We taught her how to knit and whistle

An update on the cousins:

Saturday
Casey has been here for one week. It has been unbearably hot and humid, with thunderstorms randomly cruising through the area, and we've been stuck inside sans air conditioning for the better part of the week. So we taught her how to knit and whistle, and this is how we passed the time. Her scarf is almost done, and she can now do a couple of notes with her whistling. Good progress! Oh, and we ate lots of cookies and ice cream, which has not been good.

Teenagers are tough. One minute cheerful and chatty, the next sitting on the couch looking as though she might die of boredom. I hope she hasn't hated her week here, but with Harrison in tow it was not an action filled adventure. Or rather, it was, but not the type of adventure that teenagers normally associate with FUN. Is it different when they're your own kids? Can you just tell them to snap out of it? I suppose time will tell.

Sunday
We swapped kids last night and now we have Brian again. He is the opposite of Casey in that he is all about the conversation. He'll talk endlessly about anything and everything, and so far there have been no sullen periods spent on the couch staring at the wall. He and Brendan are bonding over our CD collection, and Brian will go home with some 'new' tunes for his ipod...old tunes he has just discovered, and we're surprised at his diverse tastes.

As for me, I am exhausted. I am not used to having people (aside from Harry and Brendan) around all of the time, every waking moment. I feel as though I would need to sleep all day, all night, and all of tomorrow before I'd feel like myself again. In think Harry is with me on this, as he has a serious case of the Grumps again, and has not been eating anything but grapes. He is either too distracted, or he's teething, or he's just out of sorts from the extra people in our home. At any rate we'll get a break starting this afternoon, as both kids head to Grandma and Grandpa Sullivan's with their mom for the rest of their visit. And as tiring as it has been I will miss them both, and I have had fun. I liked vicariously revisiting the ages of 13 and 15...both strange ages as one stands on the cusp of adulthood but is not quite removed from childhood. I enjoyed their opinions and ideas, and I think they are growing up to be grand, interesting people.

One year ago...

...almost exactly to the minute, Brendan and I were sitting on a bench in the hallway of the International Terminal of JFK Airport, trembling together, as we waited for our son to come through immigration. Our son. Our son! How nervous we were, how excited! His plane landed at 3:15 pm, earlier than expected. At roughly 4:08 pm our lovely greeter, Marge, placed a wriggly bundle of boy in my arms, and our family was made.

Happy one year, Harrison! We love you very, very, very much!

The Cousins, they tire him out!

You will never believe this! After a month of very short (if any) naps, Harrison slept for a total of six hours yesterday, divided over two naps! YAHHOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Harry's cousins Brian and Casey are visiting and all of the extra attention is making Harry a tired boy. And apparently his mama gets pretty tired too, because she fell asleep last night in the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and snored out loud. Ahem. That's just a little bit embarrassing, no?

And that's final!

Certificate of Adoption

I, (Woman on a power trip), clerk of the family court of Saratoga County, do hereby certify that I have inspected the records of this court and find that:

AN ORDER OF ADOPTION was signed on the 19th day of July, 2006, by Hon. Courtenay W. Hall, Judge of the Family Court of the County of Saratoga, granting the petition of Sara Sullivan and Brendan Sullivan, adoptive parents of a child now known as Harrison (middle names excluded for privacy) Sullivan who was born at Pyongtaek, Kyonggi-do, Korea on the 13th day of February, 2005.

Signed, Woman on a power trip, a.k.a. Saratoga County Clerk
That's it, he is ours. He belongs to us, and we belong to him, officially.

I didn't think the day would be very emotional for me. After all, the moment he was placed in my arms at JFK airport I knew in a very primal sort of way that he was my child. Since that moment those feelings have grown stronger and stronger, and I didn't think I needed a piece of paper to tell me what my heart already knew for sure. But yesterday, after our 15 minutes in court, I found myself blinking back happy tears at random points during the day. I'd catch the glint of sun in Harrison's eyes, the swirl of his hair above his right temple, or the bottoms of his feet dirty from running through the yard, and I would feel my heart swell and my eyes fill. He is ours. Those are the three most delicious, most significant, most beautiful words in the English Language today. He is ours.

And we are his.

For those wondering, he did not wear his grumpy pants yesterday. He was smiling and happy and very active. He was thrilled to have most of his grandparents in one place, and he liked all of the recording equipment used in the courtroom. And the judge was funny, which put us at ease. After the extraordinarily ridiculous hoops we had to jump through to get to that point the actual proceeding went very smoothly, and our attorney seemed somewhat competant.

What is next? Birth certificates, citizenship certificates, and social security cards, oh my!

Wearing his Grumpy Pants

Harrison is in a bad mood streak. He wakes up grumpy, throws tantrums, hates to take a nap, wants to be held except he doesn't actually want you to touch him while you hold him, and is generally hard to pacify lately. Bored? Dunno. Too hot? Perhaps. Going through a phase? Goodness, I hope so!

Tomorrow is our big finalization day. Could the stars and planets please align in my favor and keep him from screaming through the event? It would be so appreciated. Must go now and soothe the screaming boy. Sigh. It's too hot out for this.

Waterbaby

During college I spent a semester at Western Washington University (with the National Student Exchange program) in lovely Bellingham, WA, just north of Seattle. I had the opprotunity to spend time in Seattle and I fell in love with that city, which is so different from the east coast cities I had known growing up. I have been back to visit a couple of times, and each time I go I find myself sitting next to the International Fountain at the Seattle Center, a leftover from the World's Fair. The fountain is a masterpiece in my mind. It consists of a huge, crater-like dish of cement with half of a metal ball in the middle; water shoots out of the ball and from jets embedded in the cement in time to music that comes from speakers around the crater's edge. It is hard not to sit and watch as people of all kinds and ages play in the water, dancing, squealing, and laughing as they chase the water. The spray shifts and dances in the wind and catches the light, making the children look ethereal and often creating rainbows in its mist. When I think of Seattle I think of this fountain, of sitting and watching as simple streams of water change cement and metal into something magical.

Like his mom, Harrison loves a fountain. Only his beloved fountain is located in nearby Saratoga, and although it is not as grand as the International Fountain, it still delivers the same sort of magic to our favorite wee one. We spent the Fourth of July watching streams of water shoot through the air, rather than fireworks (we worried the latter might scare the little H man) and Harry's joy was palpable. He danced and laughed, ran around the circle of cement with glee, and stuck his head directly into the spray. He loves the water so!





And although I have no story of magic for you about the following photo, we took Harrison to the local beach and he enjoyed that as well. He thinks he knows how to swim (he's wrong) and has no fear about plunging himself into the water headfirst, especially after watching the bigger kids splashing and swimming. I think the majority of this summer will be spent with water of some sort close by!