So many serious things to consider lately; I want to talk about something FUN! :) So, I thought I'd put up some of my ideas that I've had for baby/toddler rooms!
Dear Hubby and I are building a new loft-type condo (should be done within the next two months, actually!); so, I've been thinking about decorating and how I want this new home to "feel" more and more with each passing day. We've done a lot of research, and all along the way I've been thinking of how I'd like our little girl's nursery to look one day as well.
I have tons of ideas, but I tend to gravitate toward urban hipster/shabby chic looks for her room. I love bright colors, though, so, her room won't be a straight-forward interpretation of either of these design esthetics but rather a sort of mish-mash of as many bright, vintage-y, girlie finds as I can conjure up!
Many of the pictures below are from one of my FAVORITE baby blogs http://www.spearmintbaby.blogspot.com! The writer is always finding so many adorable baby and toddler goodies; every day there's something new to oogle!
So, here are a few of my favorite finds that I hope to recreate in our little one's future nursery!
I love the big, beautiful "puff" balls made of tissue paper in this room! So, I went and bought these (below) in all different shades of pink for the nursery (one day)!
There's enough to make something like 10 giant puff-balls between the two sets; which is awesome! Both sets are by Martha Stewart crafts. (By the way, they were both on sale too! The small set on top for $1.50, and the bigger one on bottom for $3.50! Woo hoo!)
Remember "Little Golden Books"?! I used to LOVE them when I was little (still do)! I found these on sale for $1 a piece one day at a local store; so, I bought up all my favorites! All the classics are here: the Scruffy Lion, Tootles the Train, the Big Book about God, and the Pokey Little Puppy! I can't wait to share these stories with our little girl! (Oh, and Eagan, our Scottish Terrier wouldn't get out of the shot; so, he's the fluffy white thing looking up at you! Ha!)
I love the simplicity and modern design of this baby nursery! Oddly enough, it is a photo discovered by Spearmint Baby's writer and is from the 1970's! Who knew?! I hope to stay classic and minimalistic like this room...we'll see if I can make it happen someday!
I found this old advertisement page at a local flea market for only $3! It had all of the vintage colors and designs I was looking for; so, of course, I HAD to buy it! :)
Another featured nursery from Spearmint Baby that I LOVE! Look at those colors!!!!! So beautiful!
I love the colors of this room! It's neutral with a splash of bright, bold COLOR (which I absolutely LOVE)! I even love the robot, but I don't think we'll be following a theme like that for our daughter's room since we want to keep it pretty girlie. This picture also came from Spearmint Baby; and I love that the little boy who occupies this room is named "Jack Danger"(you can see his name in the banner hanging over the crib)! I love unique names; so, that takes the cake! Bravo to his mom and dad!!!!
  No little girl's room would be complete without some dolls around, right?! The first doll is one that Dear Hubby and I bought from e-bay.com back when we were still thinking we were going to be adopting from China. We scoured the Internet looking for Asian Cabbage Patch dolls - ha! Good luck! Finally, after months of searching, we found ONE seller and bought this little cutie up! After we decided to switch countries to Ethiopia, I was given the second doll as a gift. It was fun for me too, because when I was a little girl, my first Cabbage Patch Doll was black and looked almost exactly like this one!
These are just a few of our ideas for our future daughter's room, and we're years away from this becoming a reality; but I have to say that every little idea and project invested in her (even this far in advance) makes me really excited! I can't wait til the day that we're actually painting the walls and putting a crib together - *ah bliss*!
Blessings and More Blessings, *mandie*
Well, tonight was parent training class #2; and really this was the most exciting to us, because this class was specifically focused on adoption from Ethiopia! Hooray!
The information was really relevant, and the hostesses were more than willing to give their 1st-hand experience with adoption through Ethiopia, their travel experiences with the country and people, and the process of bringing home an Ethiopian child (everything! the good, bad, and ugly parts too! which was great!).
For us, it really solidified the fact that we want to continue not just with our Ethiopian adoption; but also with International Adoption Network as our agency. This is something we've been struggling with for a while, and I think I can speak for both of us when I say that tonight made it clear to us which direction to go! :)
I know for me, that it's always interesting how and why a couple chooses the agency they do; so, I thought I'd take some time to clarify why we are sticking with IAN, as well as some of the other options we looked into.
As many of you may or may not know, hubby and I first looked into China (as so many couples do!) for our adoption. The quintessential Chinese adoption agency is based out of Texas and is called Great Wall China Adoption (GWCA). Their founder, Snow Wu, is known all over the world for her efforts in child advocacy. She has worked tirelessly for the benefit of children in several countries (not just China); working for health care, education, and so much more.
