Halle and The Fuzzy Guy

Great weekend!  I was pretty cranky Saturday morning, but Jen & Halle made me a massage appointment on Saturday as a Christmas gift.  I have been under a lot of stress lately (not to say Jen hasn’t) and this couldn’t have come at a better time.  When I got to the salon for my massage, I asked for the deep tissue massage on my back, arms and glutes.  Holy crap was this woman strong!  I told her that getting a deep tissue massage is much like getting a tattoo, the first 5 minutes suck and then the endorphins kick in.  She worked out my crazy knots that I have been collecting since Halle has come into our lives.  You see, Halle loves to play a game with me where I chase her down on my hands and knees while chanting, “I’m gonna get you!”.  It hurts, but we have a blast.

Jake and I went to shoot photos (headshots and action shots) of a spectacular stunt team.  I can’t believe the stuff these guys do!  I will post some samples soon.  Jake was my assistant, but got a lot of time in on the trampoline.  Jen’s friend then came over and Jen and I went on an actual date after Halle went to bed.  It was great for just the two of us to get out.  Thanks K.

The other great part of this weekend was the little things…

• I arrived at a friend’s house that Jen and Halle were and Halle walked up to me, held out her arms and when I picked her up she gave me a big hug.
• She let me give her a bath without Jen being anywhere around.
• We danced to “Baby Got Back”…what an infectious song.
• I played Oasis’ Wonderwall on the guitar for her and it made her smile.
• She followed me around the house.
• She called me….daddy.

All of these things add up to a lot!  Now I have to spent the next 5 days seeing her for about 2 hours a day.  That sucks.

Happy Halle

Does that title sound like I am excited that the holidays are over?  Well, I am…a little.  I am craving a normal schedule once again because I have seen what that does for a 13 month old.  It makes her happy…much like this photo to the right.

Things have been going great.  Jen has become the sleep drill sergeant thanks to a book called “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child“. Wow, what an amazing change we have seen since Halle has been on a semi-regular sleep schedule.  Jen is also much happier…and not so crazy…shhh…don’t tell her I said that.

We travelled to Chicago to spend Christmas with Jen’s side of the family.  Her brother and his family drove up from Atlanta to meet Halle for the first time which was awesome.  Halle did great in the car for the total of 14 hours of winter driving.  She discovered the Wiggles thanks to a genius at my office who recommended them for trance-inducing travel entertainment.  She was right, Halle loved it.  She actually danced in her car seat….I’m not sure how, but she pulled it off and looked good doing it.  Halle loves to dance.  I can just give her a little techo beat (she loves The Crystal Method) and she shakes it like a Polaroid picture.

I have been taking photos and video, but haven’t had a lot of time to compile much.  I did add some photos to the Grab Bag album on our web site, so check ‘em out!

Since we got Halle she has always been able to stand for brief moments and take a step or two, but now she is in full Frankenstein walking mode.  Check out the video below and listen very carefully for the frog she stepped on.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Awesome B-Day Cake! - Click to Zoom

Sorry I haven’t written lately, but as you may be able to guess…things have been busy! It has been 9 days since Halle came into our lives and her transition is what I would consider very smooth. The sleep deprivation and jet lag after we got back was pretty extreme. So extreme that Jake was dismissed from going to school for the rest of the week (3 days).

As always, Jen has been nothing short of spectacular while acclimating back to being a mother of an infant. We both have to admit that we completely forgot what it was like to be parents of a one year old. Jen has a theory that our brains are trained to forget what hard work it is to care for an infant so that we want more. Unfortunately Halle has attached herself to Jen so much that Jake and I don’t get much close up time. Today that changed a bit, but I will go into that later.

Halle’s progress was moving along so quickly that we thought it would be ok for Jen’s mom and her husband to come up from Chicago for Thanksgiving as long as they understood that Halle needs to bond with us before she bonds with them, which may take awhile. Parenting an adopted child has a completely different set of rules…which I wont get into detail here, but it isn’t like bringing a baby home from the hospital that you can pass from family member to family member.

