Er

Er means “two” in Mandarin. Or so my children tell me.

Two days until Departure Day.

I might throw up. If one more person mentions the missing plane from Malaysia, I will for sure.

That reminds me… In the event of our untimely demise (wherein we are confident in our eternal destination, by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ), all our earthly possessions should be split, equally, between Husband’s and my six siblings. (Attorney friends, did ya’ll hear that? This means you, Gerry, Mo, Cousin Kelly, Milan, Craig, & Sam.) This would be pretty easy to tabulate since the adoption has thoroughly depleted our liquid assets– NOT that I’m complaining… our boy is unquestionably, 100% worth it.

To be clear, my mounting anxiety is not due to fear, nor hesitation, in meeting our precious son. I can.not. wait. to embrace Little Man. Rather, my concern is that we will neglect to pack some critical piece of documentation from our THIRTY ONE PAGE CHECKLIST that might jeopardize the in-country process. I’m heavily relying on Husband in this arena, who famously received an “Attention to Detail” award in the military, years ago. God bless him, my opposite.

We’ll first land in Beijing and do some required sight-seeing (twist my arm), doing our best to shake our jet-lag before heading south to Zhengzhou.

“Gotcha Day” -which shall henceforth be referred to as either Adoption Day or Family Day- is actually next Monday. Oh, and Monday will be Sunday here in the States. From the moment we first see him, he will remain in our custody (forever and ever, amen). This is not the case in every country. We will finalize the adoption- legally making him our son!- within a couple of days of travelling to the capitol of his province, Henan.

The final leg of our journey will be in Guangzhou, at the US Consulate, through which all adoptions are routed. Upon landing on US soil Little Man will officially become a US citizen. (Again, not the case with every country.)

The kids and I are packed, Husband will take all of five minutes. (I’m not worried, gotta love that military training!) We are packing pretty light and hoping to carry on our smaller suitcases, checking just two large ones. In monitoring the Beijing, Zhengzhou, and Guangzhou weather, we have ascertained it will be downright hot to these four Montanans, and we’re able to pack lighter-weight clothing. Several families who have gone before us have had their luggage lost, so we are praying the airlines will permit us to keep our smaller bags.

Today, I’m finishing the deep cleaning of our house (Husband took my sexy minivan to work so I’d be stuck here– I’m too afraid to drive his burly, manual transmission rig.), and tomorrow the girls and I are going to have some fun. We are ready.