Guess who had fresh berries...

Nostalgia and... mystery solved???

July 11th, 2008...

Um… we got the call. Yes THE CALL.

We were both asleep and at around 7am the phone rings. Adam groggily says, “Should I get it?”
I incredulously said, “yes!” I, of course, had no idea who could have been calling us so early, but I figured it was important somehow.
So while I’m half-consciously rolling around in bed, I hear Adam:
“Hi Peg.”
(Peg is one of the people who works at our agency. We had spoken with Peg about a week ago and she said we’d be getting updated pictures of Baby soon. So I thought she was just calling about those pics.)
Adam says, quite calmly, “Oh, good!” And I thought, “awesome! The pictures are coming soon!”
But I was a little suspicious, so I sat up in bed but didn’t have my glasses on.
Adam continued to grunt affirmatively in the phone while giving me a hearty thumbs-up sign.
I said, “WHAT?! REALLY????????!!!!!!!” And I think he nodded.
Adam said some other stuff to Peg and then hung up the phone.
I stared at him, my mouth agape, him with a goofy grin on his face, and he says, “they’re ready for us!”
“SHUT! UP!” I said. “WHAT?! Omigod, omigod! Whatdowedowhatdowedo???”
He jumped on the bed and we hugged each other so hard with humongous grins on each of our faces. It was incredible. Never will forget it.
And then the insanity began. Booking airline tickets, running crazy errands, cleaning house, packing… (i’ll post pics soon)
We’re coming for you Baby!!!

I will never forget that morning as long as I live. That call came one week earlier than we'd expected but we hopped on a plane to Seoul about 72 hours later. We had agreed, early on in the adoption process, that whenever we got the call we would drop EV-ER-Y-THING and get our butts on a plane as soon as possible. And we did. Despite having a baby shower the day after the call, a house in shambles from trying to clear the clutter in the last week (so we thought) pre-baby, my broken eyeglasses, and about a million and a half things to do...

And exactly a week after that call, we became a family of three forever. Stay tuned for that sappy anniversary...

As for the "mystery," after careful evaluation of a variety of signs we've been seeing, consultation with books, and tips from other parents, we're somewhat convinced that Olive's two-year molars are on the move and potentially the culprits of her inconsistent sleep. Yesterday afternoon she was gushing drool, which she hasn't done in months. She shoves her food and spoon to the back of her mouth and gnaws on them vigorously. She breaks down inexplicably, screaming, moaning, coughing, and just making a teary mess out of herself. We think she might also have some allergies (or teething-related gunk) since last night we had to console her three times throughout the night - she was coughing, hacking, wheezing, and yakking. Ugh, it was so gross. I'll spare you the details, but the end product pointed to sinus issues...

The doctor recommended Benadryl for potential allergies, which I hate to use too much... any suggestions for alternatives? We're also hitting the Hyland's Teething Tablets pretty hard. And we tried a popcicle last night - these things called Fruitfulls, which are delicious, all-fruit yummyness. She loved it for awhile but, shortly after these shots were taken, she proclaimed herself "all done." Whatevs, kid.

More please.

Sick, but busy

Our 21-month-old is fighting an undetermined illness. She's coughing quite a bit and a little lower on energy than usual. And craaaaanky!!! But did that stop us from doing every fun activity we could yesterday? Nope!

We started the day with a trip to St. Louis's brand new public park, City Garden. It's fantastic! (Check out the website. It's been compared to Millenium Park in Chicago, but Adam and I agreed that this one is much more interactive despite being a fraction of the size of its northern counterpart.) For those of you not in the area, St. Louis is not known for a vibrant downtown. In fact, it's pretty dead. Sure, there's some businessmen and official City buildings there. But fun and excitement? Not easy to find. But we're so excited about the new park and its potential to help revitalize downtown. Anyway... the park is full of gigantic climb-on-able sculptures,

tons of plants and flowers, and... WATER!!! We explored for awhile and then, you guessed it, spent an hour in the fountain. Loads of fun!!!

There was this great little wading pool with a beautiful sculpture in it. But more than hanging out in the pool for a prolonged period, Olive wanted to merely climb in and out, repeatedly.

We were all pretty sun-weary after spending the entire morning there, so we headed home for lunch, a lengthy (WAHOO!!!) nap, a quick snack and then off to... TA-DA (sound the trumpets!) the jewelry store!!! As sort of an anytime-I-love-you, 10th wedding anniversary, one-year family anniversary, birthday... whatever gift, Adam had my engagement ring (the main diamond) reset. We looked and looked for the perfect thing and then BAM we found it at this lovely little family-owned ancient jeweler in Maplewood, MO called Paramount Jewelers. Dear god, this ring is gorgeous!

