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| First month! |
Today is Monday, June 30th, 2014. Bella has been home for a month now...
Bells and I flew out of Barispol Kiev, Friday, May 30th. It was the third time I'd left Kiev. The third time wasn't any easier than the first. As much as Cathy and I worked with Bells on her sentences and English, she wasn't that much different from Ethan and Justin. As far as we knew, she had never been outside of Kiev, or out of Ukraine. The airport was just as new and strange as her home was going to be. At five-thirty in the morning we sat in the airport. For the third time, I was nervous about the precious cargo I was bringing home with me.
Justin and I flew through Amsterdarn. Both Ethan and Bella flew back with me through Frankfurt. Passing through security, I handed Ethan's and my passports to one of the officers. The officer looked at the passports, then Ethan and I. The passports, then Ethan and I again. He motioned us to follow him into a small office where other officers were sitting around a desk. There was an officer sitting behind the desk. He talked with Ethan. I can only imagine that he was asking my son if he really wanted to go home with me. I stood there praying that he would answer, "Yes." As we found a seat and waited for our flight. There was an announcement that our flight to Frankfurt had been cancelled because of the runway conditions there. I must have looked especially nervous after talking to security, because a man sitting behind us turned around and told us that there was some mistake and that there would be another announcement any minute correcting the error. He was right. There was a mistake. There was another announcement. Our flight was still on.
Bells sat quietly with me as we waited for our flight. She kept up with me as we made our way through the airport in Frankfurt from Gate B to Gate Z. When Justin and I caught our connection in Amsterdarn, he and I disagreed over what movies he could and would watch on the long flight to the Twin Cities. Ten-year-old Justin wanted to watch a movie called The Hangover Part II. I was hoping that he would watch Green Lantern, or one of the animated features available on the flight. He and I argued and struggled for most of the flight, up until the final two hours. Ethan found a couple comedies and laughed loudly watching them. A man across the aisle from us kept looking over at me with a big grin on his face. With Bells, I watched a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory and, Saving Mr. Banks. She watched a couple movies, Saving Mr. Banks was one she started. Mostly, though, she slept on the flight.
Justin was a handful getting through Customs at MSP. Ethan and I had a short wait at Customs at O'Hare. When Bells and I made our way through O'Hare Customs it was a madhouse. I didn't sleep or nap on the flight. By the time we got to Chicago, I was beat. With each of the three kids I had a big gold envelope to hand off at Customs. All three times we ended up in a huge crowd together. With Bells, I pulled out the envelope and held it up like John Cusack in Say Anything. A sympathetic Customs agent directed me and Bella to the right gate. The officer at the gate directed us to another officer who escorted us to a waiting area. We waited for about fifteen or twenty minutes while the envelope was processed. From there we were directed to exit Gate 3. Which on a Friday afternoon at the end of May was closed. We made our way through the mob at Gate 1. Then there was another twenty minute wait for one of Chicago's Finest to come back from lunch and wade through a stack of packets including ours so we could make our connection. There was an officer covering the counter while he was gone. Multitasking. He was not happy. He made sure we all knew. Loudly. I'm pretty sure even the suburbs were glad when the officer came back from lunch to man his station. Our 3:35 flight boarded at a quarter after. Once we were through and racing to our gate we joined the crowd at 3:16.
When Bella and I got off our flight at MSP, her adventure was just beginning. She now had a family and two brothers to adjust to...
Stay tuned!
