7 days and counting!

It's late but my mind is racing so I'll write a bit.

We leave on 02/29 for Lativa. It's really happening! Nauris (10) Dite (9) and Alekss (5) will join our family in as little as 8 or 9 days. They won't be just ideas. They won't be just an entry on a website. They won't be just pictures. They will be people, children, that become our responsibility to love and care for.

It honestly seems entirely surreal. We will go from parents of 2 to parents of 5? How the hell does that happen? Yes, yes I know what we've done to make this happen, it just doesn't seem possible. It's feels like we are doing something insane. Like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. It's a crazy thing to do. We are doing it though and happy to be. I asked Wendy this morning  but I provided the answers. "Are we ready? No. Are we going to be? No. Are we doing it anyway? Hell yes!"

I'm  feeling melancholy about it. I feel bad for them. We've had so much good fortune, even with some of the terrible things that have happened in the last few years. The pressure to be a perfect parent is crushing. I'm not getting cold feet, but perhaps the enormity of it all is really settling in. 

How am I supposed to love these strangers? Children I don't know? I just answered my own question though. Well first, get to know them stupid. **smack** That seems like a reasonable starting point.

I was dumbstruck tonight by one question. How do I introduce myself? "Hi! I'm your new Dad!"
That seems a little trite. "Kids, I am your father" (mechanical breathing) That seems creepy and prone to having them scream "Noooo that's impossible" and dropping down the nearest bottomless shaft.
Wendy suggested "I am very happy to meet you." A wise choice of words from an increasingly wise woman. Perhaps I'm just noticing it. My only concern with that is, it seems rather formal and somewhat inadequate. I pride myself on always knowing what to say, always. Teaching, training, parenting, arguing, drinking I know what to say. (usually I can't shuttup) This though. I've got no idea what to say. (let alone how to say it) "Hello, we are a family who got the wild idea to adopt a handful more of kids for reasons we can't really explain and guess what you're it?" Not only is that long it's just not what we should say.

I can't imagine how excited, scared and generally freaked out they are either. It will work out, of that I am confident. Nothing to do but get stuck in and ride the waves. Perhaps I'll know what to say and do when I meet them. I hope so.


I'll be writing more as we leave and are in Latvia.