Just Because....

He's so beautiful...

I love you Oliver

Mummy xxx

Glorious Chubbaliciousness

We received updated measurements of our little (or not-so-little!) Ollie yesterday....

Apparently he now weighs 10kg (at 7.5 months). Gulp...guess I'd better add more rice to the baby carrier (I bought a baby carrier a few months ago and have loaded it up with 8kg of rice....I walk around the house with it on for about half an hour every day in order to try and get used to the weight, and avoid nasty achy back in China. The neighbours must think I'm insane....)

The measurements given out by China need to be taken with a grain of salt (or maybe, with a bag of rice!) as they are often overestimates of the children's true weight...probably the children are weighed on dodgy scales, fully clothed in their 2000 layers that the nannies put them in to keep warm.

Regardless, I'm not risking it.....Time to buy some more rice.....

T xxx

If you could send love in the mail....

This is what it would look like

We are hoping that our adoption department will be able to send this package of love to Oliver...we are prohibited from having any contact with him or the orphangage until "meeting day", so we have to entrust the adoption department with our precious package and hope they send it on safely for us. P and I have slept with the little blanket and moo cow...we have tried to "pong them up" (as P describes it!!) so that they smell a little like us. I've sealed them all in plastic ziplocks so hopefully the smell will linger...sounds awful doesn't it?!!

We have also enclosed cameras in the hope that we might get a glimpse of Oliver's life before us. The lollies are for the staff, not for Ollie! The little photo album has photos of P and I with the Chinese characters for "Mama" and "Baba" on them, and there is also a little rattle and a bound document with questions in Mandarin about Oliver, his likes and dislikes etc.

Hopefully this will all arrive safe and sound to him.

We have bought doubles of the toys and blanket and will take these to China with us in the hope that he will then get to have something slightly familiar around him (if he gets the package of course).

In other news:

• Oliver's immigration paperwork has been received by the immigration department in Shanghai
• I have nearly caused the poor JP at the local shopping centre to lose his hand from overuse as I gave him lots and lots of documents to certify this morning
• Oliver's cot and changetable have arrived at the shop - Yay!!! We will get them this weekend...and then try and find space in the nursery for them (in amongst all the pink frilly clothes that I need to sort out and pack away!!)

Thank you all for your lovely thoughts and wishes, and for the beautiful comments on this blog. Can I ask a favour? Please don't use our names in the comments, just our initals....P is paranoid about maintaining some privacy ;-)

T xxxxx

Taking Care of Business

Intention to continue with placement letter - check

Acceptance of allocation forms - check

Immigration forms sent to China- check

Preliminary flights booked - check

Minor mental breakdown - check

Immigration forms arrived in China - check

Enormous stress caused trying to get 6 couples to agree on every aspect of trip to China - check

Care package lovingly prepared for Oliver - check

Doing all that we possibly can to get to Oliver quickly - check, check, check

Surviving (just!) on 3 hours sleep per night - check

Incredibly messy house with paperwork from pillar to post - check

Falling in love with our son more every day

CHECK!!!

First Family Photo

A family of three....

Almost!!