It's been three months since we first met Kevin. It was October 3, 2004, that our plane touched down in Guatemala City around noon local time and we fought our way outside to find Elesa in her cool blue Toyota Matrix so we could load our luggage (including one busted to the point of being unusable stroller) and head off to her house. We were told that they ("they" requires a moderate length story so I'll leave it out) would bring Kevin to us at Elesa's house at 3:00. Who knew that 3 hours could actually last 15 hours? OK, so that was only in our minds. But it was really difficult to wait. REALLY difficult. I can't even remember how we passed the time.
At very close to 3:00, the doorbell rang and we ran through the long process of unlocking the front doors and security gates. We said, "Hello, come in" and all of that polite stuff and before we even turned around into the house they placed Kevin in my arms. I wondered if I should cry because most adoptive parents probably cry when they first meet their children, but I didn't feel like crying. I was WAY too overwhelmed. We went inside to work on some paperwork and Kevin wanted to stay in my lap so I attempted to entertain him with all of the little goodies we'd planned to have out for him: raisins, crayons, books, and I can't even remember what else. He wasn't really interested in anything. He didn't cry but he was not comfortable with what was going on (who would be? he didn't know us and, in fact, didn't know the people who brought him to us.) I played "peek a boo" with him and he smiled! It was the cutest smile I'd ever seen. I tried to show Andy that he had smiled but he was busy trying to make sense of the paperwork that was getting prepared for our visit to the Embassy on Monday morning. I was also trying really hard to look like a perfect (instant) parent in front of the people who brought him to us. Speaking of peek-a-boo, "where is...?" is still his favorite game! How crazy that he still plays that over and over and over again with anyone and anything and it was what brought out his first smile to me?
Once the people left after the paperwork was done, it was just the three of us - a family who didn't know each other. Kevin became increasingly distant and he slid himself under the grand piano with some whimpering noises. He was wearing the outfit that we'd sent to him previously and his only possession was the photo album with pictures of us, our families and our house that we'd sent just a couple of weeks prior. He wouldn't let us look at the album with him so I don't know if he had any clue that we were the people in the photos.
It was up to Andy to coax Kevin out of his shell and, as expected, he did a grand job. He acted silly and brought out some balls and Kevin couldn't help himself any longer - the balls had to be kicked! That first day we spent most of the time playing with the balls and giving him water to drink. He fell asleep and slept through dinner which was pizza brought in by Jeff and Elesa. If we'd had any idea what his appetite was like, we would've woken him up to eat. But we didn't, so we ended up awake at 3:30 am feeding him instead.
I'll end the story here as I could go on forever but I don't have the time and it would get boring for you to have to read that much at one time. Perhaps another day, perhaps on another anniversary.
I'll close by saying that it's hard to believe it's only been 3 months and not 3 years, although thinking back to the day we met, it seems like it was yesterday.
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