pizza, so I renamed it "Mom's Casserole". It did NOT work. Four letter words were only used behind the door!

**If you do see me at the grocery store, please don't acknowledge me ~ I would rather be the anonymous freak show.

Thankful

2011-06-04T14:31:00.004-05:00

Here we are. Can you believe it? One year later. What is in a year? A lot . . . is all I can say. We have had an enormous amount of ups and downs, but we are here, on the other side with smiles on our faces.

I can tell you that in the last two months, I've seen a lot of emotional growth for Kellan. I'm finding more of these pictures on our camera (the ones with giggly, natural smiles and laughter). I'm seeing more of the contented Kellan. He greets us in the morning from his crib with MOMMY! DADDY! ALL DONE! He knows we are near, he knows he is safe. He also knows that he is a large part of us. Kellan talks about his family non-stop :)

As the one year mark approached, I felt myself thinking about our time in Korea and how difficult it was to sit in the small room at Holt Children's Services, smiling and listening to all of the wonderful things that Kellan did with his foster mom ~ only to take him away from all of it. He went from being very smiley (just as he is now in our pictures) to not wanting to look at us, crying whenever we spoke in front of him, and not eating. And I cried right along with him. I questioned if things would ever turn around. Was this the right thing? Were we selfish to believe that we could do this and this was a wonderful thing for everyone?

And it was the right thing. Nothing will ever be continuously "wonderful", but we are all happy here in the Peterson household. Everyone has their place (and I couldn't imagine it without them) and has hit their stride in figuring out how to expand to the family of four that we are now.

I had some very awesome family and friends, some in real life and others whom I met through this tiny blog that I started 2.5 years ago, that helped me overcome some very difficult times throughout this last year. I cannot thank you enough. Even if it was a simple smile or comment on the blog, a suggestion to help, or an offer to buy me some more Fat Ti*re beer . . . know that I (and everyone else in this family) appreciates every bit of it. We would not be here without the support we were given! I look forward to the next year that we have as a complete family. Where will we be then?

Resources

2011-06-01T07:08:00.004-05:00

Sometimes little men need a bit of help.

Especially when there are big kid toys to be played with!

Big Man

2011-05-26T12:08:00.007-05:00

Well, I feel as if I haven't blogged as much about how big Ben is getting . . . so here it goes. He is now four years old! Clearly, I didn't think that I would survive his first year with all of the work that a baby entails :) So, every year beyond that one is an extra special bonus. He is truly a very sweet boy with a big personality. He and I went through a 6 month period of time when he was 2 years old that I don't really want to remember (tantrums, head-butting, tantrums, tantrums, climbing out of bed 146 times a night, etc.), but he emerged out of that phase and has never looked back. Around age 3, he developed compassion and rational thought. I could read books with him and he understood more than just basic concepts. Ben also started to get into games and puzzles by then. It was so fun to sit and enjoy a game (that's if HE won at that point, the opposite was still a big mess) and just talk together. He has learned so much in the last year.

I decided as part of this post, I would interview Ben so I wouldn't be misinforming you on his personality!

So, Ben ~ what are your favorite things to do?

I like to get dressed. I also like to eat food and I really like cottage cheese right now.

What do you like to play with?

I really like my cars and my trucks. My favorite game is Yahtz*ee Jr. with Toy Stor*y characters. I like to win.

What are your favorite shirt and pants?

I have a good shirt. It has a motorcycle on it. I love my sweatpants. My underwear with Wall*E on them are pretty cool.

What is your favorite outside activity?

Swing. I like to visit Grandma and Grandpa D and Grandma and Grandpa Goose.

What is your favorite movie?

Cars, of course.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A teacher.

What does Dad do for a job?

Sometimes he gets owies. Oh, I don't know what he does. Mom teaches, she teaches little kids.

Are you ready to go to school in the fall?

I can't wait to ride a bus. I want to do that RIGHT NOW!

Well, there you have it folks. Straight from the horse's mouth! I can't believe that four years have passed me by (my life without this crazy kid is pretty much what I consider a past life).

22 Months

2011-05-22T19:24:00.006-05:00

Well, we are finally approaching the *one year* event! I never thought that this would sneak up on me . . . but here we are. Kellan is 22 months old today and he is SO almost 2 years old. One of the main things that has developed in the last two months is his phrasing. Within one week Kellan learned 6 new phrases, "Daddy home", "Bye Manny", "More please", "go up", "What's that?" and "IWANTTHAT!" (which comes out more like "Iuntdat"). It has been amazing to watch him grow within our family over the last 11.5 months. He truly is learning to identify himself within us.
With that, we've hit a speed bump. Kellan has been relatively healthy since our 8 week sick-a-thon in Nov./Dec./Jan. Since then, Kellan has had three more ear infections. It is getting to the point where if he pops a temp., I call the doctor immediately so we can get him on some antibiotics the same day. Last Thursday, he followed that same pattern and he has a nasty ear infection in his left ear. He's been on meds since then and we haven't seen much improvement (we've taken him in twice, they say it will run its course), and he is miserable. He's actually sitting on the couch. Not talking. Not eating. Not moving.
Sometimes he gets bored with that routine and he will put his head down. It is awful to watch. Hopefully, we will see some improvement soon (don't worry . . . I'll be calling them again tomorrow) and I can get my little Kellan back in tip-top shape for our Petersonpalooza next week. I'm going through all sorts of emotions as our one year anniversary comes near, some days I remember how excited I was to get that call, other days I am happy that we are on this side of the transition. I do know that Kellan's second birthday will be completely different than his first (when he was only home for 7 weeks), I'm so happy to celebrate with him. There is so much to be thankful for!

May 10th

2011-05-10T12:11:00.002-05:00

I decided a few years ago that I would protect Ben's birthday. I didn't want to have any of my own personal sadness creep in on his special, happy occasion. I felt as if this sadness was my stuff not his. This is very similar to the information that most adoptive parents get in many pre-placement parenting classes . . . this is your crap, not their's, etc. May 9th would always be a celebration for Ben. So, I designated May 10th as my day to mope. One day out of 365 to think, ponder, feel sad or even stomp my feet. The first year was really hard. I certainly shed many tears and stomped my feet hard that year. The second year was a bit more sad than angry. The third year was getting easier, due to our upcoming travel call. This year was even better than last. In fact, May 10th is beginning to be less of a "pity" day and more of my own celebration. After all, shouldn't I celebrate each and every May 10th as a happy to be here occasion? Lately, I've had a harder time getting my body out of bed before 5 a.m. to run my normal route. But on May 10th while I was taking my normal run, I thought about the day after I had Ben, laying in a bed in the ICU, on a ventilator, unable to communicate and sedated . . . and I never want to be there again. I plan to celebrate each May 10th that I am happy, healthy and able to watch my children grow. No more tears. Promise. Maybe cake though? That might be a bit too much.

The Real Deal

2011-05-08T13:36:00.010-05:00

Where have we been in the last month??? Why . . . we've been squeezing the eyeballs out of the cat! I'm sure he is SUPER excited that we haven't been blogging.
We also hang at Grandma's house. Kellan is learning to hold on to the Gator for his dear life while riding with big brother.
We've been picking our noses and moving incessantly. Sweet!
Learning how to play Angry B*rds with Dad. That game is a crazy addiction!
Ben also started soccer. Kellan enjoys rolling his cute behind on the ball when it isn't terribly windy or rainy!
We also had a birthday in our household, Ben turned FOUR! I, personally, didn't think that I would make it through the first three months of his life, so I am super excited to celebrate FOUR years with the big man. He recently outgrew his small bike, so his grandparents bought him a super sweet green ride. :)
Manny has been himself. He also ruined a section of Ben's birthday cake again this year. Arg! I even kept the cake in my car until about 10 minutes before we lit the candles . . . but Cake Wrecker Manny strikes at the moment that NO one is looking.
I started "Mission: Solo Quiet Time" for Ben two weeks ago. I put him in our bedroom with my computer (DVD and Angry B*rds is all a man truly needs right?), so I've been finding these random pictures on my desktop after retrieving my computer.
What's a man to do with 60 minutes to himself? Take funny pictures, I guess. I can't complain though . . . I do now have 60 full minutes to read my trashy celebrity gossip magazines during quiet time. Score!

Saturday's Visit From The Police

2011-04-03T19:22:00.003-05:00

If the police are visiting your home on a Saturday morning before 8 a.m., it would have to be for a good purpose right? My brother works nights, so we rarely have an opportunity to see him at work or see him in full uniform with his cruiser. This weekend afforded him some overtime, so on his break he stopped by for 5 minutes to let the kids look at his car. Anyone with kids 3 and under knows that at this point in the morning we are all up and ready to greet the day (and have been for a while now!), so they were excited about it.
I had a talk with both Kellan and Ben that the front seats are the only appropriate ones that they can sit in . . . I don't want to ever see them in the backseats!

Kellan @ 20 mos.

2011-03-24T16:56:00.002-05:00

Kellan is doing really great right now. He is settling into his almost 1.75 years-ness. He had a kind of language explosion in the last 2 months ~ not necessarily clear as a bell language ~ but it is getting the job done. For five nights, Kellan screamed for over two hours a night and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, and from that day on he started saying one new word pretty much each day! Developmental? We'll never know. Kellan has a lot of what I would consider functional words, like up, down, again, no, yeah, all done, and eat. The sweetest words that he has learned are Mom-EE, Dad-EE, Man-EE, and Bah for Ben. He voluntarily gives hugs and kisses too which is great! His main obsession seems to be trains (coo-coos), garbage trucks, airplanes (which he uses sign language for, too cute) and books. If you pick a book that he doesn't want to read, he will simply scream until you remove it from his view :) He is definitely getting much closer to TWO years old and his opinions are prevalent.

I do feel that a large amount of his "normal" personality is floating to the surface ~ he is cute, bubbly, giggly . . . until he doesn't get what he wants. He will flail, throw himself around (but he now knows that it HURTS to hit his head on things, so he'll avoid that) very dramatically, and this behavior is typically reserved for me as his mom. His sleeping has improved over the last few months, he now sleeps from 7:00 p.m. until around 6 a.m. Kellan seems to be on a break from teething. We rarely hear from him in the middle of the night (Can you hear me knocking on wood and crossing my fingers/legs/tongue while I write this???). I now feel like I'm going to be struck down! The sleep deprivation periods are really hard to get through, so I shudder to think of going through another few months of not sleeping :).

We are now approaching the point in time where Kellan has been with us longer than he was in Korea. I try to think of Kellan's foster mom . . . is she with another little boy right now that she will soon be handing over? With all of the wait times for travel increasing this year (sometimes to almost a year), how hard will it be on these babies to transition to their new families when they are close to Kellan's current age? Knowing how difficult Kellan's transition was at 10 months, I feel like it is an injustice to these children to keep them from their forever families due to government process. Sometimes it sucks to just think about it.

Brothers

2011-03-20T19:38:00.002-05:00

The first six months home with Kellan were a huge adjustment for Ben. He had a solid 3 years of solo-attention with Andy and me. He had 3 years to hold conversations, play games, put together puzzles ~ all to himself.

Enter Kellan. Enter apocalypse!

Slowly, throughout the last 3 months or so, I'm catching them playing together more. I even snapped this extremely sweet moment where both of them were patiently waiting for blueberry muffins for snack. And it was genuine.

One of the hardest parts for me with Kellan's adoption was just the general adjustment to having two children. Two different personalities, two different temperaments, and most of all ~ two different situations. Ben found it difficult to share toys, be quiet during Kellan's nap times, and be aware of his personal space. This (I'm ecstatic to report) is changing. I can actually see where the two of them will eventually get along consistently and play together. Kellan is becoming more and more of a little boy rather than a baby, so they are starting to play with the same toys. This is both a blessing and a curse!

2011-03-10T19:34:00.008-06:00

I'm ashamed of myself as a blogger . . . I will just post pictures, since they say much more than my words these days. I've been busy with the craziness of our state governor and the end of collective bargaining rights for teachers (which just happened to be signed into law this evening, sigh). But, I can report that Ben is an expert rally partner, he loves the people and the signs!

The happenings of the Peterson household ~

Ben is getting into puzzles. I, personally, have a love/hate relationship with them. I love that he is interested in working on a 60 piece puzzle, but I hate that it is something that takes a lot of focus time. It is really hard to make dinner, manage children/household AND make sure to pick out the corner pieces! I hope that in time he forgives my ADHD :)
Manny's main goal these days is to score food. He will do it by any means necessary. Check out the belly on this one ~ he was after some of Andy's wings on a Saturday night.
Kellan is throwing a few less tantrums and smiling and giggling more. I love it. I also enjoy seeing his silly personality shine through! He is a very silly young man.
Kellan is also growing. He is now wearing 24 mo. shirts and 18 mo. pants. We are working on getting the 5.5 size shoes rather than the 5's. He is always on the run.
He is also learning to feed himself. I don't have the fancy suction cup bowls yet (I would LOVE them), so he needs to be supervised a bit because he loves to decorate my walls :) Kellan has officially been home for 9 months this week!

Trudging Through

2011-02-28T08:25:00.003-06:00

Another small battle with illness this past week . . . Ben and I had the stomach flu (as I'm crossing my fingers about Kellan and Andy being free and clear yet). I managed to trudge through my last night of parent/teacher conferences with the flu and came home around 8:15 and literally jumped into my bed. 45 short minutes later, poor Ben woke up and threw up in his bed ~ and continued to do that for another 3 hours. It was really hard to watch Ben try to rationalize the throwing up/diarrhea. He would wander around asking for "medicine" to make him feel better and also ask us if he could just go to sleep. Finally, around midnight, he felt a bit less nauseated and was able to lay in his bed to get some rest. Unfortunately, we learned how quickly our linen options were exhausted and the poor guy ended up with only one wimpy pillow and some towels to lay on. How can you possibly clean a pillow? I didn't take this lightly, and ran to the store the next day to stock up on extra pillows/blankets and attempted to bleach my entire home. We'll see if my efforts pay off!

A Manifesto

2011-02-20T09:34:00.003-06:00

Lots of press coverage of Wisconsin politics this week, leading with our Democratic Senators leaving the state to avoid the vote of abolishing unions and increasing pension and insurance contributions. For me, as the ignorance-is-bliss political party president, I usually try to stay out of it! Unfortunately, not this time.

As I'm sure most of you know, I am a Wisconsin teacher. I am a part of a union, and this affects my job and the children that I teach. As a part of balancing the state budget, our governor wants all public employees (around 175,000 people in our state) to pay 5.8 percent of their salary towards their pension and also 12.6 percent of their insurance costs. Beyond this, and far more scary, he also wants to abolish unions and collective bargaining. The limit of a yearly raise would be the consumer price index, or 1.6 percent since January 2010.

Before I get beyond my point, I want to mention that I understand the need for change. I get that states are broke (or our entire government, for that matter) and there is a need to "give". I get that many people in the private sector pay huge amounts each month into insurance and 401K plans from their own dwindling salaries . . . or they just don't have a job at all. I get it. And this is not my main complaint (I'll talk more about this below). My main concern is the loss of collective bargaining.

Wisconsin won collective bargaining rights in the 1970's. And they were necessary. Each year, my union's negotiation team (which my mom is a part of) deals with class size language, lay-off notices, salary increases for adding credits to our education and years of experience, ability to use sick time during maternity leave, preparation times, and reimbursement for coaches/play directors/teacher leaders. Every year, they fight to keep our post-retirement benefits and ensure that we get quality health insurance. They listen to the group and take everyone's concerns, not just their own.

On the flip side, I agree that there are points where a union is not beneficial. The time that it takes to negotiate a contract can be years (in fact, in my 10 year career, I've been without a contract more than I have had one). Unfortunately, there are also teachers who abuse their rights. There are teachers who coast on the idea of being "untouchable". There are people like that everywhere, and in these circumstances I would welcome being union-free. But . . . there are also many points where I am happy to have my union. I am happy that I am given a 40 minute prep-period to look over assessments and prepare myself for all of the activities that I do with my students throughout the day. I am happy that they have a specific gym, music and art teacher who can best teach them these subjects. I am happy that it is unacceptable to put more than 25 students in my class, so I can individualize my instruction as best as I can (for those of you who are not teachers, our entire curriculum is based on individual instruction). And I am happy that I have a fighting chance to help my students all be "proficient or advanced" on the state tests . . . because ALL children need to be there by 2013 (even our second language learners and special ed students!), courtesy of No Child Left Behind standards that are still in place from the Bush-era presidency.

With no unions in place, our school board can basically overhaul our contract as they see fit. They can eliminate teachers (which they will have to do if our governor's budget decreases per student funding, which has been speculated) and up our class sizes to whatever they see as acceptable or needed for budget reasons. They don't have to reward anyone monetarily for getting their master's degree or any credits beyond that (our cap right now is Master's degree plus 30 credits). And basically, it would pit me and my fellow teachers against each other. We wouldn't share ideas or work cooperatively because it may not set us above the others ~ if it is my job vs. someone else's.

So . . . if this goes through (which it has a HUGE chance of doing with a Republican majority in the Senate and Assembly), who would want to be a teacher? Who would want to stay in teaching? How can people compare our jobs to the private sector when our products are the future people of America? Don't you want educated people to be teaching our kids?

And this is where I say it affects my students. In fact, if I could have taken them to Madison to view this political process in the making, I would have since it has been a peaceful process! Schools in our area have closed (not mine, thankfully), due to huge amounts of teacher "illnesses" (what people don't know is that we don't have vacation days, only sick ones) and there have been crowds of 30,000 people at the Capitol to protest this bill. My favorite part has been the unification of ALL unions in the state, not just teacher ones. And just so you can get a chuckle, check out this website with all of the great signs that people have created for the cause.

If this does go through, I will have to evaluate my future plan. With the percentages being paid to my insurance and pension, I would actually lose money by staying in teaching. Yes, I would have a retirement fund and insurance ~ but I do pay half of my monthly salary to daycare and it would be more and more each year. I have my Master's degree plus 15 graduate credits and I am seriously thinking about getting another Bachelor/Master's degree if this is what the future of education in Wisconsin is. And more importantly ~ what will education be like for Ben and Kellan in the next few years?

Feel free to leave any comments, this is a heated topic! I am not one of those who cannot hear the opposition and agree with parts of it. I get it. And if I had the solution, I would be the first person to call the governor and tell him!

Rollercoaster

2011-02-12T14:13:00.007-06:00

With another week of roller coaster life under my belt, I'm feeling good about it being Saturday. Andy is away on a business trip and I am flying solo as a mom-of-two. Man, I really have a lot of respect for single parents after this week! We've had to punt for two days this week ~ Kellan got another fever on Monday and it continued through Wednesday. I feel so bad for him! This winter has totally rocked his world in terms of his health. Poor little man.

