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You know, traveling is a funny thing.
It’s always great to go.
It’s always great to come home.

Adoption travel is even more so.

It is amazing to go.
And it is life-changing to both go and come home.

Whenever we go on a trip, I half joke about the hellish nature of “re-entry.” It’s somewhat akin to the re-entry of astronauts; burning through the ozone layers, possible cramping, careful debriefing and adjusting back to life on earth.

After a trip, with a big family, you have that sort of re-entry: debriefing, cramping, layers of laundry and chores just to breath again. Adjusting to life after a break.

Traveling around the world to adopt a child, we were braced for the worst of re-entry.

We had left our smallest (shh, hardest) three at home. For eleven days. An unprecedented amount of time. And they all grew at least a foot, I swear. So, as joyful as we were to be reunited, we were braced for major upheaval.

And….it didn’t happen.
They accepted the new toddler baby boy with joy and laughter.
My four year old accepted his mauling and baby wrestling with a smile and gentleness (only one small football body check in a crawling race to a car, easily corrected).

So then we waited for the meltdowns of temper and fussing.
It didn’t happen. The house exploded with the clutter of suitcases and unpacking and souvenirs. That was expected.
We waited for Gabriel Tariku to cling to me and shriek and wail or huff and puff at the unfamiliar faces and places. It didn’t happen.

Just when we started to think, “Wow, who’da thunk it, we landed in the twilight zone!?”……Buddybug was changing a light bulb as I was fixing dinner……and the water started streaming through the fixture. Raining indoors, in our hall bath. Then too the water started coming through the next ceiling light, in the hall. I ran upstairs to find my daughter in the shower (directly over the hall and bath) and the toilet overflowing and flooding her bathroom and her upper hallway as she sang away, oblivious. As I called to my

husband to come and help, quickly, my Little Man shouted from his room, “Mommy, my tummy hurts!” and ran into his bathroom. My son ran up, my husband ran up and we all grinned, “Ok NOW we are home.”

Whew.

So, now, life has returned to normal. The kids grouse about chores and squabble with each other. The baby is still trying to wrestle his next biggest brother and Little Man loves it. Our lights and baths are fixed, for now I guess. Our dishwasher is broken and needs to be replaced. And now, we are home again. And happy.