Friday Flashback

Today is November 20, a day that is etched in my memory. It was a day of comfort of finally being at home and being a mommy. I felt like my new life could finally begin.

We had along journey from Vladivostok back to Russia and I don't have a lot of pictures to document it. Here are a few, though.

Here we are with the wonderful Irina at the airport in Vlad, before checking in for the first of 3 flights that would take us home.


Here is Henry and Nana peeking out the window before we took off on our first flight.


And here is Henry sleeping on the seat between me and Nana on the longest leg of our journey, the segment between Seoul and San Francisco.

Overall, Henry was a trooper on the flights. For the first segment (about 2 hours long), he fell asleep and they had a little bassinet that hooked to the wall in the bulkhead seat. However, being untrained as I was, I accidentally bumped his head while putting him in there (already asleep). This woke him up and that was the end of him being in the bassinet or sleeping for the rest of that segment.

For some reason, we had very little time between our connection in Seoul. We had to go through Security again, and we were concerned that we would miss our next flight. So we were pretty much running from the time we got off the first airplane until we finally sat down on the next. Henry was starving and I remember him gnawing on his Robeez shoes while he rode along in his stroller.

As soon as we got settled on the flight between Seoul and San Francisco, I asked the flight attendant to fill his bottle with warm water so he could eat. He gobbled that bottle down as if he hadn't eaten for days. I think he ate it so quickly, that a few minutes later, he vomited it all up...all over him and all over me! Fortunately, I was prepared with a few changes of outfits for him...not so much for me. However, I was wearing layers, so I removed my top layer and was in pretty good shape.

He slept off an on during that long flight. I don't remember exactly how long that flight lasted, but it was an overnight flight. However, we passed over the international date line coming home, so we arrived on the same evening that we left...even though the trip exceeded 24 hours.

As we landed in San Francisco and went through customs, Henry officially became a US Citizen. Unfortunately, the US Government doesn't allow cameras/picture-taking in that part of the airport, so I have nothing to share with you. San Francisco is where we parted paths with Nana. After customs, she went one direction for her flight to Chicago, and we went another for our flight to Houston. Henry and I freshened up a bit, ate a bagel and waited for that final leg that would take us HOME.

I don't remember much about that last flight. I don't think Henry slept, but he was quiet and content on my lap playing with the few toys and books that I had packed for him. When we arrived at the airport in Houston, Leslie was there waiting for us. Again, the details are a bit fuzzy, but it seems like it was late on a Saturday night. By this time, Henry was DONE. I buckled him into the car seat, which was a whole new experience for him and he was cranky the whole way home. The only thing that seemed to sooth him was for me to hum the theme to Batman. If I stopped, he started crying. So all of the way home, I hummed "na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na BATMAN" over and over and over. Whatever it took.

Based on the recommendation of my pediatrician, and with the help of my wonderful best friend, Leslie, we had an open house the following day. Now, you may ask why it was recommended by my pediatrician. In fact, I had decided that we would "nest" when we arrived home to allow us both to bond to each other and to allow ourselves to begin settling into a routine of becoming a family. I wanted to limit external stimulation and allow Henry and I to merely focus on each other. However, I had a bunch of close friends that were just so excited to meet my new son that I couldn't put them off. So we decided to go with the "big bang approach" and let them all meet immediately. Then, we could settle down and focus on bonding and attaching.

Again, I don't have a lot of pictures from that evening as we were all just enjoying each others' company. And I can't say enough how nice and comforting it was just to be home. Here are a few:

And Henry seemed to instantly bond with Hailey!

That rest of November continued to be a steady stream of firsts, documented below with some of the pictures I have:

Wearing a "hand-me-down" outfit from his cousin, playing with some of his new toys.

Taking his first bath at home...he wasn't a fan of baths when he first arrived home, now I can't get him out of the shower!


His first piano recital!


Hanging out in his high chair while I prepared the next meal.


Attending his first book-study, back when we met in people's homes.


