Entries from April 2008 ↓

Bloggers may find this post interesting (or not). It may also be interesting to some of our other readers, but for others of you, it’ll just be boring.

Back in mid-January, we moved our blog from Typepad to a Wordpress-powered site (hosted at Dreamhost), which we wrote about here.

Wordpress updated their software earlier this week, so in the near future, we will be upgrading to the new version (2.5). Actually, if it wasn’t for dissertation work this week, it would’ve already been done!

Normally, we wouldn’t even mention the upgrade (you may not notice much difference), but we are for a couple reasons …

1. This will be our first upgrade, so we’re not exactly sure how it will go.
2. Also, we may be changing the way we post photos/images on the blog, which may take us some time to get that part of the process working properly.

We don’t expect any real downtime for the blog; the actual upgrade should be fairly easy (Dreamhost has a one-click installer, so the actual upgrade shouldn’t take very long).

But changing the way our blog handles photos will be a chore.

Bottom-line: The blog *should* be available (barring complications), but the photos may not appear until we get the new process sorted out.

When will the upgrade take place? It depends on dissertation work, Ethan’s sleep schedule, and my energy level. I should be able to do it sometime after we mail our defense drafts on Monday (with God’s help!), if not before. Unless I decide to wait for the release of 2.5.1 to fix the bugs found in 2.5.
Well, for what it’s worth, we’re very pleased with Wordpress and we’re looking forward to checking out version 2.5, which looks to be a pretty significant upgrade.

Seven weeks ago yesterday, we received Ethan from the foster family and the adoption agency in Seoul, Korea. It’s been quite a ride so far. We thought we’d share an update on how Ethan is doing.

Today, Ethan made his second trip to the pediatrician since we’ve been home. It was a good doctor visit, except for the two shots/immunizations Ethan received.

Interestingly, the information given to us about Ethan’s routine in Korea has been no help to us. His routine here is completely different, and all for the better, really. In Korea, he was going to bed late and getting up late. He was also getting up for a bottle once or twice a night. And, he was taking three short 20 to 30-minute naps every day.

Here, once he made the time zone adjustment has been going to sleep around 8:30 pm and getting up about 11 hours later. And for about the last 5 weeks, he has been sleeping straight through the night!

Ethan normally takes 2 naps a day — late morning (about 3 hours after he gets up in the morning) and late afternoon (about 4 hours after getting up from his morning nap).

At 7 weeks, Ethan is doing very well.

On Friday, we received our second round of edits from the editor at Asbury. And just like the last time (Seeing Red), there’s a lot of red marks on the pages of our drafts!

The edited drafts came about a week late, leaving us only a week to return three cleaned up copies to the faculty members of our dissertation teams, so the rest of this week will be a bit stressful (but also exciting, knowing that the finish line for this part of our journey is getting closer!).

Thankfully, we’re working our way through the list of remaining tasks, which we posted earlier. Basically, after making the revisions in the next few days, it’ll just be a matter of getting ready for defenses (see Defenses Scheduled!), then making any changes recommended by our team members. Then at last, one final edit by the editor and one last round of red marks to plow our way through.

It’s funny. Our mentor describes both of our writing as clear and clean (in terms of grammar). Man, if our writing is clean, I’d hate to see our edits if our writing wasn’t clean!

As we move closer to the end of our parental leave (our first Sunday back will be April 20), we are becoming more intentional about preparing Ethan for our transition back to work.

At the top of the list is the Sunday morning routine (the weekday routine will probably get worked out as we go along). For quite a while, we’ve been thinking about the kind of morning that would be best for Ethan, especially since Joleen and I make stops at five different churches between us.

We’ve been asked a number times during the past year what we will do on Sundays. Some have wondered if we would take turns dragging Ethan along on our “circuits.” Truth is, we’ve never seriously considered that, thinking that wouldn’t be good for Ethan. We used to think that wouldn’t give Ethan enough consistency; while that’s still true, now we just think that would be way too tiring — for all of us!

So, here’s the plan …

Joleen will drop Ethan off at a neighbor’s home, on her way to her first service. Joann and Dick will watch Ethan, then take him to Sunday school and worship at Faith Church, where Joleen will reconnect with Ethan at the end of the morning.

To prepare Ethan for that transition, we’ve taken a couple steps already. Dick and Joann spent part of an evening at our place, giving Ethan an opportunity to get to know them. Then, last night, we spent some time with Joann and Dick at their place to give Ethan a chance to become familiar with the place and the people with whom he will spend much of his Sunday mornings with.

Ethan’s preparation will probably include a few more steps: 1) another visit to Dick and Joann’s, 2) a trial run of dropping Ethan off at their place for a little while, and 3) sitting with Joann and Dick at Faith during our final Sunday off.

Time off on parental leave has gone by quickly (although we still have a couple weeks left). The ultimate purpose of this time off has been transition and adjustment — Ethan’s adjustment to a new culture, a new place, and a new family.

Overall, Ethan’s transition continues to go very well. His transition also includes our going back to work in a few weeks, and we want that part of the transition to be as smooth as possible, as well!