All about Project Pooh

If you got to this blog by searching “Adoption”, you might be starting to wonder WHEN am I going to talk about this process, and specially about our future baby.  You know...  your usual adoption blog staff…  how we came up to this decision, the oceans of paperwork, the waiting, or some of those common themes. 

But people… do not try to hurry the creative process of a published author  : )  

Seriously,  I’m getting there.  It’s all about contextualizing the process, setting the scenery…  yeah yeah… blah blah...

I have to say thought, I feel your pain.  You see, patience is NOT one of my gifts so,  I decided to speed up the process and ease your curiosity.  Today is all about Project Pooh.

Technically speaking,  Project Pooh was secretly engineered in early April 2009.  According to the initial schedule,  Project Pooh was planned to be implemented in August and be completely operational (just in case Colombian officials got really fast) by the end of the year.  However,  like in many critical projects things did not go as planned.  You see,  our international specialist, coming all the way over from Colombia,  decided to get into another type of critical project in the same month!  It was then when all of the operational managers (read: Tavo, Luz, Milu & Duna) got together and  re-scheduled  the implementation activities to June.  Uff!! We were able to save Project Pooh.  (Draaaama!!!).  

 Our international specialist’s picture:

Now you see where I get my beautiful looks uh? :)  Actually, the rescheduling of Project Pooh kinda of fitted perfectly because then, I would have my mom over from Colombia for my B-day!

 

In a summary, with mom in town,  Tavo could relax about the B-day prep and the Project Pooh situation…  you see... we had the decorating under control.  Here is how it went: 

1.     The color scheme:  I know many people feel very strongly about pink or blue (yes… you know who you are!) but we didn’t have to think about that, since we don’t know yet if our Colombianito(a) will be a boy or a girl.   So it was pretty easy:  White was out of the question, so it was either green, yellow or a combination of the two – the standard palette of the - "we don’t know what we’re getting" - type of people. 

2.     The room “theme”:  Something that I came to realize very early into the engineering process of  this project  is that the - "we don’t know what we’re getting"- type of people,  don’t have as many choices as you might think.  Princesses (pink), Nemo (blue),  Cars (blue),  Hello kitty  (pink)  and many other themes;  are off limits for us for obvious reasons.   I tell you, after a long “theme” research I could nail down to three the themes available to us: 

- The Zoo.  

- Cute numbers.  

- Winnie the Pooh

Yes you guessed right smart readers... Winnie the Pooh it was.  Besides, to be honest, Winnie the Pooh is way cutter than any princess, Nemo, Car or Hello Kitty.  (Just so you know... I might be loosing some friends over that last statement).  We went Pooh insane!!

Go pooh, go pooh, go go go go...  oh! and of course... everybody participated, including the implementation team .  

 

3. The Furniture and Decorations: The last step was the furniture and other decorations.  In this section I have to say that Kijiji and e-Bay totally rock!.   You would not believe all the good stuff available for kids.   The basic principle to keep in mind is: Kids grow up FAST... so they hardly wear out anything that is new.  And believe me... after all the adoption expenses,  I was beyond happy to find all the good deals!.  

And is not like you're running against the clock in international adoption...  actually, if anything is true with an adoption process is that there is NO clock.  So if you have the time... use it, and wait for the lovely crib to come up for an incredible price! - Now that's the professional buyer in me speaking... anyone up for a market analysis???   :)  

So when everything was done I walked into this office made a nursery. - As a side note I forgot to tell you that Tavo is now enjoying his own space in the basement -  Anyway... it's beautiful, but at the same time is so weird!!! we have a nursery!!! in our own home!!  We're expecting a baby!!! Yes... it is kinda of scary... 


Imagine,  in this very second,  our Colombianito(a) might already be waiting... in his/her belly-mommy's  belly! I just hope that when the baby arrives doesn't think we're some kind of Pooh's religion fanatics!  But for all it's worth... we had a great time!. 


Until next post, 


Luz M.

 

Our family

First of all let me start by giving a HUGE thanks to all the people & friends who read the blog yesterday and send me notes, text messages, facebook“likes”, and comments. You are all very motivating, encouraging and I am really lucky to know such a great bunch of people!

Ok.. enough about YOU... : )

As promised yesterday I will introduce our family today.

First: My lovely husband.
I always think that if I would have met my husband when I was 17 or so I would have thought: Boooooorriiiinggg!!!
And he probably would have thought: Waaayyy too much energy, too noisy, but most of all; could you please shut up??In other words; we wouldn't be together today and I wouldn't be writing this blog.

So lucky me meeting him a few years later when I was smart enough to shup up now and then, and instead of quickly judge him, actually take a minute (or more) to discover his clever sense of humor, how wonderful he is, how kind and loving... (yes... people, la traga maluca). Imagine... I didn't even care he doesn't like to dance!

And now,

Tavo's Top 3:

Things Tavo likes the most:
1. Me (ha ha... of course!)

2. Ajiaco (Colombian soup made out of chicken and potatoes)
3. Matrix and Star Wars (a lot! kinda of nerdy...)

Things Tavo likes the least:
1. Noise - although this is relative. He likes electronic music which many may consider noise. (Including moi... but don't tell him I said that).
2. Crowds. Yup... not a big "concert" kinda of guy.
3. Riding buses in Bogota... and for those of you who have had the pleasure, it is basically a combination of 1 and 2 with a bad smell. Do NOT recommend it. If you are ever there... take a taxi.