Being sized for his first pair of "good shoes".


Attending his first meeting at the Kingdom Hall.


Playing in his first box...favorite toy. Having a kid around 24/7 was new for Dolly, too. She's not quite sure what to think.


Having his first doctor's appointment with the wonderful Dr. Singhal (adoptive mother herself and featured on Discovery's Adoption Stories)


And all tuckered out after that doctor's visit, that involved drawing several vials of blood for all kinds of testing.

Reviewing these pictures to put together this blog post brought back all kinds of memories and reminded me of things I had totally forgotten about.

What I haven't forgotten is how grateful I feel to get to be Henry's parent! Prospective Adoptive Parents go into the journey called adoption, not knowing what they are going to come out with on the other side. For me, I can honestly say I have no regrets. My journey to Henry is THE best thing I've done in my life. He has become my heart and soul. And as we celebrate 5 years of being HOME, I wouldn't change a thing. That boy is my life!

The Summer in Review...a Picture Parade

Since I have been so remiss in posting this summer, I thought I would provide a recap of our very busy summer using pictures I have of the different events.

First up, after finishing kindergarten, Henry teamed up with a couple of girls from our congregation to host a "Let's Get this Summer Started" swim party. A fun time was had by both the old and the young in attendance. We really had perfect weather and enjoyed the company of our dear friends from Austin. Here is Henry with his co-hostesses in front of the fabulous cake the other mom made.

In the month of June, while we had an extremely busy month, I don't have a lot of pictures to show for it. Here is a picture of the "girls" from the girls only trip I went on to Disney World. We're missing Tammy, as she was taking the picture.

Here are some pictures of Henry from our District Convention. Henry did great. Someone had sent me a kids version of a notebook for the program and Henry enjoyed following along. Of course, the highlight for him was the drama on Sunday. (A funny side story here: When I reminded Henry on Sunday morning that the drama would be that afternoon, he declared: "There's two kinds of drama. First, the one that is like a play like we will see today, and then there is the drama that I create when I am in a crabby mood." Yep, buddy, you got that right!)

Before Henry and I took off for our month in Chicago, Leslie wanted a special day for her and Henry. She arranged to take him to a special dinosaur exhibit. She knows a way to a boys heart. They had a great time.

So Henry and I headed off to Chicago for the month of July. The very first weekend we were there we realized our timing would coincide with another JW family that I have corresponded with via email. Another single mom with a great little boy from Kaz was going to be in the Chicago area and we were able to coordinate our schedules to enjoy dinner together at the Rainforest Cafe. And thus, another great friendship was born. Amanda, it was great to meet you and your mom and your wonderful little Bo. We sure enjoyed our evening with you and hated when it had to end. Here's a photo of the new friends:

We also got to spend the day with a friend of mine that I had lost touch with a couple of decades ago. It was wonderful to spend a day with her and her husband while visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo. We had a surprise encounter while we were there with Ms. Lori from PBS Kids.

After we got home from Chicago, we had three more weeks until school started. So Henry attended a summer camp hosted by the park district in the town that we live. He got to do a lot of fun things while he was here, like go to the movies, go to the Museum, go to the Kemah Boardwalk, swimming, and a lot of just hanging out and playing with other kids. Here he is headed off for his first day:

He also got to attend Jack's "First Day of School Party" at Jumpin Jacks. This is a big room filled with an inflatable jumpie, a HUGE inflatable slide, and an inflatable bungie race track. Again, a great time was had by all. Here is Henry, along with the Host with the Most, Jack!

Henry also managed to lose two more teeth, both on the bottom, this summer. Here is a shot with a nice goofy grin that highlights those new holes in his head:

And finally, to celebrate the end of summer and the start of school, we had a small gathering at Chuck E. Cheese with Henry's best friend, Jack and family. In case you hadn't noticed, we celebrate at the drop of a hat!!

Look for "First Day of School" pictures coming soon....

