Gabe turned 6!

On June 29th Gabe turned 6!  On July 9th he was diagnosed with mono and staph infection in his throat.  For the first couple of days he was a very sick boy who slept watched T.V. and barely ate.  We even had to postpone his birthday party.  His party with friends was held on August 4th at Quarry Hill Nature Center.  He went on a cave hike with some of his friends (and his sisters) and enjoyed Samurai Power Ranger cake.

Gabe is such a  delightful inquisitive boy who makes us laugh loud and often.  He handles being the only Prince in house full of Princesses very well.  He is unusually self aware and introspective for someone only 6 years old.   He is super loving and kind and we often say he will make someone a great husband some day.

Gabe's imagination and explanations for things are wonderful.  I almost don't want him to grow up because his world is SO much more fun that the real world.  I have had so much fun enjoying the summer with him.  He tells me several times a day how much he loves me.  Who wouldn't want to hear that?  We are so blessed that 6 years ago this little boy joined the world.  Our lives would not be the same without our Gabe.

Adoption is NOT for wimps!

I have been told by several people that read my blog that it appears that Charli's adjustment has gone completely smoothly.  In many ways Charli's transition has gone incredibly smoothly and Phil and I agree that adjustment and attachment were easier for Charli than for Ellie who came home at 9 months old.  I do admit however that I have left out of the blog some of the difficulties that we have been having this summer.  It hasn't all been easy but bringing home our newly born children wasn't easy either.  I have said it before and I will say it again...adoption is not for wimps.

Charli's first struggle was grief.  She missed her foster family terribly.  She had spent two years with them and certainly did not understand why they would have handed her off to us.  She would cry out for her Omma in Korea.  The grief cry is unlike any cry I had ever heard before.  It would come over her any time of the day or night and you would know it was grief because it was heart wrenching mournful cry and she would cry huge crocodile tears.  I have grieved myself and been around many others who were grieving some loss and never before has someone elses' grief been so palpable.  She took little comfort from us during these grieving sessions and it was painful to watch.  Combine her grief with jet lag and the first week or two were pretty rocky.  Let's just say Phil and I slept very little.

Sleep has continued to be difficult for Charli.  She has a hard time falling asleep for naps and at night.  Some times we start her bedtime at 7:30 and it is after 10:00 before she is sleeping.  We lay next to her as her foster family did but up until recently she didn't want us to hold her or rock her or rub her back or in any way aid sleep.  She tosses and turns and we know she is very tired but sleep eludes her.  A few weeks ago our pediatrician told us we could give her melatonin.  This has helped a TON.  She now takes about 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep.  Her bonding to us is moving forward and she is becoming more willing to let us rub her back or snuggle her to help her fall asleep.  She is still sleeping on a mattress beside our bed but we are just happy that falling asleep is moving in the right direction now. 

Unfortunately falling asleep is not her only sleep struggle.  When she does get to sleep Charli suffers from night terrors.  Imagine for a minute being sound asleep and waking to the most blood curdling scream you have ever heard outside a showing of The Exorcist.  You realize it is coming from the floor beside your bed where your tiny new daughter is sleeping.  She is writhing on the bed and screaming as if Satan himself is after her.  You attempt to comfort her but any attempt at touching or speaking to her makes the screaming worse.  Some times her eyes are closed and sometimes they are open but she looks through you as if you aren't there.  At some point you realize that she isn't even awake.  There is nothing to do but stay close, make sure she doesn't get hurt and wait for the screaming to stop.  In Charli's case after 10 to 30 minutes she wets the bed and that wakes her.  We then change her clothes and sheets and attempt to put her back to sleep.  She usually falls quickly back to sleep.  The freaked out parents take longer to drift off again.  We've been told that there really is nothing to do for the night terrors.  If they take on a pattern of happening at the same time each night we could wake her 15 minutes before to prevent the night terror but so far Charli's night terrors have no predictable pattern.  We hope that as she feels more safe and secure here and that the trauma of being separated from her foster family in Korean gets more distant the night terrors will cease.

I hope this doesn't scare anyone off from adopting children.  Adoption is an amazingly wonderful way to grow a family.  And Charli is delightful, we wouldn't wish her away ever.  Adoption, like the rest of life is messy and definitely not for wimps.

The Illness that ate July....

Perhaps you are wondering where we have been or perhaps it has been so long since a new post you have given up on reading the blog.  Gabe was very sick in July.  He had mono and a staph infection in his throat.  I have never seen glands swollen so large.  Poor boy.  The first week he was really miserable and slept a ton.  The second week he was feeling better but had to stay quiet due to an enlarged spleen.  He got the all clear from the doctor a little over a week ago and we have resumed our normal crazy life.  I go back to work in two weeks so I better work to do some updating on here before life gets even crazier.

Dinosaurs at the zoo...