Today, I felt I would post about Kellan at almost 19 months. We are approaching it, and I certainly have a hard time keeping up with these little milestones. There have been so many changes for this little guy lately! We definitely have our ups and downs; the ups being mostly language and voluntary affection, and the downs being his immune system taking on new American viruses seemingly every week and serious tantrum behaviors. But . . . out of everything, he is a cute and affectionate little bug.

At almost 19 months, Kellan is:

*going to bed around 7 p.m. and waking up around 5 a.m., taking about a 1.5 hour nap during the daytime

*he has become attached to his dog blanket (a Hal*0 Sleepsack) and carries it around the house

*needing to be held for at least a few minutes after wake-up times from nap and in the morning, he cries if he is put down

*he has two new words, one being "YEAH!!!", which is hilarious to hear, and the other being "dow" for down

*giving kisses to us voluntarily (which is awesome to see!) and he will also blow kisses

*running pretty much everywhere

*expressing a "fake" cry

*loving El*mo and anything Sesame Str*eet

*hating the process of being changed, clothed, or dried off after a bath ~ he acts as if he is being seriously hurt

*using a fork during mealtimes

*becoming particular about the foods that he eats

*understanding everything that we say to him, and he has probably 10 words (or consistent sounds for the same items)

The underbelly of the 18 month old stage is the tantrum behaviors. There are days that he will have 20+ tantrums, all starting within the last 2 or 3 weeks. Some last 10 seconds, others can last for 5 minutes. They seem to be tied to how much sleep he is getting and how healthy he is, not a surprise. There are also days that I barely hear anything but laughter from him ~ so I know that it is a phase. I think that I may have blanked out Ben's 18 mo. antics! It is just hard some days when I listen to him cry for probably 2 hours a day because of the tantrums! So we started 1 minute time-outs. I found a great parenting website that I've used as a resource recently to give me some new ideas . . . www.askmoxie.org. It is a really nice place to go with a variety of ideas and the parents aren't snarky or super opinionated. I don't like snarky!

The one thing that I'm noticing at 19 months is just general contentment. He may have tantrums, but he is comfortable in knowing who he is and what his routine is. Kellan notices when we veer off of the beaten path and take a different route home or to daycare. He knows that it is his job to put up the garage door in the morning, and it is Ben's job to put it down in the evening. He doesn't let Andy hold him before his bedtime, because he feels that it is Mom's job to do that. And finally, he walks out of my arms within the first few minutes that we arrive at daycare. I love these things. Because it reassures me that he sees this life as his place. I'm happy for that.

A Good Friday Night

2011-02-05T08:03:00.002-06:00

Things haven't changed much in the last 10 years. I still enjoy a beer on Friday night, some games, good company, and a curled up kitty in my space. It just all happens before 8 p.m.! And then I am spent.

Today's Status

2011-02-03T19:35:00.003-06:00

The current state of thought . . .

Feeling good about ~ Everyone being healthy, fun snow days, returning to my five day running routine, having big work projects completed, the upcoming weekend with no plans, reading some great books

Feeling not so good about ~ Still running inside (lots of cabin fever), having to constantly remind myself to make healthy eating choices and NOT pizza, the amount of folded laundry sitting in my room, thank you notes that need to be written

Wondering ~ if Kellan will ever sleep consistently past 4:30 a.m., when spring will come, if it is actually possible for me to train for something beyond a half-marathon this year, if Kellan would be alright without us for an overnight trip in a few months

Thinking of ~ my grandparents in Florida enjoying the sunny and warm weather, visiting with my friends, Valentine treats for the kids, a special dinner for Andy

Questioning ~ my decision to send Ben to a 4 year old kindergarten program next year, why my fixed boy kitty wants to hump things and shiver like a 13 year old boy?, my motivation to redo my bedroom decor during the summer

Can't wait for ~ summer, fresh green grass, growing a small garden with my boys, time to move slow, our first family-of-four day

All of this and more throughout the days. Man, my brain is tired!

More Celebrations!

2011-01-29T19:08:00.006-06:00

Today we did a mishmash celebration for Lunar New Year and Kellan's Tol (first birthday). The Choi family (the family that has helped us learn all things Korean for the past 3 years) graciously offered to do a celebration for Kellan's Tol with us. We dressed all of the kids in traditional garb, called hanboks, and also performed the Korean fortune telling activity that children typically do on their first birthday. We placed small objects in front of Kellan and the specific object that he picked first gave us an idea of his future profession. Humorously . . . he chose a tree. We are calling him our official "tree hugger" (which we say with a smile), because we must have a future environmentalist on our hands.
I love Kellan's hanbok, it fit great and he walked around proudly in it! Soyoun and I bartered for it at the Namdaemun Market in Seoul back in June. It has been in a bag for almost 8 months, just begging to be worn! This will be a great keepsake for Kellan :)
Ben and the girls looked fabulous as well. Everyone ~ except Ben (aka Mr. Mac and Cheese) ~ enjoyed the wonderful food that Soyoun made for the celebration.
Kellan is obviously feeling better! Andy took him for his 18 month check up and he has grown over 3 inches in the last 6 months. He has also maintained his 6 pound weight gain since June of last year. He is officially on the charts again, being in the 5th percentile for weight and 15th percentile for height. Kellan's pediatrician predicted that he will be 5'6" when he is fully grown.
Just thought that I would mention that we've officially entered our 18 month old stage of temper tantrums! Kellan will pretty much throw himself down when told no, he will arch his back in your arms and go boneless as well. It is lovely. But ~ in one aspect ~ it is good to know that he is like every other 18 month old . . . content one minute and not in another!

Goofing Around

2011-01-24T17:35:00.008-06:00

Bought myself a brand new computer this weekend ~ or I should say Andy bought me what I wanted. This computer is like driving a German sports car for me (it is a MacBook Pro, so I've switched to the DARK side, according to Andy), and I'm using it to the best of my ability right now. So what do we do with the new photo programs I need to learn? We mess around a bit in our house . . . this is a pic of me and my man baby.
I don't think that I ever want my chest to be this low. Ever. Kellan looks like a groundhog!
Double trouble. I could not even imagine what this life would be like!
Teeny Monster. His shirt says "crab cake", which is very fitting at 18 months!
Again . . . I love to goof around. I'm just glad I have boys and they like to goof with me :)

Atonement

2011-01-22T18:55:00.010-06:00

I am normally a great blogger. I post early and often, and I try to keep things a bit light. Happy, as you may say. But . . . for the past month I just couldn't do it. I couldn't be light, humorous, or positive. At all. So ~ I stayed under the covers and tried to bury myself in the sand. It has been a very stressful time in the Peterson household, to say the least. Poor Kellan is out of the woods now, so I feel that I am safe to post and claim that we are free of all of the "ness" that has flooded our home since mid-December.

Originally, Kellan had a simple sinus infection. It popped up after a 5 day, high-fever virus. And life was miserable for him. He pretty much cried all day, barely ate and cried throughout the night. We got some light antibiotics and he got better. But, two days after we finished his antibiotic, he had spotty, low-temp. fevers that would randomly pop up. I couldn't figure out if they were from his teeth or something else. He was eating reasonably, sleeping okay and everything, so I kind of wrote it off. Christmas came and went and I was back at school, and the trend continued for the next week. The 4 a.m. wake-ups came and the eating ceased. I took him back to the pediatrician. But, did I mention that we switched insurance Jan. 1st???!!! New doctor and new cards for our visit (which we didn't have at this point because they didn't understand why Kellan didn't have a SSN, another glorious part of the adoption process). The new pediatrician (which we love, by the way) said that his initial sinus infection never went away. We were sent off with a new medication.

Fast forward another week . . . Kellan starts feeling better by Wednesday and then by Saturday, he has another fever. Could it be? Another illness already???!!! This one was NOT pretty. Kellan ceased eating completely and was very lethargic. He was sleeping sometimes 14 hours a night (A very different symptom for us here!). But, there was also a very distinct cough. A cough that would NOT go away, and pretty much plagued poor Kellan every waking moment. If he did eat or drink, he would throw it up by coughing so bad. I felt absolutely horrible for him. I would have taken every bit of this from him if I could have. So . . . back to the pediatrician's office we went. This time, we came home with a diagnosis of RSV. Most of the time, RSV is mild, but to preemie Kellan it was severe. We were doing breathing treatments every four hours to help him breathe easier. It was hard to watch his lungs work double time and his nail beds turn blue. It was also hard to sleep knowing that he was a few steps away from being hospitalized, knowing that there could come a time where I would have to whisk him to an emergency room.

Fast forward another few days, and things got better. But . . . a new fever. Again. This time, the pediatrician said there was an ear infection. The RSV was still rearing its ugly head, the coughing was awful and Kellan was 2 pounds lighter than he was a month ago because of the little amount that he was eating. Thankfully, our last (crossing my fingers right now) pediatrician visit was on Friday. He mentioned that the RSV is still holding on to Kellan, but everything else looks like it is moving in the right direction :) He has also woken up the last few mornings with a smile on his face, and he is starting to get his sassiness back! I am elated.
At 18 months, Kellan still isn't fitting into much beyond his 12 month clothes. He has definitely grown since we've brought him home from Korea, but he is still not on the charts quite yet. I'm working on fattening him up, but trying not to fatten myself up at the same time. Let me know if anyone has any hints as to how I can succeed at that one. Because I'm not.
In the middle of all of the madness, we had our Kellanpalooza. It was wonderful. There were a small group of people in our family who came, so it was a very cozy event. Andy made a great spread of Korean food, which everyone (surprisingly!) tried and enjoyed. I was worried that the Korean food would not be a hit, but I was happy that we would have plenty of leftovers :) Needless to say, there wasn't a crumb left!

Kellan has no need for toys or clothing, so I asked our guests to bring a small piece of material that best describes them. I am going to have a local artist put together a hanging quilt for Kellan with these pieces. I was amazed at what people brought! It was very interesting to see what everyone felt was the most important part of themselves . . . looking at the stars, a swatch of a grandfather's favorite shirt and a dress worn to our wedding, tractors, favorite cartoon characters, sports teams, music, cats, and many more things. I can't wait to post a picture of how it turns out. This artist has done many pieces for my mom (and a few for our home), so I trust that she will bring out the true meaning of this quilt . . . that together, even if our interests are different, we make a beautiful representation of love and family for Kellan.
For now, I am just elated that Kellan is in better health. And I hope that the trend continues! Through all of this, I can feel that Kellan has come to trust us more than he ever has before. He seeks us out for comfort and is more secure in letting himself rest and sleep safely. I've never been able to sneak into his room and take a picture of him before, so this is truly a first look at Kellan totally relaxed and safe in his crib. What a difference 7.5 months makes.

7 Months Home + Almost 18 Months

2011-01-07T17:22:00.002-06:00

Seriously? Did I just type that Kellan has been a part of our family for SEVEN months? I'm still thinking that it is 2010 and I am still on my maternity leave . . . but that is just not the case anymore.

In terms of adjustment and transition, I don't feel that there was much difference between three months home and where we are now. Things seemed to really take a turn for the better in September. The significant part of the last month has been the sickness. Kellan had his first "real" illness (which I quantify as serious fever and multiple trips to a doctor's office) within the last month. It was difficult, to say the least, but it had a powerful point to it. Kellan was really comfortable with us and was comforted by our presence throughout the week when he was sick. He handled the nightwaking really well and was pretty much screaming because he didn't feel good ~ not because he felt unsafe, uncertain, or on edge for any reason other than the sickness. It was still hard, but it was a different hard than it was before.

At almost 18 months, Kellan really understands everything that we say to him. He is still in his "Silent Bob" mode. Words really come and go and I have yet to hear more than one or two words within a morning or an afternoon. But . . . his baby sign is very strong. He really communicates well with the six main signs that he knows (milk, please, thank you, more, kitty, sorry). Which, ironically, is kind of like Andy and I did when we were in Korea! His fine motor has come along within the last two months. When we initially visited the therapist, this was one of Kellan's weakest developmental areas. He did well with his gross motor, but he wasn't quite picking up small objects or doing the pick up/put in routine that most toddlers are doing at that point. This is not the case any more. In fact, he is constantly putting things in odd places! I found my comb in our pantry the other day. He loves to transport objects into several buckets and carry them around the house.

The sleep stuff is a bit rough, as I've mentioned in previous posts. I think that the molars are to blame right now. At least, I'm hoping so. Everyone at school reminds me that Kellan will be my child that I will not be able to ROCKET out of bed in about 6 years. But, six years of not sleeping past 4:30 a.m. is daunting to think about! I've just adjusted my bedtime to 8 p.m., which is right after I put Ben to bed. We are hoping that this will change in due time :)

Kellan is a pretty delightful guy! Even when he is up at 4:30 a.m., he has a smile on his face for most of the day! He babbles all day long which tells me that he will be a chatter box when he starts spewing out the words. Kellan seems very comfortable with our close family and friends. He loves El*mo, trucks, cars, trains, and cosmetics. For some reason, he loves to put on lip gloss. Between Kellan and Ben, I could have a make-up festival every morning! Kellan isn't what I would call "easy going", but I know that as time passes, he will ease into his true personality ~ whatever that really is.

It sure is amazing what seven months will do!

The Resolution: Take One

2011-01-02T13:44:00.003-06:00

The past two years that I've been blogging, I've written down what I've wanted to accomplish in the coming year. The first year was a trip to Colorado for Andy and I ~ and last year was to bring our baby Kellan home and to achieve my goal weight. We've done all of those things and even more in the past two years! But, this year these goals don't seem quite right. A lot of my goals have been personal vs. actual family goals. And after a lot of thought, this year is going to be different.

My main thought for this is that going from a one-child family to a two-child family completely threw me on my biscuits (as I would tell Ben) this year! Maintaining harmony and sanity has been my goal for the past 6+ months, but I would like to extend it to 2011. I want to have more confidence in my own abilities as a mom, wife, daughter, friend, sister, etc. I want to be able to balance my family and my job without guilt and feeling like I've put in a full day before I walked out the door at 7:15 a.m. I don't want to have to "divide and conquer" with Andy to be able to clean my toilets AND get some grocery shopping done. And I want to feel confident taking my kids by myself to anywhere other than T*arget. Oh, and on top of all of that, I want to make more time for Andy in there where we don't just sit and talk about our work or kids! :)

I think that this is pretty typical for people who have two kids age 3 and under, but I just don't want to set the bar too high so I feel like a big old flop in 2011!

The Teeth

2010-12-30T13:45:00.002-06:00

Dr. Weiss*bluth says it doesn't happen, but if he came to my house during the night ~ he would believe it. I really like him and his sleep research. And I would kiss the man's feet if he ever came to my door, but I don't believe him when he writes that children do not have night-waking issues when they are teething.

Kellan has gotten 8 teeth since Thanksgiving. We are on our second set of molars now, and there is typically a REALLY bad week when they come in. I actually took a day off of school after Thanksgiving because I was so concerned about his 3 hours of screaming one night (after two previous bad nights). His naps became very fragmented, and he would typically only sleep for an hour before waking up screaming. And I was tired. And worried. What was this? Ben never really went through this after the first four initial teeth came in.

I took him into the pediatrician after the first round of screaming and she agreed that it was his teeth that were bothering him. One of them actually made the gum bleed around it. She mentioned that it could be another week of the night-waking, but felt that it was just fine to give him ibuprofen throughout the night hours and during naptimes.

The problem is that once he is in pain, it takes a long time to get him out of it. Thus, the screaming for hours. Some nights it is just him waking up from 2-3:30 a.m. talking to himself (one night so far this week) and then some very early wakeups. When I say early, I mean 4:25 a.m., and he doesn't fall back asleep when I leave him in there until 6.

These two molars are our last ones until the two-year molars come in. I'm hoping that since he is 18 mos. and getting his one-year molars right now, that we may be an entire year away from going through this again??!! Kellan has done so well with sleeping on his own that we typically have maybe one night out of every two weeks where he has nightwaking issues.

I have to be honest and say that I've been a bit "glass is half empty" throughout the last five weeks. Between the first six teeth (which took one week), the fever and subsequent sinus infection (which took one week), and this second set of molars (going on night no. 4) . . . I'm finding it hard to muster up energy to be postive about it. I'm taking it personally, and I can't figure out why. Slump, slump. Please go away!

Can't Take Out The Brooklyn

2010-12-29T09:12:00.004-06:00

Kellan got a gift this year from the Choi family ~ the gift of seaweed. He probably did not eat much of it in Korea, being 10 months old and all. But, he couldn't get enough of it. It just reminded me of how much of his taste palate had developed before we brought him to America. Not that I ever want to take the Seoul out of him . . . I'm just shocked at how much of it is still there!

I connect a lot of this information to my own experiences living in the farm community. There isn't much left of me that is from the farm, but there are still little instances that it comes out. And when it comes out, it really sticks out!

Some examples? Hmm . . .

I tend to call people to let them know ~ "I'm going to town today, do you need anything?" ~ even though I technically already live in town. Like I have to get into my buggy and harness the horse to get to the general store :)

My dad is one of very few sheep shearers in our area. He knows a lot of people and can tell you about everyone's " farm operations". My dad was never one to dress up, read a novel, or watch contemporary television, but he can tell you everything that you could possibly want to know about raising and taking care of sheep and how to restore forty year-old Che*vy trucks. I will never forget when he visited me at college and complained about the price of coffee in the city and observed how my fellow students dressed like hobos. I had to explain that those hobos were definitely smarter than me (Wasn't it cool to have pants held together with duct tape?), even if they didn't look the part!

My parents met each other through 4-H (they both raised sheep). My brother and I were also very involved with 4-H throughout our childhoods. We both raised sheep and did chores each evening. I went to 4-H camp, played on 4-H sports teams (as we called it ~ Farm Kids With Balls), and attempted to learn to sew and cook for a ribbon at the fair. I can still recite the 4-H creed by heart, but I cannot sew or cook ribbon-awarding food :)

All of my friends from school are involved, work in, or are married to someone who works in the agricultural community. Put it this way . . . I never have trouble teaching the farm unit in first grade, and any question that I need answered is done quickly with the wealth of information that they all know (although, I hated it when one of my friends ruined jello for me). I was pretty much the only friend who wasn't involved in the FFA. All of the high school parties that we had? Yeah, they were pretty much in a field or in a barn. Very high maintenance, you see?

All in all, I appreciate having this part of my life. And I want Kellan to keep part of his Korean roots in whatever small ways that he can. Seaweed crisps and all! I'm not quite sure how to make this happen, but with all of the connections that we have made so far ~ it will surely make its way into his life as long as we make it important.

