Preview to the million dollar Family!

The day started off at 4am (good lord!).  The night before she went down at 5pm and didn't wake up till the morning. Martin ventured out and got take out and we had a nice quiet dinner at the apartment.
This morning, Olivia was ready to go but we forced her to stay in bed until 5:30ish.  She was itching to get out of bed.  So we dragged ourselves out and got ready for breakfast.  We ventured out to Paris Baguette for a carb load and great coffee, and we headed out to COEX mall at 8am.  Crazy decision because it is Monday morning in the financial district and the subways were PACKED.  We had to carry Olivia for most of this trip because we were afraid she would get lost in the crowd!    We got to COEX mall (2 stops from us) and it was nice a quiet. It was perfect for Olivia because she was able to run around the mall relatively safely.  It was perfect!

From the COEX mall we headed back to the apartment for a rest.  We came back around 11pm and put Miss O down for a nap.  Needed to re-energize before meeting William. Again, Papa headed back out for take out, this time KRAZE burgers!  Yum!  Olivia only slept for an hour, but it was enough to recharge.  We headed out to the SWS office to meet Ms. Bang for 2pm.  We walked into the office, and the memories started flooding back.  Ms. Bang immediately saw us as we walked through the door. She was so happy to see us, especially Olivia.  She was amazed on how tall Olivia was and talking non-stop.  Miss Olivia was just excited to be in the building with more toys and then she saw more babies in the waiting rooms.  She saw a baby in the stroller and cried out "William!".  We told her that we were on our way to see William.  The one in the stroller was another baby.  hahahahha

After a few minutes, Ms. Bang called for the taxi.  We got in the taxi and it took about 30 minutes (with traffic) to get to the foster family's apartment.  It was a small modest apartment, but had beautiful play area outside for the kids to play in.  When we walked in, we saw William sleeping on the floor. My first reaction, OH MY GOSH HE'S HUGE!.  I'm thinking this was the same reaction when we first met Olivia.  But seriously, he looked massive underneath the blanket.  I was holding my breathe. Do we dare wake up a sleeping baby?  Sure enough, foster mom pulled of the blanket and started to wake him up.  Yikes!  He turned his head and the first face he saw was Martin's.  Still groggy he turned his head the other way and wanted to go back to sleep. Not so fast little man!  Foster man, whipped him up and sat him up so we could finally see this sleeping beauty awake.  Reaction...had no idea what was going on. hahahhah

Introducing William Christopher Wooyoung Savard!!!

What a joy to finally meet him!  Our first impression, he is a big little man, and the nickname they gave him (muscle man) seemed fitting.  He sat up and just stared at us.  We slowly moved around him, and he just sat there...wasn't sure what was up.  Foster mom was in the background getting some snacks ready for us, but he wasn't crying, not moving towards here, but pretty aware of her whereabouts.  Slowly and surely the smiles came out and Miss Olivia was her charming self.  He was fascinated by her. Maybe more so because Olivia was playing with his toys.  :0P

Like Olivia style, she was fascinated by his hair.  So were we!  There was just so much of it.  I stopped and thought about...how do I style boy's hair now. I'm so used to putting elastic and clips in Olivia's hair!  (In the background is Ms. Bang, our case/social worker - who was also Olivia's 2 years ago).

Foster mom had a fantastic spread of food, but we had to move it because William kept wanting to climb up on it.  Food at this point was our way to get William's attention.  This was perfect, because it's also Olivia's "way".

Father and son moment.  There is a resemblance.  Geez SWS is good.  My two handsome men.

It was my turn to hold Mr. William.  He was a heavy one.  But oh so soft and cuddly. 

Our first family photo.  We had did a wild goose chase around the apartment with the 2 kiddies.  They laughed and giggled. I knew at this moment that things were going to be okay.

Family photo with foster mom.

Olivia said that "William was in a backpack".  :0)

Soon after the family photos were taken, our hour was up. It was time to go.  The next time we would see each other would be on Thursday.  For 9 months foster mom and her family took care of this little man.  It's going to be hard.  We had seen a preview of William's temperament when he is not happy.  Strong arched back, red face. Sounds familiar. Although we really wanted to get him on Wednesday, we were okay with the fact that it would be a day later.  The adjustment no matter what would be hard for him and for all of us.  1 more day wouldn't change a thing.  13 hours in the sky with no where to go will be the test.  hahahhaha  We're ready for it.


On our way back, foster mom's apartment was right next to the Olympic parks.  I took a picture while we were in the car.  Maybe 1 day our kids will be participating in an Olympic event. Olivia in swimming, and William?  Maybe wrestling. :0)

Monday morning teaser!