GWCA is HUGE. It is respected world-wide, and has been a part of bringing literally tens of thousands of girls and boys to their forever homes in America and elsewhere. They seemed to us a most obvious choice for an agency. And honestly, had we kept our LID for China, we most likely we would have stayed with GWCA as our agency.
There are so many, many benefits to a large agency, that I really don't even have time to get into them all; but for us, we were drawn to IAN for the opposite reason - it is small. We liked that the workers know every family by name (and the children too!). We enjoy the fact that we are able to call them whenever we feel necessary and are given direct lines to their offices and cell phones. We like that they have strong ties to Ethiopia, and that their facilitators and workers have been in the program as long as it's been open - lots of experience means things go smoothly on both sides!
Overall, we are just so very pleased with our experiences with IAN; and we've only just begun! So, I can excitedly say that they're officially "the one" for us!
Now, this isn't to say that we only looked at two agencies and suddenly VOILA! We had an agency! Not at all! There are so many things that we looked at when considering agencies. Some of our concerns included the following (in no particular order):
1. Hague Accredidation - this is an international system set up to protect children from being mistreated or abused during the adoption process; this is necessary for international adoption; so, if the agency doesn't have this, it's pretty much a done-deal anyway
2. Years of Experience - we wanted to work with an agency that had been established in a country and knew the ins-and-outs of the adoption process legally, socially, and diplomatically
3. A Good Record - I scoured the Internet for first-hand experiences (blogs, chat rooms, forums, etc.) from parents who had used each of the agencies we were considering, if they had a good or bad experience, I would ask why and whether they would recommend their final agency or not, they had TONS of great information that I am so grateful to have heard
4. A Fair Service to Fee Ratio - by this I mean that I would hope that the agency's own "service fee" (which is different from the other legal and country fees attached to an international adoption) would be fair and on base with the services they are alledging to provide us as adoptive parents
5. An Informative and Helpful Staff - were our e-mails and phone calls returned in a timely fashion? were the staff members personable and kind? were we given the time and energy we needed to feel safe and secure in our actions during the process (within good reason)?
These are just a few of the criteria we considered before making our decision, but each couples' needs and requirements are different. So, obviously, while these were important to us, other couples may have had much more unique circumstances and needs than us. Everyone is different; which is why having so many options is ideal! Ask lots of questions (there is NEVER a stupid question when it comes to your future child and your adoption process!), search around, take your time, and think and pray about your decision. It will all come together in the end!
Here are some other agencies we looked at (including IAN), in case you are needing some starting points yourself. I know I found it really helpful when other moms and dads would share this information; so, maybe it will be helpful to you or someone you know!
All of these agencies have so many good things to offer. I encourage you, if you're interested in international adoption of any kind, to check them out (and others as well)!
I'll leave you tonight with a picture of some precious Ethiopian children who recently put on a special presentation for some Americans traveling to pick up their adopted children in Addis Ababa. Their energy and genuine love of performance burst through the image and leave me smiling. I hope they brighten your day as they brighten mine!
Blessings and More Blessings, *mandie*
Wow! Here I am, actually DOING this! I've been talking about starting this blog for about two years...I know, I know, it kinda makes me look like a procrastinator, right? Well, actually, it's been a lot more than that. I won't get into anything too specific (because I don't want to give too much away about myself on this blog - mystery, mystery - ha!); but it's been a crazy past couple of years - moving to a new state, major career moves, and marriage too!
No matter what I've been going through, though, I've always had motherhood (specifically adoption) on my mind. Which brings me to the title of this first "real" blog post, "The Three W's - What? Where? Why?". So, I guess I'll get started:
1. What? - Adoption. To me, this really is interchangeable with the word motherhood, period. After I got married, a good friend of my husband's (a married, mom of two herself) asked me, "So, when are you guys going to have kids?" To which I replied, "Oh, we've already started the process of adopting a little girl. So, it'll be within the next couple of years." She looked at me blankly, then immediately blurted out, "No, I mean...not that! You've got to have some real kids!"
"Real kids"? What does that even mean?! So, when I go to Africa to pick her up, that won't be real? And when I hold her in my arms for the first time, I won't really feel her; because she won't be "real"? I won't cry with her, laugh with her, run and play with her? Tuck her in at night and tell her stories? Watch her with pride and a tinge of sadness as she grow up and becomes an adult? None of this, because it will all be illusion?!