Festivus 2010

2010-12-27T11:31:00.004-06:00

Christmas was good to us this year in the Peterson household! We had four days together as a family, with only one day of me being similar to Joan Crawf*rd and yelling "NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!". It was all good though. We are just figuring out our way with how much Santa to bring in, how much religion to put emphasis on (this is more Andy's deal than mine), and deciding if all of the presents are from Santa or just a few . . . decisions, decisions. It will all fall into place in the next few years, I'm sure.

Ben was totally in his element this year. Last year, at 2.5 years old, he still wasn't into Christmas. This year was a completely different situation. Ben is still very gracious and kind, but he was not happy that Kellan decided to sleep past 7 a.m. on THAT day! Minutes passed very slowly, but Ben waited patiently to open his gifts. I was very surprised how excited he was to get themed underware, socks, coloring books and the coveted third installment of Knuffle B*nny (Mo Willems* is the greatest children's author EVER!). Who knew? I also made photobooks for each of them, and they were a big hit.

Kellan has been obsessed with this book about dogs, and after renewing it multiple times at our local library I decided that he needed to own it. It was too cute to see him signing THANK YOU! many times over the book. He has also really gotten into Elm*o and he calls him Bobo. It is very interesting how~over time~words come and go, but his signing has become very strong. He and Ben are similar to the Mad*gascar monkeys where one signs and the other one states "HE SAYS . . . ". Ben is a master interpreter I guess! Although, he usually tells me that Kellan wants chocolate, and he should get some just to be fair . . .

I hope your Christmas was filled with many swell things too!

Wordless Wednesday - Preschooler Ben

2010-12-22T09:54:00.005-06:00

Officially Official

2010-12-21T17:37:00.004-06:00

All I can say is YAY! 2 years of waiting and we are officially a legal family of four. For all of you that are waiting for a little cherub in Korea, it is very worth it :)

Dante's 10th Ring

2010-12-18T09:34:00.006-06:00

It has been one of those weeks. You know . . . the ones where the sick little one is screaming all day and all night with no reprieve in sight. Balancing work and home has been difficult this week. Knowing that being at home is my no. 1 priority isn't an issue, but also not messing with my students who have been shuffled between between subs pretty much all semester ~ makes for some hard times. And I have those cheery ornaments to make for parents at home!

Poor Kellan is on day 5 of a nasty virus. He's had a fever since Tuesday, and to say that he is miserable is an understatement. He shakes, he doesn't eat, he isn't doing any independent play ~ altogether horrid. The pediatrician just tells us it is a virus and it will run its course. I feel like yelling at this bully virus (with some choice words)! To make it even more enjoyable, Ben and Andy are also sick. Score!

Okay, venting done. Next week will be better, right? PLEASE tell me yes! I will be back with more pleasant posts soon :)

**UPDATE: I took Kellan to our local Urgent Care, where it was discovered that he had a sinus infection. We're crossing our fingers that the antibiotics are going to make my little man feel much better soon! As for last night, there were 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep in our house, which makes me a much happier and more sane mom :)

Kellanpalooza

2010-12-11T13:41:00.003-06:00

Lots to celebrate this week! Kellan has been home for SIX months already, it was the anniversary of his referral day on the 8th, and we also received permission to persue a finalization through the court system this week. I've always been amazed at how the adoption world works ~ mostly waiting, but then a surge of energy to really wake you up! Six months have flown by, and to think of Kellan being a part of our lives for an entire year is also eye opening.

I am feeling good and confident about hosting a Kellanpalooza in honor of our finalization/first birthday/Tol. I don't know why, but for a long time I wasn't up to putting all of it together and celebrating the finality of our process until the ink was actually dry on the paperwork. So many things have fallen through in the past that I am a bit jaded about the process I guess. I'm optimistic these days, so it is time to break out the stemware and get into a little more of a celebratory mood. It also helps that Kellan is now very content in his home and with our close family and friends . . . there isn't much fear that this will overwhelm him. In fact, he now revels in the attention.

Our Korean friends have also offered to do a small traditional Tol party for Kellan in their home. It is incredibly sweet and generous of them to do this, and they started their preparations in Korea by purchasing new hanboks for their daughters for the occasion. I am humbled by this. Throughout this process I have been shocked by the love and generosity that people have given us. It is amazing to see how Kellan has connected us with other people around the world ~ and even people in our own area that we may have never known. I am being honest when I say that I truly believe that Ben's birth was almost the end of me, but it was also the beginning of something so much bigger than I ever imagined. Adoption is so awesome.

Our court date is scheduled for December 21st. I'm crossing my fingers . . . as many of you know, Andy and I have been to court twice to finalize our marriage, so things don't always go as planned ~ wish us luck!

Snow Fun

2010-12-05T14:14:00.008-06:00

Totally off topic, but . . . there was a little bit of sharing going on this week in our household and I finally caught it on my camera! Ben has struggggggggled with sharing lately, especially because there are some really cool new items in our household. Makes our time together a bit more frustrating, but all in all I know that he will get better with this! It is the amount of reminders that I have to do all day (school included) that frustrates me more :)

Friday night was our first big snowstorm! It wasn't what we Wisconsinites would consider worthy of "snowstorm" status, but it did give us about 4-5 inches of snow. I know that Kellan has probably seen the white, fluffy stuff during his time in Korea, but I'm betting that this was his first time playing in it. He liked playing, but he wasn't much of a fan of the gear that he had to put on to do it! I also realized that my winter weather wear shopping was never completed. He doesn't have boots that fit him! Kellan normally wears a size 5 shoe and the boots that he has to wear are a 7 . . . so he is more of a "snow monster" in his big, puffy gear.

He still liked to look around, regardless of his puffiness. Kellan wasn't a fan of walking through the snow, it was tough for him to get his legs over the snow!

Ben was in his element :) He is just getting SO big, it is hard to remember him at Kellan's age already. He can stay outside and busy himself for at least an hour, so he really liked spending time shoveling and building a tiny snowman.

I also forgot to buy myself some winter boots this year. During my pregnancy with Ben, I outgrew all of my shoes, including my hiking boots that were built like a tank. I am what fellow teachers call a "pitcher" (I'm not a teacher who keeps dittos from 1957 in my room) and I got rid of them this summer. So . . . now I will be scouring the internet and the local stores for boots for Kellan and me (which isn't easy in Wisconsin!). At least it is December rather than February, when the stores are more likely to have swimsuits rather than gloves!

Last Visit

2010-12-02T09:17:00.002-06:00

On Tuesday morning, our social worker came to visit us for the last time! We need to finalize our adoption through our own county circuit court, and we have started that process this week. I am hoping to get a court date for this year yet. Of course, our paperwork doesn't end there :) We still need to get Kellan a social security number, birth certificate, and change his immigration status through USCIS (I'm really not happy to deal with them again, but this time the circumstances are different!). Other than those big things, we are finished!

While we were talking with our social worker, it felt as if we have moved on from transition/adjustment to just being a normal family. All of the questions that she was asking about (sleep, the "bad" cry, daycare stuff) have all worked themselves out in the past three months. Of course, as every parent knows, with time come different issues ~ but these are more about being a toddler, and not solely adoption issues. Life is completely normal.

Adjustment to full-time working mommyhood is still going strong. Ben was sick already the week before Thanksgiving (Andy gracefully took on day-duty), and Kellan is having a really hard time with the six teeth that he is getting right now. One night this past week, Kellan screamed for almost three hours . . . and this was on top of the other two nights of poor sleep earlier in the week. The one thing that bothers me about working is that when there is someone sick at our house ~ I am not at work 100%, and vice versa when I am at home. So after the night of no sleep, we headed to the pediatrician's office just to make sure that there wasn't something else wrong that I was missing. And I felt better just with her reassurance that it was his teeth ~ even if it meant taking a day off of school after being back 9 days! Life goes on.

During the first few weeks home with Kellan, I couldn't envision what life would be like in six months. It is hard to imagine just how far we've come. A year from then was just a dream, but time just seems to pass us by with amazing speed and before we know it, it will be June!

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-28T07:16:00.010-06:00

Our Thanksgiving this year was very nice and quaint. Not a Norman Rockwell painting or anything . . . just a brunch with Andy's parents and a dinner with my family. The kids had a blast with all of the attention! They were both (especially Ben) struggling with those nasty colds that they had the previous weekend, so it was nice to just relax and enjoy the holiday.

Kellan is starting to wander around my parent's house like he owns the joint now! I love his independent play, Andy and I always chuckle because he kind of bops around like he's on a mission ALL day.

Ben actually tried some new foods this Thanksgiving, but it wasn't without gagging. But after the gagging was finished . . . he said it was good. We're hoping that he will be over his "five foods" stage soon. Not that I'm asking him to eat escargot every night, but maybe a homemade pizza? Maybe I'll ask for that from Santa this year.

We put up our Christmas tree on Friday! We are not Black Friday shoppers, but it was really a good feeling to put up the tree and be able to shop online at the same time! It is hard to believe that Kellan was just a picture on our Christmas tree last year. I remember how excited we were at this point, knowing that we were *really* close to a referral ~ and here we are a year later.

Kellan is finally getting a bit more "brotherly" and not letting Ben mess with him anymore!

On Saturday, we rooted on my alma mater . . . hopefully to the Rose Bowl! We've been waiting for these awesome bibs to fit Ben! As of September they were still a few inches too big, but this morning they fit like a glove. I'm still amazed at how fast they grow! Ben ran around the house the entire game, so he was in bed that night at 6:20 p.m. :)

With the temperatures in the 20's and 30's this weekend, we've been inside a bit more. Kellan is definitely improvising in his play. He's also learned the word "NO!" this week. How great is that??!! He walks around the house saying, "Nah, nah, NAH!". He understands English very well though and is adding a word each week lately.

Manny, on the other hand, has been really in relaxation mode. Here he is with his pet bear, the cozy sleeping spot (please excuse the laundry basket, my house is full of laundry!).

We are already having our Christmas celebration with my family this afternoon since they are leaving for Florida in the next few weeks. Ben is a bit confused, but how fun is it to have a month of celebrations?! I'll probably be SO sick of Christmas when it is done, I'll be happy to put it behind me.

I hope that all of you had a great Thanksgiving as well!

I'm On The List

2010-11-24T14:45:00.004-06:00

Dear Santa,

Hello! I can't believe that another holiday season is upon us. This year for Christmas I would be really excited to sit and talk with you. Some people call this therapy, but I'm just wanting a straight-shooting discussion of how I can be more like you. I am in awe of your dedication and positive disposition in your career. It really is above and beyond what is expected of someone of your stature.

You see, Santa, I have these two wonderful children, a husband, a family and friends, as well as 22 first graders in my life. But . . . this isn't unfamiliar to you. You have the entire world in your life. Here's my real question: How do you do it? How can you know exactly what everyone wants? How are you the greatest insurance of good behavior and a consistently the best parental threat in Targ*t? How do you work your tail off every day and keep the "jolly" in your marriage? Do the elves ever drive you to drink a few Holiday Ales?

This, Santa, is what I really want to know. I aspire to be a bit more like you each and every year. Please make this year my lucky one and give me the secret. Thanks again for the years of service!

Love, Jennifer

16 Months

2010-11-22T19:22:00.004-06:00

So . . . again, I can't believe how time flies :) Little man Kellan is 16 months today. He has just blossomed in the last few months, and I am so happy to report that! I am really proud of him. I smile and celebrate every time that he does something new. I was a bit worried about his fine motor skills this summer, but now he is really into stacking and putting things inside a box and then dumping them out (and repeating about 100 times). His language is amazing. He doesn't speak a lot (as my friend Ann would say . . . just call him "Silent Bob"), but he understands a lot of what you say to him. Kellan now says "ball" very clearly, "tee tee" for kitty, "die die" for bye bye, and "uh-oh". That's about it right now. But, just last night he pointed to a brush in a book and then pointed to his hair :) I am so happy that he is putting it together! He will pretty much eat anything (but wants to throw everything still), sleeps from 6:30 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. and takes a solid 2 hour nap. He is your typical 16 month old. I rarely see any more transition/adjustment behaviors.

If it wasn't for this nasty cold virus that has hit our two kids, life would be great! Oh, and that cold virus is on top of the fact that Kellan has gotten FIVE teeth in the last three weeks. Needless to say, he is very clingy and not too happy these days. Isn't that the way it goes? I just get back to work and then have to turn around and juggle sick kids with Andy out of town for three nights (which is SO hard for working moms!). Thank goodness that I have family close to help me out, it is an amazing difference.

Next week is our last post-placement visit with our social worker! After we complete some more paperwork (I know . . . MORE!) we can finally petition the court to finalize Kellan's adoption and make him officially a Peterson. It will be a large sigh of relief for me to not have to juggle social workers, post-placement reports and having to email each time we go to the doctor ~ and just be the family that we are right now. Yes, that will be a good day . . . another one to celebrate!

Moving On

2010-11-16T18:49:00.004-06:00

Well, I can successfully say that my return to work went okay. I say okay . . . not wonderful, but I'm sure that everyone's circumstances would be the same here! It was our 50th day of school and my wonderful counterparts planned a fun 50's celebration for our first graders. I had a lot of fun shopping for my costume online and it was great to relax a bit and dress up for a change. I overdid myself by wearing some nice heels, which I don't typically do (I heart my Ke*ns) but noon came faster than I could imagine. I really didn't know any of the kids at all, so it took some time to get to know their names and personalities. We've got a lot of learning to do about each other! They were great, and I am happy to report that second day at school was even better.

Kellan and Ben have already been going to daycare for the majority of September, October, and November, so the transition was seamless for them :) Balancing two kids, a full time job, a marriage and family/friends is a challenge for anyone. It will take me time to figure this all out. For now, it is what it is . . . and I have to enjoy what I can out of the present moment. One thing that I do like is having a 40 minute prep time without any kids asking me for something, which is something that doesn't typically happen between the hours of 5 a.m. and 8 p.m. :)

A Poem

2010-11-14T19:02:00.003-06:00

Twas the night before Mom's back to working, when all through the house,
Hopefully not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Outfits are hung by the beds with care,
In hopes for a speedy morning and everyone ready there,

The children are nestled all snug in their beds,
With visions of tomorrow's play dancing in their heads,
And momma in her pjs, not quite ready to be rid of her yoga pants and cap,
Ready to settle her brain, hopefully for a long winter's nap.

Do you really know how long this freaking poem is?

Blah. Blah blabbby blah bla! Ready for the last verse:

Momma sprang into her (really!) new car, and gave her team a whistle,
And away the car went, on time and as speedy as a missle (don't you like this?!),
But Momma exclaimed and she drove out of sight,
"Happy First Day of Work" for me, and for everyone . . . good night.

Wish me luck. I'll need it.

5 Months

2010-11-07T12:40:00.002-06:00

Kellan has been with us for over five months already! I am, to say the least, amazed at his adjustment. Within the last month or so he started to sleep sounder (not so much bionic hearing!), take charge in independent play, and overall seems happy and content. Many of you who have followed me since the beginning know the large amount of anxiety that I had over his transition. This little boy just seemed so unsure, unsafe and unhappy . . . and it just killed me to see him struggle. I really didn't think that he would make progress as quickly as he has, but here we are :)

I, as his momma, am in heaven. This is what it is supposed to be like, and I feel comfortable with him now. He and Ben play together fairly well, and I am now able to take a shower while he toddles around playing in the bathroom (I haven't had a screamfest-free shower with him for five months!). The funniest thing is that Kellan is really a quiet little guy! And I can honestly say ((ahem!)) that he was nowhere near quiet for a long time. Nowhere near it.

In my own reflection of Kellan's transition, it is hard for me to get past just how amazing this transition is. I try to imagine someone taking me away from all of the comforts of my family, home, language, food ~ well . . . pretty much everything. I think that I would be a pile of mush on the floor, finding it hard to enjoy each day. It breaks my heart to think about all of the loss that goes into international adoption. Technically speaking, we are Kellan's fifth placement. The longest that he was with anyone was about 7 months, and we are fast approaching that amount of time. And even though I can envision a night or two away from my family (for sanity purposes!), I can't imagine being without them.

I know that my love will only grow for Kellan. I think about how I loved Ben when he came home from the hospital and I flash forward to the excited, curious, loving 3.5 year old that he is now . . . and you realize that your love for your children is always there, it just grows deeper. I look forward to watching Kellan grow, learn and explore about the world around him ~ I am happy to be here to see it.

I've Grown a Pair

2010-11-03T13:26:00.006-05:00

I've got a big pair of them. And I don't like it. I wish they could be smaller. I run miles upon miles . . . and they only get bigger. Most women don't have issues with this part of their body, so it kind of makes me a freak.

I suffer from monster calves. (*You can see these calves in the photo above from 2008, courtesy of my great friend Kim.)

These calves can't be contained in skinny jeans or even bootleg jeans. They can only handle the wide-leg variety. My calves (at 17 inches) are even bigger than my thighs. This wouldn't really be an issue if it weren't for my concern with seasonal fashion. I really want to own a pair of tall boots.

I've attempted trying on more than 15 pairs at a local department store, but finally stopped when the saleswoman said that if those didn't fit, she didn't have any others that would fit. I even went to a store that just sold one brand of shoe and asked if they sold a wide-calf boot. The older salesman told me that they didn't make wide calf boots because it was for such a minority of people. He also mentioned that maybe I should just go "work it out" at the gym.

Yes, this man is lucky he isn't in the hospital from the bitch-slap that I wanted to give him.

As Christmas season approaches, everyone seems to ask what is high on my list this year. And I have plenty of options, but my big wants are these stupid tall boots. Why, you ask? Because I can't have them. Once that guy said that I needed to "work it out", it was like a switch in my brain had been flipped on ~ I will prove this idiot wrong. There are a pair out there just for me . . . kinda like Romeo and Juliet, but we just haven't met yet.

So, I'm inviting you on my journey. I'll report how the search is going, which isn't very good right now. I recently found out that the regular wide-calf boot still isn't big enough, I have to have an extra-wide calf. This pretty much leaves like five boots in the world that work. And I don't wear heels either, so this should be an extra special search!

Anyone know a cobbler? Maybe I should take a trip to Italy and have my own pair made!

Halloween Fun Is . . .

2010-11-01T16:34:00.006-05:00

Wearing a great pair of pants that make you smile.

Going to a Halloween party with everyone dressed up for the occasion.

Some great company to play with.

Showing off our new comfort level with other people!

Playing together and taking care of a "baby Ernie".

I guess this is why we don't want kids having kids!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Wordless Wednesday - Bravery

2010-10-27T16:12:00.003-05:00

*As a side note: Just so you don't take away my Mom of the Year award right now, Kellan has a REALLY strong body and he never hurts himself doing this!

