Happy birthday, baby!

Melkamu is 15 months old today--I can hardly believe we will be meeting him next week! And we got absolutely wonderful news today that we will have the chance to make the trip south to Hosanna and hopefully meet his birthmother.

I should not have opened that e-mail and looked at the PowerPoints at work. I am a sobbing, blubbery mess right now. But a happy sobbing, blubbery mess.

We are still working out the millions of details that need to be done before we leave, but we're working on some new ones right now. We've been looking for a loft bed for Patrick to free up space so the boys can share a room. I think we've found one, finally. It's quite a bit more expensive than what we'd figured, but it comes with a lower bunk that can be put aside for Melkamu when he's ready to be out of the crib. One of the things I like best about it is that it has stairs instead of a ladder, which seems quite a lot safer for little ones. And the stairs have drawers in them, which would be great for storage. So we'll hopefully order it this week. It won't get here until after we get back, but we can deal.

We've decided to change our carseat options as well. Patrick is of a height where he could easily use a belt-positioning booster, as he's just over 41", but he's a stick in weight--just barely 36 lbs. So in Jason's car, Patrick will be in a high-backed booster and Melkamu will be in a new Graco 5-point carseat; in my car, Melkamu will be in a Britax Marathon (that we own) and Patrick will be in the Graco 5-point carseat that can be used as a belt-positioning booster when he outgrows the harness (we already own this one). They will both be spending a lot more time in my car and we felt like these were the best options.

So many details, only EIGHT DAYS UNTIL WE LEAVE!!!