Happy Family Day, Daniel!

Three years ago today, we met Daniel for the first time.  We walked into our hotel, about half an hour before we were supposed to meet our guide/translator, hoping we could get into our room and get Esther down for a much-needed nap before our son arrived.  And then I looked over to the side of the lobby, and there he was.  It didn't seem quite right to pretend I hadn't seen him (though I was tempted!), so I walked over and nervously said hi to him and the orphanage staff member who had brought him.  He was friendly and anxious to make himself helpful, although he had some odd mannerisms (like randomly jumping up in the air and clapping his hands!).  I hoped the mannerisms were just nerves and I was right, as they were gone by the next morning, although some hyperactivity and the need to physically handle e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. in his environment were to linger for months.

Those are a few of my memories of the day.  At the time, of course, I could only guess at what Daniel might be thinking and feeling.  Three years later, he has told me some things about his experience of that day.

Whether to lessen his period of potential anxiety or to prevent the chance of his being devastated if we didn't come after all, the orphanage did not tell Daniel he was going to be adopted until June 11--two days before he became part of our family.  They had hinted to him three months before that that they might have a family for him, but he had been skeptical, and anyway, they had not said more about it.  So the news came as something of a shock!  It also meant he didn't get to say some of his good-byes, as many of his older friends were already working or studying elsewhere and were not at the orphanage during the two days when he knew he was going to be leaving.  He didn't get to visit foster family members who lived outside of the orphanage, either.  So he spent a lot of his first afternoon with us using QQ on our laptop, informing various friends and acquaintances that he was being adopted and going to America. 

I asked him recently if he had even wanted to be adopted at that point in his life.  He has told me about an episode when he was ten, when he was recording music at a mentor's house.  When it was time to return to the orphanage he started crying and insisted that he didn't want to go back.  His mentor asked why, and Daniel told him that he wanted a family of his own and didn't want to go back to his orphanage life.  (This was about the time the orphanage submitted his file for adoption; I have wondered if his mentor pushed them to do that.)  On the other hand, Daniel had also mentioned to me once that right before he found out he was to be adopted, he had been looking forward to being the new "top dog" among the kids at the orphanage, as many of the kids a few years older than he were leaving for jobs or further education.  So I suspected that the news that he was suddenly leaving for a new life complete with a set of strangers as his new family might not have been entirely welcome.  And I was right.  He came to us willingly, but he said that it was not necessarily his first choice, he "just do what I supposed to be do and leave the orphanage."  He told his friend that he didn't want to leave, but his friend pointed out that we had already come for him, so he couldn't not leave.  His friend encouraged him that he would have a better life with us, and Daniel agreed that it was likely so.  He says that by the time he met us he was feeling excited that he wouldn't have to go back to the orphanage.  He had seen a few kids sent back to the orphanage during the first 24 hours before the adoption was finalized because their new parents were overwhelmed by their behavior, so he worried a little bit about whether we would sign the paperwork the next day and he tried hard to be "good."

And while adoption is not for the faint of heart among parents, it is even more a leap off a cliff for kids!  Daniel is glad to be in a family, and we are very blessed that from the beginning he wanted to identify with us and to make this family thing work.  But he will tell you that coming to a new country is not easy.  The language has not been easy, the culture has not been easy, education has definitely not been easy, and even learning to be a "family kid" instead of an "orphanage kid" has had its challenges.  Sometimes--oftentimes--life here is just plain hard.  There are so many new things to learn, there are higher (and sometimes confusing) expectations to meet, and every new opportunity to succeed is also an opportunity to feel like a failure.  But, knowing what we know now, if we and he had the choice to make over again, we would choose to be family again in a heartbeat.

And while we gave him family, he has given us humor, passion and exuberance.

He can look normal, too.  I promise!

These pictures were taken at youth group activities last summer:

So, today, we celebrate.  We gave Daniel the choice of what to do, as we do with both kids on their Family Days.  At first he wanted to go shopping in another city to investigate possibilities for his birthday present.  But then he figured out what he wanted and we went ahead and got it while it was on sale, so shopping lost its appeal.  Then he got excited about the possibility of going to a Go-Kart track...but we couldn't find one in the area.  So we settled on eating good food and taking our periodic trip to another town to get Asian groceries.  We will do the shopping and the eating out at Red Robin tomorrow, while our extra kids are having their first long Mommy visit of their transition home.  Meanwhile, I made Daniel's favorite noodles for dinner, and he has been happily working on a plumbing project all evening.  It's unfortunate that, like every other home improvement we tackle, it turned out to be more complicated than expected.  He would probably be perfectly content to stay up till midnight working, but some of us are thinking of our beds!  However, it will be nice to have the faucet in the hall bathroom no longer dripping, and we are proud of Daniel's good plumbing skills and the pleasure he takes in problem-solving.

Happy Family Day, Daniel!  We're glad you're in our family.