Our Town

2010-10-25T14:16:00.003-05:00

Ben is really at a fascinating age for me. I love his creativity and his language skills! My degree is in Early Childhood and I am licensed to teach ages 0-9. If I had a strong preference of age to teach, it would be ages 3-5. Unfortunately, preschool teachers rarely have health and retirement benefits and get paid FAR less than I do. This isn't my only reason to not teach preschool, but it is a pretty significant reason. And I think that it is a total disservice to preschoolers (and our country) to have teachers that aren't highly qualified because they aren't paid well! Okay . . . I'm getting off of my soap box now!

Anyways . . . Ben loves his cars, and he is just starting to notice parts of our community and their function in our everyday life. He recognizes streets and highways that we take regularly and can pretty much navigate his way around town. Since Kellan is napping longer these days (2.5 hours today!), keeping Ben occupied is a bit of a challenge. He has to lay down quietly for an hour, but the other 1.5 hours we are typically playing games, working on school stuff, or just playing quietly. Surprisingly, I'm NOT an artsy person here at home. I don't like glue everywhere, paint on my walls, or cut carpet (which I'm sure no one likes!). So, every conference that I have at Ben's schools is the same information ~ he doesn't know how to cut, color, or glue. And until I was able to look at the other children's projects with LOTS of glue/glitter/color and compare them with Ben's projects (with one simple stroke of a crayon, torn vs. cut, and maybe a few pieces of bling to make it POP), I didn't realize that this is something that I needed to take seriously. Yes, I know he is only 3 and it is only preschool. But, as a teacher, I know he is the kid who just stands up after doing 1 minute of work and calls it an artistic masterpiece . . . driving that teacher crazy because she now has to find another activity for him to do!

So, our focus on the days that he is home for naptime, is now art. It has actually been really fun! For the first week, I wanted him to see me color, use scissors/tape, and actually create something that we envisioned in our minds together! Thursday, we created our town. It included our home, the grocery store, Targ*t, and the pet store. It was amazing what details he added on each of the stores! My personal favorite was when he asked me to expand our grocery store to include the liquor department . . . to get "Mommy's beeeeeeeeeeer". Nice. He also refused to put in his dad's "junker car", but needed to make sure that the red balls in front of Targ*t were big enough. The important things right?

I had a blast picking his mind and he was occupied for hours with it!

Brotherly Love

2010-10-20T11:25:00.003-05:00

My big man has had lots o' changes in his life in the last 5 months. I try to remember this each and every day, as his sibling issues have come out full force in the past month or so. I'm venturing a guess that this spike in his poor behavior has a little something to do with the 2 foot tall Korean beauty that has slowly infiltrated every ounce of his being.

At first, Ben was mainly concerned with Kellan's crying. He wasn't used to being around babies, and Kellan's crying was plentiful. This was pretty normal for Kellan's adjustment, but it caused Ben great amounts anxiety. Their bedrooms are right next to each other, so when I was still co-sleeping with Kellan I would hear Ben through the wall weeping in the middle of the night. He would sit right by his door (we've obviously trained him NOT to come out of his room, so he was scared to do so and it broke my heart) and basically cry until I would sneak out of Kellan's room to console him. One night he whispered, "Mommy, even though you are right next to me, I miss you." So . . . both of us were crying in the middle of the night that particular day. I felt rotten, to say the least. I felt like I was cheating on this wonderful boyfriend that had never wronged me. Guilt-o-rama paired with sleep deprivation made me a very sad mama.

Over the next month or so Kellan started to sleep better and Ben got used to Kellan's crying. I thought we were moving into the right direction. But, Kellan started walking. He was unstable at first, and the slightest tap would floor him. And Ben, being almost 40 pounds and brutish, was not really aware of his body and the space around it. Or . . . I should say, aware of it at times. He started getting in trouble for being rough. And just to prove his ownership of "his" toys, he would push, tap, pull hair and occasionally kick to tag these said items. Can you hear the sigh coming out of my mouth right now?!

As time went on again, Kellan was spending more and more time at M's house during the day. He was slowly infiltrating every aspect of Ben's day, and this caused more problems. Ben started to display this behavior there too. Ugh. He regressed with his potty training for a few days (taking a dumper on the deck outside, which is perfect for my "teacher/perfect parent" non-image in the neighborhood!) and also started saying "mama" and "dada" and other great infant language that he left behind two years ago. He would smile at me when he was doing something that he shouldn't. All in all, expected behaviors of a new brother. But . . . wasn't he supposed to be the easier one????

I am slowly learning how to deal with Ben's sibling rivalry issues. I've decided to give him a no-tolerance policy on his bullying and give him a consequence each and every time that he does something . . . uncool. I am at a loss for anything beyond that. Did I ever expect that my own parents didn't know what to do?! Never. Hopefully, this will come together in time and we will live in reasonable harmony soon, right? I'm sure crossing my fingers!

Just Me

2010-10-18T09:56:00.003-05:00

Sorry all, I've been dragging my heels on a post for the past week. Honestly, I don't have much for you! Life is chaotic, messy, and full of giggles these days. Normal family, right? I always feel like I need to be interesting and innovative with my posts, but what you are getting this time is just me. As a result of being at home for the last 4 months, I feel like my world has shrunk to the size of a pea. National and local news are a blur (unless it is to figure out what clothes to put on the kids) and I don't have much to talk about other than Kellan's adjustment, Ben's new food aversions, and the excitement of Tuesday being our garbage day. In simpler terms, I am lame. Not that I am looking forward to the stress of being back at work ~ but I think it will be good for me!

My major vice these days is TV. I'm actually starting some really great TV shows. I know that I will not be able to keep up with this in 4 weeks! I've plowed through many different series this summer/fall, a few of my favorites being The United States of Tara: Season 1, Nurse Jackie: Season 1, Fringe (Seasons 1&2), Gray's Anatomy: Season 6, and I'm very into Veronica Mars (Seasons 1, 2 and 3). I'm a TV junkie, but what's a girl to do with all of the laundry and dishes to do?! Folding laundry is actually fun with all of this delish TV.

I am also running my third half-marathon in two weeks, so the training is keeping me busy. Andy is running a 4 miler as well. This run is sponsored by a local brewery, which means I will be enjoying a good pint of beer at the finish line (serious motivation, I know!). Andy and I don't get many opportunities to do things together these days, so it will be a fun day out sans children. I definitely miss the freedom of spending time together away from home, but I know that it will come in time as Kellan and Ben grow up.

This next weekend, I am taking off for Iowa to spend some time with my great friends Erin and Kim. It will be just the three of us and I am planning to sleep at least 35 of the 48 hours that I will be gone! Somehow, I don't think that will happen ~ but we always manage to find some trouble to get into :)

Maybe the trouble that we will get into will make a better post!

4 Months Home

2010-10-08T12:41:00.002-05:00

We've been home from Korea for a little over four months now and here is the low-down on Kellan:

Eating: Kellan will pretty much eat anything. Which is pretty much the opposite of Ben! He is now 22.5 pounds. We are still giving him a bottle before nap and bedtime. And convieniently, with the formula recall ~ we were able to switch from a regular formula to a next step formula for older babies and toddlers. Kellan is also really into throwing his food everywhere. Love that stage :)

Sleeping: Meh. Not quite sure how to describe this area ~ some nights he sleeps fantastic and other nights he is up for 1-2 hours a night. And there are the occasional mornings where he is singing at 4:51 a.m., but he usually falls back asleep. As for naps, they have extended to 2 hours long. He is down to one nap in the afternoon.

Playing: Kellan now runs everywhere. I'm totally serious when I say that I can't look into the sky for even 5 seconds before he is a mile down the road! He is really into cars and trucks and his favorite toy is a basic water bottle with a little water remaining in it. I tell you . . . he has really high standards in toys! My favorite new skill that he has learned is climbing up the playset and sending himself down (headfirst) the slide. Very cute. He is so proud of his independence!

Attachment/bonding: Kellan is now consistently seeing both Andy and I has his main caregivers. He eats his bottles and food for Andy now and lets him put him to bed. This was a challenge for a few months. He is also now ticklish! Kellan never really giggled for us before and now he does it almost every day. When he was at daycare a few weeks ago, one of the other children was getting picked up while M was getting him out of the high chair and he would not let her put him down on the floor. I guess that he knew that he was not supposed to go with that parent! Sometimes it is the small things . . .

One other BIG thing that I've noticed is that there has been a change in his crying. Kellan seemed to majorly settle into his life with us at around 3 months, but within the last month or so he has started to cry differently for different needs. At night when he wakes up he will kind of have a "complain" cry ~ just a few loud bursts before he can get himself back to sleep. When his brother takes a toy from him (I'll do another post on sibling adjustment soon, because it's getting interesting!) he used to have the "I'm dying, please save me!" kind of cry that he did for every need ~ but now he will stick his bottom lip out and whimper instead. It is almost as if he has recognized that not every concern has equal value :)

The Daycare

2010-10-01T11:03:00.006-05:00

Slowly. Very slowly, we have increased Kellan's time with our wonderful daycare provider. It has been a long process, but we are moving in the right direction. At first, we were doing 15 minutes . . . then we moved onto 45 minutes, 2 hours, 4 hours, and now we are at 2 full days. We've been at this process for over 2 months and we have had our fair share of good and bad days. Our final goal is 3 full days and one half-day. As of right now, I have 6 weeks left of my maternity leave. I really cannot believe it!

In terms of Kellan's adjustment to M's house, he is doing MUCH better. At first, his behavior was very similar to when we first brought him home from Korea. Any time she would walk out of the room, he would scream (and I mean the silent scream!). She couldn't even hold on to her own son without him throwing himself on the ground screaming. I knew that she would make progress with him, it was just a really hard transition to watch and let happen with time. I think that assuming that I would be able to promptly walk into school on Nov. 15th and just hand over Kellan at daycare on the same day (or only a few weeks before) was a bit of an oversight. But, thinking that it would take 2 months was never in my plans. It is what it is . . . and it is what he needs to feel comfortable.

Secretly, I was happy to have a friend who knew what Kellan's transition was like. I was ecstatic (maybe that's not the right word) when she would ask me how I ever got anything done at home with him screaming all day and needing to be carried around everywhere. It was nice to know that it wasn't just me who didn't like to be bit and kicked while trying to reassure him that everything was okay. It gets kind of lonely thinking that you are the only one who understands what this process is like day in and day out.

I am happy to report that Kellan cries when I leave. He smiles when I come to pick him up. He naps for two hours when he is there :) We've achieved a new transition goal! I am SO proud of him and I am thankful that M had the patience for him that she did. If I am being completely honest, I don't know if anyone else would have dealt very well with his coping behaviors ~ especially at the larger daycare that we previously attended. I am thankful that he has her.

I, on the other hand, have gone from this frantic/crazy SAH mom-of-two, to a calm, clean-housed, relaxed mother ~ at least for the three days a week that both boys are at M's house for 8 hours! I hate to say that I enjoy it, because it is obviously necessary to have some time to yourself, but by the end of the morning I am wondering how they are doing and watching the clock to go pick them up. I guess that this is as normal as it gets :) And everything that I just cleaned during the day is trashed by 5:47 p.m. anyways!

Introducing . . .

2010-09-28T08:04:00.005-05:00

The best Korean Elvis impersonator you'll find in the area ~ Kellan!
Heavily protected by his big brother ~ Sheriff Deputy Ben

Pretty soon they won't let me help them pick their costumes out, so for now . . . I'm having a blast picking out great costumes!

Monster Sheens ~ Version 2.0

2010-09-26T13:45:00.004-05:00

To say that Ben is a truck fanatic is an understatement. He is borderline obsessed! The picture above is from a summer picnic at my parent's home. Ben decided that his trucks and tractors would work much better on the tablecloth. I smirk because only his grandma would let him get away with this! He has a great time moving them from place to place ~ and lining them up in traffic jams. One of our favorite things to do during the summer months was to go to where the "sidewalk ends" in our subdivision and watch all of the traffic from the major highway. Ben, Kellan and I would sit out there counting semi trucks and cars going along the road. Endless entertainment, I tell you!

For the past few years, a local excavating service/construction company has put on a "Monster Machines" benefit for a local charity. They allow people into their site for a few hours and the kids can sit on the machines and even sit in a working excavator with a workman. Needless to say, this is one of Ben's favorite events of the year.

This year, the temperatures were much cooler and our group was smaller. Uncle Mike, Grandma, Kellan, Ben and I were the only lucky ones that were able to go. I was happy that Mike was there, he hoisted Ben up and down out of the machines. Kellan watched happily from his stroller :)

I have to say, getting this stroller through the rocks was a workout of its own! I was happy that it kept Kellan awake . . . 10:30-11:30 a.m. can be a challenge for him these days. This event was a great distraction for him. Ben had a blast climbing the rocks and walking up and down the machines.

New this year ~ there was a car crusher. They had at least 15 dead cars waiting to be pummeled by this jem of a machine ~ which was run by a remote. I wouldn't want anyone's fingers to even be 10 feet from this beast of a machine!

Our plan of action this time was to rush to the line to ride in the excavator. When we left last year there were probably 100 people in line to do this activity. I didn't want to wait, so my mom asked him if he wanted to go sit in the excavator for a bit and he got really clingy and said no. So . . . as time went on, Ben eventually said that he wanted to ride in the excavator. Luckily, there were only about 25 people in line at this time, so the wait wasn't hard. Mike and I had some bets going about how far he would get from the actual machine before turning around! I was pretty sure it wasn't going to happen. But, Ben surprised us all by waltzing right up to the machine and getting in for about 3 minutes :) I underestimated him! It just goes to show how big he really is!

The Sleep

2010-09-17T09:08:00.003-05:00

I hate to admit how hard it is to post about this topic. I know that there are many different ways to parent, and this topic is just as heated as child vaccinations. So . . . I am just going to write about what we are doing to help Kellan adjust and feel comfortable sleeping in his crib. I am not an advocate for any specific sleep training program and I am a thorough believer in doing what works for a child. BELIEVE me when I tell you that last year for 5 months Andy and I sat on a chair outside of Ben's bedroom when he was getting out of bed 356 times a night! What works for Ben never has a hope of working for Kellan, and this has been my biggest shortfall as a parent ~ assuming that I can be the same parent to both kids.

I am an admittedly selfish mom. But, every day I try my hardest to put every ounce of myself into these two kids. Some of the hardest days that I have ever had in my life are the ones where I've had several nights of 3-minute sleep, only to try to put on the smile and say "Isn't parenting wonderful?" or "This is just the best thing that I've ever done, being a mommy is SO rewarding!" As moms, we feel that we have to say this, or we will become THAT mom. You know ~ the one who lets her kids walk in the street without supervision or (gasp!) allows the kids to run crazy around the house and watch waaaaay to much TV. There are days in our house, typically after my 3-minute nights of sleep, where we watch Little Einstein episodes for a few hours (Hey, I figure it has the word Einstein in it right?) and we eat chocolate chips and peanut butter for lunch. And I daydream about being a recluse catlady who lives alone. Really.

Kellan's sleeping (or lack of sleeping I should say) was causing me to resent him when we first came home from Korea. I can't tell you how many nights we were up with him while he screamed for hours on end. Nothing that we did worked. We could rock him until he was asleep but the second that we tried to put him onto a flat surface, he would start up again. For another few hours. The only person who was getting sleep in our house was Ben, thankfully. So . . . I looked into some solutions for our situation. The therapist that we were working with told me (after listening to me basically lay out my plan to be a recluse catlady in the mountains), that it is totally okay to be a responsive, attentive, attached parent during the daytime and a quiet yet responsive parent during the nighttime. I didn't need to walk around with Kellan during the night hours, instead I could be in his room next to him and support him while he was crying on his own. Not picking him up or rocking him would help him take the external support away and eventually make it internal. In other words, we wanted him to learn how to fall asleep and stay asleep on his own.

The therapist gave me several resources to read and the one that I felt would work best for Kellan was "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Weissbluth. Kellan was not a child who responded to putting a chair next to his crib and watching him fall asleep. He slept SO lightly that even a slight creak in the floor would rouse him, so getting off of the chair (or off of a mattress on the floor) became a seriously humorous circus act. The basic premise of his book are natural sleep times and falling asleep independently. Children Kellan's age should be sleeping around 13 hours per day, typically with 2 one-hour naps and 11 hours of sleep per night. It is just a routine to get your baby into the habit of falling asleep on their own. So . . . I followed this book exactly as it suggests. I put Kellan down for his naps in his crib around 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. (no co-sleeping) and we read the SAME books and drink out of the SAME bottles every time. The same thing goes for bedtime. I started putting him down (again, alone) around 6:30 p.m. According to the author, the natural wake time is around 6 a.m., so I would have to leave Kellan in his room until then (he was typically up around 5 a.m. or earlier).

The hardest part for most parents that follow this book is the crying. Letting your baby cry is very difficult! But, at this point, Kellan was always crying so it really wasn't any different than the norm. At first, Kellan would cry every time we put him down. He did not like the separation. However, as the weeks went on, the improvement in his nighttime sleep was HUGE. The first few weeks Kellan would wake up about 3 times during the night and cry on and off for about 45 minutes to an hour. I would lay in my bed shaking from this crying. I hated it, but this book said that it would eventually stop and I needed to give it a try! Amazingly, once worked through the crying, he would put himself to sleep! After about 4 weeks, Kellan was only waking up 2-3 times per night and crying for about 5 minutes. The naps were a totally different story. When Kellan turned 1 in July, I decided to try to go to one afternoon nap because his two naptimes were only about 40 minutes a piece. Getting him to 10:30 a.m. was an accomplishment and the mornings were NOT pleasant. But, he started to sleep for over an hour and a half!

We are now about 2 months into this process and I can honestly say that most nights we barely hear more than 5 minutes of crying from him. If he is sick ~ it is another story and we need to be in his room soothing him. But, we have way more better nights than not. Traveling to Door County this week took me back to the awful nights that we had for the first five weeks home and I don't want to go back there!

Transitioning Kellan to daycare has pretty much restarted this entire process. He will have to learn to sleep independently at M's house, which will be a challenge for him but I now know that he will figure it out eventually. There are many points where I think "Kellan is 14 months, so he should be doing this . . . ", but Kellan is NOT 14 months old all of the time. Developmentally he may be 14 months old, but he really is only 3-6 months old in terms of his emotional development. I know that children who are adopted eventually catch up with "normal" emotional development (they go through the stages quicker), so that gives me a sense of peace. Until that happens, just remember ~ the plan to be a recluse catlady in the mountains isn't all bad!

