[JenRebekah]

Hello all! I need ideas!!! March third will be our FIRST GOTCHA DAY with our son!!! I want to start a tradition for all his gotcha days, and I want to make this one special! He will be three one week after his gotcha day! ANY IDEAS?

[Asha]

Congratulations! What a fun day!

How about starting him out on a collection that you can add to each year? We're adopting a girl so our choices are a little easier.

- a new charm representing the year for a special silver charm bracelet (eg. we'll get her a ballet slippers charm if she learned ballet that year or a soccer ball if that's what she was into)

- a new music box for her room -- we could have a special cabinet to put these in.

- a special box with a letter in it. I hope to write a letter from my heart each year.

Anything that'll be a keepsake, really. Have fun!

[sak9645]

1. It is always nice to remember the child's birth family on Family Day or Gotcha Day or whatever you call it in your household. I know a single Mom of a Chinese daughter who goes outdoors in the evening with her daughter on Family Day. The daughter tells her Mom what she wishes her birthparents knew about her and what she has been doing during the year -- like the fact that she is playing soccer or the fact that she is a good reader or the fact that she now has a baby sister. The Mom and daughter then release balloons and express the hope that the balloons will carry the information to the birth family.

2. We don't do it on Family Day, but on the Chinese Moon Festival, we sometimes do a variant of #1. My daughter from China and I go out at night and look at the moon. We talk about the fact that her birthparents can see the same moon. We tell the moon to let her birthparents know that she is alive and well in the U.S., and to thank them for letting us become a family.

3. Some families, when in the foreign country on their adoption trip, buy 18 or so little gifts, one of which will be given to the child on each Family Day until he/she is a grownup. If you haven't done that, perhaps you can find a shop selling Indian goods in your community or on-line and buy some small objects. One place to start is "Asia for Kids" online bookstore. It is fantastic in its selection of books, crafts, and so on suitable for both internationally adopted children and immigrant children whose parents want them to stay in touch with their culture. By the way, the store no longer focuses only on Asia, but has things for kids adopted from Russia, Guatemala, etc. While there are more "girly" things (like dolls or jewelry boxes) in most of these places, Asia for Kids does have things like stencils, coloring books, kites, and so on.

4. One thing I usually do on Family Day is to buy my daughter another adoption-related book, suited to her age and stage of interest. (She is eight years old now, and came home from China at 18.5 months of age.)

5. Try not to make your Family Day celebration similar to a birthday celebration, especially since your son's birthday is close at hand. Focus on the family and on adoption. Go out to an Indian restaurant, possibly taking some relatives if they live nearby. I know that people adopting from India don't generally travel in groups (or at all, in some cases), but you may want to get together with another family formed by adoption from India. With China adoption, families do travel in groups and often become close to their group members. Frequently, my daughter and I have Family Day dinner with one of the other single Moms in my group. We look at videos and photos from our adoption trip. Our entire group also holds an annual reunion -- a long weekend where the kids do interesting things, like trips to a zoo or planetarium or farm, do sleepovers if they're all brave enough, and generally hang out. Now that the kids are a little older, we generally hire a team of babysitters one night, so the kids can have "pizza and movie night" without us and the parents can go out for a grownup dinner and reminisce about our trip.

Sharon