Happy Korean New Year | Adoption Update

새 해 복 많이 받으세요(saehae bok man-hi ba-deu saeyo)–Happy Korean New Year!

As Koreans spend the day celebrating the New Year, I find myself missing our little guy more & more! I’ve been researching different traditions and customs from the Korean New Year & have been thinking about how I will implement some of these in the future. I want Madden to have connections to his culture & I want to make celebrating his heritage a part of our traditions around our home!

If you’re interested in reading about how Koreans celebrate the New Year, you can find our more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_New_Year and here: http://www.ehow.com/how_2183673_celebrate-korean-new-years-traditions.html

My favorite part is Sebae: (taken from Wikipedia)
Sebae is a traditionally observed activity on Seolnal, and is filial-piety-oriented. Children wish their elders (grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents) a happy new year by performing one deep traditional bow (rites with more than one bow involved are usually for the dead) and the words saehae bok manhi badeuseyo (Hangul: 새해 복 많이 받으세요) which translates to please receive many blessings in the new year. Parents typically reward this gesture by giving their children new year’s money (usually in the form of crisp paper money) and offering words of wisdom, or deokdam. Historically, parents gave out rice cakes (ddeok) and fruit to their children instead

I really like taking the opportunity to offer words of wisdom to the kids & I’m sure they will like getting some money, too! 🙂

I’ve had a lot of people ask if we’ve heard any updates on Madden. We received our referral in mid-November and our acceptance paperwork was sent to Korea on December 9th. We are so in love with our little guy. He is so sweet and chubby…and has hair that stands straight up! Judging by the photos, he looks really big for being 5 months when the photo was taken. He is now 8 1/2 months old. He’ll turn one on May 17th…which is also Millie’s birthday! We haven’t heard any updates since the referral and I am really anxious for an update! I can’t wait to see some new photos on how much he has grown. This waiting game is sooooooo hard! I find myself having some down days and just really missing my little guy. I hate it that we are completely missing out on his babyhood. But, I keep telling myself that this is Madden’s time that he will get to connect with his culture and heritage…and he gets to celebrate things like the Korean New Year with his foster family! We are hoping that we will get to travel to Korea sometime this fall. We’ve been told to expect 10-12 months from referral until travel. Some people estimate that by the acceptance to Korea date…so we could be traveling anywhere from October-December. But, I’m very hopeful that it will be sooner!

I’ve chosen not to post his photos online until he gets home and he is ours. I want to protect him and just don’t feel comfortable sharing his sweet face online until he is home with us. However, if you see me out and about and want to see his sweet face, just ask! I’ll gladly pull out my Iphone and show you his beautiful photos! I’m one proud momma!

Sweet Madden…I hope you’ve had a wonderful time celebrating the New Year! We love you so very much & can’t wait until we get to kiss those chubby cheeks!