It has this deliciously vintage feel to it. And my diamond looks sooooo lovely in the setting! It's like a delicate little flower made of white gold and diamonds. I love that it looks like it came from an estate sale, even though it's brand new. I have been looking at it and admiring it every chance I get. LOVE. IT. And I'm not a huge jewelry gal, but this. This makes my heart skip a beat. I adore it.

So after the big pickup, we went to the public pool in Maplewood. It was fabulous. Believe it or not, we actually didn't even TAKE the camera, so I have no pix, but Baby Olive had a fabulous time running around in the water, playing with the spouts and waterfalls. But the best of all was this cute little whale slide. She went over and over again. I somehow managed to scrape my knee on said whale slide, but all in the name of good fun. The funniest thing was that it was one of those zero-entry pools so that kids can just walk in, a la the ocean. Olive, brave girl that she is, just trucked on down to the deep end. She was up to her bottom lip before we stopped her!!! I love her gall, but at the same time it mortifies me that she's so reckless!

As though this wasn't enough, we went out to eat at the Schlafly Bottleworks, a local brewery with a fabulous restaurant. Holy cow, they had humongo portions!!! We got an "appetizer" that I was already full after, followed by a chipotle black bean burger (YUM!), a delicious beer, brewed there of course, and then... I did it. I broke the sugar fast. But guess what it was for... sticky. toffee. pudding. I'm still drooling. It was like a giant piece of sponge cake, oozing with caramel. SOOOOO worth it! Even though stepping on the scale this morning, I found that the whole meal added 3 pounds to my body. But again, so worth it. Ahhh...

Back on the sugar diet today :(

21 months

UPDATE: Good news - we got Olive's Missouri Birth Certificate in the mail today! One step closer to being 100% done with paperwork...

What?! She's 1 and 3/4 years old. Sigh... And get this - some lady at the park this morning (more on that tomorrow) looks at Olive and says, all-knowingly, "Two going on three?" I gave her the look and said, "she's 21-months". Jerk. So we have a giant Korean baby. Must you rub it in, world? For those of you who don't know me IRL, I'm very petite - 5 foot 2 inches and small-framed. I guess it's kinda ironic that we ended up with a scale-tipper. My aching back... ;) Ok, here's the updates for our wee one:

Olive has become a more picky eater. Things she loves one minute, she is ALL DONE with the next. She has also discovered the joys of playing with her food, much to our dismay. You'd be amazed at the many things one can do to completely annihilate blueberries, edamame, and refried beans.

She has started to really enjoy pretending and it's adorable. We have this ancient "doctor's kit" from my childhood (that's why I said ancient) that she opens and proceeds to inject us, take our temperature, check our eyes and ears, monitor our blood pressure... you get the idea. Adam's parents got her a stroller for Baby Latte, which she shoves around our entire house in various positions (rarely as a stroller should be pushed. As in, on all four wheels. She's very creative...)

Olive "talks" all the time and sings to herself even more. She hums "twinkle, twinkle" all day long. She tries to say anything we ask her to, though b/c of her medical issues they often come out pretty garbled. We're working with a speech therapist who has given us lots of great exercises to do with Olive to improve her speech and we are seeing progress, albeit slow. Her favorite word is "mama" and her favorite gesture? Shaking her head "no." Of course. She has a pretty wide vocabulary that only Mama and Daddy can understand and she comprehends more and more of what we tell her all the time. We can give her a multi-step command like "please go in the dining room and bring your chair into the kitchen." And off she goes! Sometimes, she gets distracted on the way, but we've been impressed with how many times she actually follows through.

Potty training is at a standstill. We were so, so tired of treading water, at the same level we've been at for months. So we decided to just give up and let her use diapers if she wanted. She still goes occasionally on the potty, but we're holding off our efforts until she shows more interest and initiative.

Olive. Runs. Everywhere. We're thankful that she is so well behaved because we can't keep up with her!

Sleep? Don't want to talk about it. There may be marginal improvements, but if I dare say anything, it WILL BE JINXED. Moms, you know what I'm talking about here.

