Six years ago today, I was feeling a little down as I took down the Christmas tree and stowed away the gifts from my baby shower. But with one little ring everything changed. Soon I was showering and putting on my best Concordia sweatshirt (please God let that have been a sign from you that one of my beloved children is going there) and some jeans, then waited for my six pound two ounce baby boy to come home. And home he came with his incredibly beautiful, intelligent self.
On our fourth gotcha day, I was in Vietnam enjoying Layla but I had this anxious feeling I just wanted to get home. One, because I just wanted to take Layla home before the Vietnamese government took her away from me. Two, because I missed my other two babies. And three, I just wanted us to start our real lives. Our real every day lives.
This morning I thought today was going to be special. I always think that of birthday, holidays, and gotcha days that somehow they will be different than the other days, but nope, it rarely happens. It definitely didn't happen this morning.
Jory wasn't listening. Oma was playing the martyr. Then I got a phone call from my friend, Mellany, so as I was making myself a sandwich and the troops descended like they had never seen food before. They used my distraction against me so when I looked down my sandwich was a bite away from being finished and my coke was at the baby's lips. I decided to make another sandwich, while I talked on the phone, and made sure hats and jackets were on so we could go to our Gotcha Day lunch, which was slowly morphing into an early dinner.
I didn't finish the second sandwich or my Coke, but we did make it to the mall, exchanged some gifts, found Christmas cards at Target - - score!!! I didn't imagine this day to be so pedestrian. But that's exactly what it turned out to be. Buying Christmas items for next Christmas. Trying to decide if we should partake in popcorn since the nearest Chili's is by the airport and we were at the Fox Hills Mall. Ultimately I went with the popcorn. Then off to the mini-hellmouth aka Kohl's where I ended up buying Christmas earrings that would be noticed. And from there we went to Chili's making it right before the dinner rush began.
As we sat in the booth, I thought this wasn't how I imagined or wanted this day to go but it was exactly the day I always wanted from the day Jory came home. When Jory came home, my mind was already processing when his sister and other siblings would come home. (I like to plan ahead.) While I was enjoying my newborn, I didn't completely understand what I was asking for or the world I was entering.
It wasn't a world of cute babies who turn into obedient toddlers turn children turn teens. What I was asking for was for the everyday-ness of it all. Where I ponder deep questions like, if I give them one bag of popcorn to share would they still eat dinner? But the ride from Culver City to the airport is pretty far so maybe I should get the popcorn?
Then after the popcorn was purchased and Jory was made the holder of the bag, the job became making sure he shared the popcorn equally with his sisters and not allowing him to withhold giving any until he deemed them worthy to have some.
It was stopping Rowan from saying too loudly that the boy in front of us needed a belt on because his pants were falling and she could see his underwear. It was not strapping the baby down in the stroller so at the first mall line, she made a bolt for it, laughing all the way, which then made her brother take off after her, and making me send him back to Oma, while I grabbed his sister.
It was going over the menu and praying everyone would order something other than a cheeseburger. I'll take only one out of three. It was being nervous every time the baby took a bite of her corn on the cob (I didn't let on that french fries was a side order option) because I feared it would fall to the ground since her high chair didn't allow her to be flush against the table.
The everyday-ness is wondering if all six-year-old boys are this silly and how the constant silliness might drive me bananas. It was stopping Rowan from standing up at the table and trying to talk to the neighbors around us who were just trying to eat. It was trying to stop the baby from taking Oma's fries and ignoring her "innocent" inquiries into the sodas that sat on the table in front of her.
This is the world that on December 30, 2004 that Jory introduced me to. A world not for the faint of heart, not for the weak, not for the dazzled by a cute smile, kisses, hugs, and words of want and love. But a world of love, discipline, smiles, tears, frustration, whining, sharing, hugging, kissing. A world where you learn a six-year-old and a three-year-old are not old enough to sit next to each other in a car on a day to day basis.
Thank you, Jory, for bringing me into this world, for being the second greatest Christmas present ever, for the hugs, the declarations of love, the kisses, the comfort, the headaches, the frustration, for the questioning of my sanity, for the every day glimpses of God's love and His love to me, for being patient as we travel down this road called child and parenthood with seemingly no instructions, for being a roll with the punches baby and kid, for opening your heart and arms to not one but four sisters in your six years, for being just the all around greatest son a mom could ask for. And to be honest, I didn't ask for you because my mind wouldn't have allowed me to ask for a son as great as you. Praise God for knowing exactly what we need.
I am hopelessly and madly in love with you. I am proud to be your mommy. Every day, I thank God for you. I pray for your future, for wisdom to rear you, for your future wife/my future daughter. If you don't get another sister, I'm seriously considering nicknaming your wife, Tatum, just a little FYI there.
I can't believe it's been six years already. Sometimes it seems much shorter and other days it's like we've been together for a million years and I'll bet we'll be together for a million more for it's like I started breathing on the day we met and I can't remember what I ever did before. And there ain't no nothing we can't love each other through...Life before Jory - - fun, life after Jory - - priceless.
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