Obviously my blog is falling behind.  We do so many fun things I am going to try to blog about them even if it is late.  On Thursday, June 21st, Charli had her first trip to the zoo.  The zoo had a dinosaur exhibit that Charli was indifferent to, Ellie was scared of, Abby enjoyed and Gabe LOVED.  We stayed until about 2:00 p.m.  It was a hot day so of course we had to play in the splash pad after lunch.  Charli had a few melt downs but all in all a pretty successful day.  Both little girls fell asleep on the drive home....ah peace.

Father's Day

"Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him Father!"

~ Lydia M. Child

There is certainly nothing gentle about the voices in our house.  In fact LOUD is something we do really well.  Also Phil is called many things, Dad, Daddy, Appa and Pappa but never Father.  HE is, however, certainly blessed by the many tiny humans who live in our house.  The rest of us are blessed by our loving Daddy.

We got the chance to celebrate our Dad on Sunday.  We had a fabulous day.  We started by going over to Wabasha where we played on the beach and swam in the Mississippi river.  We also had a picnic and got ice cream from D.Q.  After returning home and taking naps we got dressed up and took Daddy out to Osaka for some hibachi cooking.  We hope Dad had a good day because the rest of us sure had fun.

 Hey look at that really white guy in the river.  Could ALL those kids be his?

 Enjoying a picnic under a tree.

Charli LOVED the sand!

Gabe in his too cool and scary snake gogles.

Ellie enjoying the river.

We decided to bury big sister in the sand. 

No summer adventure is complete with ice cream. 

Charli feels the same way. She must be a Germann.

Communication

Lots of people have asked how much English Charli knows and conversely how much Korean we know.  The answer to both questions is very little.  The social worker in Korea wrote out some of Charli's key words to help us.  For instance we know that "dunga" means she needs to go potty and that "oyoo" means milk.  They told us she spoke 2 word Korean sentences.  I think they were wrong about that.  She will often go on for what feels like a paragraph rather than a two word sentence.  Oh if only we knew what she was saying.  I have no doubt that somewhere in there is the phrase "crazy white people."

In the last two weeks she has started saying several English words.  Her English vocabulary includes, "owie, peek a boo, banana, orange, hi, bye, beep (when she beeps your nose), ding, puppy (though she thinks all stuffed animals are called puppy) and Charli (yes, she can say her name but doesn't associate it with herself yet).  She also does the signs for more and all done.  We are very impressed with the speed that she is picking up English and signing.

She also communicates in the language of two year olds....grunting and pointing.  That we understand quite well.

Edited to add that because she is the 4th child in this home she also says, "come on," "stop it," and "no, no, no."

Our redneck swimming pool

Last week was the first full week of summer for us.  The big kids of course wanted to do water activities.  I was not yet up for venturing out to the swimming pool with four kids (three of whom don't swim well).  So instead I set up a sprinkler and filled a rubbermaid tub for the filling of buckets and water guns.  Our kids decided that the rubbermaid tub was our swimming pool.  Yes even our Koreans are rednecks!

Happy Second Birthday Charlotte Yeong Eun!

Charli turned 2 today!  We went to church in the morning and she handled it quite well.  After nap this afternoon we went swimming at the RAC and then came home for Korean food and cake.  We made many of Charli's favorites including bulgogi, jap chai (glass noodle dish with veggies), rice, gim (seaweed) and oranges.  She was just delighted to have her favorite foods.  She grinned ear to ear through the whole  meal.  She did a great job using the kid chop sticks.  She ate SO much we thought we might have to cut her off before she made herself sick.  We had brought Pororo (a funny little penguin dude that all Korean children adore) decorations and plates from Korea and also got her Hello Kitty balloons and cake.  She enjoyed blowing her candle out so much that we kept relighting it for her.  She opened her presents and got a teddy bear from big sister Abby and a doll and a Pororo microphone from Mom and Dad.  She loved her gifts. 

It's hard to believe Charli has been with us such a short time.  She fits in our family as if she has always been there.  She is a very happy little girl and is always smiling and laughing.  She even has the ability to joke with us.  She is very smart and she is starting to learn English, though we quite enjoy listening to her Korean.  We are so grateful that she was home for her second birthday.

Airplane Day

Airplane day was Wednesday.  We loaded into the adoption agency shuttle van at 8:00 a.m with considerably more stuff than we brought to Korea including a tiny human .  Charli snoozed on the way to the airport.  The drive takes about an hour.  We had no trouble getting through immigration or security.  We introduced Charli to her first french fries in an airport food court.  She thought they were interesting but wasn't convinced.  She really enjoyed dunking things in ketchup she just didn't actually want to eat the ketchup.

The flight was 12 hours Seoul to Chicago.  Charli slept for about 3 of the 12 hours.  She had her moments but all in all the trip was better than we expected.  We were supposed to have the inside two of three seats but convinced our seat mate that we would be getting up so much that she would be better off by the window.  The most difficult part of the flight was that Charli wouldn't let Phil hold her or even really touch her.  That was a LONG 12 hours holding a two-year-old for me.

