Soon after we got our PA for Allie, I talked with Lisa about sending a package to her, as that is a common thing for matched families to do. I knew we wanted to send a plastic picture album of our family that she could play with, a blanket, some clothes, and disposable cameras, so I headed to the baby store after work one day to pick things up.
I think I should not go to stores at lunchtime after work. After the loud and sometimes crazy environment of our preschool classroom, I tend to zone out, especially when hungry, so I ended up spending more than an hour wandering around the store, thoroughly confused and not making any decisions. A few times I pulled out my phone to text Lisa for advice, then put it back again, telling myself that she has important things to do and I need to be an adult and just pick something out!
For blankets, I pondered whether she would like the thin receiving blankets like my kids had, even though she is older, whether to buy multiple of the same in case she loses one, whether to pay $25 for one beautiful blanket or $16 for 4 small cute ones. I decided on the $16 pack of receiving blankets so I could send one and keep the other 3 as backups, as we've done for all our kids.
I couldn't find an outfit for her...What size will she need at 15 months old but the weight of a 9 month old? And I read no pants b/c Chinese do split pants for pottying, but couldn't find any dresses that looked comfortable. In retrospect, she's got pants on in many of the pictures so I should have done that, but eventually I settled on two pairs of pjs.
And then I searched high and low, with and without one nice but uninformed employee, and couldn't find a baby photo book till we called in reinforcements on the search. Finally I made my purchases and headed home, feeling quite in adequate for the task of parenting this child when I can't even manage a quick trip the store!
Truthfully, I am really not prepared practically at all the way I was with my other kids. I haven't gone in the attic to find the boxes of Julia's clothes to make sure we have enough. I haven't found a crib or decided where to put the crib. I haven't decided if we'll use Julia's old cloth diapers and if we do, whether or not we have enough. I haven't looked in the attic for things like toddler silverware or cleaned out Julia's closet to make room for Allie's things. I haven't figured out what we'll need to take on our big trip for us, let alone for Allie. For now, most of my time is taken with getting ready for the craft fundraisers and oh yeah- filling out even more papers: grants and immigration papers for Allie. But I don't feel panicked--yet. One thing at a time is all I can manage right now!
Tonight we're going to try to make a video to send to Allie's caregiver, who is willing to show her. We had some interesting talks this morning about what we might say. I think we will limit to saying hi in Mandarin and maybe I love you, though when I played a video of the pronunciation this morning, the kids were just having a fit saying "Yo hiney, FunFun!" (It's really more like "Woe eye knee") I'm sure we will butcher that one! But so thankful she will be able to see us in her book when it arrives and in a video. It is hard not to think of the shock and sadness she will feel when we take her from her caregivers. Yet I know that she needs a mom and dad. A group home is not enough. It will be hard, but good.
