We're Home!

It's now 3:20 in the afternoon (Saturday) in China and 11:40 in the evening (Friday) as I type this blog entry from our home in Lafayette, California. I cannot believe I'm actually awake right now as I've only had about three cumulative hours of sleep over the last 40 hours. Everyone else in my household is zonked out, including those acclimated to this time zone. I don't know what it is, except that I was excited to sit down in the solitude of our family study and just start typing.

Obviously we made it across the Pacific Ocean from Hong Kong to San Francisco and, as it's been with most moving vehicles she finds herself in, Xiao Qian slept a good portion of the way (in spite of the fact that she slept a good nine hours the night before). For the first time in her whole life (we're sure) she found herself on foreign soil. While in the Hong Kong International Airport she made a comment to us after glancing at all the billboards, "Engwish, no Chinese." It was at that moment we realized that she was now crossing the line of familiar/unfamiliar, and that was only the first step. She would now taste foods (starting on the airplane) that wouldn't be quite the same, she would now start hearing language tones that rarely had any Mandarin woven in, and she would now see sights and people that possess little resemblance to her native land. Taste, hear, see..., but what would she feel? How would we know? For now we rest in the assurance that the work that has begun will be perfected, but not now, not today. This will take time, and time is what we have, just the time right now.

After landing and finessing our way through Immigration and Customs at San Francisco International Airport, we picked up our bags and were greeted by two very white, tall men (few sights of those in China) known as Austin and Barret Kruggel. They greeted us with big open arms and huge smiles on their faces. I wish you could have seen it - I know they were excited to see us (as we were them), but I think they were even more proud and excited to see their new little sister, Xiao Qian. They each gave her a respectful and gentle embrace, very appropriate given everything that might have been racing through Xiao Qian's heart and mind at the moment. We smiled, laughed and talked all the way though the airport corridors until we reached our car and headed home. The skies of San Francisco were gorgeous, especially after just receiving a fresh dousing of rain the night before. This was the first we had seen of the clear blue sky and sun in over two weeks. Xiao Qian was atypically (for her) quiet on the car ride home (but understandable given the circumstances), and Barret was over-the-top inquisitive, wanting to know as much about his new sister as possible (Austin was a good listener, but drove with a grin on his face pretty much the whole way).

When we drove up to the house we could see those two little munchkins that we also missed so much scurrying around the front yard. Meagan had dressed them up so perfectly, and they all three greeted us as we stepped out of the car. Boy was it nice to hug them all. Xiao Qian smiled and also greeted everyone, a bit shy and timid, but o' so very cute.

The house was perfect, just perfect. Meagan thought of everything - candles, lights, smells, house picked-up, organized, etc... Austin and Meagan also had a sign made with Chinese characters that said, "Welcome home, Xiao Qian." Xiao Qian read it and nervously giggled a bit, maybe because Austin felt they had misspelled her name.

We unpacked suitcases, handed out gifts, talked, toured the house, played a few games, took naps, made some meals, talking to Annie on g-Chat, and just simply got situated. I think "getting situated" will be a theme for us for awhile now. The two little girls seemed to be a bit out of sorts, uncharacteristically limited (only at first) in the verbal arena and also a little more whiny than usual. (Who could blame them? Their life has just been completely turned upside down.) But Xiao Qian was so perfectly careful to give them distance, approaching them with care, gentleness and sensitivity only when it seemed appropriate. By the end of the evening, they were all three rolling on one another and laughing their heads off. Now they're all three sleeping together on the floor in our bedroom (it's pretty dang cute).

There's a lot of small details in this post that are probably pretty boring to most readers, but I had to journal these things tonight before the minutia begins to vanish. But there's one moment today that won't vanish from my memory, regardless of whether I journal about it or not; it was when Victoria and I started to put the two little girls down to bed, expecting that the rest of us (including Xiao Qian) would just stay up and chat for awhile over desert. While getting them situated, Xiao Qian came into the room in her cute pajamas that Victoria purchased for her and wanted to go to sleep with them at the same time. When I said good-night to everyone, Poppy and Willow said to Xiao Qian separately, "I love you". Xiao Qian replied, "I love you".

And we love you. It's good to be home.