Fall Getaway

2010-09-14T17:28:00.006-05:00

One of the things that teaching has afforded me is a great amount of time during the summer months and the holidays to spend with my family. But, the taboo time of year for a teacher to go on vacation is during the fall months. I typically cringe if I have to take a day off (usually for a sick child or teacher conference) during the months of September, October or November. These are really tough months for a substitute teacher to come into the classroom . . . and it takes a week to get everything back under control! Therefore, since I have this time home with Kellan and Ben, Andy and I decided a while ago to plan a family vacation to Door County in September. I remember actually saying out loud "Wow, I bet Kellan will be the best traveling baby" ~ and I am now eating my words. But . . . we made the most of our time. Andy's parents came along with us and we rented a 3 bedroom home in the area. Plenty of room to spread out :)

Door County is a gorgeous part of our state, it is a lot less commercialized than most (albeit, still expensive) and there is wonderful access to Peninsula State Park. Andy and his parents took Ben and Kellan on a hike while I was doing a 7 mile training run in the park. They had a good time finding walking sticks and acorns along the way, and they also met up with my bloggy friend Kristin and her husband totally by chance! We've never met in person and it was nice to connect with someone who has been so supportive in this journey. Of course, I was running ~ so I was bummed to not have the chance to say hello :)

The second day, we went to a petting farm. It has been one of our favorite places to take Ben to each year! Both boys really enjoyed the goats, sheep, chickens and kittens. Kellan was particularly fond of the "kitties". We haven't heard one English word from him yet, but he is starting to make the "k" sound when he sees a cat.

This was Ben's best year in Door County yet. The past two years have had their own share of challenges, but Ben is getting to be such an independent little boy. He watched shows on our laptop with headphones the entire 3.5 hour drive there and was quiet while Kellan was sleeping in his carseat. It is wonderful to ask him to do something and ~ for the most part ~ he tries very hard to listen and do what I ask of him.

Kellan did very well adjusting to the new house and people around him. The nights were where the love of traveling was lost. There was kind of a "Triple Threat" going on for him. He had to sleep in a pack n' play (which he's never done), with one of us in the room (with the mattress wrapped in some sort of plastic, which I'm still swearing about), and he was in a room next to the bathroom. There was about 1.5 hours of crying the first night, which I deemed acceptable. The second night was even more of a challenge with 4 total hours of crying. I'll do another post on sleep soon ~ so I won't go into too much detail ~ but his anxiety just went through the roof when he didn't have his comfort zone. And while my in-laws were perfectly accepting of our two little kiddos running around and being as needy as 3 and 1 year olds are, they were a bit alarmed with Kellan's crying. Well, I say everyone, but Gary and Ben have the same "disability" of being deaf in one ear and they can just roll over when the crying gets really loud! I wish I had this disability some nights!

So . . . by day 3, all of us were lacking in the sleep department. And we cut our trip short by one night. It was just better for everyone to get back to the "safe place" and our routine. Kellan seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as we pulled into our driveway and he slept really well that night. All in all, worth it to go. It will probably be my only two-night vacation during the month of September for the next 30 years! I know we will look back at those pictures and remember the sleepless nights and I'm hoping that it can only get better from this point.

3 Months Home

2010-09-07T08:17:00.007-05:00

3 months ago, we brought sweet Kellan home to Wisconsin. I say it all the time ~ but I cannot believe that three months have already passed! 3 months ago, Kellan was a tiny, pale and cautious little boy. His foster mom called him "fretful". Andy and I were probably the first Caucasian people that he had extended contact with. I know for sure that he had never heard a word of English before he met us. I worried day and night about his transition into our home. Were we doing the right thing? Would he hate us some day for bringing him here? I think that every parent deals with these questions, and there are specific ones that I feel that adoptive parents deal with.

I look at Kellan today and many of those questions are slowly being answered. He is smiley, active and curious about the world around him. Once he felt safe in our family, he never looked back. When we brought him home, he was a little under 17 pounds. Today he is almost 22 pounds! Kellan also goes into other people's arms easily and he is now able to be with someone other than Andy or me for more than 3 hours. I'm not the only person that can feed him anymore. Our good days outnumber our bad.

I know that there will be other challenging transition periods for Kellan in his lifetime. Life as an adoptee has its own specific questions and I can only prepare myself to help Kellan seek the answers that he needs ~ if there are answers to be found. He may take 10 steps forward and then 20 back ~ but I know that there is a lot of love and understanding in place for him to rely on to get through the tough times.

I'm looking forward to the 6 month home post, it is funny to think that Christmas is a mere 3.5 months away!

Telling Stories

2010-09-02T09:08:00.003-05:00

With all of the whirlwind-ness of last week, it seemed to slip our minds that our social worker was coming for a visit on Thursday. It apparently has almost been 3 months since Kellan has been in our arms?!! Can it be? We were required to provide pictures, one of which was a family photo. I don't know about any of you, but a picture of the four of us is pretty much IMpossible. This was the best that we got. I laugh at it . . . due to the fact that if you look closely, the photo tells a huge story. First, there is the large wet spot on Andy's shirt. Obviously, anyone who feeds two children in their work clothes is doomed to need a spot-check at the end of the 10 minute feeding time. Second, I love that you can see the entertainment center that is not decorated and that everything is shoved above the 30 inch level. Apparently, we have a 2 foot child that puts everything in his mouth. Third, the terrible tan lines on my feet are very visible. I pretty much only wear one outfit (I call it my SAHM uni) and it must only have one type of standard shoe that is allowed. I'm currently in the process of deciding whether to burn the shoes or simply throw them away :) Alas, we are all in the photo and it is proof of life!

Our social worker was very happy to see the progress in Kellan's adjustment. She asked how things were going, and I pretty much made the response into a "Top Ten" list with my sarcastic humor (which only a few people enjoy these days).

Ten Things I've Learned About Having Two Children

1. I always thought that the guy in the paint department was inhaling too many fumes when he told me that I should paint with an eggshell finish in the kitchen and dining area. Just recently, I found out that he wasn't huffing too much paint. The flat finish paint that I've got on the wall is pretty much worthless and I'm scraping food off of it every day.

2. Along the same lines, I think that homes should be outfitted for drains in the middle of the dining room. This way, all I have to do is hose the kids off before sending them on their way to play.

3. Is anyone really ever fully rested?

4. Why do I need an alarm clock?

5. If you call my house and the kids are screaming in the background, don't offer to call back at a "better" time. It really never gets better and if you call past 8 p.m. I've got nothing left to give!

6. I now see the value in a minivan.

7. Going to the grocery store can either be really good or very, very, VERY bad.

8. I never knew how entertaining garbage day was or how exciting it is to get the mail.

9. The house is clean for about 10 seconds and then it is NOT clean anymore.

10. When you tell children to stay away from each other for a little bit (personal space time, right?) it only draws them closer. Apparently, I've been talking in opposites lately!

I also told her (in the nicest terms I could) that I'm looking forward to not seeing her anymore :) Our foster care license runs out 8 days before we can petition the court to finalize Kellan's adoption. Lucky us! So . . . more paperwork. I can only imagine what it will feel like to walk out of that courtroom!

Uncle Beau Gets Married

2010-09-01T08:26:00.008-05:00

The past two weeks have been exceptionally busy! I went back to work for four days last week and two this week ~ and it has been interesting to say the least. My coworkers and I interviewed/hired and educated my long term sub in two quick days and the weekend brought on my brother's wedding. We've been looking forward to it for a long time and it was finally upon us :) Ben, Andy and I were in the wedding and keeping everyone spotless for the hours that we needed to be "fancy" was hard work! Ben looked SO handsome and dapper in his suit. He mentioned that I looked like a princess (he must have wanted something) and that he looked like he was going to work.

We did have help managing our brood ~ Andy's parents came into town to help us herd everyone where they needed to be. After about 4 hours, Ben was done with being dressed up! Luckily, we were able to send him home with Grandma, Grandpa and Kellan. According to them he was pooped and asking to go to bed by 5:30 p.m.!

A lot of Kellan's fun was just cruising around the church during the pictures. He also really enjoyed the organ according to Grandpa Goose. Of course, I wasn't able to get a good picture of him in his little Eton suit, but I do plan to put it on him again and try soon :)

We went to a local garden to take more pictures after the ceremony. Gorgeous scenery!

A shot of my brother Beau and his bride, Lindsey. We were enjoying our ride around town before going to the reception. I actually had to go home between the ceremony and the reception to bathe and feed Kellan. Our nighttime routine has been going really smoothly and I didn't want to have a horrible night (wouldn't that be the luck?) because of change in caregivers. So . . . I gave both boys a bath while dressed in my "princess" attire, put Kellan to bed and slipped out of the house to return to the reception.

The reception was a lot of fun! I enjoyed seeing family and friends, and there is always a special place in my heart watching my family members dance like they haven't done it in 10 years! My grandma and Uncle Mike participated in the mom/son dance (you can also see my mom and brother in the background). According to Ben, Uncle Mike can fix *anything* so we have this picture up for him (it is very similar to my own posters of Micha*l Jackson in my youth!).

Uncle Beau is a great uncle to both of our boys. We are lucky to have another great member in our family ~ Aunt Lindsey. I wish them the absolute best in their future together.

Wordless Wednesday - Minneapolis Steam Engine Fun!

2010-08-25T13:38:00.001-05:00

Andy Cooks Korean

2010-08-22T21:33:00.003-05:00

Little known fact about me: I like to cook. More specifically, I like to try new and different recipes and see how they turn out (when I have time, that is). I'm an aspiring foodie. I secretly read food blogs and wish we lived in a slightly more culinary-rich area. While there are some great restaurants in Madison and Milwaukee, and Chicago is just a train-ride away, a good dinner out in Janesville usually consists of Olive Garden or Buffalo Wild Wings (and I'm not hating on BWW). And having a 3 year old and a newly home adopted child makes dinners out sort of a mythical idea the likes of Nessie or Bigfoot. Ever since coming home from Korea, I've wanted to start a habit of cooking Korean once a month or so. Once again, living a small town Midwest America does not lend well to Korean grocery shopping. Madison has a couple of Asian Markets (not Korean specific) but to really get the real deal, you've gotta head to Chicago to H-Mart. The Choi's were kind enough to escort us there last year, but it's been difficult to justify a 2 hour drive for a return trip.

Which brings me to this weekend. Ben and I headed up to the Twin Cities for a family reunion while Jen and Kellen stayed back to continue the transition/sleep routine/etc. While Ben was napping, I thought I'd check online to see if there was a Korean Market close by, and sure enough, there was one just a few miles from where we were staying. I had a list of a few basic ingredients that are typically used in Korean cooking and Ben and I headed over. I thought of the first time Jen and I went to Jong Boo Korean Market in Chicago and how lost I felt, surrounded by people speaking Korean and items that I had no idea what they were. Let's just say that after navigating Seoul looking for diapers for Kellan while we were there, I can pretty easily handle a Korean Market in Minneapolis now :) We got what we needed, didn't look lost, and headed out. Ben even got Kellan a bag of the famous Shrimp Crackers. Not sure if Kellan was exposed to these while he was in Korea with his foster family, but, not surprisingly, he devoured them. Couldn't get enough. I could barely get the picture of him with the bag on his tray without him digging his hand in for more. Ben tried one and, not surprisingly, spit it out.

For our dinner, I made Dakdoritang. I found the recipe on one of the food blogs I secretly read, Korean Cuisine. Dakdoritang is simply spicy chicken with potatoes. The sauce is hot to say the least, and it was excellent over some sticky rice. This was actually very easy to make. I used boneless chicken breasts instead of the whole chicken or the Cornish game hen. Worked fine. Put in some onion, red and green peppers and carrots in addition to the potatoes. It's not the most visually stimulating dish, but it was good. There's just something about the flavor of that gochujang red pepper paste that I can't get enough of. Jen is going to try to feed some of the left-overs to Kellan tomorrow....I'm sure he'll eat it right up. And for us, tomorrow it's back to spaghetti.

Movin' and Shakin'

2010-08-20T12:31:00.002-05:00

A little over a week ago, Kellan learned to run. And he hasn't looked back :) To be honest, I was getting a bit worried about how much of a "clinger" he was. He is one of those kids that I barely need to hold onto because he clamps his arms/legs/face to me with a fierceness that even Pr*ject Runway hasn't seen for many seasons. I am not worried about his attachment at all . . . I've been more worried about his DEtachment from me! I am very thankful that we haven't had major issues with attachment after the first four weeks of screaming baby (night and day) and he has slowly calmed into this smiley/happy 13 month old. And I can currently say that most of the day, he is on the move and off exploring the world around him just "checking in" to see where I am.

After the week from Crazyland in my house, things have simmered down. I am very thankful for this because I told Andy I was going to go to the gas station on Monday and NOT return for a week if that kept up (I now totally understand how stay-at-home moms lose their identity AND sanity at the same time)! Kellan's sleeping has really come along within the last 3 to 4 weeks. When I put him down for nap/nighttime he rarely cries. We used to have at least 4 to 5 nightwakings where he would cry for a minute or two (a minute at 3 a.m. feels like 50!) but now I only notice one or two. We are transitioning from two naps to one, and this is one feat that I remember as monumental with Ben when he was 1. We've been at the job of keeping Kellan awake until about 11:45 a.m. for the past three weeks. And it is exhausting. I've seen progress, as he used to be tired around 8:30 a.m. and now he can make it until 10 a.m. without melting down at every mishap. This is where Ben has been instrumental in the art of distraction! I cannot even feed Kellan his lunch in the highchair because he plants his face in his food and sleeps. So . . . we eat on the floor. Hey, whatever works has become my main motto.

I know that we have a long way to go, in terms of Kellan's adjustment/transition/attachment, but I know that we are slowly turning a corner onto a better road. With another 11 weeks ahead of me at home with him, I can't wait to see where we will be in November. With my luck, he'll probably be sprinting down the road!

A Preview

2010-08-17T12:26:00.003-05:00

I could NOT wait to post this until tomorrow! My brother is getting married next weekend and I bought Kellan an Eton suit, which is adorable :) Sorry that the quality of the picture is terrible, I can't get this little man to SLOW down. He has gone from taking a few steps to running in the last week!

An Interview

2010-08-17T12:03:00.004-05:00

*This is one of Ben's choices for his daily street-wear. Notice the pink socks? :)

I love the age and developmental stage that Ben is at right now. He is SO busy and interested in the world around him. He is logical in his reasoning (okay, not always) and you can tell him something and he will remember it. Ben is also very humorous. There are points in my day that he is the END of my sanity, but for the most part ~ he saves me. He distracts Kellan and runs around after him. He talks to me a lot. And I mean A LOT! He also is learning to use his imagination, which is wonderful to watch. Ironically, Ben gave up his naps right around the time that Kellan came home (isn't that wonderful???) but he will still nap if he has a busy day. Otherwise, it is lights out by 7 p.m. for this three year old!

I thought that it would be fun to share some of his little humor with all of you, so here is an "interview" that I did with Ben last week:

M (mommy): So, Ben how old are you?

B (Ben): Mommy, you know how old I am. I am free years old.

M: What is your favorite color?

B: I really like the color gray.

M: What is your favorite things to play with at home?

B: I really like trucks and cars.

M: What is your favorite thing to wear?

B: The flag shirt that Grandma gave me. (Seriously, this shirt cost $3 and he LOVES it)

M: Where do you live?

B: Silly Mommy, I live HERE.

M: What is Mommy's job?

B: You do the dishes and the laundry all day. (This is where I had to remind him that Mom has a job BEYOND dishes and laundry, but it doesn't usually feel that way!)

M: What is Daddy's job?

B: He plays with heavy balls. (Side note: since Andy is a physical therapist, he DOES have weighted balls in his office, ha!)

M: What does Manny do during the day?

B: Manny doesn't do anyfing. He just meows. 3 years old like me like to plays with Manny toys. NO, Mommy ~ that is SILLY isn't it?

M: How old is Mommy?

B: You are four. Dad is free like me. Grandma Goose is 2 and Grandpa Goose is 4. Grandma and Grandpa Goose live right be-next to us. They like planes. (Do you notice that I'M the same age as you, Grandpa Goose?)

B: I'm done with vis. I go play with my stuff over here Mommy.

I cannot believe that my big-little man is going to pre-school in another week. With a backpack and all, walking away from me :) Time flies!

Challenges!

2010-08-16T12:07:00.002-05:00

The past week has been . . . interesting. Here at the Peterson Palace, the last 7 days have included a lot of illness and crying. Sigh.

Of course, the only one not in the mix of illness is me. But, I'm still in the crying mix :) Ben was not himself last Sunday (actually behaving himself AND slowing down!) so we figured that he would come down with something. He actually asked to go to bed before 6 p.m., and the next two days were pretty much the same story.

Fast forward 48 hours and it was the same thing for Kellan. Fever, irritability and a lot less sleep. Fast forward another 48 hours and it was Andy.

The last week has been exhausting, to say the least. Even the cat peed on some clothes on my bed ~ just to tell me how he was feeling about the lack of attention to him.

Kellan has taken a few steps backwards on the sleep and clinginess (I think that he is teething too). He was up on Saturday night from 12:30 a.m. until about 4:30 a.m. Nothing seemed to soothe him. Things would be okay if Andy didn't need to work during the weekend! So . . . just general tired Mommy. I've gone back to thinking hour to hour rather than day by day. I know that these times will pass, but they are SO difficult when you are just trying to function. Or actually have a conversation with your husband after the kids go to bed. Or maybe have a personality? :)

Thanks for letting me VENT!

Beyond the last week, we also tried to transition Kellan to M's (our daycare provider) house. I am going back to work for four days at the end of August and I wanted him to have more experience with being at her home. These just happened to be the days that Ben was sick, but it was nice to stay with Ben for a few hours while he was feeling crummy. Kellan, on the other hand, wanted NO part of it. He pretty much screamed the entire time when he wasn't on M. This is very similar behavior to when we just brought him home. He made it about an hour before it wasn't tolerable anymore (M is SO nice that she wouldn't say it this way, but I know how it goes!).

M is a very wonderful and loving daycare provider. I completely trust her. I know that Kellan will come to love being with her, but this transition is challenging. Being a teacher, I know that it is not fair to the other kids to listen to a 1 year old scream (and I mean SCREAM) for an entire day. So, I've modified my approach for the four days of work that I need to do. Andy will pick up Kellan from M's house at lunchtime and bring him home for the afternoons. That way, we are only working on a four hour stretch and everyone will be a little less stressed. And because I know that there is no way that he will sleep there yet.

From this point in my maternity leave, I have about 12 weeks left. I need to get Kellan to M's house at least two to three mornings a week until he feels comfortable. Then we can put in some naptimes. The therapist that we've been working with also suggested some picture albums to take with him, a transition object (like my t-shirt), and even giving M a password to our homevideos that we upload online. That way, Kellan can see and hear familiar sounds, voices, and his home. Hopefully some of this works.

Any other suggestions?

It is Monday and we are on our way to a better week in the Peterson household. At least, I'm crossing my fingers that we are onto better days!

Wordless Wednesday-Andy's Edition

2010-08-11T21:34:00.003-05:00

Andy and the boys. We love our wife/mommy! She's the best ever!

