Waiting

The little bit of treasure we hang onto is a video clip our social workers took of SeungHwan.  Simply amazing to see our guy move, see his expressions, hear his cry and voice (if ever so brief).  I may just have it memorized and I cry almost every time I watch it. We are so fortunate to have received a video as we were told the agency our placing agency works with in Korea does not send out videos.  However, two of the social workers from our agency traveled to Seoul and met with many of the babies and foster families.  I also am lucky my Korean teacher helped my translate some of the background conversation.  SeungHwan is a very loved little boy, you can just tell and I am so very thankful.

If you ask any of my students what my favorite "P" word is...they will tell you my answer is 'patience'.  I wish I could say I always follow my own advice, but we all know how that goes.  I am being very patient (Keith too).  However, with that being said, we are also very frustrated and tired of waiting.  I would like to point out that I can't complain too much...we are still within the 15-18 month wait to our travel call. There are families who have been waiting much longer than we have.  I cannot imagine the frustration they must be feeling at this point.  Although, we are fairly sure we will not be traveling before June, there is always hope things will move quickly.  I am not trying to be Negative Nancy, but I can only wait and practice being patient.  My heart has been hurt too many times and I am wise enough to know things don't always go as planned.


I cannot go into too much detail, but Korea is working hard to figure out the next steps for international adoptions.  Please check out MPAK's blog here for some additional information.  Some of MPAK's information is the same or similar to what we hear from our agency, some is new.  But I am happy for any notes or updates. The latest post addresses the EPs for 2013....we are in this quota.

We spoke with our agency last week and got some good news.  We are one of the next families they will be looking at...making sure we have all the required paperwork with the new law.  There are still groups ahead of us but it is very exciting our family day is creeping closer and closer.  It will be exciting for us as the other families get to bring their children home. 

We have received pictures every month since November and we feel quite spoiled.  We received an official progress report in December and an "unofficial" one in February.  By unofficial I mean that it came from our agency in AZ from their visit with SeungHwan in February. There wasn't a ton of new info on it...but there were some new "facts."

SeungHwan...

• is very healthy, active, energetic, curious, and clever
• puts words together such as "what is this?", "go away", "I'm scared"  (He said some of these things while our social worker was there)
• is eating spaghetti, pizza, steak, bananas, apples, and strawberries.
• is not taking formula anymore (which I believe stopped around December, but I would have to check!)

Along with the update, we received 14 pictures with him, Foster Mom, Foster Brother, and Mrs. Lee, the Korean Social worker.  Loved all this information.  I cried huge tears at school and knowing we would be receiving a video in the mail was just too much!!!

Here are two of the pictures we received...he was checking out a bug pop-up book Keith and I found for him.  These were taken in mid-February.

love, love

sleepy boy

 
We are "due" for an update this month, and we are hoping to receive one.  We are always curious about what he is interested in or what he has been doing/saying.  We already received the photos which we of course love....! He looks so big but I am wondering if it is because he is sitting on a table.  Hard to reference his size.  He is holding a different bug toy, which looks like a stag beetle. Earlier this year we received another photo of him with a scorpion looking bug toy...which is why we sent him the bug pop up.  The December report said he likes bugs and books. My kind of kid! :)

사랑해

Me in Japan last summer!

cutie!

mad skills...

Since I am behind, I will try posting some pics this week. Last week I played phone tag with our immigration officer....time to get our fingerprints updated.  They expire in June, so we need to have them done...if they expire...we have to to EVERYTHING all over again....no thank you!  Love to you all!