the shoebox

Once the referral arrives, the major thing to do besides accept the match is to ship a 'shoebox sized' package to our daughter at her orphanage. There are some standard things that everyone sends, and there are always a few key items that you just HOPE they will keep with them. Here is what is in Mae's shoebox:

*2 disposable cameras with instructions in Mandarin (2 in case 1 breaks)
*a white baby cap
*a set of plastic keys
*the pink bunny
*THE outfit (in pic)
*a squishy baby photo album with pics of us & names labeled in Mandarin

The pink ladybug outfit was the very first item I ever purchased, right after our application was accepted by our agency. I had been mulling over which outfit to send, especially since there is no guarentee you will ever see any of those items again (and it is recommended that you duplicate the stuffed animal and toy). I can't even imagine how surreal it would be to arrive ready to receive our daughter and see her in her own outfit! It happens sometimes, but not often, so we'll just have to see what happens. There should be another batch of referrals coming out before Chinese New Year (which is January 29th this year) and then the NEXT batch will be ours.