It's official!!

It's official - Hai is now a member of the "McVicker family with all the rights and responsibilities attached thereto". Grandma and I are trying to figure out if that means he's got to take out the trash and clean up after the cat when he's at her house. I'm just glad that now I can get him a social security number and put him to work!

Seriously, yesterday we had our formal re-adoption ceremony at the Santa Clara Superior Court. It was definitely ceremonial, as I didn't even have to show my ID... :-) Maria, Jaap and Beatriz (Hai's nanny) were all there with me and Hai as I signed the adoption order and swore to be his parent forever. It was pretty cool and we had a good cry, a great lunch, and some champagne, afterward at E&O Trading Company in San Jose. We figured SE Asian food made sense, and their Vietnamese shaking beef is excellent.

I think now all the formalities are done and Hai and I can get down to the business of just being a family. All I need to do is apply for his passport so we can go down to Cabo and he can see his timeshare soon!

Oh, and Jaap has all the pictures from yesterday, as well as still having the pictures from Hai's birthday. Jaap - i'm calling you out - you owe me a CD or a download site for those pics!! :-)

Love all,

Melissa

Cheerios & "working from home"...

Hai LOVES Cheerios. He's got to have the lowest cholesterol count of any 1 year old out there. He won't eat anything unless there are Cheerios on his high chair tray. I mean it. You could put a Hershey bar in front of him and he would eat around it for the Cheerios. However, as you can see from this photo, sometimes he misses his mouth by a bit, still.

I tried to work from home a couple of days this week. It's impossible. The only time it works is when Hai is napping. Even with the nanny here there is still too much distraction to get anything but the most mundane emails done. I'm sure glad they are upgrading our offices and we can move in next month, I need some peace and quiet!

But I didn't miss going to our annual sales conference at all. I thought I might feel a tinge of "I wish I was there", but not really. The only thing I miss is seeing my boss' speech in person. It's the first time I've missed his sales conference speech since I was his speechwriter... I guess it's really time for a change this year, huh?

Anyway, time to go to the store and get some more Cheerios. If I run out of those we might starve in a house full of food!

Love all,

Melissa

Get your motor runnin'....

Hai aspires to eat like Drew someday

Hai aspires to eat like Drew... :-)

First taste of cake

Finally, some birthday video

Birthdays and back to work...

Well, it's day 2 at work for me... Thankfully, my parents are still in town, so leaving Hai in the morning with Grandma, Granddad and the nanny makes it much easier to go to work. Though by about noon I'm ready to go home to get a smile from my boy. But he seems to be doing fine, though I miss waking up with him in the morning vs. getting up while he's still asleep...

Hai had his "official" first birthday on Saturday. (Jan. 5 was actually the day that Hai was left at the orphanage, they didn't really know his actually birthday, but estimated he was 15 days old, so he's really about 12months and 15 days.) I need to get the pictures from Jaap and off my video camera to upload, but suffice to say that cake was consumed and readily applied to his clothes. We went to Chuckie Cheese, which seemed a wise choice on a very, very, rainy day. Hai was quite taken with the whole Chuckie Cheese experience. He just took everything in. Not even the animatronic mouse scared him (though I was a bit unnerved by it). And the adults all agreed that their pizza is actually pretty good!

My mom also had her birthday on Wed. We went up to Stanford Shopping Center and walked around to get a little fresh air and then had an early dinner at the Fish Market restaurant. Hai really seemed to like the Fish Market. He even had his first taste of tilapia - he seemed to really like it, so I've got to get some of that for him.

My mom has also sorted things out so she can stay another week with me. This is a huge help to me as I've got 2 7am meetings next week and a dinner and all day staff meeting. Hopefully, my Dad will be able to survive on hamburgers and pizza while she's here with me and Hai. :-)

Anyway, coming back to work has been interesting and in many ways, comforting. In the past 3 months my entire life has been turned upside down, I became a mom, took 3 months off, and spent my days waiting for the sun to come out so I could go to the park or take a walk with Hai. Now I come back to work and find that not much has changed in 13 weeks away... maybe that's not what everyone at work would want to hear, but in a way it is comforting to me... and maybe a little bit of job security :-)

Love all,

Melissa

Resolutions

Hai and I had a great New Year's. We went to see Mark and Lisa and Cristian for New Year's eve with Jaap. Hai and Cristian are great friends and Hai loves chasing Cristian around the house (I think Cristian likes it too...not to mention Jaap)

Jaap got to witness the carseat trauma first hand when we drove home, however. I broke the cardinal rule: "Never wake a sleeping baby". Hai fell asleep on my lap around 9pm and at about 9:30 we decided it was time to get him home to bed. Well, waking him up to put him the carseat he already hates so Mommy can drive home was not a pleasant experience for any of us... But we all survived fine and he seems no worse for the wear.

To make up for it, New Year's Day was "all Hai, all the time". We went to shoreline and took a stroller walk, and then to the park. It was a beautiful day and a great way for he and I to start our 2008 together.

So, on to resolutions... usually I have some good new year's resolutions, this year I've got a few:

1. By next Thursday when I go back to work, figure out how to get up and get ready (ie out of my pajamas) before 10am (I did not master this today).
2. Sleep in my own bed, alone before the end of 2008 (or not alone, but with an adult... or not just an adult, but an adult "male"... wait... this is becoming a different resolution...).
3. Get Hai sleeping in the crib all night before the end of 2008 (see #2 above).
4. Keep the 10lbs I've lost off when I go back to work so I can keep wearing my favorite Lucky jeans.
5. Give Hai his best year yet!

Happy New Year, everyone.

Melissa