Wordless Wednesday

I have a sickie on my hands

Yep, my poor baby boy got sick over the weekend. At one point, his fever climbed to over 104 yesterday. I'm so grateful that he responded well to the tylenol that I gave him. So I will probably need to run him to the doctor today. It's been a long time since he has been this sick. He usually saves this up for when we are out of town.

His first winter home, he contracted RSV that landed us in a hospital for six days. That was while we were in the Chicago area for what was supposed to be a 4 day visit. I call that my Gilligan's Island trip to Chicago.

The very next winter, we went to Hot Springs over the holidays. There, we ended up in the ER and had to cut our trip short. The worst part of that was that we had driven for that vacation and had to make the drive home with an extremely cranky boy that required some kind of medicine every 2 hours.

Needless to say, after ending up at the hospital 2 years in a row, we decided to stay close to home for the next winter holidays. And, of course, had no issues.

Unfortunately, this weekend was our Circuit Assembly. We did get to go on Saturday, but had to miss the Sunday session. We'll see if we can make it up on another weekend.

During Henry's downtime, he has focused on watching the Star Wars series. Yesterday, we finished watching VI. We were also able to watch all of I and II. I had decided that the best way for him to watch them was the way that we all watched them. Therefore, we had started with IV (back when we were in North Dakota). We had also watched V while there. Since he seemed so taken with it all, we picked up the whole series at Target last week. Anyway, I was worried he'd be confused when we started back at I. I explained to him what we were doing and that the little boy Anakin would eventually grow up to become Darth Vader. He seemed to get it. I must say that I have been kind of enjoying watching the whole thing again, but fell asleep through a large part of II.

One last post about the SNOW

I thought I was done after I published my last post. But as we were leaving the pizza joint, the heavens opened and it started to snow. For all of the fun we've had in the snow this week, it never really snowed...we were just dealing with the snow that was already here.

I asked Henry if he wanted to play outside when we got home. It took several attempts for me to convince him that I wasn't joking and that he really could play outside. At first, the bigger kids didn't seem too interested, but once they got their gear on, they really enjoyed themselves as well. I figured the late romp in the snow would assist in a good night's sleep before hitting the road.

Here are a couple of pictures of the kids enjoying the downpour of snowflakes:

Family Time in Podunk

We have been enjoying our time here in North Dakota. Coming here is as good as going to a cabin in the middle of the woods. But it's even better in that we get to visit extended family.

During the days, we have little outside influences to entertain us. Therefore, our week has been consumed by playing games, doing art projects, baking and decorating cookies, watching movies, putting together puzzles, and playing video games. Oh, and how can I forget...cooking and EATING.

We have spent our evenings visiting with my grandmother. She is 88 years old and currently in pretty good health. She's had some scares over the last few years and there is more family strife than an 88 year old woman should have to deal with. But we found her alert and chatty and enjoyed our evenings with her. Here is a picture of her with the kids:

And here is a picture of 4 generations: Grandma, my dad, me and Henry.

There is a theater here in town, but it is only open Friday - Sunday. We all got extremely excited when we found out that the bowling alley would be open from 3 - 6 p.m. on Christmas Day. We arrived promptly at 3 and set up in two of the 8 lanes available. My aunt and her family arrived and took two more of the lanes...so our family hogged half the bowling alley for 2 of the three hours they were open. Here is a shot of most of the gang at the bowling alley:

The weather has improved and it actually reached up into the mid-20's today. The kids are outside now building a fort and a hill to slide down. I'm glad that Henry got to have the "winter experience". He has a great memory and thoughts of our time here this winter should carry us for a long time before we need to repeat the experience.

One of the movies that we watched this week was Star Wars. Henry had never seen it but Trevor had shared bits and pieces with him. So before the movie even started, the kids grabbed sections of the newspaper, and with a little help from some scotch tape and markers, fashioned their own light sabres. They then ran around the house pretending to cut off each others limbs. Nice, huh?