Ok, for you waking up...Mel will go in details a little bit later today......
Let's just say that William's nickname at the agency is Muscle man!

We are going.....Marty's take

We are now all ready on our way out to meet William for the first time!
Olivia picked a gift for William this morning and she is really excited to meet her baby brother.....us, well we are really nervous....
stay tune for the update!

Day 1 in Korea with Olivia

The day could have started off at 1:30am this morning, but thankfully it took Miss O an hour to pass out again.  We woke up around 6:30ish and really tried hard to push it to 7am, but she was ready to go. We got up and you could tell she was dying to get out of bed and explore the room again.  She jumped out of bed, grabbed her Backyardigans friends and started to play. We took out some toast and started to plan our day.  First on the agenda, shower!  WE were sooo exchausted from our night before we just couldnt' bring ourselves to take a shower.  It felt so good this morning to start the day fresh and alive.

 

We got ready and went downstairs. We meet a nice lady and her daughter who is staying in the room next to ours.  The will be recieving their son this week too.  After talking to them, we went to find some much needed coffee.  Our first thought was Starbucks, but crazy enough in "coffee town" it was closed. Next stop, The Coffee and Bean Place. The first coffee shop we stopped at when we first came to Korea.  Now we were here with Olivia planning our events.  It was nothing like the relaxing morning we had 2 years ago. There was Miss Olivia already running around in the shop, jumping off the stairs. Good lord, are we going to make it today?  Part of it was trying not to get anymore scrapes or bruises on her before we meet with her foster parents on Tuesday. hahahhahah

 

After breakfast, we decided to head off to the Insadong. We hopped on the subway and quickly picked up where we left off. It really feels like we were here last month. Up and down those stairs to get to the stations - 1 parent holding tight to Olivia, the other parent holding on to the stroller.  Sigh.  Olivia loved the subway. She was totally fascinated.

 


We got off our stop and walked towards the this great pedestrian area with little shops and restaurants and of course coffee shops.  We thought this would be a great day for Olivia to walk around and explore - of course with a firm hand holding hers.

Then we went to the Changdeokgung Palace where Olivia was able run around free with no cars and it was relatively a safe area to play.  We came here too the last time we were here, but it was great to see Olivia go up and down the stairs of the palace, racing around the monuments - being just Olivia.

We went back to where we first saw our chinese zodiac pillars, and took pictures of Olivia with her sign (which is mine as well, the OX), and then took a picture of William's (which is Martin's sign as well. Coincidence?  It amazes us how we all fit into each other lives, and how things are just meant be.  Destiny brought us together as a family.  After the palace, we headed out for lunch.  We knew we didn't have much time before Olivia passes out. We needed to put some food into her.  We went back to the great pedestrian area we went to and found a great "coffee shop" and had a delicious meal.
At this restaurant Olivia had to go to the toilet.  Of course it would be the washroom that was fully high tech - Olivia's eyes widened when she saw all the buttons she could press!  Of course when she finished her business, we pressed the wrong button. We watched as a stick came out of the toilet and then after a second proceeded to spray a jet of water into the air. I screamed because we were getting all wet. I had to close the door because the water was spraying into the outside. Sigh. There was a nice puddle of water when we left.  I don't even know if we flushed that toilet.  I decided I could wait and find a normal toilet somewhere else.

 From then we went to Insadong and did the walking market.  Totally touristy, but fun for us. Not so much for Miss Olivia who had to sit in her stroller, and was also totally exhausted. But she managed well.  Thank goodness for the Korean show we watched outside. She totally was into it!  She loved watching these beautiful men and women in traditional costume pounding on the drums.  It was great.  We finally decided to head back, it was 4pm now, and she still didn't have a nap. She was too interested with everything going on around her to fall asleep. We made the decision to head back to the apartment so she could take a quick cat nap, and then head out for dinner later.  Screw the schedule. It'll be all messed up when we come back anyways. She needed to rest. 

So here we are, waiting to wake up Olivia.  This day was amazing.  Spending it with Olivia and going to all these sites with her just proved that we made the right decision in bringing her.  Now we are planning what to do for dinner. Tomorrow is our big day. Our meeting with William.  Butterflies in my stomach. I can't believe the day has come.  Fill in you in tomorrow.

Safe and Sound in Korea!

It was quite a whirlwind week, travel notice on Tuesday, then pack and leave for early Friday morning. But we did it!!

