Hello, again, from Seoul!

Hello, again, from Seoul!

It's now Friday here...hard to believe how quickly this week is going by!! We got to spend some more time with Claire yesterday and it went well! Her foster mother (her name is Mrs. Lee, Hyeon Shil) continues to amaze me. She brought some food that Claire likes to eat and got it all out and motioned for me to feed her, knowing this could help Claire start to trust and rely on us. She kept pointing to me and saying "Umma" (mama in Korean) and pointing to Dave and saying "Appa" and telling Claire that Ben was her big brother. Her foster father (also an amazing man!) brought us a box of CD's of all the pictures they've taken of her, along with a DVD of videos of her and a CD of her favorite music. He had also had another book of photos made and he included the photos we sent to her of our family. Claire will be so fortunate to have these priceless memories of her time here. We couldn't express our gratitude enough! They also gave us a large bag of stuff to help Claire with her transition....her favorite pillow, her favorite toy, some clothes, formula, diapers, her favorite lotion....unbelieveable!

They also gave Claire a beautiful hanbok, which is the traditional Korean dress. It is absolutely beautiful. It's customary on a child's first birthday to dress them in the hanbok and set objects in front on them. Koreans believe that whatever object they pick up first determines their destiny (pencil means she would be a scholar, a thread means long life, money means you will have wealth, etc.). Can't wait to dress her in this beautiful hanbok and see what she grabs! Oh, and Koreans also celebrate a baby's 100th day of life. Many years ago, many babies didn't survive to their 100th day, so it is now customary to make a big celebration of that day. They had that celebration for Claire and gave us the hanbok that Claire wore on that day. Her foster mother also wrote her a letter, which we can give to Claire down the road. We truly hope to maintain contact with her foster family. We told them at our first meeting about this blog and yesterday, her foster father pulled out his lap top and brought up the blog (which he had figured out how to translate everything into Korea) to show us he would keep watching for updates there.

This second meeting took place at the playroom of the agency (instead of a conference room), so we were all sitting on the floor with some toys. A truly priceless moment happened when Ben was taking a stuffed toy and putting it on Claire's head and letting it fall off. Claire kept squealing in delight at this and Ben was on cloud 9 that he was able to make his sister laugh! Oh, a few more tidbits about Claire, she now weighs about 20 lbs, has at least 4 teeth and just started to crawl (although we haven't seen her crawl yet). The next time we will see her is on Tuesday, when we pick her up on the way to the airport. It's going to be an incredibly hard and emotional day for all of us.

Here are some more pictures from our second meeting.

Group shot that includes Claire's foster parents and her social worker (Ms. Oh, Ji Young)

Prior to our meeting with Claire yesterday, we were invited to lunch at the agency with all the other families who are picking up their children this week. The agency is nothing short of amazing. It was founded by Dr. Kim, Duk Whang 36 years ago. I think he said they've placed over 45,000 children from his agency in 36 years. He is now 95 years old and still comes in every day and makes a point of meeting each and every family who is adopting a child to express his grattitude. He has published many books and he presented each of us with a copy of one of his books, which he signed for us. He is an amazing man who has devoted his life to helping children and others in need. His daughter, Dr. Kim, Jin Sook, is now the president of the agency, and she also met with us to express her grattitude. It was so very humbling...we are so incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to have Claire become a part of our family and they are so incredibly grateful to us for doing it. Check out their website: http://www.eastern.or.kr/.

Now, we have some time to sight see. We're going to check out the palaces today and are going to the Korean Folk Village tomorrow with some of the other families. Seoul is a very clean and beautiful city and everyone is so very friendly! It's also very safe and we've already figured out the subway system, which is very easy. We're looking forward to seeing more of it.

Christa, Dave and Ben