Sniffing Books

2010-08-08T13:52:00.007-05:00

I am fortunate to have a job that I really enjoy going to every day. Well . . . I don't enjoy it every day, but you get my drift. There are so many parts of my job that I love. I really love teaching kids. Teaching first grade can be difficult. Many children have the basics when they come to my classroom, but most are not readers. Teaching a child to read is an amazing job. Seeing a child have a lightbulb moment is phenomenal. Reassuring their parents that ~ in due time ~ their child WILL make progress. By the time that these children leave my classroom, they are different kids! Being a parent always reminds me to celebrate the small things with my students. Small things mean a big deal to them!

One of my favorite things about my job are my coworkers. I taught in a very small school for six years before I moved to my current school. I loved teaching at my former school and I will never forget the lessons that I learned there. But, I was the only first grade teacher there. It was my first job and I pretty much had to stand on my own two feet from the beginning. I knew that I would eventually want to work within a team of teachers. Fortunately, there were some retirements in the district and I interviewed for my current first grade position at a school two miles from my home. Since I was given this position, I've settled into a great school. The two other first grade teachers, Ann and Sara (pictured above) are my rocks. We have a lot of fun together, and it makes going to school a lot easier! We play well in the sandbox together and I am fortunate to have them with me.

The hardest part of the stay-at-home-mom position that I have right now is that someone else will be teaching in my classroom in a few weeks. That person gets to smell fresh crayons and composition books in my classroom (yes, I love to sniff new books). Setting up my classroom before a school year is one of my favorite times of the school year. It looks perfect the night before school starts. The kids are dressed in their newly bought outfits and wear really white shoes. And they are excited to work for me. And I am excited to learn more about them and their families.

I will not see Ann and Sara each and every morning for the first quarter of the school year. No discussions about keeping our own children from licking the toilet bolts at home (from Ann), celebrity gossip, books we like to read together, or general yapping about the daily grind. And that makes me sad. I know that it is temporary and I am thankful that I am able to take a little less than six months off to start my family of four. But, I'm still sad.

Instead of a classroom . . . I get to see a lot of this:

Kellan watches every single move that Ben makes. I think that I'm in trouble with this!

What starts out innocent, typically ends up like this! As you can see, even the camera couldn't keep up with Ben's fast movements.

Ben has started insisting on dressing himself. This was his choice on Thursday. I should remind you that it was 95 degrees outside :) I'm not even going to comment on the plaid/stripes combo.

Kellan. He has such moments of sweetness. My favorite time of day with him is the nighttime bottle/rocking routine that we have going. It is just like a dance that only he and I know the steps to. I'm totally in love with this little guy and I have a feeling that it is a mutual agreement. He has gone through so many transitions already and he is a champ!

8 Weeks Home

2010-08-03T13:27:00.004-05:00

The past week has gone by remarkably quick and I just noticed that I haven't posted since
Tuesday! Ben's daycare provider is taking time for family vacations in the next month or so and I decided to plan my week just as I would do in my job as a teacher . . . lots of activity and routine. I'm trying to wear the boys out as much as I can! I am back to running at 5 a.m., so most of our morning consists of eating (two meals, a snack and a bottle), napping (or praying for a good nap from Kellan), and walking/playing outside. I've been working with Ben on some pre-school stuff during morning naptime and it seems to keep him from stomping around like a wild dinosaur and waking up Kellan, who is an extremely light sleeper. I really haven't worked with Ben on cutting, coloring or writing his name and this is the perfect time to sit down for some one-on-one time together. He really likes this time and so do I. The moments of sitting and focusing on something are very small in our house these days!

Ben is finally getting used to being a big brother. In the beginning he was very bothered by the amount of crying that is coupled with a 11 month-old baby. He always wanted a reason why Kellan was crying, and ~ to be honest ~ there wasn't always a reason! Now, Ben isn't phased by Kellan's crying, and he also sleeps through it at night (which is wonderful!). He is still working on being more gentle. Ben really is just like a teddy bear inside an ogre's body, his squeezes could pop an eyeball out some days. Kellan doesn't like his eyeballs popped out, to say the least. One thing that they both like are baths. I recently purchased the Cray*ola bath crayons and they are the only reason that we can get clean-up time done in less than 5 minutes. My bathroom does look like someone threw up crayons, but hey . . . I've loosened my standards these days. I do draw the line at coloring on the toilet, but that may actually motivate me to clean it more often!

Kellan is doing great. We really got into a good routine with his naps and bedtime within the last few weeks. He goes to bed around 6:30 p.m. and he takes two naps throughout the day. They ARE getting longer, so there are more smiles from him during the day! I've gotten him down to 3 bottles per day, each before a sleep time. I plan on working with him and consolidating his two naps into one afternoon nap, and this should eliminate one more bottle. Most days though, he still needs two naps. Kellan now takes at least 10 steps at a time, but it only happens when he feels comfortable with independent play. Not quite walking all of the time, but he is definitely close :)

As for his transition into daycare, we are going slow. For two days this week, I am dropping both Ben and Kellan off at the same time and then I am going for a 40 minute run in the neighborhood. Kellan doesn't seem to be phased by this transition yet, which is a good sign. Next week, we are going to try one naptime at daycare and see how it goes. I always seem to think that Ben and Kellan will struggle, but they both seem to do just fine! We are in a much better place these days as a family of four, I can just imagine what another 8 weeks will bring.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Favorite Activity

2010-07-28T09:52:00.001-05:00

Lots of movement! I better get used to this with two boys right?

First Birthday Extravaganza

2010-07-25T18:50:00.006-05:00

The past five days have been deemed "Kellanpalooza" at our house due to the numerous (albeit small) first birthday festivities that we had! Maybe Kellanpalooza is kind of the wrong word for it, as things were quieter than normal. We kept things quiet due to many reasons. First, we wanted to keep Kellan's routine as normal as possible. The more normal that things are and the closer that we are to home, he has better days. Secondly, Kellan had his 1 year appointment with the pediatrician and it included some shots. From my memory of Ben's first shots, I knew that we were in for some irritability/restlessness and fever. I was right. I hated to admit that I knew that the last few days would be hard again (less nighttime sleep, more clinging to me for emotional support), but things have gotten better after his fever subsided this morning. Even with the irritability, Kellan still was able to celebrate his first birthday with some fun.

The great birthday cake. I was really looking forward to eating some of this! Kellan, on the other hand, has probably never eaten something as sweet as this. He wasn't a huge fan of the cake, but I have a feeling that next year will be a different story :)

New haircut! I wish that I could say that the haircut process was smooth, but it was NOT :) He didn't try to push the scissors away or anything, he just stood on my lap and did the silent cry, which as most of you know, is worse. I'm not sure if Kellan has ever had his hair cut before, and I'm pretty sure that he doesn't want it done again! But it is SO cute.

I have to tell this story only because some of my family/friends have experienced my cakebox-sitting kitty before. Manny (our orange tabby) has a fetish for boxes. He will try to squeeze into anything, perhaps even a ring box! He has ruined about six cakes in his days, and I was NOT going to let anything happen to Kellan's first birthday cake (he did this to Ben's baptism cake AND first birthday cake). I put the cake in our separate laundry room so that Manny would not have access to put his butt on the cakebox. Alas . . . I brought the cake out (in the box) and set in on the counter for five minutes or so, cut a few pieces after I took the picture above, turned my head to put some dishes away and when I returned THIS is what I found. Manny is lucky that he is well loved right? Oh, and I still ate it. Tastes the same!

We had many visitors at our house to help us celebrate Kellan's birthday, including Grandma and Grandpa Goose. They had fun running and playing with both boys. This picture of Grandma Goose and Kellan makes him look so tall! I am happy to report that he is now on the charts, being in the 4th percentile for weight and the 25th percentile for height. He's put on about 1.5 pounds since being home! I'm hoping to put a few more pounds on him soon :)

Therapy!

2010-07-21T13:31:00.005-05:00

Yes, from the title you can probably guess that I'm about to check myself into a very highly recommended stay-at-home mom type of assisted living! No . . . things aren't all THAT difficult these days :) The reason for the title is that back in June we went to the International Adoption Clinic in Milwaukee and met with a team of doctors to help us assess Kellan and make decisions about his health, general well-being and transition into our family. One of the professionals that was present at this meeting was a clinical child therapist. I really liked her. She taught some of the adoption seminars that we went to last year, so it was nice to have her on "our" team.

Yesterday, Kellan and I went for a follow-up appointment with her. It has been a month since we've seen her and I wanted to discuss some transition issues that we were having, mainly sibling issues (for Ben, not Kellan) and sleep. I think that it is hilarious that we made an appointment for Kellan to see her and not ME, because I'm the one who needs the transition help! Anyways . . . she gave me some great insights on both of my concerns. She asked how Ben was doing with Kellan entering our family and I explained that most of our days were wonderful, but we were having trouble with gentle touches and "sharing" space. I am pretty much on the floor with Kellan most of the day and Ben wants in on this attention. The therapist assured me that this is very typical (especially with Ben being 3) and that just talking with Ben while playing with Kellan is a way to keep Ben engaged while I am attending to baby needs. Linking Ben and Kellan every chance I get was also a suggestion ("Look Kellan, Ben is playing with his fancy red trucks over there . . . "). I tried it today and we're still dealing with issues in the evening time (or, as I call it, monster hour). One day at a time! I also enjoy a beer each night with dinner, this seems to help! :)

As for Kellan's sleep concerns, my main issues are his naps. He only takes two 25-40 minute naps on a normal day. This would be fine if I knew that he was well-rested. But . . . 5:30 p.m. is a nightmare in our house. I can barely get him to 6:30 p.m. before he wants/needs to go to bed. NOT complaining ~ he's been sleeping through the night more often than not. He still has his bad nights yet, so I know that he's not quite comfortable and secure in his new home. The therapist's suggestions were kind of a slap on the back of my head "duh!" moment. Since the nighttime routine was going so well . . . I needed to pretty much recreate that routine for him during naptime. That meant switching bottles to before-naptime, turning on the nightlights like I do in the evening and rocking him for a longer period of time in a darkened room. It all seems so easy, but I wasn't doing this for him. I kind of assumed that since he was showing signs of tiredness, I could just plop him in the crib and he would go down easily (similar to the way that I've done it for Ben, which is my main mistake). So, that is what we are working on today. These are just the hardest things to deal with, why don't they come with an instruction manual???!!! It also makes me feel sad because I wasn't giving him clear cues on what comes next in the routine. HELLO, I'm a teacher and I do this every day for 22 kids! Oh well, I hope that this is an easy fix for him and that he will forgive me in the future for being a bit dull in the brain :)

The therapist and I also discussed his transition to daycare. I'm not going back to work until right before Thanksgiving, but I am working a few days in late-August to get my classroom ready. I hate to have to transition him for only four days, but it is what needs to happen. Kellan will be going to the same in-home daycare that Ben goes to, and it is a very loving environment. I don't have any worries that Kellan will not transition well, but it is just the initial "letting go" for him that I think will be difficult. The therapist and I talked about giving Kellan the comfort of my carrier in the initial 5-10 min. separations that we are going to work on this week. Putting him in my carrier on another person, a firm good-bye and letting him know that I will return soon, walking away and then coming back a few minutes later. Hopefully this will go well on Thursday when we try it! I'll keep you posted.

We're working on birthday preparations this week! Kellan turns ONE tomorrow and we are just planning a quiet celebration. He also got a haircut yesterday and I can't wait to show you! Well . . . it's been 40 minutes and Kellan is already screaming in his crib ready to get up from his nap. I guess it is always a work-in-progress. Better get going!

Summer Days

2010-07-18T07:03:00.003-05:00

I'm feeling a bit redundant in the bloggy world these days! I promise to start posting more this week. I have small amounts of time during the day to check email (and maybe respond), but most of my time is spent on the floor doing crowd control :) My life seems very boring, yet BUSY at the same time!!!!

In terms of Kellan, most days we take 10 steps forward . . . and then there are the occasional days where we take 20 steps backwards. I don't want you to think that those 20 steps are ALL taken at the same time, I just mean that sometimes we have hard mornings/afternoons/nights. The nighttime hasn't been bad at all recently, but then we will have a night where Kellan cries for an hour or more. It is all so unexplained . . . and there are at least 10 possibilities for why he is crying, but we usually can't figure it out. Andy and I rarely discuss bad nights because there are no two nights that are equal. What happens one day/night won't happen the next. This seems very typical of most 12 month olds and it is so hard when they cannot tell you why they are unhappy.

I will say that the majority of Kellan's adjustment has gone really well (as you can see in the picture where the Choi girls decided to induct him into their "girly" group)! He's on more of a schedule with his sleeping and eating, and that helps him to be more rested and play longer. A lot of my day is going for short walks with both kids. Ben is riding his bike these days and we try to find adventures in the neighborhood. But it has been SO blasted hot here recently, most of our walks are very short. I try to get out at least a few times a day so that I don't have to stare at the same toys/walls all day long :)

Recently, I've taken on the task of making all of Kellan's appointments that the Internation Adoption Clinic recommended. We went to get his eyes tested on Thursday, and I got a small dose of cross-cultural ignorance while I was there. Most people typically remark on how adorable he is (which, I may be biased about!), but there are the occasional questions on where in China I got him and how much of a wonderful person I am for saving this little baby from sure-fire peril. I want to say ~ I'm not that great of a person people :) I usually just smile and nod and we move on with our day. But at the eye appointment, I was asked by the doctor if he would grow up speaking Chinese (or Korean when I corrected the doctor on where Kellan was born) and then a nurse asked "Didn't he have parents that wanted him?". The doctor also mentioned that Kellan was the first Asian infant that he had ever seen and he remarked on how significant his eye folds were (he actually tried to reassure me that Kellan's eyes would change as he aged!) Needless to say . . . I was there for his eyes to be checked and then we left quickly.

I realized then *more than ever* that I need to figure out how I am going to talk with these people in the next few years. I was also sad that Kellan will always face these questions. Right now, Kellan is oblivious to these comments/questions (and I know that most people have no bad intentions when they ask), but I need to equip him with some responses as he gets older. I'm putting this on my to-do list and I found the book, "Cross Cultural Adoption: How to Answer Questions from Family, Friends, and Community" by Amy Coughlin and Caryn Abramowitz. Hopefully, I'll have a good review for all of you soon (because I really have a lot of time to read these days).

Beyond this report . . . life is good. Being the mommy of two little kids is more exhausting than I ever expected and I miss my own mommy who is in Florida for the month. But, then again . . . it's all worth it, isn't it?

Wordless Wednesday

2010-07-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

Snack!

Baby-ness

2010-07-09T09:54:00.004-05:00

We are slowly falling into a predictable routine here at the Peterson Palace. Ben has been home with me for the week and I am getting used to being the 24/7 mom of TWO children. I have to admit . . . it is not easy at all. Ben's feelings toward Kellan are either hot or cold and he has moments in his day where he is absolutely an angel and then there are times where he is the exact opposite. The day actually reminds me of a circus act ~ balancing various things while creating a wholistic image of management. The dishes and laundry never seem to end and I always feel as if I am preparing food for someone :) Life.

Kellan is still making good progress. He has moments where he gets overtired/hungry and he cries loudly, but I have to say . . . he is SO much more smiley and easy going than the last few weeks. I've also noticed that he is playing with his toys more. I've really worked hard this week to start a sleep routine. I read the book, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth and I am taking all of his suggestions and putting them to work. I am really excited to say that it is WORKING! Kellan is now soothing himself to sleep and he takes two naps and his bedtime is around 7 p.m. No more mattress next to his crib. When he wakes up at night, we let him try to soothe himself back to sleep. He only seems to cry for about 5 minutes before he figures it out. Some nights are better than others, but I figured that he has had his foster mom giving him a bottle in the middle of the night for his entire life and it will take a while before he gets into the routine of sleeping for more than 4 hours at a time without food/water being offered to him.

I hesitated writing this post since there are such strong opinions on sleep and adoption attachment! But, I need to let other APs know that it is all about what works for your baby. So much of adoption is reading books, listening to experts, signing your name to documents, that you forget that this child is not in a "group". Kellan is not only adopted, but he is a baby. The other day Kellan only ate one bottle, and I kind of freaked out. The books say that you are supposed to encourage bottle feeding to help the attachment process. What if he is giving up his bottles? Will he have attachment problems?!!!! I caught myself in this inner-battle, when I just had to relax and say . . . he is adopted, but he is also a baby. Babies tend to give up their bottles around 1 year old. He is eating a lot of solids, so he is getting the calories that he needs to grow. Relax! I kind of felt the same way about the sleep stuff. Should I let him cry a bit? Is this going to set him back? And the reality of this all is that I just needed to try it. I was very sleep deprived and he was too. I was having a hard time balancing the 24/7 trapeeze circus act and as the ringmaster I needed to change some things up :)

Tonight we are off to the Choi's for some delicious Korean food. I cannot wait! This will be the first time that they get to meet Kellan and I'm sure that he will be devouring the food that they make for us :) Ben, on the other hand, will be eating peanut butter and jelly!

Wordless Wednesday - Sweetness

2010-07-07T13:12:00.000-05:00

Belated Half-Marathon Madness

2010-07-05T18:54:00.007-05:00

Two days before we left for Korea, Andy and I finished the Mad City Half-Marathon :) To say the least . . . our minds were on another planet! We both took a large amount of time to train for this event, and pretty much figured that our travel call would either come a few days before this event, or right after it. And we were correct! This was Andy's first half, and my second. Even though I had run this course before, the conditions were NOT favorable for a good run time. It was in the mid-70's at 6 a.m. and very muggy. By the time that we were going to finish, it was predicted to be near the 90 degree mark. NOT good. But . . . we were still going to be crazy and run it right?

I always come home with some sort of crazy runner story. There are seriously some strange gazelles at these runs. This guy was no exception, he was adjusting himself completely naked behind a tree. Yeah man . . . not so much coverage on the lawn of the Capitol building! I do have pictures of him completely naked, but I'll refrain from posting these! I always remember that there just MIGHT be someone with a camera handy (like my sherpa Sally did!) and I don't want to be the schlup on the digital image with my pants around my ankles :)

As we were running our torturous half-marathon . . . this is what the sherpas did with my camera. They honestly took pictures of themselves eating a delicious breakfast in the air-conditioned, posh hotel across the street from the finish line. You can imagine my delight when I found these on my memory card when I finished!

Everyone finished, everyone was safe, but everyone felt terrible. Andy had the dry heaves and some muscle cramps . . . but he finished strong! I am very proud of his effort. Running is not easy and it takes dedication and mental strength to do a half-marathon.

