Special Delivery

We have been gazing at photos of Michael for 39 days, six hours, and 20-some minutes.

Michael, however, has had no idea what to expect. He may not even know he has been matched with a family.

That's all about to change.

We finally have our package together to ship to him in China.

The rules are pretty strict--and our agency reads them conservatively. No six-foot-tall stuffed giraffes or homemade cookies. No toys or books.

We are allowed to send a photo album, a CD, some stickers, and a letter. (This may not sound like much, but we were only allowed to send Louis a photo album, so I got pretty excited about the letter, the CD, and the stickers.)

So we set to work. I ordered the same soft "My Family" album that we sent to Louis--and which his foster mother sent back to us on his adoption day.

Summarizing your family life in an album of 12 photos is challenging.

Especially difficult is thinking of what to include to help make Michael's transition easier.

This album is our way of introducing ourselves, of course. But we also want to give him a sense of what to expect.

When he arrives, we're hoping at least something looks familiar.

So he'll see Louis sitting in his car seat in our minivan. And he'll see Louis walking into his grandparents' house, where he spends his days while Mama and Baba are working. Then some of the pictures don't include Louis at all. That seemed important too, somehow.

The CD was a little difficult. I bought one lullaby CD, turned it on, and said, "Let's see if this is any good." Two minutes later, Louis gave me the verdict. "Mama," he said. "This is not any good." So much for that. Fortunately Aunt Treasa is brilliant and offered to burn a CD of some of our favorite songs. So Michael may hear "Toora Loora Loora" and "Puff the Magic Dragon" for the first time before he meets us.

The stickers were easy--Elmo and Cars seemed like good choices. And we wrote a letter introducing ourselves, thanking his caregivers for all they are doing for him, and telling Michael a little about how we will meet him, spend time with him in China, and then fly home. We described where we live, what we like to do, and how excited we are to meet him. I am so fortunate to have my friend Sarah who speaks Chinese and kindly translated the captions and letter for us.

Looking through the album, I try to imagine what our little boy will think of us. Louis can't tell us what he thought when he saw his album, but we know he looked at it many times--and that it was a prized possession. When it was returned to us, we saw that it was worn and dirty. Every time Louis pulls it out, I think of how much he looked at it while we waited for each other. We don't know whether Michael will get to look through his as much as Louis did. For one thing, we're hoping we don't have to wait 11 months to travel to bring him home! But it's our first way of reaching out to him--and possibly our only chance before we travel to him--and so it feels very important.

Let's hope he likes what he sees.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying spring and making lots of dandelion wishes.

Louis is probably wishing for something train-related here, but my wish these days is usually the same. Come on, LOA! We need that approval from China before we can even start to guess on travel dates.

And we have a boy here who is so ready to become a big brother.