The Nursery

I've decided that I am going to try to make all the decor for Elaina's room (oh, there, see? I used her name!) I spent the better part of our wait for Amelia making her nursery decor, including a dust ruffle, a quilted giraffe wallhanging, curtains, and a diaper stacker. It really helped pass the time during the wait, and it helped me bond with her. Mom's that are pregnant have a daily reminder that they will someday be mothers, but those of us that are adopting sometimes have to come up with other ways to feel close to the children we will someday have. I found creating a bedroom for Amelia a wonderful way to bond with the idea that a little person would soon be joining our family. When I started thinking about the new nursery, at first I thought that I would like to do a "Secret Garden" theme, but never found a pattern that really matched what I was picturing in my head. Then one day I was going through some craft things and found a book that bought a long time ago called, "The Quilted Nursery". The very first pattern in the book is called "Baby's Secret Garden", and it is exactly what I pictured for the nursery!

Last weekend Brian took Amelia to gymnastics and I had a chance to escape to Jo-Ann Fabrics to start to plan the nursery. I could really get lost in fabric, and I love to find just the right combinations to go together. A while ago I bought a couple of yards of a ladybugs and flower fabric that I thought was really cute, and I put it away until I found a use for it. I pulled it out of the closet and decided it would be perfect in the baby's room. The room will be pinks, yellows, purples and greens. I bought so much fabric, half of it is washed and ready to go. I am making curtains (which are a log cabin pattern and whimsical floral applique), a wallhanging, a dust ruffle, a diaper stacker, and a small throw pillow. I can't wait to get started! Our nursery is currently our guest room, so we won't be turning it into a nursery for a while (even though the closet in there is already full of things for the baby, and things to take to China). I am sure that it will take me a lot longer to make everything for Elaina's room simply because I just don't have as much free time this time around, but I am really looking forward to getting started and watching her room come together!

Names, Part 2

(And let's all hope that I don't find myself a month before referrals posting "Names, Part 527") Anyway, our first choice for names has changed again, although at least this time it has changed back to a name we had already chosen once. Amelia is absolutely insisting that her sister's name is Elaina.. She isn't just saying that she likes the name. Whenever I mention another name she adamantly says, "No Mom, my sister is named Elaina". And honestly, we have to admit that we all really love the name. I love the nickname Lainey, and I think Elaina is a great grown-up name. I also like the link with Elaine of Arthurian legend, and "The Once and Future King", and "The Mists of Avalon" were two of my favorite books growing up. As for the distant cousin who named her daughter Alayna, the spelling is different (obviously), they live several states away from us, and we haven't seen them in over 10 years. I don't think it will really matter if the girls have similar names. So the name Elaina returns to the top of the list. I don't think we are ready for a final decision, simply because I have been such a name flip-flopper lately, but I do love the name, and it seems fitting and comfortable in a way that other names haven't.

Middle names are much easier. We like either May or Mei. Both have lots of meaning in our family. I like Mei because it means both "beautiful" and "younger sister" in Mandarin. We will also use her Chinese name, so the spelling of Mei/May will depend on her Chinese name as well.

Names

For those of you who know me, you know that I have been absolutely agonizing over what to name the new baby. When it came time to name Amelia, I opened a name book, said to Brian "What about Amelia?" and that was pretty much it. We loved her name from the start. I knew that I wanted to name her after women who have been pioneers, and who didn't listen when they were told that they couldn't follow their dreams because of their gender. Amelia was a perfect name because not only did it bring to mind Amelia Earhartt, but my dad is a huge aviation buff, and naming her after aviation's most famous woman is a nice homage to him. Her middle name is Jane, and she was named for Jane Goodall, a hero of mine who also forged ahead, blazed a path, and changed the world despite others doubting her abilities to do so because she is a woman. It turns out that my Amelia has all of the fearlessness, determination, and strong-will that I am sure her namesakes had. I have no doubt that she will be able to achieve whatever she wants to in life, on sheer determination alone. She was very very well-named.

So what about her sister? Brian and I have barely agreed on any names, and honestly I have had such a hard time coming up with any name that really appeals to me. I think I was hoping that one would just jump out at me and seem right in the same way that Amelia's did, but no luck. Part of the problem is our last name. There aren't a whole lot of names that sound good with it. Any name starting with an "L" sounds like a Dr. Seuss character. Some otherwise beautiful names blend very badly with it. We had to get rid of any names ending with an "elle" sound just because we couldn't tell where one name stopped and another started. So I came up with name criteria (and this has probably been part of the problem!): 1) the name can't be too common. Poor Amelia is one of two Amelia's in her daycare class, they share the same last initial, so they are both called by their full names. I don't want that for mei-mei. 2) the name needs to be a classic name. Although some of the newer names are pretty, I just feel like a name should have some history behind it. 3) if she decides to become a doctor or other type of professional that people need to put their trust in, will her name fit? I also wanted to name her after someone who has been important in Brian's or my life. I would love to name our daughter after my great-grandmother Mary Elizabeth, who I was very close to and who was possibly the kindest person I have ever known.

