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| Cami and Ian waiting in the SWS waiting room |
Today we met Alex. After over two years of waiting, the day was finally here. It was a bit rough getting everyone up early, which is probably the first time we've had that problem since we've been in Seoul, but we managed to get on the subway and fight through the rush hour commuters to make it to our agency SWS, before 9am. The social worker had us watch a short promotional film about SWS and their mission and then we loaded into a van and headed to Alex's foster mother. It was snowing so the drive was a bit slow and Alex's foster mother lives in a hilly neighborhood, near the bottom of some steep roads. The driver wasn't comfortable driving down the roads and I wasn't comfortable with him trying so we walked down the road. Near the bottom of the road, near the bottom of the hill was Alex's foster mom with Alex strapped to her back in a carrier called a podaegi. I think she was more sure footed than all of us without babies on our backs.
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| Alex's foster mother with Alex on her back |
Our meeting went well. Alex didn't seem apprehensive about meeting us at all and enjoyed playing with the kids and laughed when we played peek a boo with him and picked him up and played with him. He had just gotten a cold so his nose was runny and that grossed out the kids a bit when he sneezed out some boogers. Oh, how life is going to change for us all! Alex seems pretty easy going and good natured. He has been walking for a few months and is quite mobile and likes to move around. The foster mother set out some oranges and cookies for a snack and he loved to grab the food and shove it in his mouth. He still takes a bottle and if we got the translation right he wakes up to eat twice during the evening. I hope we misunderstood that answer.
So I know you're probably wondering about pictures of Alex. The agency has requested that pictures are not posted publicly until the adoption is final. So, we can't put them on the blog since this is available to anyone. However, if you would like to see some pictures, send Dana or I an email and we'll send you a private link to view some pictures.
After we returned to SWS, we got on the subway and headed back to our new favorite restaurant, a little gimbap and noodle place at Seoul Station subway exit #9. We ordered 6 rolls of gimbap and everyone ate their fill.
Since it was cold and snowy out and everyone was worn out from getting back from Jeju and then meeting Alex, we had a low key afternoon in our hotel room. The kids and I went swimming while Dana organized our luggage. Originally, we were going to transfer to the SWS guest house on Saturday morning, but a friend gifted us some additional Hilton points so we decided to extend our stay until Monday morning so we wouldn't have to move again so quickly. As Monday is the day we meet Ben and Cami's foster parents and get Alex, there wasn't going to much time to do any sightseeing so moving our transfer to the SWS guest house on Monday just made good sense. Plus, the packing and repacking gets old and the Hilton has been such a nice treat that it's hard to leave. So we'll be here for the weekend and then Monday our life will change forever.