This Thanksgiving we decided that we didn’t want to cook, but we didn’t want to go out. Enter the amazing food wonders of Super-Target! For $69 we got a full blown Thanksgiving dinner that you only pop the Turkey in the oven for 4 hours and heat up some sides. I was expecting something similar to The Sizzler (not sure if that translates to the midwest), but it was spectacular! The mashed potatoes were amazing, the green bean casserole and stuffing were just right and the cranberries didn’t suck (not a big fan). I know buying Thanksgiving dinner from Super-Target seems pretty ghetto, but I don’t care what you say! It rocked! So there!

She pick the pencil! - Click to Zoom

So after stuffing our faces we had to change sets like we were a big Broadway production. Why? For Miss Halle’s birthday of course! Halle’s BIG first birthday happens to be on Thanksgiving this year. Tol is a Korean tradition that celebrates the birthday of a one-year-old baby. To tell you the truth, we really didn’t have a lot of time to plan for this and make it the big production that Halle deserves, but we did our very best. The big event of a tol is to put the child in front of a table of food and objects such as a pencil, microphone, money, medical instrument, computer mouse, etc. The child is to then pick one of the objects which will determine the child’s destiny. Halle picked a pencil which is believed to mean she will be a scholar. She then picked a body temperature gauge and then money. I know only the first one counts, but I would like to believe she will be a well educated doctor who makes the big bucks!

Halle wasn’t in the best of moods for the tol so we had to quickly run through it. Halle’s foster mother gave us a traditional Korean dress called a Hanbok. It is beautiful. We slipped her into it with a medium amount of fussing and got some photos of her in it. It was a bit big for her small frame, but I’m sure she will grow into it very soon.

We then celebrated an American tradition of letting Halle stuff her face with cake and make as much of a mess as she wanted to. I love that one!

Feed Momma The Cake! - Click to Zoom

I would say the day was a success given the amount of time we had to prepare, the day being one of the biggest American holidays, Halle only being home for 9 days and having house guests. I took a ton of photos and video today. I don’t have the video ready, but you should go look at the photos in The Johnston Family Photo Gallery (click on Halle’s 1st Birthday/Thanksgiving 2009) here:

http://www.clayjohnston.com/galleries/the-johnston-family/

I have also put up a couple of other photo galleries from our trip, but I haven’t updated the captions yet. So feel free to look at the photo, but some may not make sense until I put captions in them.

Thanks!

I can tell Halle is mostly happy and getting better every hour.  She is wandering around the house more and is curious about everything.  She even tried to eat Jake’s homework today.  We decided this afternoon to venture out for a trip to Target.  Not one of those small, we need a couple of thing trips, but a full on Super Target trip…groceries and all.  We fully expected Halle to freak out in the car seat, but she did great!  She was very interested in everything going on outside.   We put her in her Ergo (like a backpack/frontpack for infants) and she was as happy as a clam in that thing.  We made it home and Jen took her to the bus stop to introduce her to some of the neighbors.  She is a very popular girl around here.

Halle loves to smile and giggle.  She is starting to babble a lot more, but since I don’t speak Korean babble, I’m not sure exactly what she is saying.  She is probably mentioning how much she likes me clean shaven.  I’m not a big fan of it and neither is my skin, which has promptly broken out in a rash like some sort of pubescent teen.

We took a couple days off of taking photos while we recoop, but I did take a couple today that I can share.

Playing in the living room - Click to Zoom

So Happy! - Click to Zoom

On My Way To Target - Click to Zoom

This is what I really look like under all that hair

Go ahead… let the comments flow, but as silly as I look, I would do it a million times over to get the reaction I did from Halle.  You see, she was pretty freaked out by me (and still is a little).   She would just stare at me, like I was some sort of beast and when I came in too close at times, she would turn away.  Not anymore with my baby smooth chin.  There was an immediate improvement (coincidental or not) in her behavior with me today.  She let me come in for some smooches and even giggled when I did so.

I think she did really well today.  We gave her a VERY quick bath and while she cried, she settled down about 30 seconds after it was over.  We all sat around and played with her this morning and this evening and she was as happy as the first time I met her.  We also took a stroll around the block to introduce her to the neighborhood.  Right as we walked out the front door, an 8 point buck was standing across the street…we have a wooded area across the street.  I have NEVER seen a buck in our neighborhood before.  It was huge!  Just as it caught a glipse of us, he sprinted down the park.  We showed Halle off to a couple of neighbors and she was very smiley to all of them.  Did I tell you we had the best neighbors in the world?  Well, we do, so if you are looking for a home…look here!

