Playing in the garden

Just a quick one today with some clips from our adventures in the garden today. It was another beautiful summer's day with 25 degrees and blue sky... maybe it will stay like this forever!

Olivia and Rikke started a little project to grow some plants from seeds. These ones are echinacea (purpur solhat). She loves to go around with her watering can and learned to play with the hose today... and spray Dad.

When we came home from shopping the other day Olivia invented a game where she ran around pointing the cucumber at us and saying "bee". Now we play it all the time...

Olivia is crazy about Chopin the cat and is even getting brave enough to pat her.

Jump Back to our first day together

Now that things are going well and we have the benefit of hindsight I wanted to share the experiences of our first meeting in some more detail and with the photos that the folks at the orphanage had taken. What a day. It is amazing to look back at these photos now...

 The carers had taken Waad (Olivia) and Boat (Janus) out the front of the orphanage to await our arrival. Janus now lives in Skandeborg just 15 min south of Aarhus so we will catch up again with Janus and his parents, Henrik and Dorthe soon...

This is our first photo together. When we drove up the kids were brought over and they said to Olivia "this is your Mum and Dad...". This is not Hollywood and there were no violins playing...

We were actually pretty anxious ourselves and we could see that Olivia was not keen to have contact with us. We tried to respect her space, but we also had to try and come in closer.

We basically got the cold shoulder... knowing her as we do now I think that it is "Mission Impossible" to get this type of meeting to go well.

Khun Toy took charge and tried to get things to roll...

We went inside and looked at the wall of all the kids that have been adopted abroad. I guess they talk to the kids about that these children have found new parents and they put her and Janus' photo there to impress upon them that they are also going to do this along with all the other kids...

Not sure if she really could understand this rather abstract reasoning though. "Especially with those two weirdos still following me. Who are they again?"

We had sent a pillow to her that had arrived some days earlier. It had a photo of us and a photo of Olivia on it and Khun Toy and the staff had been talking to her about this.

At this point Olivia is still not 100% convinced that this whole "Mum and Dad thing" is a good idea.

Then we were escorted into a little office to get to know one another on weird and stressful terms. Even I was uncomfortable, she must have been wanting to run out and get back to her friends...

We gave her a doll as a gift but this was not a hit. In fact she has never played with a doll or stuffed toy in the time we have known her. She is scared of them. Not sure if this is because of this experience now I think about it...

We have a little fluffy dog and a Mexican horse down in the bedroom that we have put in the far corner because she runs screaming from them.

Here her little body is shaking with fear and Rikke and I feel like we are doing more harm than good, but there is an expectation that we try...

So we left her finally in peace to have some lunch and have her nap. We were given a tour of the orphanage. It really is incredible what they do for the kids there.

Look who we ran into on the tour around! Olivia was very interested in us looking over and horsing about a bit.

But when we came closer she became shy again...

However, as we were leaving she kept looking out the door at us until we were gone.

The next day was tears as soon as we arrived. We thought that we might just have to get over the barrier so Aaron just picked her up and we went for a walk out into the courtyard... and Olivia screamed "mei, mei, mei" (No, no, no) and cried for about 15 min until Nook, her main carer, came and took her up.

Here a picture of Waad (Olivia) and Nook.

It was finally decided we would just "make a run for it" and we sat in the car and Nook passed our little girl into Aaron in the car. She screamed again and then after only 30 seconds or so she reached out for Rikke and came over to her. Another minute and she was quiet for the rest of the trip home... we pick up the story in the previous blog post


... and things have steadily been improving since!

First week home

Olivia has slowly been settling in in her new home. Things take time but we have all the time in the world at the moment. Olivia has actually made big steps and we see only steady progress with her security and expression during the time we have been home.

The first day was a bit cold and we had to rug up to play on the swing that grandpa and grandma Liz gave Olivia. We wonder if it is the most clothing she has ever had on in her life!

Then a day later... the summer came! With mid-20 temperatures every day we have been playing in the garden every day and without the normal layers of clothing she is going to become all to familiar with as the year progresses. 

 

Having both of us at home is pure luxury but also quite practical as Olivia is still rather unsure of herself and usually needs to check in with Mum every couple of minutes or so. Big steps have been made here though, as she is becoming familiar with her home and especially the garden, she makes many little expeditions off by herself or with Dad.

If there is one thing we are good at growing in the garden it is dandelions and Olivia loves to get us to blow the seeds for her...

She has even started to count... "doe, dee" for one, two, three.

We love running in the backyard playing chasing games.

You can see here that it is also going well with getting comfortable with Dad. This morning Aaron and Olivia even went for a run with the baby jogger for 20 min, giving Rikke the chance to have a shower in peace for once...

Olivia loves listening to music and dancing with us. Here you can see the current direction her musical tastes are developing in... ROCK!!!

 Lastly a highlight film for the hardcore Olivia blog fans... we have taken probably a couple of hundred photo so there are plenty more where these came from!!

Welcome home

It was a late departure from Bangkok and we kept Olivia awake by driving around in the stroller. She likes to just sit there and look around and occasionally get our attention to point something out. We wandered around in the departure area and came across another plane that was departing for Brisbane 10 min before our departure and we considered to try and sneak onto the plane...

