Surviving Toys R' Us

Our first real foray into the world of parenthood was a shopping excursion to the mecca of all things bobbled and brightly coloured - Toys R' Us.

Let me be absotutely clear, this is not a store, it is an ADD inducement chamber (thanks to Daniel for that literary reference). There are entire walls of plastic gizmos and cotton doodads. Shelves overflowing with everything from playdoe to diapers. Children running wild with sensory overload, while in the distance, the faint echoes of 'It's a Small World After All' induces parents into comatose stuppors as a means of escaping the sensory bombardment (or at least as a means of escaping their children who are latched onto their legs pleading for the giant Dora pillow or the Thomas the Train poster thanks to the full package of Nerds, conveniently placed at the right height for 4 year old hands, that they downed almost as soon as they set foot in the store). Ok, I'm taking a little poetic liscence here, but I've had sugar highs that were less intense.

There were entire walls in that place that we, as complete novices, were unable to decipher. All we could figure out from the packaging was that if we did not buy this product for our child, she would obviously wind up sick, uncared for and unloved... or a used car salesperson. It was never really that clear. Luckily, we had a cell phone! Unluckily, all the people we could think to call had lives, and so weren't home. We were on our own...

Our first hurdle, diapers. There was an entire wall of them. Now it's hard enough picking out diapers when you're pretty much guessing at the approximately weight of your child, since the info you have on her is about 5 months old. But, the diaper companies make it that much harder by absolutely guaranteeing if you don't use their product, you will ruin your child for life. After a futile 10 minutes trying to figure out just what the heck was different between huggies, pampers and the other guys, we finally picked the package that seemed to have the greatest weight range (16-32 pds.)

After that rousing success, we moved on to the bottles, where we were totally out of our league. You can't just pick-up a couple bottles. Nope. You have to commit to an entire bottle feeding system. And woes for your baby if you pick the wrong one, because you will be condemning your angel to either starvation - whilst they try to draw liquid from a tiny-itty bitty hole in the nipple - or chronic gas - from the inappropriate bottle that you chose. This is the point where we dove for the cell phone. After that failed, we retreated to the same strategy we use for picking bottles of wine - we went for the ones with the pretty pictures on them.

At the end of the day, we came home with a couple bags of stuff, and muttled through with our own unique version. The picture kinda explains it all:

Yup, that's a bag of rice in a Snugli.

Despite our shopping ineptitude, we do have confirmed travel plans. We leave Ottawa on Tuesday, June 27th, and arrive in Beijing on Wednesday, June 28th. In-country travel details are still forthcoming, but we expect to travel to Nanchang on July 2nd, and finally get to pick-up Kiyomi on July 3rd (if I remember right, that's also Geno's birthday).

Excitement is definitely starting to build... only 31 days until we leave!

On the paper trail...

So, a little more on the adoption process. When you finally get word that your child is there, waiting for you, the first thing you need to do is... paper work! Not quite mountains of it yet, but you fill out a bunch of forms and trundle them off to the adoption agency.

We met with our social worker last week and filled out all the requisite forms, signed them, copied them, sealed them and delivered them. As a result, we have now FORMALLY accepted the referral and promised to love and cherish Kiyomi for ever and ever (of course, that was the easy part). Poor Kiyomi doesn't quite have the same luxury - it seems she's stuck with us.

On a more interesting note, we now have confirmed travel dates - June 30 to July 14. We're hoping to get there a couple days early to get over jetlag and get our bearings, but for all intents and purposes, we must aim to be in Beijing by Saturday, July 1. No itinerary yet. That should come in early June. However, we have been told that we will be travelling to Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi.

As you can tell from the maps, Nanchang is in the southeast of the country, and sits on the banks of the Gan River, about 60 kms south of the more well known Yangtze River. It is also located near China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake. The city is small by Chinese standards with only approximately 2 million people. Historically, it is the site of the Nanchang Uprising - the first major conflict between the Communists and the Kuomintang on August 1, 1927.


This area of Jiangxi is known for porcelain and has been a bit of a grain basket, as the fertile soil in the area makes it China's leading grain producer. Weather-wise, we can expect it to be pretty darn steamy with an average July high of 33 degrees celsius. Sun hats, sun screen and tank tops are already on the list...

Through the paperwork, we also had to come to a final decision on Kiyomi's full name. We've decided her full name will be Kiyomi Jin-Dian Miller. Hope she likes it!

Thanks to all of you you have sent congratulations and such a warm welcome to Kiyomi. We'll be saving all your emails and posts to show her when she gets older, and let her know how much excitement and happiness her arrival caused.

Let the Kiyomi tales begin...

The last week has been one hell of a whirlwind, but we have now come down from the clouds -literally and figuratively. I got back from Whistler on Tuesday afternoon (and for the record, despite efforts to the contrary, Lauren and I experienced smooth sailing with not a single navigational crisis at 4:30 in the morning), and Kohji arrived early on Wednesday morning, after taking the redeye in order to get one more precious day of skiing in (I don't know how the boy does it). We've now unpacked, done laundry and Kohji is presently re-packing for a conference in Toronto which starts tomorrow and runs until Wednesday.

While we had expected that the translated file would be ready on Monday or Tuesday of next week, we actually got word on Wednesday that we could pick it up that afternoon. We happily sauntered down to the CB office to pick it up (ok, well, actually, we got caught in a traffic jam on the Queensway and nearly jumped out of the car to run along the shoulder, knowing that we had to get there before 4:30 when the office closed, but who's recording details here).

So, we now have a few more details on our little monkey, including some medical information. We're happy to report that there doesn't appear to be any medical or development issues. This has been confirmed by Aunty Aya, who took time out of her exam prep to go through the report with us (thanks Aunty Aya), our family doc and grandpa Barry (sorry Dad, but you haven't given me anything else to go by, so you get to sound like a fruit). Everybody reading this, send good vibes Aya's way as she heads into her last set of exams as a medical resident!

We're expecting more travel details early next week, and have been informed for the moment that we should expect to travel around June 30. For the record, that is only 57 days away!

Thought we'd also post a few pictures to give you a sense of what's been happening around here.

What Kohji was doing when the call came in (those are his boots)...

What Tamara was doing when the call came in (with Lauren, my intrepid ski partner at the exact spot we were standing when the call came in)...

Proof that this poor child is in real trouble with us as parents (yes, it says Whistler ski bum)...