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Around the world - and back again

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Contributed by: Jared Keller on 7/25/2008

There's somebody new roaming the halls of our house of late, and let me tell you - it's a little strange. He's short, talks a little funny, and for awhile was scared to death of our cat - perhaps the single most lazy and apathetic creature ever to have converted oxygen to carbon dioxide. Oh yeah...our routine's all shaken up, our daughter is hoarding her toys in her room, and this short fellow acts almost as if this world is all new to him.

What's more, the little guy doesn't look anything like us.

On June 30th, at the adoption registry of Guangdong Province, China, a bawling, 22 month-old little boy was dropped into the arms of my beautiful wife, and every single moment that has followed has been a melange of chaos, joy, tears, and overall, adjustment. For our little boy, that adjustment is truly nothing short of the realignment of his universe. The regimented, self-sufficient life of his orphanage has been replaced by a home with hardwood floors (socks alone, as he learned, are slippery), a poofy, patient cat (to which he initially responded with a panicked "Yaaaaaao!"), and a big sister who has thus far progressed from asking, politely, if he would be going back to his orphanage soon, to last night asking if, when she turned 30, she could "keep" him, adding that she'd "be the best mommy ever".

Although it's only a movement of one digit to the positive, the act of transforming from a family of three to a family of four (and skipping the nice, immobile newborn stage, mind you) is jarring, to say the least. We're all adjusting to each other, however, and I think we're getting back into some semblance of a groove. What's been most impressive through all of this has been the slow but steady emergence of our son's real personality. When we first met him, he was tired (after a five-hour bus ride from his orphanage), scared silly, and thrust into the arms of people who looked, smelled, and sounded differently than anyone else he'd ever been around.
Now, he runs around the house like he owns the place.

He's got a great belly laugh - you should hear it. His smile is bracketed by two of the biggest, sugary-sweet dimples you've ever seen, and he's already got a devilish sense of humor. Oh, it's not all sunshine and daisies, kids; we've reentered the Age of the Diaper, and let me tell you...this kid produces some of the most potent, potentially radioactive byproducts ever found outside of a fast breeder reactor. My wife suggests that we may have found the solution to the country's energy crunch, by the way.

The long and short of it (I'll have more to say about the China experience in later columns) is that we've had the experience of our lives - lives that are now richer by exactly one little boy, and that we've never been so glad to be home again. Thanks so much for your support, encouragement, and prayers over the past year. My family has appreciated them tremendously, and I'm thrilled to look forward to a future filled - at least in part - with columns fueled by the continuing adventures of our (now larger and crazier) family.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Jared Keller

Littleton

Jared Keller has posted 470 stories and 64 comments since joining on 12/1/2005. Jared Keller 's average story rating is 4.86.

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