The Long and Winding Road

"Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished:
If you're alive, it isn't..." --Richard Bach

Well, we are still alive, despite the worries that some of you have had. It has been a grueling, exhausting, fascinating, exciting and busy (busy, busy) month. We will have to bring you up-to-date in several installments, but here at least is the first.

We arrived home late on the night of April 5th, after a 32-hour journey involving three airplanes, four airports, layovers, long flight segments, and very tired kids and adults. Two kids who were so excited about being on the airplane for the first few hours were totally "over it" by the end of the trip, as you can imagine. The trip went amazingly well, I think, with a few meltdowns and tantrums but that isn't suprising. The hardest part was that, as we mentioned in an earlier post, these kids have few of the normal fears that most kids have--like being lost, or separated from Mom and Dad. So between Sam's running full-bore across the airport terminal because he thought it was funny, and Margarita's wandering away because she was curious about something, the layovers and airport waits were scary because we couldn't let go of them for a second. Margarita actually got lost inside the business-class lounge in Moscow, where we were waiting out our 5-hour layover; we couldn't be sure he hadn't somehow escaped to the outside concourse, so we called in airport security. (She was a few minutes later discovered in the lounge's men's restroom, washing her hair...!). We were really, really glad to get home. The homecoming was neat--Zachary was still up and he was so excited to meet his new sister and brother, and they were excited to meet him. The kids ran and screamed and checked each other out for about an hour, before everyone crashed. That, unfortunately, was the last night anyone had a decent night's sleep for the next week or 10 days....

The transition has been difficult for everyone. We experienced all the classic homecoming "symptoms" that we had read about internationally-adopted kids--sleep problems, eating problems, tantrums, hyperactivity. All of this while we were still incredibly jet-lagged from the 13-hour time difference. That first week was exhausting--we unfortunately had not arranged for permanent child care prior to our trip (not knowing exactly what we were going to need), and it was immediately clear that, for the time being, we needed a lot of help. My sister Diane, who had come from Venezuela to stay with Zachary during our travels, was wonderful and stayed several extra days while we found some temporary full-time child care. We were so tired and overwhelmed we couldn't even think or plan or see into the future at all. The kids were tearing around the house, opening every drawer, pulling everything out of closets and cabinets, pushing every available button (the TV, the clothes dryer, the telephone, etc. etc.). They were on sensory overload again, and in this new environment they were totally hyperactive for the first two weeks. Zachary finally figured out that these two weren't going home, and then the bickering began. Both Margarita and Zachary are used to being "top dog"--Zachary of course has been king of the roost around here for almost 5 years, and Margarita was the oldest in the orphanage and was used as another caretaker for the younger kids--so we expected the power struggles between those two. Poor Sam kind of gets the brunt of it all from his older siblings, but he's a pretty tough kid and, tiny as he is, stands up for himself pretty well.

So--all of that said--how are things now? Calming down nicely, we must say. We now have everyone in school, at least part-time. Margarita seemed so sharp and, really, bored at home, that we decided to enroll her in Kindergarten at the public elementary school 3 blocks away. And we found a 3-day-a-week preschool program for Sam at one of the nearby Catholic parish schools. (Zach has been in full-time preschool all year.) Then we have child care in the afternoons, including Saturday, so that Mom has help managing three kids and dinner, etc. The "nanny" also stays late two nights a week, so Mom and Papa can take a night off and go out or just watch a movie on their own. This arrangement is working fairly well, though mornings are still a two-man job, between getting everyone up and dressed and fed and to three different schools. In the summer, all three kids will continue to go to school, but probably just to two different schools, so we'll assess things again then to see if we need additional help in the mornings. At least we are not exhausted all the time and we have a little time for ourselves, time to think and talk and plan....

I'll try and post again in the next few days with some interesting antecdotes about this fascinating process of creating a family from two "halves", tell more about the personalities of these two children, and more about how Zachary is handling all of this. The top photo in this post is Easter Sunday, three days after we got home; other photos are just "hanging around" ones....

Love to all.