It was Wednesday, May the 21st. The alarm started beeping at 6:00am, for today we meet our new sons.
First – we had to get everyone dressed. Something that in retrospect was SO EASY. We drove Jayme to school and dropped him off at 8:15 a.m. then we pointed our TARDIS (Dodge) south and headed down I-205.
Huge traffic issues in Oregon City set us behind schedule for the day, something that would happen over and over on each trip to Roseburg. From our house in Happy Valley, it takes a little over 3 1/2 hours to get to Roseburg. That is not counting Dutch Bros and Starbucks stops, of course.
We arrived in Roseburg with only a few minutes to spare and walked into the local DHS office. After finding the right floor, we met our boys caseworker and a new caseworker who was going to tag along for the meeting.
We all headed back out to our cars and drove across the street to a nice little park. It was a great day for it too, sunny and warm. After a few minutes, the boys therapist arrived and we had a nice talk with her. Then the boys arrived.
Saying boys is a bit of cliffhanger breaker. Because due to some conversations we had prior, there was the fear we would only be meeting Elijah. The foster parents car arrived and both of us kept our backs to it. Elijah came running towards us, very very hyper and very very nervous.
We spent a lot of time with him, taking turns talking to the adults. One of the things we did not do was spend time with Gabriel. All of the books we read said that for the first meeting the toddler should just see that we are safe and not to try and take over the parent role on the first meeting.
We had a pizza picnic and Anthony played Jayme’s video greeting. Then Elijah made several movies for Jayme. It was very very touching.
After lunch, Foster mom took Gabriel for his nap and we kept playing with Elijah. We moved over to a huge steam train that parked on a little peace of track for kids to play on.
We had a real hard time saying good bye to him, but finally at 3:30pm we had to get back on the road to Portland. Jayme’s day care charges $1 per minute you are late after 6:00pm.
Luckily we had a back up plan and our friend Lisa was able to pick up Jayme. She then proceeded to spoil him with Mini-Golf and ice cream.
3 1/2 hours later we arrived home and to a son with lots of questions and a stomach full of ice cream.