So, like, when Kim wrote "Jeremy will post more later," she put me on the hook to come up with something in short order. Fortunately that's not too hard.
It is so good to be home. Going to get Jonathan was the adventure of a lifetime! Still, when I woke up at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning and realized I was hungry, and then realized that I could just get up and go into my own kitchen and eat a bowl of cereal ... was that ever nice!
I suppose I should try to fill in the 48 hour or so gap that covers the last bit of our travels. But there's not a whole lot to say: train, taxi, "Wow. Hong Kong is huge! I wonder if our breakable souvenirs will survive this taxi ride?" Hotel, eat, sleep, fourteen hours on a plane, HOME!
Our homecoming was wonderful. It started out with a long and not-so-wonderful immigration line at the Newark, NJ Airport, followed by an immigration officer who didn't know quite what to do with us.
But all that melted away when we were greeted by Mom-mom, Pop-pop, Aunt Suzy, Uncle John, Nephew Andrew and Cousin Lauren and ... KIDS! What a joyful feeling it was to hug and hold Amanda, Tyler, Jordan and Ben and to introduce them to their new brother.
We came home to a cleaned and decorated house (thank you Laura, Gwen and Denise!) and a small feast. I was worried that Jonathan Futing might be overwhelmed by it all. But once again he proved to be a resilient little boy. I think he was just grateful to be able to get down and romp around in the play-room here and his eyes lit up when he saw all the toy cars.
I have absolutely no frame of reference for this experience, but I think we're all adjusting to our new family pretty well. I fully expected that by now there would have been either a melt-down or a knock-down drag-out fight over some toy or another. Instead all is quiet. I even observed at least one instance of (gasp!) sharing.
Saturday night as we were getting ready for bed Ben said to Kim with a smile: "My Mom and Dad came home." In spite of our consistent and repeated attempts to convey to our children that we really were coming back (Kim, Mom-mom, and I all had our part in that) we wonder how much of this "coming back" business his four-year-old mind could handle. Two weeks to a four year old is a very long time. I'm happy to report that Ben is doing well. I'm hearing "Daddy, play with me!" quite a bit, and I am doing my best to give him (and the other children) extra dosages of Daddy time these days I am home from work.
So now we are into a season of firsts. Our first meals together; our first car trips (where will everyone sit?); our first walk around the block as a family of seven!
To give you a feel for the pace of things around here, I started this post at about 7:30 this morning, and it is now 10:03 PM. And Kim just remembered to run outside and get today's mail.
A little here, a little there, we’ll get the job done. In fact, I think that's good for tonight ...
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I remember those first days home so vividly. Each child trying to find his or her new place in the family. The slow and easy melting into one cohesive family.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful season to bring Jonathan home. I hope that you have a very joyous Thanksgiving celebration. I think both our families have much to be thankful for this year.