Of course, this is ridiculous. Of course, she will be real. Of course, we will feel each other and love each other. I am not worried about us in this instance; I am worried about "them". The people who will respond like my husband's friend, claiming that our relationship is somehow invalid, unreal, something that cannot compare to a mother and child who got to experience their first nine months as close as blood and skin.
This is something to be touched upon in a later blog, but it is a very real source of contention for me - something that absolutely angers me. Perhaps it would be hard for this woman to love a child that was not physically born from her own body, but that doesn't mean that it is difficult for others. It is certainly not hard for me and my husband. I want this so much, and I will NOT allow anyone to invalidate the relationship I will have with my future adopted child.
2. Where? - When we started this process (before we were even engaged!), we started thinking of where we would want to adopt from. Not that a foreign country was important to us, but after researching all of the risks and benefits of domestic as opposed to foreign adoption, we were convinced that foreign adoption was for us.
Our initial interest was in China, and we planned and hoped and prayed for what we thought would be a little girl aged infant to 4 years old from that country. We knew it was going to be a long journey, first I wasn't (still am not) 30 yet, which is a major pre-requisite for adoption from China. Also, couples must be married for at least two years (which I am not certain, but may have been recently upped to five years). To top everything off, our contact at the agency we were planning on signing with (Great Wall China Adoption in Texas) contacted us to let us know that slowly but surely, China was closing it's doors to foreign adoptions.
After learning that the same was happening in Korea as well, we were really beginning to doubt the adoption as a whole. But then, the same agency contact turned our attention to some new programs that were just beginning to flourish in Ghana, Uganda, and Ethiopia. We did our research, and decided to focus our energy and emotions on Ethiopia!
3. Why? - Adoption is near and dear to my heart in most part, because my mother was adopted at the age of nearly two. Her biological mother was a young, Irish immigrant who had come to America to live with one of her two older sisters. She never became an official American citizen, never voted, never had a driver's license. So, my mother is a first-generation Irish-American. I feel I have been living with the ghosts of my mother's biological family as long as I've been alive. Adoption and adoption issues are very interesting to me, and I have known since I was a teenager that I wanted to adopt a child one day.
When I met my husband, one of the first things we talked about were children, and we realized immediately that we both were very interested in adoption. So, nearly as soon as we were engaged, we began talking about beginning our adoption process. Which brings us to present day, and our current stage in the adoption process - agency "shopping".
So, those are my three "W's"! I know this process will not be easy, but I am really looking forward to this journey. There is so much more to come, I can't wait to see what the future holds!
Blessings and More Blessings, *mandie*
Names are VERY important to me, always have been; so, when I was choosing a name for this blog, you can believe it took me quite some time to decide on a name!
This being an adoption and baby-centric blog, the idea that kept popping into my head came from my favorite children's books (really, one of the best books of all time, period), "Le Petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Anyone who has read this book recognizes the brilliance of Saint-Exupery in imparting wisdom and life lessons in patience, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and ultimate love in a book full of humor, whimsy, and fanciful illustrations. It's just fabulous!
One of my favorite sections of the book is when the Little Prince is telling his new friend the Fox about his home planet. On the Prince's tiny planet, there is hardly anything at all; but there is one thing that the Prince considers very precious, a single rose.
The story of the boy Prince and his beloved rose is that of true love. During their coversation, the Prince reveals that he has discovered a whole garden of roses nearby. At first, he feels betrayed; his rose told him she was the only one of her kind, and suddenly, here are thousands just like her!
However, the fox begins to teach the young Prince about the concept of being "tamed" (this is paraphrased):
"What does that mean 'tame'?" the little prince asks the fox.
"It is an act too often neglected...it means to establish ties," the fox replies.
"I am beginning to understand," he replies, "There is a flower...I think that she has tamed me."
The fox then encourages the Prince to go back to the garden to give the multitudinous roses another look (this is from the book's English translation exactly):
"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the roses were very much embarrassed. "You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on.
"One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you, the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."
He then returns to get the secret promised to him by the fox, and one of the most important lessons that anyone of any age should learn in life:
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose..." said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember."
Responsibility, loyalty, selfless love - such important and lovely lessons and so sweetly stated...
I am the Prince, young and still learning...and somewhere, out in the future, over 7,000 miles and an ocean and continent away, is my future child, my rose!
To love a rose is to put selfless time and energy into it's upkeeping and beautification, both internally and externally. So will be my love for my future child, my rose.
"I am responsible for my child"...I will repeat it, so that I will be sure to remember.
Blessings and More Blessings, *mandie* (Le Petit Prince and his rose by Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
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