Now that it is only a few weeks until we leave, I am feeling scatterbrained, alternately screamingly impatient to head off to get the girls, and frantically fearful that there is way too much still to do before we leave. I long to leave. Yet I am already dreading leaving our other children, even though I know we have good care planned and that they will be safe and have fun and be fine.

Yesterday we thought for awhile that we might be able to leave a week sooner than planned. And so I went through all the plans, starting to rearrange things, wondering if it would all work, before we realized that we just couldn't get 6 seats flying home with that short of notice. So we're back to a previous incarnation of a plan and mostly I'm fine with that, except for every few hours when I remember we were this close to leaving a week sooner.

Our girls have been without a family for over a year by now. I am so eager for that part of their life to be done, and for all of us to begin to settle in to the new normal. But I am also aware that we are now as idealistic about them as probably we will ever be. All we have is some smiling pictures. We know almost nothing about the personalities behind the faces.

I am psyched for the fact that we may find out irritating or difficult things about them very soon. They may be terribly bossy, or hyper, or demanding, or......I don't know what. It is staggering to think of how much I don't know about them.

I don't even know their voices. For some reason, I am especially eager to hear their voices. It seems strange to think that I could not pick them out anywhere by their voices, because I have not yet heard one word from their mouths. What do they sound like?

There are so many other things I wonder as well. Are they as attached to each other as they appear in pictures? Do they have a sense of humor? Do they like little children? What do they like to eat?

My sister asked me the other day if I have our first day at home mapped out yet, and in thinking about her question, I realized I didn't know. What the heck will we do with them when they are here in reality, looking at me for clues as to this new life of theirs?

Oddly enough, I have found myself going back to read some of my own calm reassuring posts about older children. The advice I've given in the past seems logical and is based on extensive reading I've done. But I am painfully aware that I've tried none of it with older kids.

In relaxed moments, I wonder in a detached sort of way if my own advice will work, really. In panicked moments, I tell myself I'm an idiot to write like I know anything at all. I've never adopted an older child before. I have no idea, really, what will work.

Time will tell.


Some of my half-baked but plausible-sounding advice
Older children: first days home
Older children and meltdowns
Family traditions for building attachment