Home Safe and Sound

We have now been home for 48 hours. Previously I felt too nervous to blog about our adoption for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong way and somehow upsetting our adoption. So I elected to just stop for the time being until we had our kids home safe and sound. Well they are all in bed now.

The past two months have been so extremely intense. My goals in writing are:

• To share our joy with those who have showed their interest in our crazy life.
• To share information with others adopting or considering adopting. I found reading others' blogs so very helpful when we were ramping up to adopt. Every person is different but having read multiple other stories gave me some idea of what to expect (even though nothing could have fully prepared me for this roller coaster).
• To answer questions. We are two very tall white people with 4 very little Africans following us around. Naturally we get a lot of looks, stares, and questions. I am very open to these questions but I want to avoid constantly discussing my kids' adoption right in front of them. I hope that by blogging I can answer some of these questions while avoiding making my kids' feel like their lives are always on display.
• To respect our kids' privacy. I know that people want to know about our family because they are interested, curious, considering adoption, etc. But when in doubt, I hope to default to sharing less. My theory is that you can always say more later but can never un-say something.
• To keep a record of this amazing and crazy roller coaster. The stories and the memories are important to me. I hope our kids will enjoy having these in the future.

I tried to keep a journal during our trip but that went out the window once we took custody of the kids at the hotel. So I will try to piece together my memories and write what I can.