PHOTOS!

Here she is!

Introducing...

Ling Cha Yin

We're all so thrilled to see her face. What a cutie! Looks like a pretty intense kid, though huh? I hope we can get some photos of her with a smile!

Referral file!

I took time off today to pick up Daisy's file. When I went to meet our contact person, it was actually somewhat humorous, because the file that was placed in front of me was of the WRONG CHILD. (I guess there's two families that received referrals in this batch, and the names of the children are very similar.)

So...once I was in possession of the correct file, I quickly perused her information. She seems PERFECT! Of course, we still have to have her medical records reviewed by a pediatrician well-versed in 'adoption medicine', but once we have sent in our LOA (Letter of Acceptance), then we wait for China to send a TA (Travel Approval). This could take several weeks, and with the start of Chinese New Year in a few days, the CCAA may not be operating at full speed. Looks like we may not travel until April or May.

Anyways, here's what translated information I have thus far:
Name: Ling Cha Yin
Date of birth: 2/8/08
From: Shangrao Children's Welfare Center, Jiangxi Province (I mistakenly heard Guangxi yesterday in my telephone call with our agency)

From her physical exam on 9/15/08 (7 months old)
Routine schedule: 4-5 meals/day; up at 6:30 am, naps 2 hours, bed at 8:00 pm
Deep sleeper
Eating: milk, rice powder, congee, egg soup, green vegetables, noodles, soup, etc.
Motor development: holds head up, rolls from back to stomach, sits up alone, crawls (remember...this was at 7 months. Since she's almost 1 year, she's probably close to walking now...)
Personality: active; fond of playing with toys; fond of playing games, having a ready smile; closest to caretaker; loves toys with music

Now...if only we could figure out how to use our scanner, then we can get her photos posted. SHE IS ADORABLE!

Larissa is already looking forward to being a big sis to 'Daisy'. She was holding a little booklet of paper tonight, and she was pretend-writing a note. I heard her saying, "Dear Daisy, I'm really excited to see you..." as she scribbled up and down on the paper. How cute is that?

WE GOT A REFERRAL!

Ok...so no photos as of yet, but we are going to become parents to a little girl!

As I was sitting at work today, keeping track of all the postings on the various websites that I follow...I kept thinking, "I wonder if we'll receive a referral in this batch?" My co-worker urged me to just call our agency and ask. (I didn't want them to think that I was an annoyance...). Anyways, just as our coordinator was about to call us, I called her, and she gave us the good news!

Name: Ling Cha Yin (sp?)
Birth date: 2/8/08
Province: Guangxi

(I actually did not get any of this info during the original call; I was so overwhelmed I forgot to ask her any questions, and I had to call back later in the day!)

Her health records and her biography will be translated and ready for us tomorrow, but I'm told that she's "very cute, chubby, and fair skinned" on the basis of her 3 photos. I'll take some time off work tomorrow to drive to SF and pick up her file.

Larissa is finally going to be a big sister!

October 2008

Late entry...but better late than never.

October was a month where Roger and I actually got to spend some time alone together. Larissa was being watched by Grandma and Grandpa while we were away. First, we went to Las Vegas - for conferences. Larissa is NOT a fan of Las Vegas, since she still has bad memories of staying at The Venetian and seeing images of Blue Man Group in the lobby last year. ("Ahhh!...blue guys! blue guys!") She was more than happy to stay home with the grandparents when she found out that Roger and I had meetings to attend. Since my conferences were shorter, I got to spend some time shopping, and when Roger finished, we had some fantastic meals at the nicer restaurants in town.

A few weeks later, my employer sent all of its employees (and guests) on a San Francisco Bay cruise, during Fleet Week. We enjoyed a nice lunch, and saw an amazing show put on by the US Navy Blue Angels. Larissa probably would not have liked it due to the high decibels. Roger and I just liked being able to do something with other adults.

The rest of the month? Well, as usual, almost everything is focused on Larissa.

Visits to the pumpkin patch, birthday parties, school carnivals, carving pumpkins, trick-or treating...all the usual kid stuff. Larissa always gets to pick out the design of the pumpkin carving, and this year, she chose "Cinderella". She's always been very careful around sharp instruments, so I've been letting her actually poke out the outline of the design for the past few years. I think she did a great job!

For the record, Larissa was an Ohio State University cheerleader this year for Halloween. Both her grandfather and I are graduates of THE Ohio State University, and Larissa already dressed up as a Stanford cheerleader (well...technically, we never had cheerleaders, but that's a topic for another day), a few years ago. When Larissa was given the choice this year of either wearing a red or blue cheerleader outfit, she chose red. Had she chosen blue, we would have gotten a Cal Bears outfit for her!

September 2008

We've been so incredibly busy...and we only have one child! I can't imagine what it will be like to have two...


Larissa turned 5 on September 4th. Although I had promised Roger that we would just do a small party with Larissa's closest friends, it ended up being the most elaborate party we've done thus far. We did have a small gathering on her actual birthday, but the larger party was done the following weekend. I hired a party planner who decorated the table, (I decorated the house a bit in the preceeding weeks...just to add some embellishment), ran all the activities, and brought in the entertainment. The theme was Cinderella's Ball, so of course, Cinderella attended. The girls dressed up in pink princess gowns, and ate from real china! I had little tea sandwiches for both the adults and the kids. The cake basically looked like Cinderella's castle. (Photo shows the cake without the spun glass castle that was eventually placed on top of the white clouds).


