A week from tomorrow we will all be on the first of our three flights en route to Shymkent. Around the house it certainly feels as if we are preparing for the holidays as the UPS truck comes almost daily now delivering the latest finds from Amazon and every corner of the house has some sort of specific pile or another. As Tougy heads off to school or to sleep, we elves get down to the business of planning, procuring, sorting, and stuffing.

Like so many other things, the amount of time required to get ready is just greater the amount of time you have, regardless of how much time you have. In this case we have two weeks, and while we certainly are not running around half crazed yet, we know that that moment will hit us.

The new money is ordered, the visa applications sent off, the tickets purchased, and the dog/house sitters arranged. That is the easy part.

Somewhere after the mind frees of all the factual and concrete things we can check off, comes a flood of emotional and non-tangible things to ponder, reflect upon, consider and 'prepare' for, and this is the hard part. Packing a bag is easy. Getting through that first 24 hours in country takes more than having selected the right book or having brought the perfect jacket.

I know from our first adoption that sitting in that first plane seat and putting on that seat belt in preparation for take off is a real moment of truth. At that point, the physical part of getting ready is in the past and what lies ahead are all the emotional roller-coasters that are part of that special package known as adoption.

It is not a complete surprise (after all you got in line for this a year or so ago), it is just that there is no norm in terms of what you will experience. There is no one way of describing what it means to adopt or how it will alter your reality. No amount of reading, discussing, or anything else you can do ahead of time will adequately prepare you for what lies ahead in those first hours and days.

Just as I can't truly imagine what it must feel like to step upon the moon, so too can I not imagine holding another child as my own. That Tougy will soon be a big sister will affect all of our lives in ways we cannot predict, and while we are all talking excitedly about it now, we realize that the reality will involve both laughter and tears.

Will Bobek be a boy or a girl? WIll Bobek look more like Tougy or more like KJ? Where upon the 6-18 month-old timeframe written into our homestudy will Bobek fall when we meet? What history and background might we have about Bobek's beginnings? Where will Bobek be developmentally? These are all questions that we will walk into the Baby House in Shymkent, Kazakhstan on Monday 02 November wondering. Hopefully by the end of that day, we will know most of the answers.

We are set to fly out the evening of the 30th from Boston bound for Amsterdam, then Almaty on KLM. This will make the 3rd such trip we have made. The first saw us return a few days later without a child in July 2007, The second time we flew home with Tougy on Christmas Day 2007. As for the third, we will just have to hold our breath and see. At this point, we have tickets to fly home Christmas Day 2009. Let's hope that we don't have to change that too dramatically.

Take Care.