Otherwise, things are great. I adore this little girl. I want her with me all the time, snuggling in my arms and saying "mama" over and over again. When I stop to think about it, I can't believe that we didn't even KNOW her a year ago. All we had was a photograph of a chubby little baby who was going to be our daughter. The photo sat on my dresser from the moment it arrived at our house and it remains there today. While we waited for her to come home, we said "good morning Baby" when we went to bed and "good night Baby" when we woke up. We had not yet chosen a name. We didn't know what her indescribably soft skin felt like to touch. We did not yet know the pleasure of her unique smell, the sound of her sweet voice, and the crooked little smile she gives us. It feels like she has been with us forever, a part of our hearts that we didn't realize we lacked, but now that it's here it's hard to understand how we ever got along without it.

Content

One year ago, this happened:

Sigh. Came home from the gym today to an email from our agency. Apparently Korea has an issue with our paperwork. Based on the papers we sent, Adam “doesn’t make enough money”. Well of course not – we sent a couple W2s, not 1099s. So it’s a pitiful income based on those. But WHY NOW??? Why did they wait until now to bring this up?!?!?! So we ran around like crazy people, hunting through the pile of rubble that used to be our basement (we’re having work done) for our tax papers. Found the 1099s that prove Adam makes plenty of money for us to qualify and faxed them off to the agency, who forwarded them to Korea immediately. Whew. However, now I’m totally distraught that this will delay our travel. We were really hoping to get the call in about two weeks or less and now we don’t know. I’m just sick over this. Please, please, please pray that this does not delay us getting our little girl!

Little did we know that two days later we would get THE CALL. (More on that vividly memorable day later). But at the time, we were convinced that this little hiccup would cause us months of delay. I remember being physically ill after receiving this news. Now, though, on the other side of it, I see how lucky we turned out. Two days later we got the call to go get our daughter!!! I don't know what magic it is they work in Korea, but they did. And I am thankful.

It's little snippets of life like this one that help me step back and realize how fortunate we are. Despite our setbacks (the truly devoted blog readers know that we went through some pretty serious financial troubles only a couple years ago), we've emerged with a pretty damn good life. Adam has a job he loves, works when he has to, vacations and spends time as a family when he doesn't need to work, and we make do. We don't have a mansion or three cars, but we don't need them. We have very few fancy gadgets, electronics, clothes, and other stuff, but we honestly don't care. We recognize that our income isn't anything to envy, but we make it work. And we love life. I have the freedom to spend every moment with my favorite people, Adam and Olive. I also have the ability to try my own business as well as have a go at a non-profit! There is never a day when I pine for something more, something better. When people ask what's on my "birthday list," I can honestly say "nothing." Maybe a day to sleep late... :)

I hope I don't seem like I'm bragging here. I just try, daily, to step back and look at my life for what it is. And I really, really like what I see, and I wish that for everyone.

Please tell me the end is in sight!

Could she look any grouchier?! Where is our pleasant, happy baby? She's been possessed by a screaming, hitting, whining, tantrum-throwing dragon-child. Not every minute of the day, mind you, but this new personality that we're seeing is a complete and total transformation from the happy, smiling, easygoing girl we know and love. (We love Grouchy Olive too! But this new Olive certainly presents her own set of challenges...)

I mean, check out the BAGS under these eyes!

So no, the sleep has NOT improved. We're going on 2 1/2 weeks of crappy, crappy sleep. We get little snippets of good sleep now and then: a nearly-three-hour nap here, an early bedtime there... but no consistency whatsoever. And little by little, our girl is deteriorating. She's throwing tantrums over nothing. (And yes, before y'all berate me, I KNOW that she's nearing two years old and this behavior is to be expected. So shut it.) She hits us. She's practically falling asleep at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I honestly don't know how the girl is continuing to function on such a sleep deficit. We've been trying a new program for about two weeks. We're being as consistent as we possibly can be. We've tried putting her in bed extra early, we've tried moving things later. To no avail. And it's driving us mad.

So please say a little prayer tonight for the sleep-deprived Frick family. And send heavy tranquilizers our way.

And just for kicks, here's the post from last year on this date, July 7th. What a different place in life.

Our Anniversary

... was lovely. Not as romantic as it could have been, but lots of fun. We threw ourselves a little party, inviting a few good friends and some family. It turned out well, despite our lack of intensive planning. We had music, booze, and quite the spread of food, from a build-your-own taco bar to a towering display of desserts, mostly cupcakes of course! The one thing we did poorly on was pictures. So here are just a few, pieced together from our camera and a friend's. (The pic above is the only one we've found so far that exists of the two of us! The curse of having an adorable toddler... sigh...)