Olivia finally fell asleep about 30 min before take off and did not wake up, even with all the bustle getting into the plane, then slept for about 6 hours. So somewhere over the Caspian Sea we started the 4 hour peek-a-boo and blocks marathon and Olivia also found some time to talk to her old friend from the orphanage, Janus, who was taking the flight home with his Mum and Dad, Dorthe and Henrik. She was chatting away and then pointing over at him and saying "boat" (his Thai name) after they went back to their seat so they will be good mates here in DK. 

The last hour all of our positive parenting skills came to the fore and we just kept feeding her lollies and chocolate and she was happy until landing. She was actually fantastic for the whole way. So much noise and other faces and disturbance and she just kept being happy. I hope that she has a natural tolerance for long distance flights because she is going to be taking several to Aussieland in the coming years...

We were greeted in Copenhagen airport in typical Danish style with flags and smiles, by Mormor and Morfar (Grandma and Grandad Meyer) and Uncle John and Aunt Aase.

The three girls together.

Mormor and Morfar drove us back to Aarhus (THANKS!). We even met Lady Gaga at our lunch stop...

At home we were again greeted with flags.

This time by Moster Anne Mette and Onkel Michael (Aunt and Uncle), Olivia's  cousins Carl Emil and Laurits, Inge and Steen and Olivia's new friend, Ditte.

Then it was time to explore her new home. In her room, she went straight for the swing but we have not rigged it up properly yet...

Olivia liked her chair beside Dad's reading chair. Maybe she will also be a reader... (I hope!)

Happy Birthday Olivia!

Just some quick photos from Olivia's birthday before we head off to the airport.

As usual we spent the morning in the pool and at this hotel the wading pool was just the right depth for Olivia to walk around. She even wanted to play a bit with Dad, on the condition that she could go back to Mum every now and again. Fun!

After nap we went to a lovely little cafe and had birthday cake. It was a beautiful garden packed with orchids and other flowers.

Now it is time to go. See you next time Thailand.. see you soon, Denmark!

Signing on the dotted line

Today was a big day for us: we became Olivia's legal guardians.

We braved the stifling heat of Bangkok to attend the interview with the Thai Family Ministry's board of review. We waited for a bit over an hour together with a probably 10-15 other families who were there for the same reason. Our contact person, Khun Toy, was again fabulous and made sure that everything went well and even found another office (of someone she knows there) for us to wait where there was some air conditioning.

The interview was a formal affair with a panel of about 8 people from different professions, bureaucrats, doctors, nurses, school teachers and the like. They called us Dr. Saunders and Dr. Meyer the whole time so it was difficult to stay serious... They asked about our path to adoption, our reasons for choosing Thailand, and about our plans for Olivia's future etc. We did not experience it as an inquisition, but neither did we feel that they treated the interview as a mere formality. None the less after only 10-15 min they approved our case. I think that the Thai system is very good in that they make a big effort to ensure the safety and future of the children in their new home.

Then Khun Toy drove us to the Danish Embassy - together with Dorthe, Henrik and their little Janus - to get the kid's immigration papers sorted - this was a mere formality but it still took some time. Then by the time we made it back to the hotel we all exhausted and Olivia was totally past it. We had to run our first emergency sleep routine with me doing laps of the apartment with her in the stroller screaming until she calmed down. It did not take too long actually and as the "normal" routine has been shot to pieces the past couple of days she has actually been a very tough girl.

Tomorrow it is rest day and then the big trip home. We are flying 0:30 (3:30 Bris. 19:30 DK) from Bangkok and land in Copenhagen 6:30 (14:30 in Brisbane). We have fingers and everything else crossed that Olivia sleeps most of the way...

We will miss Thailand: the warmth, the mangos, the tropical thunderstorms in the evening, the food, the fascinating language and the Thai people... but we are ready to go home!

Bangkok arrival

We have arrived well in Bangkok and checked into a huge executive suite at the 30th floor in the heart of the city (paying less than we would have paid at a backpacker's hostel in DK or Australia, by the way). We shared a minibus with the other Danish family (Henrik and Dorthe from Skanderborg) going from Jomtien to Bangkok.

Henrik and Dorthe have picked up their son Janus at Pattaya Orphanage. It was great to see them again, and I think it was a slight surprise for the kids to see each other. Actually, Olivia slept for most of the drive, so she'll have to meet Janus again properly tomorrow when we're together in the waiting room for the interview (for an unspecified number of hours..).

We have placed a pea under the bed to see how she sleeps tonight...

We had been wondering how Olivia would respond to packing up in the apartment in Jomtien and arriving in busy Bangkok. But she is surprisingly comfortable, and immediately ran around to check out the rooms when we arrived. We took the stroller out for a walk on the busy streets to do some shopping, and she actually seemed excited to watch the crowded streets safely from the stroller, pointing in all directions to show us this and that (most of the time we had no idea what, but of course pretended to be very interested...).

We noticed that she was particularly keen on showing Dad what she was looking at, and she has many times sought Aaron's interaction when playing. I have no doubt that these two will be best mates very soon. Tonight she said goodnight blowing kisses to him and reached out to touch his hand when he blew kisses back.