We are planning a mini-family get-together at the bar uptown tonight, our last night here. Apparently, the bar is the only place you can get a decent pizza. We've been assured that there is a room in the back that we can hang out in so that we aren't actually in the "bar". We've been packing all day...amazing how much stuff gets so strung out all over the place in such a short period of time. The goal is to head out in the morning. We're keeping a close eye on the weather and may wait until a bit later to actually leave, depending on what we find when we wake up.

Adventures into the SNOW

This is Henry's first real experience with snow. Each day, the kids have gotten all bundled up and trekked out to play in the snow. Here is a few pictures of them:

Of course, with the sub-zero weather, they can't spend very long out there. So many long hours have been spent over the last couple of days on indoor activities. Football was on the TV on Sunday and the boys rooted against Minnesota (because of their impact on allowing the Bears to make it into the playoffs).

Henry has mastered the iPhone and pretty much hogs whoever's he can get ahold of to play the various games that are loaded. He's also enjoying playing "buzz" on the playstation that is here. We searched and found the directions for a dice game that we used to play. We decided it was straight-forward enough that Henry could play on his own merits. He won, of course.

There have been board games, art projects, dice games, and several other activities that have kept the kids from going totally stir crazy. And the biggest hit has been the car track Uncle Lester brought that has some kind of "evil" ice trap in the middle.

Somehow, Henry seems to insert himself in the middle of everything that is happening. Here are some of the pictures from the indoor activities.

And the whole clan will be glued to the TV tonight watching Monday Night Football. Why? Cuz Da Bears are playing.

Stay tuned for additional updates throughout the week.

Podunk

Podunk: A small isolated town, region, or place that is regarded as unimportant.

Other than the connotation of "unimportant", that pretty much describes where we are spending the week.

We left at 5:30 a.m. on Friday morning, with the goal of reaching Kansas City, MO to meet Dwight and Belkis for dinner. The temperature gauge in the van read 63 degrees as we pulled away, but would reach a high of 68 by the time we reached Dallas. We made a pit stop there for some Starbucks. Henry had fallen back asleep after our departure and was now awake.

Soon, we reached the Oklahoma welcome center. This is a new state for Henry, so we stopped and snapped this picture:

We had determined that we would try to push through as much as possible, so we had packed a nice little booty of snacks to munch on for lunch. After a tasty lunch/snack of cheese, sausage, crackers and apples, Henry took an afternoon snooze:

We arrived in KC right on time and pulled into the parking lot just as Dwight and Belkis were walking in. They were walking hand in hand and giggling to themselves...the perfect picture of newlyweds (remember the posts from just a few months ago when we attended their wedding). Here is a picture I snapped of them after we enjoyed a lovely dinner at a local Mexican restaurant:

The next morning, we got going at 6:45 a.m. after enjoying a little breakfast at the hotel. We anticipated that the weather wasn't going to be as amicable as it had been on Friday, and it's a good thing.

Here is a picture I took with my phone as we drove down I-29 through either Northern Iowa or at some point in South Dakota. I don't really recall exactly when it was, but it looked pretty much the same all day long. It was not snowing on us, the but the wind was blowing hard and the snow drifted across the road, sometimes reducing the visibility to almost nothing.

Henry's favorite past time during the trip was to watch the thermometer display. He kept a very watchful eye on it and made regular announcements of changes. We watched it fall from the 68 degree high we had in Dallas down to -14 as we arrived at our final destination. Talk about culture shock!

We finally arrived around 8:30 p.m. (after stopping for dinner) and we were all very relieved to have arrived safe and sound. We were also extremely grateful that Uncle Donny had come to the house earlier in the day and turned on the heat and plowed/shoveled the driveway and walkways.

Now, all that was left was to wait for the cousins to arrive. They were on their own adventure driving for the Chicago area under blizzard conditions. Happily, they arrived about 90 minutes later, also safe and sound and grateful for the warm refuge awaiting them.