I was a bit disappointed that I needed to walk about a mile of this run because of the heat, so I am planning to do another half-marathon in the fall. Kellan seems to enjoy the running stroller, so it is definitely a possibility for me to train with him. My Aunt Sharon (my race buddy) has told me that she wishes that she could run another marathon, but she claims that she doesn't have the "race bug" in her anymore. So . . . I'm looking for other crazy runners to run a marathon with me next year. There is a new running store downtown that is planning to start a marathon group next year. Hopefully there will be more crazy ladies like me wanting to take on the 26.2!

Happy Campers

2010-07-04T12:38:00.003-05:00

Ben is growing up. I need to face this fact, but it is SO hard to think that your little one is ready to spend the night with his dad outside in a tent. All night long! I'm not the type of mom that likes to "baby" kids (I have to deal with this all of the time at school!), but it was bittersweet to see that he was ready to camp outside of our house for the night. Because I am not a true camper (Andy really likes it, I'm on a "need to" basis with it), he wants Ben and Kellan to enjoy camping with him. Ben was really excited to do it, as you can see in the picture above. Or . . . I should say that he was REALLY excited about making the s'mores.
They stayed up much longer than I did. I went outside to enjoy some of the campfire and have a s'more of my own, but then I chose the less buggy place to be. Inside watching some of my new favorite TV shows (I'll post more on those later!) and getting into bed by 9 p.m.
The next day was Kellan's first adventure in the pool, which he loved. He is really getting comfortable and showing us his true personality. Kellan really loves to be outside, so I'm thinking that Ben and Andy have another camping buddy in the future.

Week 4 of being home has been better than the previous 3 :) Our main concern is still sleep. Kellan seems to be getting worse sleep as the days go on, and he rarely wakes up happy and rested. For example, one day this week he slept for about 8 hours at night (in chunks) and then took a 25 min. morning nap and a 30 min. afternoon nap in the car. When I was co-sleeping with him to get him down for his nap, he would begin crying and then play in his crib ~ all while watching me most of the time. For an hour! So . . . when the boys were camping in the backyard and I was up 6 times that night, I decided that it was time to teach Kellan how to sleep a bit better. We are in the process of getting him to put himself to sleep, which has gone well in the last 24 hours, and he is only crying for about 10 minutes at a time. I was prepared for him to cry for an hour, but he is surprising me. I just want him to be more rested and in a better mood! I will post more about this next week, and hopefully with good results :)

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

Wordless Wednesday - Brothers :)

2010-06-30T18:20:00.000-05:00

Three Weeks Home

2010-06-29T11:28:00.002-05:00

Can't believe that three weeks have already passed, I wasn't sure that I would make it this long! Kellan is doing very well. It kind of comes down to three major things in terms of his adjustment:

Eating: Kellan has started to eat much more regularly. In the first few weeks, he would kind of protest his bottle and just drink a few ounces instead of the typical 7 oz. that his foster mom noted in his file when we picked him up. Being around Ben (who runs around like a crazy man at home) was a bit of a distraction for Kellan, so I've tried to keep the room "still" and feed him in the same chair and that seemed to do the trick. He's now eating 5 bottles a day of between 5-7 oz. I'm not quite sure if there is a difference for adopted children in weaning from bottles, but I plan on taking some of the bottles away in the next few months and giving him whole milk instead. As far as American food, he loves bread, jelly, cheese, yogurt, crackers and pasta. The baby food was just not enough. Kellan also learned how to use a sippy cup recently.

Sleeping: I spoke a bit too soon last week with my post on how Kellan's sleep schedule was going. Of course, within 24 hours he got a cold and the schedule went right OUT the window :) Our schedule is still off, but he is typically in bed by 7:30 p.m. and he gets up for a bottle around 1 a.m. From there, he will sleep until around 5 a.m (if I am lucky). Naps are all over the place. Some days are hard! He will cry a lot when I put him down and refuse to sleep. On those days, I try to get him outside and just walk around the neighborhood (or just recently, running while he's in the jogging stroller). It gives us both a much needed break from fighting sleep, and 9 times out of 10 Kellan will fall asleep during the walk. In terms of the co-sleeping, we are no longer doing that. We put the front on the crib and one of us lays on the spare bed until he falls asleep and then we slip out of his room. When he cries at night, I respond right away (since I am literally 15 feet away!) and this is working well. Everyone is sleeping much better these days.

Bonding/Attachment: I hesitate to tell people my true feelings about how this process is going! I know that in terms of attachment in adoption, our situation is very normal . . . in fact, it is ideal (healthy infant adoption in a foster situation). We have good days, and we have bad days. Since I am home most of the days with just Kellan, we have a lot of opportunities for bonding. Some hours are good, some hours are not so good. It kind of depends on the amount of sleep that we've both had! There are times, I'll admit, that I feel that I am "Mommy" and there are times that I feel like the "Nanny". Like . . . how come no one told me that THIS cry means THAT? Most days, I feel awful about this. How could I not instantly connect and love a child that I've thought about every day for over two years? These thoughts can be difficult and most of the time, counterproductive. I've just started to tell myself to "get over it", feel it, and move on. Another hour always arrives, and different thoughts/feelings come with it. Most days are great, and I know that I will be able to remove "most" from that statement eventually.

Language: Kellan started to respond to his name recently :) He also learned "uh-oh" this week and started to wave good-bye and hello. He knows the word "kitty" and he will look for Manny if we ask him to. I am, to say the least, amazed at how quickly his language is developing. Sometimes he looks at me cluelessly about what I am saying, and other times he observes a lot of my body language.

He will also be walking SOON, his core is very strong. He just needs to feel comfortable enough to try some of those first steps!

4 Weeks Ago-A Life-Changing Day

2010-06-24T21:41:00.006-05:00

It's hard to believe it, but it has been exactly 4 weeks since we got our travel call. It's just amazing how sloooowly time seemed to move as April dragged on into May and how quickly the last 4 weeks have passed. In the chaos of getting ready to travel to Korea to pick up Kellan, we never really posted the travel call story. We got the call on Thursday, and left the following Tuesday (the day after Memorial Day), so we had one business day to get everything squared away prior to leaving the country. Oh yeah, we both managed to run a half marathon during that time too. So needless to say, it was CRAZY.

But Thursday, May 27th started off like any Thursday....a day off for me. Ever since Ben was born (actually, for most of my professional life) have have worked a 4 day, 10 hour/day schedule. So Ben and I have always had one day a week where it was just us....it used to be Friday at my old job and recently it was Thursdays. We spent these days doing chores (grocery shopping usually), going to story time at the library, and occasionally venturing out for more adventurous activities like Geochaching or bike rides to the park. I feel so very lucky to have had the opportunity to spend so much one-on-one time with Ben during his first 3 years-I know a lot of Dads don't get to spend nearly the amount of time with their kids that they would like to. So Ben and I were going to head to Milwaukee on this particular Thursday for his first Brewers game. My plan was to get there early, watch batting practice, maybe snag a ball, watch a couple of innings of the game, and head home with Ben passed out in the back seat. We were literally 10 minutes from leaving the house (and probably would have been gone if Ben could do anything in a timely fashion) when the phone rang.

Let's backtrack for a second here....Jen had been calling the State Dept. in Washington DC for almost a week to check on the status of Kellan's visa. After getting the same response (nothing new/scheduled), she called on Thursday morning and they could see his picture. I'm still not exactly sure what that means, but it was a sign of movement. Also, the day before, I had emailed our social worked to ask why we hadn't gotten any well baby check reports since early March. So at around 8 am, I got an email back from our SW saying that we should have gotten a May WBC with photos. Hmmm....double checked my emails and there was nothing. Emailed her back, asking to resend......waited.....waited.....nothing. Story of our life the last 6 months, right? So back to the phone ringing.....I look at the caller ID (with Ben's shoes in my hand) and it's our agency. Could it be??? So I answer and it's our SW. She starts in about how she had us mixed up with another family who had recently gotten a well baby check with pictures and she was calling to apologize about that, and that she doesn't have a May WBC for us.....BUT, "you guys can just go to Korea to see him for yourself!" Now, for those who know me, I'm not an overly emotional guy. I don't get too blubbery or jump up and down when I'm excited (exception-nearly falling out of my chair when the US soccer team scored that winning goal yesterday), but I really wish there had been a hidden camera filming me. All I remember is that when I answered the phone I was in the bedroom (Ben's shoes in hand, remember) and within 2 seconds of her telling me the news I was running to the kitchen to the laptop to start looking for flights. Ben's shoes somehow ended up under our bed. Got off the phone, gathered myself, and decided that this is news that Jen needs to hear in person. So Ben and I hopped in the car and drove over to Jen's school to tell her the news. The look on her face when we showed up at her classroom door was one of "either someone died or we're going to Korea." We had a very brief private moment of happiness in the hallway, and then went to share the news with a room full of 1st graders.

Amazingly, Ben and I still made it to the game. Our timeline changed, but we made it for the first pitch. We ate cheese poofs (Cheetos puffs) and a hot dog and a pretzel with cheese, walked around Miller Park and checked out all the play areas that you never notice are there when you're at a game with your friends and only notice where the nearest beer stand is, and just had a great afternoon together. On the way home, Ben did pass out and I had a sad/happy moment while driving. It was our last "Daddy and Ben day." Sure, there will be more days that just the two of us do things together, and once Jen goes back to work in November, we'll have Daddy/Ben/Kellan days, but it certainly was an abrupt ending to one of my favorite things. But, we were going to Korea. Ben was getting a little brother. In a few years, Ben and I can take Kellan to his first Brewers game at Miller Park, and Ben will be able to show him the Bernie Brewer replica slide and teach him about the sausage race. It was just an amazing day, so emotional in many many ways, and I'm glad I got to spend it with my little man....

Wordless Wednesday - Little Man & Gator

2010-06-23T15:46:00.002-05:00

Looking Up

2010-06-21T08:09:00.005-05:00

Here are some things that I've learned about Kellan in the past two weeks:

He has a huge personality. He likes to joke around and be playful, but he also has a shy side to him.

He only sleeps on his stomach! No other position is acceptable, except for the occasional snooze in the carrier or carseat.

Kellan doesn't really play too much with traditional infant toys, he prefers household objects instead.

When he is mad, he REALLY lets you know how he is feeling :)

He loves cheese and yogurt, so I guess that it is a good thing that he lives in Wisconsin!

Kellan loves to watch Ben do anything. I am hoping that he is only observing the good stuff!

Things are going much better this week. My instincts are telling me that we are going to make a turn for the better in the sleep department soon. He takes between 2 and 3 naps a day and he is sleeping from around 8:30 p.m. until 5:45 a.m. He still is drinking one bottle per night, but I think that I am going to limit the amount of formula that he is getting from it in a few weeks. I did this with Ben and it worked well. The jetlag seemed to get better as of Saturday night, so around 2 weeks from our return to Wisconsin. We aren't up for a few hours in the middle of the night anymore! His sleep is very calm now and if he wakes up he is getting himself back to sleep. I no longer co-sleep with him during his daytime naps.

As for getting to know other people, it is still a work in progress. If we do get out and go to someone's house, he seems to go inside of his shell while we are there and then miraculously come out when we return home. So, home must be a safe place :) We are taking things slow with getting to know other people's homes and there is definitely a time limit for how long we are there.

We visited the International Adoption Clinic in Milwaukee on Friday and things went very well. Any notations that the doctors made on his Korea paperwork were either non-existent on arrival or they were very mild compared to the way that the notes explained it. I was very happy with all of the care that he was given there and I felt a lot of relief when they told me that he would probably make remarkable progress in the next 3-6 months in his growth. He is tiny! He weighs around 18 pounds now and he isn't on the growth charts yet for height/weight. I love that I have one child the size of a mythical ogre and the other the size of a small woodland elf creature! I'm just happy that he is safe, healthy, and adjusting to his new family and home.

Been There, Done That (Andy's Travel Retrospective)

2010-06-19T20:38:00.009-05:00

When it comes to travel, I'm a planner. I like to know where I'm going, what I want to see, how to get there, where we're going to eat, and what time we're going to leave to go to the airport. I track airfares and hotel rates and manipulate Priceline to try to get the best deals. So the trip to Korea was obviously a challenge for me. I didn't know when we were going, I didn't know if we were going to be able to stay where we wanted to stay (Somerset), and as much as I researched Seoul travel websites, I just couldn't get a grasp on all the gongs, guks and dongs that are parts of locations in Seoul. To make matters worse, I knew in advance that my Droid Eris phone was not going to work in Korea, so my trusty apps like UrbanSpoon, Yelp, and Google Maps weren't going to be at my disposal. Fortunately, we did have our Netbook in our room, and I relied heavily on it for directions, restaurants, tourist destinations, etcwhile we were in Seoul. Much of the info was from other blogs and the Holt and Bethany boards, so I thought I would add to this resource for future travellers and share our travel experiences and some of our favorites........

Flights: Korean Air RULES!! I was told this by others, but you really don't know how crappy domestic airlines are until you fly Korean Air. In the days leading up to our travel call, I was monitoring airfares for the dates we were guessing we would go (really a pointless activity for those of you who are getting close). Fares and availability varied wildly. One day there would be no flights showing up, the next day there would be seats available. People on the Holt boards who got travel calls the week before our were reporting that they were completely shut out of flights and hotels. Fortunately, once we got the call, I jumped online and, sure enough, our dates were available, and they were equal to the lowest fares I had seen in the weeks that I was watching. The flight was direct from O'hare, a little more than 13 hours there and 12.5 back home. The individual TV screens built into the seats were awesome (Jen watched 6 movies on the flight there!), they served Bibimbap , complete with a miniature tube of red pepper paste (no fried egg though), and generally provided excellent service through out the flight. The flight home was a bit more challenging (to put it mildly) but the flight attendants did their best to help us out when we had turbulence and couldn't be up walking around with Kellan.

A couple of notes on travel....we did not use a travel agent. I was prepared to if the flights/fares we were looking for were not available. I highly doubt we would have gotten any better of a deal had we used one.

After booking online, I did call Korean Air to request the bassinet on the return flight. They took Kellan's name (be sure to give them the Korean name), height and weight, to be sure to have that info. Once you get to the airport in Incheon to return home, you will still have to purchase the ticket. You should do this before you get in line to check in. Look for 'Ticketing' when you come into the Korean Air departures area. The price of the lap ticket is 10% of the adult fare, so Kellan's was about $180. You will purchase the ticket there and then go on to check-in.

Hotel: We did end up staying at the Somerset Palace, again, after hearing through the grapevine that it was completely booked through mid-June. Holt in Korea made these arrangements for us (supposedly). There's nothing quite like the feeling of arriving at your hotel after nearly 20 hours of travel to hear them say that there is no reservation under your name. Of course, it was 6 PM local time, so there was no one available at Holt to contact. Fortunately, the front desk was able to find us a room for the night, and then contacted Holt in the morning. We ended up being able to stay in the same room throughout our stay, so everything did turn out just fine. We had a 2 bed room unit, and the rate that Holt got for us was 180,000 won (~$150/night). The 2

bedroom unit was excellent, and I think we both appreciated having a second bedroom when we switched shifts on sleeping duty after we got Kellan. We also each had our own bathroom, which is always nice when travelling with a woman :) All in all, the Somerset was great. Excellent location, good breakfast buffet included, free wired internet in room and wireless in lobby and common areas, including the breakfast area I assume. The front desk personnel speak good English. Jen used the workout room once and liked the fact that she was running at nearly 10, but then realized it was km/hr and not mph. I'm not sure what exactly happened with the reservation, but it was taken care of without any effort on our part. My advice would be that if your agency or someone else is making the reservation for you, try to get a confirmation number prior to leaving.

Subway/around town: As everyone else says, Seoul's subway system is clean, efficient, usually crowded, relatively cheap, and pretty easy to navigate. The whole system is very modern. I was amazed to see people watching live baseball games on the subway when the last time I was on the Red Line subway in Chicago I couldn't even get a signal. Signs and announcements are in English. Machines to purchase tickets are likewise in English. I don't know exactly how fares play out, but usually our trips (for both of us) were under 5000 won (<$5). And once you reach your destination, you can get 500 won (~$0.50) back from a card recycling machine. You definitely need to plan your route in advance, especially if you are transferring. When transferring, you need to know which way on the line you need to go, so it's good to have your map handy. It is

usually necessary to know the next stop in the direction you are wanting to go to ensure you don't head the wrong way.

Taxi cabs are plentiful at hotels and on the main streets. We only used cabs when coming back from Holt with Kellan, back from Lotte Mart Supermarket with our groceries, and when we were out with the Choi's because there were 6 of us and it was cheaper in a cab than the subway. The Somerset provides cards that say "Take me to the Somerset" in Korean with a map and address. We only had to use this card once, and the cabbie still looked confused, but we did get there.

FOOD: Ahhhh.....Korean food. Never had it prior to starting this adoption adventure, now I love it. Unfortunately, you can probably count on one hand the number of Korean restaurants in Wisconsin. We tried to take advantage of this while in Seoul, but frankly, with the time change and with only having 1 1/2 days sans baby, it was difficult to fully immerse ourselves in Korean cuisine. My favorite meal was the one pictured above, a place called Sadongmyenok (사동면옥). I had Manduguk (dumpling soup) and Jen had Bibimbap. Below you can see the mandu being handmade at this restaurant in Insadong. The mandu dumplings are literally as big as your fist and filled with meat and veggies. This place was packed over lunch hour, and in true Korean restaurant fashion, customer service takes a back seat to the quality of the food and the quickness of the service. This is also where I brought out my wild card and dropped a "Mekju" on the waitress and was promptly brought a bottle of Cass Beer. This place is located on Insadong 5-gil (down an alley off the main Insadong street) and will be on your left side (look for the window pictured below).

Located right across from the Mandu place is the restaurant pictured below. I don't know the name of it, we just stumbled across it when walking around prior to our meeting at Holt on Friday. Their menu was actually pretty varied, but we both had Bibimbap. They also had a picture menu outside of the restaurant, a common feature in the Insadong area. Both of these places ended up being around 15000 won (<$14 US) for meals and the Banchan (side dishes).

We did also need a bit of a taste of home while we were in Seoul. We took the subway to Itaewon one afternoon and went to the Wolfhound Pub for burgers and beers. Wolfhound seems to be very popular with Westerners...for once we were not the only Americans in the room! Tjhe Wolfhound is located very near the Itaewon subway station, exit #4. Take a U-turn out of exit #4, turn right on the street directly across from the Hamilton Hotel, and take the first alley on the right. The Wolfhound is on the right, down a hill, on the second and third floors of the building.

Other places we ate: Agio Italian, Insadong-located in the Alley directly across from the front of the Buddhist temple located near the Somerset.