I know what you're all thinking...you see those pictures above, and you think, "...but there's only 9 kids! I've seen parties where there's 30 kids". I guess that's where the timing of Larissa's birthday works in our favor. Early September birthday: if you haven't spent much time over the summer with your friends from the previous year, (and you don't think they'll be playing much together in the future), then do you really need to invite them? And for her current classmates, she didn't really know any of them yet. I'm sure that as she gets older, we'll be throwing those parties where her entire class is invited. For now, a medium sized party at home was ideal.
Five is somewhat of a milestone age; we probably won't do another big party until she turns 10.) Then again, you only turn 6 once...


After getting the entire house painted a few weekends later (yes...the painters finished in one day!), we celebrated Grandpa Richard's 79th birthday on September 28th. Had a wonderful Sunday brunch in San Francisco at the Carnelian Room, with an amazing view of the entire bay. It has become our 'go to' place for special occasions. Exquisite food, wonderful service, and a breathtaking view.


Larissa and I have taken up Bollywood dancing. Her kids class will be performing in a show in November, but mine won't. (Apparently not enough adults were willing to go on stage. Not me...I was looking forward to performing!). Anyways, it should be fun. Between her ballet/tap and Bollywood dance classes, and her twice weekly taekwondo lessons (by the way...she's now up to a Yellow Advanced belt), we're always on the go. I guess keeping ourselves busy distracts us from the waiting. We are two LID months away from being matched with Daisy...

August Activities

We were busy this past month with end-of-the- summer activities. Larissa participated in a back-to-school fashion show at Nordstrom, and suprisingly was willing to do it! See the picture at on the side? That's her walking down the runway wearing an outfit she picked out herself! I have no intention of having her become a child model, but I think it helps her self-confidence to participate in activities like this. What a great girl!

Larissa started Kindergarten! She LOVES school, and is having so much fun making new friends, and playing with her previous friends from preschool. That's her with her Kindergarten teacher below.

It's only been one week, but we haven't had any problems waking her each morning. For those of you who don't know us and our schedule, Larissa and I are night owls. Prior to starting Kindergarten, she and I were going to bed each night around 1:00 or 2:00 am. She would then wake up around 10:00 am and proceed with her usual activities. Now that she is in the AM session of Kindergarten, we have to get her to bed by midnight, and wake her up at 7:00 am. What gets her motivated? The thought of watching her favorite TV show (Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman - a PBS kid reality show) that we recorded at 12:30 am the night before! I know...I know...I shouldn't let our child watch TV, but we need something to get her up!

Other random items:

Larissa now has her TaeKwonDo yellow belt, and will hopefully be testing for her yellow-advanced belt later this month.

In addition to taking her weekly ballet and tap lessons, Larissa is now enrolled in Bollywood dance lessons. (She saw the movie: The Cheetah Girls - One World, and decided she wanted to dance like the girls in the movie...)

Roger and I are still waiting for our referral. To date, expedited families with LID's up to December 2006 have been matched. No expedited families were matched in the August batch, so hopefully, the January 2007 LID's will get their referrals in the September batch!

Expedited Referrals

The process of Chinese international adopting is long and tedious. The first part (the paperchase) consists of getting various documents ranging from medical exams, FBI checks, fingerprinting, to a home study (where a social worker will come to your home to interview the prospective adopting parents - PAP's). All the documents need to be notarized and authenticated, then translated into Chinese, before the entire dossier is forwarded to China. The 'date-to-China' (DTC) is a big deal, but the more important date is the 'log-in-date' (LID). By following the LID's of other PAP's you can determine how far along the CCAA is in matching children to families. You start getting excited once the LID's are approaching your own. Our LID is 3/21/07.

Once your dossier is in China, it follows one of two 'tracks'. The regular track is followed by most PAP's that apply for international adoption. However, if one has Chinese ancestry, then one can be expedited. How can one 'qualify' as Chinese? Having Chinese blood is not sufficient. Only if one can prove that he/she was born in the People's Republic of China, Taiwan (China), or Hong Kong, China, then a couple can be expedited. Or if one set of prospective grandparents can provide documentation that they were born in China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, then the PAP's can be expedited. We would qualify for expedited status because Roger's birth certificate states his place of birth was Hong Kong. So when our dossier was submitted to China, we requested expedited status, but... there is really no way of knowing which 'track' we are on.

That is where Roger and I are at. The referrals for the non-expedited families are up to LID of 1/25/06, whereas the referrals for expedited families are up to 12/06. At the rate that the CCAA is matching non-expedited families, it may be 2012 before we get a referral. If that's the case, I think we would give up. As difficult as that might be (especially for Larissa), I think we would prefer to move on with our lives and be able to do things as a family of three. (And I could go ahead and sell all of those clothes and toys I've been saving...). However, if we are expedited, then we may be looking at a referral before the end of 2008! The next few months will be very interesting indeed.