Brian really liked the name Sydney when we first started talking, but there are already so many Sydney's in Amelia's daycare. I liked the name Eliza for a while because it was my grandmother's actual middle name, but then realized that if she disliked it enough to call herself Mary Elizabeth her whole life, would I really be honoring her by using the name Eliza? Probably not. Amelia came up with the name Elaina, which we all liked for a while until we realized that one of Brian's distant cousins has a daughter with the same name. Ugh! So back to the drawing board...

We considered so many names, none of which seemed right, and after I finally got so frustrated that I threatened to name the baby Noname, we finally sat down and came up with a short list of good names. We may even wait to see her little face before we decide on one for sure. Here is our list: Clara, Marina (Brian's favorite and as far as he is concerned, the name we are going with), and Elaina (Amelia is insisting). I have to admit that I like Marina as well since it is a way that I can name the baby after my great-grandmother (Marina is a Scottish form of Mary). And I really like Marina Elizabeth, although I worry that may be too much once we add a Chinese name to it.... So for now the jury is still out. Maybe we will add names to our list as time goes on, or maybe one will just start to seem like the right name. For now she will just be our Mei-Mei.

Xi Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Year of the Pig! I am excited to think that this may be the year that our mei-mei is born! Amelia was born in the Year of the Black Sheep, and I have read that Sheep and Pigs are supposed to be good matches and allies. Wouldn't it be great if the Chinese zodiac could help us out and minimize sibling rivalry?

Last night we celebrated the New Year at the local Chinese School's Chinese New Year event, which seems to just get better and better each year. The food was great, and most of it was authentic Chinese food, not the Americanized kind. They had steamed buns and really good fried tofu, so I was happy! We met up with several of the families from our travel group, as well as the many other families that we have gotten to know over the past several years, so it is just a huge social event for us.

This year we also had the excitement of Amelia's dance group performing on stage as part of the entertainment. They did so well! Amelia sneezed a couple of times on stage (and got some laughs for it), but it only added to the entertainment value as far as I am concerned.

After the girls performed they sat down on the floor in front of the stage, so I sat down on the floor as well (a little further back so she could be a "big" girl and hang out with her friends), so I could keep an eye on her since the front area gets very crowded after the performances with everyone coming down to get a red envelope. So many children were down there enjoying the show - some were dancing, some were playing quietly with friends. I have gotten to know so many of these kids over the past few years, and it is amazing to watch them grow. As I sat there and watched them all, I was just overwhelmed with how lucky I am to be Amelia's mom, how lucky I have been to get to know all of these other families with their own amazing children, and how very very lucky we are to be able to send our paperwork off to China and someday bring another one of these amazing children back home.

Go fish

Well, it seems we have entered a new chapter in our lives - we have become fish owners (or at least we will be once the tank is ready for the little guys). My dad gave Amelia a gift certificate to Petsmart for her birthday since she has been wanting a fish tank ever since she first saw Finding Nemo. Tonight we finally took the plunge, went to Petsmart, and bought a tank and all the things that go into it (except the fish). On any given day, if you ask Amelia what she would like to do, her answer more often than not is "Go to Petsmart". She loves to visit the kitties and the rest of the animals that are there, and she is fascinated by the fish. Tonight she was in all her glory since she actually got to buy stuff for her fish. We let her pick out all the things to go in the tank, and since she is four, that means we now have a fish tank with bright pink, purple, green and blue rocks on the bottom, four plastic plants (two of which are hot pink and bright purple), and a purplish-colored mountain that the fish can swim around and through. Very appealing to a four-year-old girl, and I have to admit, the color-scheme actually looks kind of cool. The whole thing is set up, and now we just need to wait a few days so that the water is right for the fish. The funniest part of all of this is that out of all the fish at Petsmart - the fancy ones, the brightly-colored ones, and the expensive ones - Amelia's favorite kind were the minnows that you can buy for twelve cents a piece. By the time we left the store I think we had convinced her to get a little bit fancier of a fish, but if she decides that she really wants a brightly-colored tank full of minnows, who are we to argue?

LID 2/7/07!!!!!!

Well, I have been thinking about starting a blog to record our adoption process to bring our mei-mei home for a long time, and yesterday we got the wonderful news that our paperwork was logged-in on February 7, 2007. I was home with Amelia since we were being bombarded with snow (again) and happened to check my email and saw the great news. I told Amelia that China finally has the letter that we wrote asking for a sister, and she was so excited, dancing around the house. My guess for a LID was February 8, so I was just one day off. It is amazing how the news of being logged-in suddenly makes everything seem real. It is really happening!