A Special Day

A year ago, almost to the day, we turned in our application to adopt a child... and today Jairo officially became a part of our family. To some extent, today was just a formality. For us, we became family when we first hugged and kissed him on January 25th... or when we first saw his picture... or when the idea of adopting a child from South America first entered our hearts 5 years ago. Formality or no, today is a day we will remember for the rest of our lives. We are so blessed that Jairo is our son.

While this day holds a lot of significance for us because we finalized the adoption process, what Jairo will remember most (at least for now) is that today was the first day he rode on an airplane! We had to fly to Guayaquil to finalize the paperwork, so Jairo was beside himself with excitement about this great adventure. He jumped out of his seat in the taxi when he saw all the airplanes lined up at the airport, and he couldn't stop staring at the planes from the window in the waiting area, especially when the planes were taking off.



Although he was excited to go on an airplane, he did have some anxieties that he shared with us prior to the trip -- first, that it would be "very windy" on the plane since it would be going so fast and be so high; and second, that he "might fall out" of the plane if his seat belt wasn't tight enough... oh, to see life through the eyes of a child! It came as no surprise to us that Jairo went right for the safety instructions on the plane immediately after we boarded... and within minutes, he was looking under his seat to ensure that the promised flotation device was securely in place (clearly this is something he inherited from his mother, who counts the rows to the nearest exit before every takeoff).



He was so fascinated with the take-off, and how small everything got as the plane rose higher.



But it only took him about 10 minutes to realize that there was nothing to worry about, and he could just sit back and enjoy the ride...sans wind.



One more little tidbit about the airplane experience -- on our way back from Guayaquil, one of the flight attendants invited Jairo to meet the pilots in the cockpit. For those of you keeping score, this means that Rebecca and I have taken about 500 flights with zero invites to the cockpit... and Jairo has been invited to the cockpit on 50% of all his flights.



Anyway, there wasn't a whole lot to our day in Guayaquil, except for more waiting, more questions to answer, and more papers to sign... something we've gotten very used to over the last year. We had a few hours of free time in the afternoon while we waited for our last document to be finalized, so we grabbed some lunch, played some video games, and paid a visit to the local iguana park.



And then the moment finally came. We headed back to the U.S. Consulate to pick up our last document. (Side note: We told Jairo that we had to go to the Embassy, which is called la embajada in Spanish, so today we got a good chuckle when he was telling everyone he was going to la empanada.) Because of the security at the Consulate, only one of us could go in, so I waited outside with Jairo while Rebecca went inside. Jairo and I again improvised some new games with the one thing that we had with us -- an eraser that he "bought" with the tickets he earned at the arcade. Everything from "guess which hand," "how far do you think the eraser will bounce off the wall," and "do you think I can hit the security guard's pistol with this eraser."

But there were two moments that will stick in my head forever. The first, and much more superficial, is when during a break in our games I looked over at Jairo, and he was going through the motion of a golf swing... I asked him what he was doing, and he told me that he was "practicing golf for when he will play with Papi and Abuelo" (this also proved to me that I "practice" my swing way too often).

The second moment was when I saw Rebecca walk out of the Consulate's office with our final paperwork. Similar to our wedding when I watched her walk down the aisle, time seemed to suddenly change to slow motion as she walked toward me... her beautiful smile, the unmistakable sparkle in her eyes, and the clear sense that our lives will somehow, once again, be so much better than we could have ever imagined.