Ok, anyone ready to give the middle name a try? Because this is the second name, all of the clues will be in pairs of two…
1. The name is a shortened version of a U.S. state. Apply a ROT13 cipher to the name, and it becomes the shortened version of another U.S. state that borders the first one.
2. The name is the same as a person who is on our favorite radio station. Rearrange the letters, and it’s the name of another person on the same station.
3. The name is contained within the name of someone who reads this blog. It is also contained within the name of someone else who reads this blog. (In both cases, the name is complete and in order within the other name – for example, xxxTODDxxx, not xxTxxDxDxOxx.)
4. The name is the same as an endangered language spoken by less than 50 people. The name is also the same as a declining (may soon be endangered) species of animal, in a language studied by Betsy in college.
5. Rearrange the letters of the name to find the name of a popular form of Arabic R&B music. Rearrange another way, and find the name of the band that put out one of my all-time favorite music videos.
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I know we’ve only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.
I’ve written somewhere around 6 posts and 40,000,000 words, and we’re through the first 1.5 days. While I’ll admit that I have a proclivity for long-windedness at times, and that might be artificially inflating the word count, it really did feel longer than just a few days. Each day had it’s own set of obstacles and adventures and weird experiences, and there’s just a lot to talk about. But let’s see if I can get through a little more time in this post…
On Saturday night, Gale mentioned something about meeting our parents when they were in town. As soon as they left that evening to go back to their hotel, we called both sets of parents and made last-minute plans for an afternoon potluck dinner at Betsy’s parents house.
At this point, I should once again mention how grateful we are for the graciousness of our parents. Betsy’s parents had about 18 hours, most of which was overnight, to prepare for a party of 11 people (including two rambunctious young boys) descending on their house. My parents broke pre-existing Sunday plans without a moment’s hesitation, explaining that this was far and away the most important thing they could be doing that afternoon. That level of support and love is going to be really helpful in the hard work of raising a child.
The next morning, we picked up Aria and her family and took them to church with us. We had to get Ethan to the airport by noon (he couldn’t stay for the full week, as he had school the next Monday), so we sat in the back of the church. I could see a few of our friends who know about our adoption goals looking at us with curious looks – they didn’t want to presume anything or ask questions that might be inappropriate, but I could tell they couldn’t wait to get more information about the situation. The service itself was nice with a good sermon about hospitality, which seemed relevant to a weekend in which we were expanding our family and opening our home, and Ethan was pleasantly surprised about how similar our church is to his.
We rushed out of the church immediately after communion, and got Ethan down to the airport. After saying goodbye (and taking Carter and Skyler for some extra laps around the escalators), we headed up north for a lunch in the park. The particular park we chose ended up being not the nicest one in town, but it has a playground and tables for lunch, and that’s all we needed.
After lunch, we headed up to Betsy’s parents. Betsy rode with Aria’s family, and I added Skyler to my car. We spent nearly the entire 30-minute drive discussing the “race” we were having with the other vehicle, and worrying that Betsy might have secret extra-fast routes that she never told me about, and how we could trick her into revealing her secrets while I hid under a pile of blankets, eavesdropping on the coversation, and what the winners of the race would get if they won, and so forth.
When we finally got there (having been beaten in the race by a couple of minutes), the boys were handed a big tub of toys that Betsy’s dad pulled out of storage, and they were in heaven. The boys also took to the dogs immediately, and Skyler spent a lot of time that day getting his face licked by Katie, one of Betsy’s parent’s Westie dogs.
Once they boys were occupied, that left the adults room to hang out and talk for a while. The afternoon was very mellow and relaxed – sitting around the living room, lots of little conversations between various groups, and just a chance for everyone to get to know each other. While I don’t necessarily remember any specific topics of conversation, it was just nice to get to hang out for a little while after the last few days of rushing and chaos. It was also nice to hear somethings repeated as our parents asked the same questions we had, helping us reinforce the things we’ve learned or hearing a slightly different take on an experience.
The next day, Betsy and I both went back to work, and it felt so weird – Betsy has been describing it as “we spent the last several days on Mars – and going back to Earth was so weird. Why are you guys still on Earth? Why are you pretending the world is the same as it has always been? Don’t you know that we’ve been on Mars?”
Aria’s family checked out of the hotel on Sunday, and moved over to a friend of Gale’s house for the remainder of the trip. Our plan on Monday was to go over there, have dinner, and then bring Aria back to our house to stay the night with just the three of us. However, when we got to Gale’s friend’s house, it was a comedy of errors going on the night – torrential rains outside, backed-up plumbing inside, furniture getting knocked over by the pets, kids who should be in the bathtub running naked through the house – and we were encouraged to take Aria back to our place now and scrap the dinner plans. We ended up grabbing a pizza on the way back and watched “The Jerk” (from which comes the quote that begins this post). Again, it was nice to have a bit of quiet time, and just relax.