Friday was  blur. Even though we told ourselves that we were ready and we didn't have much to pack, we ended up sleeping late Thursday night, just getting all the electronic stuff and cleaning done.  I woke up at 4:45 am and took my shower. We needed to leave the house for 6am because our flight was at 8am.  Thankfully, our baggage was being directly straight to Korea. Which only left us with a stroller, a Trunki, 2 backpacks, and Olivia. hahahhaha

We were panicking because we were too sure about the lines in Toronto.  We got to Terminal 1 and raced to Terminal 3 to find we didn't have a line to check in at Korean Air.  We got in and had a good 50 min to actually have a proper breakfast, and Starbucks coffee.  Then they made the pre-boarding call for travellers with infants/small children.  That was us.  We were ready!

I have to say the next 14 hours were pretty much a blur.  hahahahha.  Olivia was fantastic.   We pulled the "toys" a bit later into the flight.  She slept for a small bit for about an hour and a half.  I started to watch the movie "The Help".  The movie took about 4 hours to finish because of the interruptions.   I was good for the first hour, but then she woke up, and then we played, then the washroom etc. Martin watched "Transformers" and it took him 8 hours. hahahhahah  The food and service was great.  Korean Airlines is great.  The funny thing was they are so great at handling crying babies!  There was tons of baby/toddlers on the plane. As soon as one started getting fussy, 2 or 3 attendants would swoon in and try to comfort the child. I saw a couple of attendants take the child.  It was hilarious!

We finally arrived in Korea at the time expected.  The airport was as quiet as the last time we arrived at 3:00am.  Where the heck were all the people. I guess the huge number of people that were on our plane had connecting flights to somewhere else. We weren't complaining as we breezed through customs and picked up our baggage within 20 minutes.  We found our taxi and it took us about an hour to get to the SWS guesthouse. Damn traffic even on the weekends.

We got to the guesthouse the feelings started to flood. I can't believe we were here 2 years ago.  The stress and emotions just were overwhelming. I just wanted to hug Olivia all night.  I wondered if she remembered.  She was curious with everything going around.  She loved the apartment. Lots of room, but I think she was more excited about the 1 bed in our room. Which meant sleeping with Maman and Papa.  Yippeee!

Although we were totally exhausted, we pushed it even more and went out for dinner - had some great Vietnamese Pho - and then did a little grocery.   Olivia was done.  When we got home, we washed up and changed into our pjs. I reread the letter that Ms. Bang (our case worker) left us earlier. It read that we would be meeting our "adorable" son, Monday, December 12th at 2:00.  WOOHOO! It was 6:45, and we were out by 7pm. What a day!  The adventure begins (again).

Travel News...Finally!

Today I took the day off from work.  I needed a day to myself. Let's call it a "mental health" day. I needed a day where I didn't have to think about all of life's little worries and things that I can't control and decided that I would pamper myself. Maybe a pedicure, maybe a massage, maybe lunch with Martin.

So after a lovely weekend with Lola and Lolo, I sadly had to drive them to the train station so they could go back to normal day routines.  Martin drove Miss Olivia to school, and I was going to stop at Starbucks and treat myself.

As I drove away from the train station I called Martin to see how Miss O's drop off went to day. Not good. Missing maman. Sigh.  Then the other line beeped.  I didn't recognize the number but my heart was beating faster.  I got off the phone with Martin and listen to the voicemail.  "Melanie...call me now!". OH MY GOSH!  It's Maria!  I redialed the number and sure enough it was Maria with the AWESOME news!  Travel!

I called Martin with tears in my eyes. Tears of joy!  Martin answered and when I told him the great news, the other line was silent.  He was crying too.  Tears of joy, but also tears from the fact that the "world of Olivia" will be "the world of Olivia AND William". It will no longer be just Olivia. That's a huge adjustment for ALL of us.

I got off the phone and called Lola and Lolo who were still at the Ottawa train station waiting for their train. hahahah. Then called everyone that I had in my phone contacts.  I raced home. We needed to make travel plans.  I have no idea how I got home, but I did and raced to the computer and phone.

By 12:00pm everything was confirmed and done.  Flight arrangements (which heck the prices are out of this world) were done.  Leaving Friday to Friday. We faxed our request to the SWS for our family room. Hopefully we'll hear tomorrow about that. I went to the bank.  Got my eyebrows done (not as relaxing, somewhat painful, but needed to go today).  Emailed HR at school...last day Thursday!

We picked up Olivia from school and broke the news to the teachers that Olivia will be leaving again for a short trip.  Not something they wanted to hear as Olivia was getting adjusted into her Primary class. Then the family went to eat some sushi to celebrate the good news.

