Meeting Tut

Two years ago, Katie and I started the adoption process. Today, we met our son for the first time -- on Father's Day. :)

I am emotionally spent, but this has truly been a very special day. A couple thoughts...

God has a sense of humor:

1) Tut (his nickname is pronounced similar to "taught") talks all the time, is extroverted and independent. He fills a room with life. Katie and I are reserved and introverted, which is going to make raising him an adventure. Did I mention he talks a lot? :)

2) I was initiated as a parent on our way to visit Tut's foster family when he peed all over my lap while napping. Anybody who knows me is laughing right now, since I have a bit of a phobia of body fluids. I took it all in stride.

It's hard to describe all I felt today without using cliches so, instead, I offer this quote from the classic "Frankenstein."

"The immense mountains and precipices that overhung me on every side, the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and the dashing of the waterfalls around spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotence 

-- and I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, here displayed in their most terrific guise."

The author describes the moment described above as sublime, and it's the only word I can think of to describe a moment like this. It's that combination of fear and awe, which humbles and at the same time exalts us.

While it was the awesome power of raw nature that inspired Dr. Frankenstein's fear of the creator/ruler of the "elements," in our case, it's the miraculous knitting together of a family, which fills me with fear and awe. It's humbling and exalting. Above all, it declares the glory of God. At moments like this, it's hard to fear any being less almighty than the one who adopted us.

With that I turn the post over to Katie...

I will be less poetic and with more pictures. :) We started the day after breakfast by waiting in the lobby with the other two families. There is another Holt family and one from Norway. Once Pat, the main social worker, arrived we headed up to the room of one of the families. We got some updated information on our kids, pictures of the birth family and some other information about the week. One surprise was that our visa interview is going to be on Friday instead of Thursday. Since we aren't leaving until Wednesday evening, we shouldn't have to move our flights. I also don't think it will affect our trip to the beach. We will just get there later in the day than we had planned. During this time,  Pat got a call that the kids wouldn't arrive until 11 because their foster families houses are so far away. We had plenty of time to talk and she told us about each of our kids. Tut is very outgoing and active. She was definitely right about that!

After a while she got a call that they were there. We all kinda set up shop in different parts of the room and soon they came in the door!

Chat was first and soon after he saw us and realized who we were, he started crying.

We sat down with him and his social worker and got out a little tub of play dough and a truck. It didn't take too long before he stopped crying and played with us. He is a little ball of energy! He is the smallest and I think the youngest, but he talks the most and moves the most. Consequently, I didn't get many clear pictures. :) We got a lot of video though.

He loves to play and seemed happy to play with us after he stopped crying.

After we played for a while and got play dough everywhere, we went down to lunch.

He sat in a high chair and let me feed him for part of the meal. He was able to feed himself pretty well too.

While sitting in the high chair, he managed to almost hang himself under the arm of the chair and get his leg stuck while sitting backwards in it. He got full pretty quickly and only played with the food after that. He tends to stick stuff in his mouth and spit it back out sometimes before eating it.

After he was done, he wanted to see the fish. He really liked them because afterwards he kept asking to see them again. 

We went up to our room and the social worker thought we should play because he was too excited to sleep. She said she is glad we are young because Tut is so active. He enjoyed playing on the bed. The first thing he asked when he marched into our room was, where can I play? He seems to be part infant and part toddler, he talks constantly and runs everywhere but he also loves to stick things in his mouth, even chewing on my necklace. :)

On the ride to the foster family's house, he did fall asleep but only after repeatedly commenting on the large amount of houses in the city. He just kept talking until he laid back on Robby and fell asleep. The foster mom told us that he usually talks himself to sleep. :)

This is our first family picture because he doesn't sit still unless he is asleep. :) We were the last house on the trip, so we didn't have a very long time there. Several of the kids and other family members turned out to see us.

We had a good visit with them and they gave us a lot of Tut's stuff while we were there, including several snacks that he likes. :) It was obvious how much they love him and will miss him. I managed to keep from crying, but I did tear up when the foster mom did. They are all very concerned for Tut's health because he gets sick a lot and I think it was comforting to be able to tell them that there are a lot of doctors in my family. :)

I didn't get a picture, but the foster mom started crying when she saw the necklace we had made with Tut's picture and the picture of her previous foster son. Jessica, it was a big hit! I can see how important it is to send pictures and write letters to them regularly. They will really miss him.

I think all of our pictures have someone not looking at the camera. The little boy is Champ, Tut's foster cousin and best friend. The other two women are his foster aunt and foster grandmother.

I'm glad we got some pictures together! When we left, Tut started crying a bit. I'm not sure if he was sad we were leaving or if he thought he was coming with us.

We are in for a very busy time with Tut and the plane ride home will be interesting. Nonetheless, I already miss the little tornado. He will definitely bring a lot of life into our home! Tomorrow we all go shopping!