Thanksgiving Travel

Last week was a whirlwind of activity before we left for Max's great adventure. We finished school, the older kids worked late into Tuesday and Wednesday evenings to be finished with Thursday's and Friday's work and be home free for travel. We loaded up the van Thursday morning in our new/old mini-van and hit the road for Russellville, AR the first leg of our great tour. Max did so amazingly well I couldn't believe it! He is not much of a complainer and just generally goes with whatever is going on around him. I am sure that is part of the residual of life in an institution...lack of control. We ate McDonald's for lunch, which he loved the rest of us kind of endured, and then for dinner we were determined to find a Wendy's. We exited and drove past a McDonald's, with Max yelling "there it is I found it", but couldn't find a Wendy's. We got back on the interstate to go to the next exit and got caught in traffic...more like a parking lot. It took us 45 minutes to go about 12 miles. By the time we were caught Max was telling us how hungry he was. We were hungry too! "I huuungry momma". It was very sad, of course he wasn't starving to death but I was sad to make him wait. From the very back of the van Katie yells "let's just stop at McDonald's" REALLY Katie!!! Aren't you the one who protested McDonald's at the last exit? It would have been nice to know that 20 minutes ago! Of course her response was "I'm really hungry now!" I couldn't fault her too much although I could be rather annoyed.

We finally stopped and ate...at McDonald's...Max was thrilled! He kept cheering and saying "you did it Daddy, you found it!". It was super sweet. We rolled into the hotel a mere 10 1/2 hours after leaving Canton and were grateful to get out of the car. Of course the old adage "out of the frying pan into the fire" might have worked here because I think we all actually had more room in the van than we did in the hotel, plus we had to stick Emma in a bag and sneak her in. I know that's probably wrong to break the hotel rules by bringing in a dog, but she's small and quiet and couldn't very well sleep in the van. Max was so interested in Emma being in a bag he couldn't stop talking about it.

We drove the final leg of the first part of our trip on Friday and got to Chickasha in the early afternoon. As we pulled up to the house all of Max's questions were answered he finally understood we were actually driving to a real house to see Grandma and Grandpa. As Max generally is, he was a tiny reserved for the first few minutes and then he relaxed and started having a great time. He met his Uncle Steve and his family and had a great time throwing the ball around with his cousins. He played hard and fell asleep rather easily when bedtime came.

Sat and Sun were good days. We went shopping and played ball, watched movies and went to church. We visited the church Veldon's dad pastored for years and heard the new preacher, he was good, but he's no Johnny! Max sat on Grandpa's lap for part of the service and then made his way back to his Daddy. It brought tears to my eyes seeing my brown boy being loved on by his extended family. He adores both sets of grandparents and I can't wait for him to meet Aunt Jill on Tuesday.

As we are still in our first year of Max being home it's so easy to reflect back to what was going on a year ago as we waited. Last Thanksgiving was bitter sweet, we had a referral but were waiting on the Article 16, praying and hoping it would come the first part of Dec., of course it didn't come for 4 more months...had I known that at the time I would have been devastated. I remember to previous 2 Christmases and how much I love being with my family with nothing else going on, but how sad I was not to have our little boy home. For much of the wait for Max I guarded my heart. I wanted him home, loved him as much as I could from a far and grieved for the time we were missing, but for over a year I wouldn't call him by the American name we had chosen, nor would I decorate or prepare a room for him. I went back and forth on having his picture on my laptop as wallpaper, I didn't have a lot of pictures of him around the house. I didn't want a lot of reminders of him, I didn't want my heart to wrench all day everyday. I don't want to be dramatic or whine, but our life has seen it's share of heartache and disappointment, certainly not as much as some and possibly more than others, so I wasn't prepared to give my heart away to this child from the gate. We decided to walk through the process and be grateful for each day that brought us closer to having another son. By the time we had waited for our referral for almost 10 months I began to let my guard down and call him Max. Our SW had met with the Thai SW who assured her that everything was fine and all we had to do was wait. From there we were much more hopeful, albeit frustrated at an infuriating process, but we believed Max would eventually come home.

Now six months later we are home safe and sound. We are scheduled to finalize and things seem to be moving along nicely. By the end of the week Max will have met nearly everyone in our family and will be more firmly connected to his world. Next month he is being evaluated for Kindergarten. Part of me wants to give him another year to adjust and just be, but he is so very smart...at least we think he is, and he seems so interested in learning that I hate to hold him back if he would be bored with another year in preschool. These are hard decisions for parents to make. I struggled for months as to whether or not to send Allison to K when she was five, she was a young five and I wondered if she needed another year, she couldn't even spell her name! But the decision to send her was right, she is smart and does great in school. We'll just trust that we'll make the right decision for Max.

I am overwhelmed for all God has done for us and given us with our precious son. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to walk the road of orphan adoption and so amazed by the way God has provided for us every step of the way. We could not have imagined a year ago how wonderfully blessed we would be by this sweet, beautiful boy!