THE PLAN

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I bet you did not even know there was one, but here is the deal -

We have no idea how old this child will actually be. We requested a slighly older child (toddler), but in fact China does not necessarily pay any attention to your requests.

When deciding on the right child to match you with they will first look at getting you and the rest of the group from your agency children in the same geographic area (so we all travel together). Next they will look for similarities between child and prospective parent (facial, likes and dislikes). The LAST consideration seems to be the age and any other requests you make.

So - some parents get just about what they requested. And some get surprised by a child much older or younger than expected. Even after referral parents often are surprised when they actually meet their child to find the height and weight reported are WAY off (apparently kids get weighed with all their clothes on)

For this reasons we have not exactly bought a lot in preparation - a few footed sleepers in larger sizes and some baby Einstein videos, a couple small toys.

Crib or toddler bed? We don't know what she will need. When we get the referral we will then have an approximate idea of what to get.

I have lists, and we have fantastic consignment shops here. We will do some emergency power shopping. I am going to go "big" on sizes. If we get to China and we got sizes wrong no harm. We can pick up some cloths there and fix it later.

But I still need to find a lower child safe dresser.

In the meantime, I swore I would not post shopping tips. There are so many who are so much better than I at the whole shopping /preparation thing. But - well- we found some awfully cute ladybug stuff at Target. I might have to break my resolution.