Second: Milu (the cat)
Milu is Tavo's favorite pet. One day in an informal conversation, I told a colleague of mine that it would be fun to have a cat... - let me repeat: informal conversation... certainly not a request - and guess what? two weeks later, his wife ( I didn't know she was a vet) had found a little kitty for us. Of course, this all happened without Tavo knowing anything, and me, unable to say no to my colleague who already had the cat at his condo... broke the news to my husband and promised that if he didn't like the cat, we could give her back (a small, tini tiny little lie).

But look at her... it took about 30 minutes at our place to be absolutely, positively sure... she was staying.
Milu's Top 3:

Things Milu likes the most:
1. Sleeping on our bed.
2. Sleeping on the carpet at the exact spot where the sun is coming in from the window.
3. And a new one... sleeping on the baby's crib. - I think she's decided all the fuzz in the nursery must have been for her. But of course... after all she IS the princess...

Things Milu likes the least:
1. Noise.
2. Crowds. - Not your concert type of gal either.
3. Duna.

Did you notice any coincidence???

Third: Duna
Duna was the result of one of those days when you "visit" the pet store to "look at the puppies"... People, I'm telling you... if you like dogs this is a very bad idea (Nobody agrees the most with that last statement than Milu). Has anyone ever seen an ugly golden retriever puppy??? What's there to "look" when you know they are all absolutely super cute? No exception.

So we walked out of the store with an un-named blondie who has tried to eat pretty much everything that has, for whatever reason, landed on our house floor. But I must say: She has NEVER gotten in trouble... seriously... NEVER...

Well... except that time when she kinda walked into the house with a little mud on her paws. Ooops.

Duna's Top 3:
Things Duna likes the most:
1. Me... (ha ha...)
2. Things she can shew on... and that is, as said before, pretty much everything.
3. Running at the off-leash park

and actually there is more than 3:
4. A good belly rub.
5. Snow.
6. Kids.
And I could go on and on...

Things Duna likes the least:
1. People playing with her tail.
and,
2. That moment in the morning when everybody leaves and she's by herself in the house.

Fourth: Luz.
I'll skip all the "introduction" and just go to my top three. I'm sure we'll get more and more acquainted with every post so no need for more.
Luz's Top 3:
Things Luz likes the most:
1. Shoes
2. Dancing.
3. Chocolate

(I think I fit the profile of a normal 33 year old woman right?)

Things Luz likes the least:
1. Cleaning up the house
2. Guanabana - Tropical fruit that everybody BUT me seems to love.
3. Paying my credit card bill

Oh well!!! that's our family. We're only missing our beautiful baby on the way. I'm sure our little Colombianito(a) will get more air time than a top three though!!

Until the next post!

Luz M.

Spanish vs. English... that was the question!!

Writing a blog has been on my mind for months now. I surely read and enjoy a lot of them, and I always envied those people who are ready to put out there, not only the great paragraphs of their lives but also their spelling mistakes... very literary statement on my part (I wow myself all the time : ) ... but you know what I mean...

Anyhow... talking about spelling mistakes; for those of you who haven't noticed (see little bar on your right), my first language is not English... so please bear with me if I make many of those above mentioned spelling errors. People, I do apologize in advance. And I promise we'll get back to the English theme later on...

So going back to writing a blog (or not), I runed out of reasons not to do it last week when even my husband, Gustavo (Tavo for future references) not only approved but also asked the question: why don't you write your own blog? hummm... and I always thought he was the one who would never want me to "disclose" our lives... so there you go... my first post.

However, when writing a blog or not; was no longer the question, I wondered: should I write it in English or Spanish?? And that my friends I must tell you... THAT was the REAL question!. I debated it in my head for days... of course it would be easier to do it in Spanish... it would be more true to my roots and the fact that we are, after all, adopting a Colombian child... it would most certainly be approved by la profesora Elvia (my Spanish teacher - yes my dear Fundacion Colegio UIS friends... I still remember her!) and by la Real Academia de la Lengua Espanola, and specially and most importantly... by my dad who I'm pretty sure will be very curious about this blog but doesn't read much English...

on the other hand...

Most of my friends in the US and Canada don't have a clue of Spanish, and most of my closest Colombian friends do read English. Also a piece of trivia... did you know that most blog readers do so in English? So you know what? La Profe Elvia won't know, I am now an internet "published" author looking for worldwide readers and finally, I'll have to rely on my mom to translate to my dad (besides, this might be an opportunity for my dad to revise his stand on learning a second language). English it was!.

So there you go everybody... this is how you create a blog post of basically... nothing! : )
But I do promise that I'll talk more about our adoption process... and our family (as it is and as how we expected to be). Is late now and I am a responsible working woman so I got to go. I do want to add a comment regarding the pic above. This is a very important member of our household. Duna. (Spanish word of the day: Duna - Sand Dune)

Until next post.

LuzM.

PS. For those of you who know little about Colombia, check out the videos of "Colombia is Passion" at the end of the blog.