May 21, 2001

Ten years ago, at this precise hour, my oldest boy was 24 hours and 29 minutes old. But in my mind, he was 5 hours old. That afternoon, at 4 p.m., we’d gotten the call that changed the world. If Ray, our adoption agency’s director, had announced that I would soon grow a third eye or the world would soon have live Dinosaurs again, things couldn’t have changed any more drastically. I am glad, for the record, to have only 2 eyes and to have a large insect be my biggest predatory fear. I’m pretty sure the grammar is wrong on that. I can’t care tonight. I have work to do.

Only 5 hours old in my mind, I had no idea what he was like. What did he smell like? What did his cry sound like? What color hair did he have? Would he be blonde and blue-eyed? That would be a beautiful break in family tradition. Something like this perhaps…

Or would I have to work at adjusting to him, if he came out a little more like this?

Would he be sleepy? Alert? Hyper?

Would we know what to do for him?

That night was an unhinged series of shopping trips and cleaning tasks, to ready our selves for picking up our son. Though I wanted to hire a sky writer to spell out “WE ARE GETTING OUR SON TOMORROW!”, Todd wanted to tell no.one. Guts. So we told no one except the friends that were loaning us a car seat and some receiving blankets. His homecoming outfit came from Wal-Mart and was purchased around midnight that night when the bats in the belfry are the only ones shopping at Wal-Mart. Sorry, boy. Gap was closed at that hour of the night. Unless the monkey picture was accurate, I was certain he could make Wal-Mart look like Gap.

I laid down at 3 a.m., though I had to get back up in 4 hours. My sleep was spotty and dream-filled. And the dream was waiting in Gainesville…