It’s now midnight and time for me to see if I can sleep.  I woke up at 4am and caught a 3 hour nap at noon just as cousin Julie suggested.  I think it worked well.  Thanks Jules.

Good night…

Jen, Foster Mom & Halle - Click to Zoom

As I write this it is Wednesday morning at 5:15am and I have been up for a little more than an hour and Jen even longer.  I’m hoping we can get back on schedule  soon, but I don’t hold out too much hope.

Yesterday was on my top 3 stressful days of my life, but it all worked out.  I’m pretty confident The Johnston’s can do anything now. The day started by a short prayer ceremony put on by Dr. Kim at our Korean agency.  We boarded the bus with the Peterson family and headed to the airport.  Halle slept the whole way there and wasn’t too happy when we got there.  The flight was 100% booked…RATS!  They changed our seats to middle section bulkhead seats so that we could have a bassinet.  In reality, the bassinet is just a holder for all the crap we have to haul with us and got in the way more than it helped.  Halle was clinging to Jen the entire flight.

Dr. Kim just after the prayer ceremony - Click to Zoom

In case this isn’t clear to everyone…when you take a one year old from the only person they know as their mother, there is a period of confusion, mourning and confusion.  Halle started that process yesterday.  Jen held her in the Ergo baby carrier for 90% of the flight.  As soon as she was tired enough, I was able to take over and Halle would simply give up and fall asleep.  As a caregiver, she hasn’t warmed up to me as much as Jen so when I take over, chaos ensues. Well, it isn’t that bad.  It will just take patience and time.

The flight was long and crowded, but as always, the flight attendants were great.  Very attentive and even sang in Korean to Halle.  We got through immigration and customs without incident.  Jen’s mom, uncle and their spouses (Jack & Mary) met us at the Chicago airport.  We probably weren’t in the best shape (at one point, Jen fell asleep) to meet with family, but it was very important for Jen’s mom to see Halle.

Halle & Jen on the way to the Seoul airport - Click to Zoom

Our Chicago to Minneapolis flight was MUCH different than the Korean Air flight.  It is like going from a limousine to an old bus with chickens and goats roaming the aisles.  I’m glad that was only a 55 minute flight because the gas fumes from this crappy DC9 was about to make me sick.  After in Minneapolis, we met the Peterson’s (the other couple we travelled with) family that met them at the airport.  I think we all looked like zombies by this point….nice to meet you, may I eat your brain?  Get it…zombies eat brains…anyway…

Kristen (Jen’s best friend) picked us up from the airport and we headed home.  When we pulled into the driveway our house was covered with messages welcoming us back.  A big banner on the garage, balloons on the lamp post, poster on the window and chalk drawings all over the driveway.  AMAZING!  When we walked in the house we were welcomed with more decorations, food and gifts from neighbors and friends.  This was so generous and we appreciate everyone doing this.  It made coming up that much more special.

We are going to spend the next couple of days getting Halle acclimated to her new environment and trying to get her on some kind of schedule, but we aren’t pushing anything.  This is a stressful time for her and we don’t want to make it anymore stressful than we have to.  I’m sure we will be calling on Janet and Allie (other mother’s we know who went through the same experience) in the next couple of days to ask about 1,623 questions.

I will write in a couple of days and I will be putting up a more extensive collection of photos in the photo gallery section of our site (along with videos).

Time for more coffee, here are some more pics…

On the plane, ready to go! - Click to Zoom

Jack, Jen, Halle, Jake, Carole, Mary & Tom at the Chicago Airport - Click to Zoom

Welcome Home! - Click to Zoom

Jen & Halle in her room - Click to Zoom

And...we're out...

The Johnston's & Halle's Foster Mom - Click To Zoom

We are zipping up our bags and hading to the airport in less than an hour. We can’t wait to be in our home. Please perform whatever prayers, rituals, dances, or chants that you believe will send us on a safe and easy journey.

See you back in the USA.

Love,

The Johnstons