Preparing for the Big Day

James' first birthday is coming and we found a wonderful company that designs Tol invitations. The catch? You need to send pictures of the baby wearing their hanbok and they design the invite around the picture. On their website you see these great invitations with pictures of adorable babies dressed in hanboks and smiling to the camera. There are absolutely no pictures of angry babies crying in their hanbok.

You can tell what's coming, can't you?

We set out to Brookside Gardens this morning to take pictures of little James in his hanbok. His foster family gave this to us when we met them in Korea and we've been excited to see him wear it hoping we could send back pictures to them. They could then see he's doing well and also know that we're doing our best to maintain a cultural connection. Good feelings all around! Well, one out of two isn't bad, right?

It was a little bit warm when we got to the gardens so we decided to start indoors. In the lobby of the conservatory, we stripped James down to a onsie and loaded him into the enormous, and mostly pink, hanbok. He did look very cute but was almost unable to sit up due to the fabric smothering him. Several people stopped by to say that our daughter was very cute. Umm, no, it's a boy. However, one Korean couple introduced themselves and ooohh'd and aaaahhh'd over him. We had a nice chat as I was sweating jumping up and down trying to get some sort of smile out of James. I was also making crazy noises and singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" (his favorite) trying to get his attention. Not much worked but we did get one smiling picture out of the 25 or so we took. I think the smile was smothered under the sheer weight of the fabric...notice you don't see his hands in this picture and the red tie is supposed to go around him twice and tight (it doesn't).


We thought we'd take him outside for a bit to see if we could get some shots there. We found a beautiful spot by a fountain and tried to take some pictures. Note the terrific shot of almost the back of his head! The water proved to be too much of a distraction.



So we moved on , determined to get the right photo. One that shows his happy personality and shows off his beautiful hanbok. Who would have thought those things might be mutually exclusive?

Here is my favorite picture from the entire experience. Gee, I'm sure his foster family would be so pleased to know that we've been able to make James this happy:


And we're done here. Shortly after this photo there was a lot of crying (by all parties) and we threw in the towel.

At our car we were getting ready to strip off the dreaded outfit and another car pulled up next to us. An older woman jumped out and signaled to her husband to wait. She was from Korea and spoke very little English. She conveyed that they had been driving through the parking lot and suddenly saw the striped hanbok sleeves and told her husband to stop. She was SO excited to see a baby in a hanbok! She asked all about him and smiled and cooed to him in Korean. He ate it up and was his absolutely charming self. We talked about his upcoming Tol and she couldn't believe that two American parents would bother to do this for an adopted child. She was very touched and very sweet to us. I didn't bother to explain that most of the adoptive families we know are doing their best to incorporate Korean culture into their lives but it was nice to see how important it really is from her perspective. So finally some good feelings!

When we got home I called and made an appointment with a professional studio. It's not until the day before his party but I can live with that. I sent 1-2 pictures to the invitation lady to see if she can use them. If not, I'll buy packages of regular birthday party invitations and quit torturing myself (and my son).

Lauren