We cruised through customs/immigration in Chicago and made it to our gate with enough time to grab some lunch.  The problem with having a lap ticket kid during a long flight is that it is almost impossible to eat. 

The flight back to Rochester was quick and uneventful.  Charli slept most of the 45 minutes.  We were met at the airport by Grandpa and Grandma with Abby, Gabe and Ellie as well as some dear friends.  What a wonderful welcome home.

 Waiting for the shuttle van with all of our acquired *stuff*.

 Long rides make me sleepy.

 This photo would lead you to believe she actually ate the fries.  She didn't. 

 There was a fun playground near our gate in Incheon.

Hanging out in the stroller in Chicago.

 The welcome home committee.

 Sisters.

Family Day!

On Tuesday we went to the agency around 11:00 a.m.  First we met with Dr. Kim, the director of the agency and then we had lunch with other adoptive families.  Then we had one last visit with Charli's foster mother and father before we took custody of her.  On our first visit I could tell that Charli called me something other than Omma (the Korean word for Mommy) so I asked the social worker what it was that she was calling me.  Everyone in the room who spoke Korean laughed and then they said she calls me "mi gook omma" which means American Mommy.  We got Charli around 2:00 p.m.  Taking her from her foster family was as painful as we thought it would be.  Watching them stand on the street crying while Charli wailed for them in the van as we pulled away is an image that will be forever burned in my brain.  Charli cried herself out and then slept for some of the drive to our hotel.

Once in the hotel Charli's grieving continued.  She wouldn't let me put her down but did eventually nap with the help of the baby carrier and a children's Korean music station on the T.V.  When she woke she was willing to eat a little and started to enjoy us.  She LOVED it when Daddy pulled out the bubbles.  She was very anxious and wouldn't let us take off her shoes or her jacket.  I think removing her shoes makes her think that she is staying and she was not ready to commit to that.  She also didn't want to leave the hotel room and would become very anxious whenever we tried.  After three attempts we managed to go to the food court in the mall and get something to eat.  We got a fried rice dish that she seemed to like.  We also hit the little grocery store for some fruit and drinks for her.  We went back to our room and she fell asleep easily and slept all night except for the time she fell out of bed (oops).  All in all I think this day went better than we expected.  We had to wake her at 7:00 a.m. to have some breakfast before heading to the airport.

 Charlotte Yeong Eun and her foster family.

 A sad little girl.

 Hmmmm.... These people brought bubbles.  They can't be all bad right?

 Toys and snacks too?  I guess they could be okay.

 I love the view from the hotel room.

 I also really like to have my picture taken!

Breakfast with Daddy before airplane day.

Almost home...

A picture of Phil and Yeong Eun playing peekaboo waiting for lunch in the Chicago airport. Should be in Rochester by 1:30.

Beginnings and Endings...

Tomorrow at 1:30 Charlotte Yeong Eun Germann will begin a new life with us.  She will become the 4th child in a busy, crazy, happy American family.  She will instantly have new parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who love her.  We have waited so long and are so excited to begin this next chapter in our story.  But as much as tomorrow is a beginning for Charlotte it is also an ending for Yeong Eun.  Tomorrow she will say goodbye to the only family she has known.  She will say goodbye to the mother, father and sisters who love her so.  I imagine that Yeong Eun's foster family is terribly sad tonight thinking about tomorrow's parting.  We are sad for them and know that tomorrow and the days ahead will be difficult for them as silence fills the space where Yeong Eun's giggles used to be.  We are so grateful for the wonderful care Yeong Eun received from them.  We wish we could spare them the pain ahead but without their pain we can't have the joy of having Yeong Eun with us.

Tonight is an anxious night.  I worry so much about how Yeong Eun will handle this transition.  She is not quite two and certainly can't understand what is about to happen.  What will she think when we take her from the agency?  Will she think it is temporary and that we will take her back in a little while?  Will she wonder when her foster mother is going to come for her?  Will she feel kidnapped by us?  When we met her she was such a happy fun little girl.  I worry that this will break her.  That it will break her heart and her spirit and that what is left will not resemble the girl we met last week.  Will we be able to rebuild her heart and her spirit?  Will we be able to help her understand that we love her and will never leave her?

We meet at the agency at 11:30 tomorrow to meet with the director Dr. Kim, have lunch and then say our final goodbyes to the foster family and take custody of Yeong Eun.  Tonight we will pray that she will be comforted by us and that her transition into our family goes smoothly.

Cheongdeokgung Palace and the Secret Garden

After visiting the temple we did some shopping in one of our favorite areas in Seoul, Insadong.  We spent most of our afternoon today at Cheongdeokgung Palace and Secret Garden.  It was a huge place and we did lots of hiking.  We are enjoying our last day in Seoul being tourists.　Tomorrow we go back to being parents.

This is a store in Insadong.  We thought Gabe would get a kick out of the name of it.