Tomatillo: Burrito joint along the lines of Chipotle or Qdoba in the US. From what I've read, about the best Mexican you'll find in Seoul. Walking distance from Somerset. Walk to the Jongak subway station, find exit 6 and walk straight as if you were coming out of exit 6. It'll be on the left about 1/2 block down. I think it was about 14000 won for a couple of burritos

Shopping: We did most of our gift and souvenir shopping in Insadong, but we did also visit Namdaemun Market with the Choi's, where we bought a hanbok and Kellan's name stamp, along with a few other items. We were thankful to have a translator and barterer there with us so we got what we wanted at fair prices.

We also made a trek to Lotte Mart Supermarket at Seoul Station for some grocery shopping. We actually walked from the Somerset and took a cab back. It was quite a walk, but it was a beautiful morning and Kellan was more than content with Jen in the carrier. We got everything we needed there for Kellan (all his favorites per foster mom): cheese, yogurt, baby food, bananas, etc.

Final thoughts: I can't wait to go back to Seoul, hopefully this time under a little bit less stress. It is such an amazing city, and I'm just in awe of the fact that just over 50 years ago, it was mostly leveled in the Korean War. I love the blend of the old and the new, with an ancient palace surrounded by modern high rises. The use of space is just amazing as well....what is a dark, dirty probably unsafe alley in Chicago or New York is home to great restaurants and shops in Seoul. I can't wait to take Ben and Kellan back when they are both a little older, and it's a place that I hope I get to visit several more times in my life. If you're travelling soon, enjoy the journey, it'll be over before you know it.

Love

2010-06-18T15:16:00.005-05:00

I wanted to create a post that was really honest and true to what is happening right now in my life. I just cannot believe the curves that life has put in front of me so far . . . meeting Andy, getting married, giving birth to baby Ben, and now adopting baby Kellan. All of this sounds like such a fairy tale, but that is not the way that I want to portray it to you.

I am human. I have faults! I swear like a sailor most days, I don't put the cap on the toothpaste, I like to shop online a bit too much, I tend to gossip about celebrities like they are my close personal friends, and I am extremely diligent and committed to my hobbies (which can drive some people crazy!). And the biggest fault that I have as a mother is that I am not an instant lover.

I have to be honest, it was not an instant love for me with Kellan. And it wasn't with Ben either. In fact . . . I figured that both of them hated me in the first few weeks. They both cried all the time, refused to be put down, wouldn't sleep . . . you know the facts. I cried too. All of us were in limbo of love/like/dislike. But, it slowly changes. As a mom, I first felt that I had made a mistake. Ben didn't like the outside world and Kellan wanted to go back to his foster family. And I didn't know how to mold this family so that everyone was happy. In all of my honesty, I can tell you that there are some hard times but there are so many more good times. That is my goal in life . . . more good than bad.

I am slowly feeling as if Kellan is my son. I haven't called him that word more than once or twice in the last few weeks, but it is beginning to feel good to say it. He and I are working on getting to know each other and we are slowly growing out of "like" and into "love".

I like that I have the comparison of our biological child, Ben. It was the exact same way with him, so I know that I am semi-normal! Over time my life has changed with him and I love him to pieces too, even when he gets into a Vaseline* container before 7 a.m. like he did today (which is for the baby thermometer, if you get my drift!) :) I know that Kellan and I will grow to have an amazing bond in time. After all . . . Rome wasn't built in a day right?

Wordless Wednesday

2010-06-16T15:24:00.002-05:00

Two weeks ago, out for some bibimbop. Isn't Seoul gorgeous?

Home One Week

2010-06-15T11:22:00.002-05:00

I'm actually able to report that as of right now, I received 8 hours of sleep since midnight (albeit not all at one time)! Sleep is happening more regularly these days :) THANK YOU to all of my readers that have helped me make it through this last week. It has been rough, but there have been some wonderful moments in it too. Last Tuesday, we took a really long plane ride and brought Kellan to Wisconsin. He only slept about 3.5 hours of the 13 hour flight home, which made it a real struggle to adjust to any time zone because we landed at 10 a.m. in Chicago. Kellan has had to adjust to sooooo many new things, that it is totally understandable how much of a struggle that first week home is. Ben and his friends at his babysitter's house made some great cards to greet Baby Kellan with when he got home. He was excited and he called Kellan a "great pet". I love that he's learned throughout the last week just what a little brother really is. Kellan cries, he takes attention from Mom, he plays with his toys . . . there is a BIG learning curve for siblings. It isn't like we are bringing home a newborn that just eats and sleeps, so it can be an instant difficulty for the older children. Andy and I just have to help both of them get through this initial change and then things should be a bit more smooth (or, at least I hope).

As for Kellan's transition, it is as if Monday was the turning point. He just relaxed into our home and his schedule. He is drinking 4 to 5 bottles a day (we are transitioning formulas today) and he is also eating baby food and some regular food. His digestive system has made an overhaul and he seems to be doing well with that. As for sleep, he takes two naps, one in the morning and one in the early afternoon. We are struggling to get him to stay up past 6:30 p.m., but we are giving him a bath to keep him up until around 8 p.m. He stays asleep until around 11:30 p.m. and wants to party until around 1:30 a.m. He will then sleep until around 5:30-6:30 a.m. His sleep is much less "tormented" as it was last week. So . . . not too bad. Andy and I are still taking shifts to make sure that we get some adequate rest.

We are going to make some efforts to get out of the house this week in small pockets. I'm taking him to the places that he will frequent with me a lot! But, it seems that after 30 minutes or so, he is ready to go back to his home. Small steps. Thursday is our initial visit with our social worker and we need to take our first family photo for her visit. Doesn't she know how hard it is for me to even get a shower and throw some deodorant on under my arms? Ahhhh!

The best part of this first week being over is that, I finally think that I can do this!

Proof of Life

2010-06-13T18:08:00.006-05:00

We're still here! Not a lot of sleep happening, but we are trudging through :) Everyone is slowly adjusting to a new normal in the Peterson household. Kellan is doing really well playing and exploring our house and he has had a lot of fun being outside as well.

He is just so stinkin' cute! He loves to play between midnight and 3 a.m. still. He is sleeping from about 7:30 to midnight and then from about 3-6 a.m. He is pretty much crying for the three hours that he is up which is hard for the entire household to rest. I found poor Ben sobbing in his room last night at about 2 a.m. because he missed his momma. That one just about broke me :(, but we are making efforts to do things with him alone each day, and that seems to help. Things in the sibling department are still works in progress.

He is getting MUCH better with Andy. But still only eating out of the bottle for me.

My house is mass chaos. Things are EVERYWHERE. But, with the weekend time, I was able to empty all of the luggage and put things away. We grocery shopped, went to the farmer's market and also played at the park. Being busy helps!

Ben's loving being outside each evening. He has some great neighbor friends that he plays with.

As for me, I've learned some great lessons in the last few days. Andy and I have switched "shifts", so he is sleeping with Kellan from 8-midnight and I am taking the late shift. When I do sleep until midnight, I am wearing earplugs :) I am also co-sleeping with Kellan during his naps, so I am getting a bit more sleep than I was last week. The time change was just brutal for me! I haven't quite figured out how to co-sleep with a 3 year old who doesn't nap at that time, so any suggestions for that are welcome. I am keeping Ben at his babysitter's house during the days for the next few weeks, so that should help until I can get the front of the crib back onto Kellan's bed. It just isn't safe to leave him on his own.

Thank you for all of your suggestions on my S.O.S. post last week! Please don't think that I was expecting Kellan to come home and sleep through the night right away, it was just unexpected to have him not sleep at all. And cry most of the night on top of that. I was just feeling like he wasn't getting the rest that he was in need of. Right now, my theory is . . . that it is what it is. We will learn more as time passes. And I also know that he won't be 5 years old doing this same stuff. Ben has taught me that! I never thought that he would establish a routine either!

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

2010-06-11T14:46:00.003-05:00

Hi All,
Just wanted to give you an update on how things are going in the Peterson Palace. I've come down to writing them in the following three catergories:

The Good:

Kellan is eating more and more every day. He calls me his "Momma" (from what I can tell) and he has a strong attachment to me right now.
Ben is adjusting well. We've decided to keep him at his babysitter's house during the weekdays to ease his transition and keep his routine normal.
Kellan is slowly exploring his new home. He really likes Manny and he cries when Manny leaves the room.
We've gotten really good at taking both boys outside after dinner/before bath to get some family time along with sun and activity to help with our jet lag.

The Bad:

Kellan is slooooooooowly adjusting to the time change. He is still really messed up with his sleep.
Ben is having some jealousy issues and has difficulty playing around Kellan without getting upset that he is playing with his toys. I've tried to instill a "no share" toy area where Ben can play with his toys that are not safe for Kellan to be around.
Kellan has difficulty sitting in anything that KEEPS HIM DOWN. Some examples of this are bath, stroller, high chair and car seat. We are struggling to get him to relax with this and be "on his own", but we also know that time will help.

The Ugly:

Since Kellan has pretty much attached to me, he will only be on or by ME. This is okay when he is willing to be in a carrier, but he still is not playing more than a few feet away from me at any given time. This makes cooking, laundry, showering and any basic bathroom issue difficult.
Kellan does not prefer Andy. At all.
Kellan is also struggling to sleep in his crib (we took off the front and pushed a twin bed next to it) without rustling around and crying every 20-30 min. He wakes up and cries heavily. When I try to get a break and sleep on my own (and have Andy take over) he screams in our living room for a few hours at a time. Therefore, my sleep consists of trying to sleep through screaming baby. No one is happy at night. Thankfully, Ben is sleeping through all of this :)
Due to the lack of sleep, I cry. A lot. I also don't eat. I've lost about 9 pounds in the last week or so just from stress. This is good, but also bad.

PLEASE tell me that this gets better? I know that it does, I just need some reassurance that everything will be okay. I felt the exact same way when Ben was born and I remember wanting to put him "back inside" for a few hours just so I could get some rest. Sorry that this is such a stressed post, I just want to be "real" and let you know what is going on in our household!

Wordless Wednesday-Home Edition

2010-06-08T22:14:00.002-05:00

Kellan says goodbye to Seoul

We are home....it was a long long day of travel to say the least. It is so good to be home, to see Ben, to shower in our own shower, to sleep in our own bed (at least one of us at the time, while the other sleeps next to Kellan). Jen will have more to share about the trip home and our first night tomorrow. Thanks again to everyone for the comments on here and on Facebook. It was so helpful for us to stay connected with home while we were in Seoul. For now, good night.

~Andy

Last Full Day

2010-06-07T00:08:00.005-05:00

To start this post ~ I just want to let any other APs that will be traveling in the near future that finding diapers in Seoul is difficult! I took some advice from a forum on how I should pack for our trip, and I should have figured that most people only have their baby for 24 hours in a hotel before taking off on a plane to the United States. That stated, Andy trekked around the area (we are SO thankful for bringing our netbook with us) and found baby items. Most babies are on some sort of baby food (which I didn't know) and this is also impossible to find and it is about 3 times the amount of money that I would usually pay for it. So . . . bring lots of diapers if you will have your baby for 5 days like us :)

In terms of Kellan's adjustment, he is doing SO much better today. Only one big grieving cry in the middle of the night and that is about it :) We've actually seen a glimmer of what he is normally like, which is wonderful to watch. He is VERY active and VERY boisterous about what he thinks (why me again?????). I love it. We finished our shopping this afternoon in Insadong and are bringing home some great treasure. I love this area of Seoul, the only comparison is Itaewon which we went to yesterday . . . so I could enjoy an $8 Newcastle* with fries! Itaewon is a place where a lot more English is spoken and there are a lot of name brand stores, whereas Insadong is much more traditional Korean stores. Andy decided to take our picture in front of Starbucks*, which doesn't quite smell the same as it does at home, but I love coffee anyways! The Starbucks* in the Somerset Palace closed just last week. As you can see, I've abandoned the idea of not wearing shorts here. It is 85 degrees and humid and I just can't do it! I already stick out anyways!

The landscaping in Seoul with such limited spaces is gorgeous! I love the trees and wooden walkways. Kellan loves his carrier, he feels so much more secure in it than out of it. We can walk around for hours and he will play/sleep/eat in it. It makes a mess of me, but that is the least of my worries. He does like to have one arm out, which is so cute. We are figuring each other out very slowly. Kellan hasn't taken a significant amount of formula from us, but he eats EVERYTHING in sight. He loves seaweed, potato noodles, and rice/vegetable porridge (which we scored at the breakfast in our hotel).

He is hard to contain at restaurants (because he loves to eat!), but we have seen many more smiles and giggles from him today.

Tomorrow is bittersweet. We leave the only place that Kellan has known . . . such a beautiful place. But, I also know that we will be back someday together.

Getting There!

2010-06-06T01:29:00.006-05:00

Day 3 has been a new adventure :) Kellan seems to go through phases where he is inconsolable and then smiley and extremely happy. He is slowly transitioning to us and seems comforted by us when he is sad. I totally understand where he is right now . . . I am missing home too. I'm trying to think about this when he is crying for a few hours ~ he just wants his Omma. He even says her name and it crushes me to see him go through this. Nighttime is okay, he gets three to four hour stretches before he will wake up screaming. He has completely given up his bottles as of right now, but he has yet to refuse any solids that we are giving him. I'm thinking that he is having a hard time with the bottle because his Omma was the only one to feed it to him.
One thing that his foster mom gave us was his picture book that we gave him in the care package that we sent him before Christmas. The pictures are VERY loved and worn and he likes to look at Ben's picture the best.
Isn't he just the cutest?
The Buddhist temple next to our hotel is gorgeous. There seem to be a lot of people there at all times of the day. Tomorrow is our last full day . . . I better get shopping :) I've been plotting out my purchases and I'm ready to pounce!

A So-Far Summary

2010-06-04T21:35:00.008-05:00

Yesterday, as I said in the last post, was a surreal meeting. Both Andy and I listened, nodded, and watched in amazement as Kellan's foster mom explained all of the wonderful things that she has been doing with him. She bought Ben and Kellan a hanbok and gave us wonderful albums of pictures from the time that she got him. When it was time to say goodbye, they both helped me to get him into his carrier. We spent about 10 more minutes just getting to the door and getting into a cab. His foster mom sobbed and followed him out to the car giving him kisses and hugging me as we said goodbye. Difficult. And Kellan knew exactly what was happening.
Once we started going, Kellan fell fast asleep in his carrier. The ride to the hotel was pleasantly quiet, but that didn't last long. He grieved heavily for about 6 straight hours. Whenever he would look at us, hear us talk, or be picked up he would cry and arch his back. At about 7 p.m. he drank about four oz. of formula and cried himself to sleep on the floor.
Please excuse how horrible I look here! Kellan slept from about 7:30 until 11:30 and then woke up to eat a lot of food :) He let me give him a bottle (he still wasn't keen on Andy) and he ate two pieces of cheese. We played until around 1 a.m. and then he went back to sleep until about 5:30 a.m. Co-sleeping on the floor seemed to work for him.
I have to be honest and tell you that this process has not been easy for me. I get a bit homesick on trips longer than four or five days away from home (and I miss my family/friends) and it was really hard to see Kellan go through this extreme emotion of loss. I have cried for his loss, his foster mom's loss, and our own new chapter. This morning to help me get out of my "funk", we went for a long walk to the grocery store to buy provisions for Kellan. It helped him as well because he got some much needed rest while we were out and about.
Kellan didn't prefer his foster father, according to what his foster mom reported in the notes. He had a hard time with Andy right away. The picture above is proof that things are getting better! Kellan is now playing on his own for about 5 minutes at a time (with us in his sight) and he has given us a few smiles today. He also let me kiss him on the head (which yesterday was a NO). I know that he and Ben will bond very fast when we get home. I need to remember that we have only had him for 24 hours so far and that I cannot expect him to eat AND sleep like a normal baby. I know that our first night is behind us and we have many, many more little steps to take along the way :)

Kellan!

2010-06-04T03:49:00.004-05:00

Here he is! Our meeting was about an hour long this afternoon. He is very attached to his foster mom. Kellan is her 159th foster child! Yes . . . I said 159. The woman is a saint. It was overwhelming to be at Holt, there were probably 15 babies inside of the building waiting for their well-baby checkups. There was even a set of twins. We sat down with Kellan's foster mom and the Holt social worker, DJ. They were both very informative and we took as much in as we could :)
Words cannot describe this meeting. Kellan is gorgeous and he is very aware of what has happened to him today. He's been grieving really hard for the last 4 hours, so my time is short. He has a LOT of hair, he has 6 teeth, he loves to eat (although I haven't seen that side of him yet :) and he is VERY determined. He sits up, crawls, and stands on his own unassisted for a few seconds. He is quick!

Wish us luck on our first night, it looks as if it will be rough. The Beco* has helped tremendously, as this is similar to the carrier that he was taken around Seoul in by his foster mom.

Baseball Game

2010-06-03T19:29:00.005-05:00

Since I am nervous for our upcoming meeting (and have been up since 4 a.m. here), I am going to show you what Korean baseball is all about! Andy and I (okay, more Andy than me) enjoy the game, so we decided to take in a game here in Seoul. We needed to navigate the subway system for this trip, so we set out on our solo journey away from our Americanized hotel. The subway is amazingly easy to figure out. And it is also exceptionally clean. This is the strangest thing that I've noticed about Seoul . . . it is SO clean, but there are no garbage cans to be found. I asked Sang about it yesterday when we were with them and they told me that you need to buy special bags to throw things away! When we got down to the subway, I noticed that people stand in organized lines and there are many different expensive TVs around. These would NOT make it in the US :)
Many of the commuters on the train with us were business people. They seem to work long hours here, from about 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. I get anxious when I am in crowded areas with minimal air-movement, so the subway was hard for me. There seemed to be a few people who wanted to try their English on us. They usually say phrases like "Have a good evening." but it is still hard for me to figure out in an adequate amount of time without being awkward! We tend to smile and use the few phrases that we know, and that seems to help us get by. It is hard to figure out money when you can't see the total amount in Won on the cash register, and the Koreans want to help us by saying "thousands" but it doesn't always translate well! I just give them an adequate amount of cash and they give me the change with a smile. We are still learning!
The baseball game was kind of a mixture between the Beloit Snappers (small team in our area) and the Milwaukee Brewers. But, the books don't lie when they tell you that everyone is VERY into the game. And someone also needs to market thunder sticks to South Korea, they LOVE them. Andy loved that the businessmen would come straight from work to the game, because about 10 years ago he would have done that!
I loved the beer. It was nice to sit and relax at the game to help us prepare for today's meeting at Holt. There are many different vendors that sell food at the stadium, and you can even get KFC* or Burger King*. We are trying to stay away from eating American foods here, but everyone loves them! Andy and I found that we are hungry at strange times of day (like 1 a.m.), so we try to eat at least two meals during the daytime.
Thunder sticks! It was nice to get out and wander around a different area of Seoul. I recommend it to anyone traveling soon :)

Only a few hours left!