Where did the day go?  Where did my rest and relaxation day go?  It's all good. I was running on adrenaline.  Feeling very rejuvenated and alive.  :0) After 16 weeks of waiting for travel, the news was everything that I had hoped this week.  The thought of not going to pick him up until after Christmas was unthinkable.  He'll be home for Christmas.  He'll be home for his first birthday. That's all I really wanted.

Happy Birthday Papa!

Today we celebrated Papa's birthday. This date is always magical. Not only is it Papa's birthday, but 2 years ago we got the news of a lifetime - a baby girl.  We thought today would be the day we would get news about William, but it wasn't meant to be.  Wah!  But life goes on..it's out of our control. I think to cheer us up, Papa went all out on the Christmas decorations at the house.  It made me smile seeing a giant Christmas penguin blowing in the front lawn.  Good job Papa!

Papa picked up Olivia at school. Today was Olivia's last day in the Toddler Program at school, and she starts full days with the Primary class tomorrow.  Goodbye "Pandas"!  Hello "Giraffes"!.   A little bump in the road, but life goes on.  Next year, William be singing a duet with Miss Olivia.  Can't wait.  For now, Papa will just have to contend with his 2 best girls.

And Then There Was The Backyardigans

Move over Elmo...the Backyardigans have taken over the Savard household! (And yes, we did spend on silly souvenirs).

Today we went to Olivia's 2nd show, The Backyardigans.  It was great!  I don't know where this obsession with The Backyardigans came from.  Well... I know where it started. It came from Olivia's BFF (Nalina our neighbour). Whenever we came over to the house, we would see/hear it in the background. Nalina loved it and she would dance around copying the characters.  I have to say it's a great show. The premise being that kids don't need all these toys to entertain them, every adventure can begin in the backyard using your imagination. Love it! It's actually a perfect concept for our Olivia, who would rather spend hours outside than inside.

Anyways, Olivia didn't really care for the show in the beginning. Mind you, she will watch it briefly or listen to it in the background, but to sit through an entire episode is somewhat rare.  What got her going was the day we picked up 2 stuffed characters at a consignment store. That was it. She was hooked. She carried them around, sang to them, talked to them, and even put them in time out!.  We always ask her why they are in timeouts, and it's because "They were running!  No running Tasha!" or "Uniqua hit Tyrone".  Yikes...the things she picks up at school.

Soon after that, I picked up 2 more characters from Ebay. The last one, Pablo, came last week in the mail. He was the only one missing so we couldn't wait till Christmas to give it to her. Now she is complete and carries them everywhere. We have a "discussion" on who she is going to bring to bed EVERYNIGHT. "Just 1 Olivia!" But she loves them, we love the concept. Why not indulge?  :0P

The concert was great. She was a bit unsure in the beginning. She tried the "Peepee in the toilet Maman!" thing right at the beginning of the show (and she had just went). I quickly figured out, she was scared and she wanted out.  Then out came the ADULT-sized backyardigans and the intro song. She was stunned. hahahahha.

She quickly got over her fears and started clapping away. Soon it was "Where's Tasha?  Where's Tyrone?" etc - with her hands out in disbelief.  Then she would start yelling "Hi Tasha!  Hi Uniqua! Hi Tyrone!  Hi Austin!  Hi Pablo!!!!"  It was priceless. She knew every character. We had great seats too.   Close to the front and centre. Great theatre for kids because they offered boosters for the wee ones too. Both Nalina and Olivia were both holding on to their stuffed Tyrones all throughout the show.  Olivia's bought from Ebay for $5 and Nalina's was bought at the show for $15. Crazy.

By the end of the show, Olivia was off her seat dancing away and wishing it wouldn't end.  But it did, and we left to go eat sushi. hahahahah.  Great family night.  Hoping that William will like to watch Backyardigans too and I can reuse these toys when Olivia is out of this phase (maybe not the Uniqua costume)  hahahhaa.  Better yet, they will be the perfect little pair and constantly play in the backyard using their amazing imaginations and come up with their own adventures and not play with these toys.  :0)  We'll just have to wait and see.  Sigh, another wonderful night without William home yet. But there will be more shows, more family nights like this one so i'm not too disappointed.  I wonder which fabulous kid show will we watch next?

Aside:  Yes...sigh. That is a big big bruise on Olivia's cheek.  During the day today she was jumping in the bed and slammed right onto the bedrail wainscotting on the wall.  It immediately swelled up and bruised. Stay tuned to see if a black eye came about. Sigh.  (Pretty sure everyone one was smiling and staring at Olivia at how cute she looked in her Uniqua costume, but i'm pretty sure everyone also glanced at her cheekbone. It was pretty hard to miss).