About two and a half years ago, my kids were – for their second time – visiting what would become our house . It was a week-long visit. I knew I hoped I’d be their forever home, but they thought they were just on a vacation.
One afternoon, I was walking around the block while they went ahead of me on their scooters. “This is what it’s going to be like,” I thought to myself smiling calmly.
“ZAC!” I heard, “He fell! There’s blood! He needs help!” my daughter came yelling to me.
The kids had gone around a corner just out of my sight, and my son had slid off a curb and crashed his scooter, gashing his knee in the process. I ran to him, picked him up and ran the rest of the way to the house.
“Grab the scooters!” I yelled behind me.
What a sight we must have been. He was wailing. She was all of 9 years old, dragging two scooters across the concrete. I’m sure I had a look of pure panic on my face. Irrationally, I thought, “They’ll never let me have these kids now!”
The scene in the bathroom was one of more wailing, navigating a very protective older sister and a little boy who had no reason to trust me clinging to my neck while I cleaned the gravel from his knee. We continued to be a sight.
Today, two years and change later, we had an intense wind storm with gusts of 100+ miles per hour. Neighbor Fran texted to let me know our trampoline had taken flight, hung in the power lines for a few minutes and ended up in Neighbor Gary’s yard. So, we had an adventure to look forward when we got home.
Gary answered his door.
“Gary, if you wanted to borrow our trampoline, all you had to do is ask.”
“I think my trampoline days are long gone.”
The kids and I started to pull the legs and such off the trampoline in Gary’s back yard. The boy went back to our house to get the dogs who’d been barking orders at us from across yard back in the house to bring some semblance of calm to the neighborhood.
The girl and I were working and heard the boy yelling, “Come! Come! Come! Come!” Listening through the wind, I heard the tone my heart knows needs me – now.
A gust of wind had blown through the garage door to slam the back door on his fingers. One of them had a decent chunk of skin missing. He clung to me once we were in the bathroom. Unintelligible words coming from his mouth, gulping air. The kind of crying only children can do when life hurts and scares at the same time.
Once I’d determined no need for a visit to urgent care, “I know what we are going to do, but I won’t do anything without you telling me it’s okay. Would you like me to tell you what we’re going to do?”
A whimpering nod.
Around this time, his sister appears. “What’s going on!?”
We explain, wailing much lessened.
She is concerned, but waiting for directions.
We move through the steps of repair. When we run out of things requiring three of us, I ask her to go clean up the shreds of paper the dogs greeted us with when we go home. She goes without argument. She knows I’ve got this.
Once the bandage is secured with ample antiseptic, he asks to go play a video game and she asks to watch a show. I say yes and start to make dinner.
The rest of our evening is status quo. Well, eating dinner with a non-dominant hand was interesting to watch.
Two years ago, or even four months ago, any of these things would have derailed our night and possibly our week.
Tonight, I didn’t stop to think, “This is what it’s going to be like,” because this is simply what it’s like. This is our family.
Next Monday, two years and 16 days since they moved in, we’ll sit in a courtroom, and a judge will make our family official. Tonight, though, we wrangled an errant trampoline, patched up a finger, cleaned up after anxious dogs, ate dinner, and brushed and flossed.
I’d say it’s official.