The letter

If you could write a letter to your child before they arrived in your life, what would you say? Is there anything that you could say that would provide them comfort for the events that are about to unfold? Are there words that would soothe their fears? Calm their little hearts as everything they've ever known is about to change?

It dawned on me today that, yet again, adoption has some similarities to childbirth. I wonder what biological parents would tell their littles ones as they faced the start of life and an arrival into a completely different world from the one they've always known. Is it really that different?

In the end, it probably is, as we have a tendency to believe that consciousness begins at birth. But what if we could get a message in-utero. What could possibly be said so that the little one would feel a little less afraid when the world goes topsy turvey?

It's been almost two months since THE call, and I'd like to be able to report we have more information about Ren and when we might be able to be united with him. I'd like to, but I can't. I can say that all the paperwork that needs to get done is done - all the letters written, forms signed, signals signaled. Yes siree, all the t's are dotted and i's are crossed and so... we wait.

We're still expecting a travel date sometine in February or March. I'm hopeful that we'll get actual travel dates in time and that Chinese New Year (which is on February 14th this year), doesn't delay things, but that's pretty much all there is to say about that.

We are, as you might have guessed from the introductory paragraphs of this post, working on a letter to send to Ren as part of a little care package that we're allowed to send. It has been a task that we relish, but which, no matter what we write seems to fall so far short of what we'd like it to be.

We haven't been standing still waiting though. Life has been adventurous in other areas. In addition to getting ready for and galavating on all Hallow's Eve, we've been adjusting nicely to the kindergarten life and a new daycare. Over the summer, we changed daycares to one in our local school as Kiyomi was graduating and moving into the lofty realms of being a "'kinder". She started in the fall and is settling in well.

Me, not so much. I obviously hadn't truely appreciated how good we had it in the old daycare where there was a full time cook who prepared healthy and yummy lunches and snacks for the kids. Now, it falls to us, and let's just say Kiyomi's nutritional balance is now sorely lacking.

We also spent two weeks galavanting through the wilds of Japan this autumn. And this wasn't any trip for the faint of heart I tell ya. Us and 6 other members of the Suzuki clan took Japan by storm. There was fun, there was frivolity and there was food... lots, and lots, and lots of food. We're still working off the jet-lag, and the food, but things are getting back to some degree of normalcy. The highlights for Kiyomi were Mika, the catbus, Mika, the park, Mika, the mountains, Mika, the acorns. You may be picking up on a theme here.

Oh ya, and if there is an acorn left in Japan, it wasn't from the kids lack of trying to pick up every single stray acorn in the entire country. I kid you not, we came home with a 3 pound bag of acorns collected everywhere from Tokyo to mount Fuji! We have Totoro to blame (for those of you who haven't heard of this mythical creature and it's obsession with acorns, all I can tell you is if you google it, don't let your kids watch it or you will forever spend every nature walk looking for bloody acorns).

The parting shot shows a Canadian girl waiting for a ferry in Tokyo. Good night from Ottawa.