an update

alright, so how about an update? Harry and I have been back in the U.S. for just over a week now. That seems odd to say, as it feels like much, much longer. Now we are in what I call 'phase 2'; although I admit that I have no idea how many phases there are, but I like being able to say 'we are just going through a phase' and actually knowing what that means. In this phase the whole family gets to learn how to cope/deal/adjust to each other. Suddenly there is another human being who can talk and move and think staring at you to do something. Addie is doing great, although I can see she is struggling to adjust to having a brother, and someone who divides her parents' attention. Her Spanish is so fun to listen to, she picks it up just by hearing us use it. I wish I could say the same for Harry's English. I know its only been a week, but i get the sense he is resisting learning English. All the experts told us he would jump all over it, but I dont see that happening just yet. I need to stop speaking to him in Spanish and start using hand signals to force the issue. We got him in to a great local school with a bilingual program; 2 1/2 days of Spanish, and 2 1/2 days of English. He has a great teacher and good support with the school psychiatrist (who we have already come to know quite well) so we hope for the best. But he cant seem to control himself with ALL the new impulses, realities, language, food, structure, dogs, snow, school, etc. so he can only go for half-days until he learns better self control. This is the hard part, and Rachel and I have seen some ugly stuff come to the surface. Rachels mom was here for the first week and she helped Addie while we were dealing with the flaming tornado of anger that reared its ugly head a few times. She was such a tremendous help, I doubt she even knows how much! There are many stories to tell, but perhaps not that different than most families (from the good : dogs sleeping on his bed, to the bad; drawing a pint of blood when he is deathly afraid of needles). I am going to rely on friends, professional help and the strength and experience of Rachel for the next few months (if not more). In six months, people say Harry will only speak English. I hope so, but I am not holding my breath. We are flying blind here, people. I barely have the strength to write the blog anymore. I will most likely change the status to 'personal' so as not to impose our integration on all of you, but I thank you all for your support. we could not do this without a LONG list of people helping us, even if its just with words of encouragement. see you on the flipside!  -Brian

Travels with Harry

well, we made it. I am home in Rochester, Harry made it with me ( he already had his first snowball fight with Addie) and phase 1 of this adventure is complete. I am going to sleep. Thanks for all the warm thoughts, once again EVERY step of the way had some form of delay or mis-step. I will conjure the energy to explain more on Sunday (maybe), but for now, just know that we are home, and the Larson's are a foursome.
-Brian

Sentencia!

Buckle up folks, this is going to be a bumpy one. so i have not written in a few days because 1) my mom visited for 4 days (thanks Vicky! you know what I mean!), and there has been no adoption related happenings to speak of, mainly tourist things and getting to know Bogota better. I gave a presentation at Universidad de Javeriana, and met with an animation class at Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, courtesy of Ricardo Acre from ASIFA Colombia. I also met his brother Dan. These are truly awesome people all around, I cant say enough good things about them. in fact everyone from ASIFA (the International Animation Society) has been great, I want you all to visit! But now things are set to start moving at a break neck pace. But that term does not translate to Colombian Spanish. first, Rachel had to send a signed, authenticated, fingerprinted document to New York giving permission for Harry and I to enter the US without her. i NEED this paper before I can leave. she sent it Monday for Tuesday, they were going to notarize it and fedex it to me on Wednesday. but the goddamn NY Giants had a parade on wednesday and they couldn't get to the fedex office until late, so now it is supposed to be here on Friday. unbelievable. if I am here over the weekend because of the Giants, I fear how ugly things will get. We were scheduled to get our Sentencia on Tuesday. this is the OFFICIAL paper giving us parental rights to Harry. Our Lawyer, Carmen Helena, has been working hard to get us a sentencia date this fast (less than a week). The court defender needs to sign it, then the judge. She had to convince the judge that our fingerprints were coming soon (remember, the 5th time!) and the judge signed. Then the defender signed it and it was supposed to go  in front of another judge and me on Tuesday. we went to the office downtown, but the judge would not sign the paper because the defender was not there (even though she had already signed it days before). this would extend my stay 5 days! I freaked out like a feral cat. Everyone seemed to say "well, there is nothing we can do..." when I am scrambling with ideas of things we can do, shaking and yelling in this court room. I offered to drive to the defenders house. I offered to deliver the judge to her personally. I asked Carmen Helena to find someone else. Then she sprang in to action and ran up 8 flights of stairs in heels, checking room to room for a defender, and dragged one down to witness the signing. it was done. i got the decree and left immediately.
we had no time to go get Harry's birth certificate, this would have to wait until Wednesday. so we got up at 6am and drove 2 hours south to a very bad, poor, dirty part of town. This is the neighborhood where Harry was born. In Colombia, your birth records are kept in a Notary's office in the neighborhood of your birth. It looks like a movie set of old, thick books covered in the dust of ages, stacked in piles and towering over a hunchbacked old lady with a rubber finger tip, flipping through pages and mumbling as she shuffles down the aisled. Exactly like that. we were there to open it at 8am. It went relatively smoothly, which had me worried. from there we could get his passport, a new Birth certificate (his name is now Harry Larson Larson, they got confused by Rachel and I having the same last name and they didnt think to ask me. so that takes care of the Middle Name debate. who had that choice in the pool?), and the Embassy doctors appointment. I had heard from families staying here just this morning that we needed an i.d. for hm as well, so we got that, back on the North side of town. Then the lady at the passport office, also far North, said she would not process the passport because the form had the Mothers name on the father's line and vice versa. so we drove back down south, 2 hours, to the notary. We had the birth certificate re-done, but then her copier broke and she couldn't make copies. We waited 45 minutes. we had to be back at the passport office by 3 to get the passport processed in time. it was 1:50 when we finally left. we asked Julian, our driver, to get us back North fast. this is bad advice. he drove through traffic like he was being chased out of Hell. but he got us there. we were the last ones they let in that day. harry had his passport processed quickly. But then we realized it was the wrong kind, and we wouldn't get it back for 3 days. so she did it again (she was NOT happy about this). Passport, check. then off to the Doctor's office. he was great, very impressed with Harry and WE ARE DONE! All I have to do now is drop off paperwork at ICBF office and then apply for a Visa at the US Embassy. we pick it up 24 hours later and we get to leave on Friday night! (if the paper from Rachel arrives that is). Every single step is difficult, slow, painful and taxing. I have to pay attention to every detail because so many obstacles get in the way. some can be foreseen, some not at all. I can't rest for a second for fear it will delay things for days and days. this is not an exaggeration. If we get out of here on Friday I will finally let my shoulders relax. pics: Harry and Granny J, Dan and Ricardo Acre in Dan's studio, a shot of a street in Harry's 'birth' neighborhood, Harry and Kyle, a new friend who was staying with his family at the house we are renting, and a dog with a basket. He would go through the crowds collecting change for his owner who was doing tricks for cash. I think I gave 10 bucks to the dog, what a great angle!

stepping stones

I dont know about many of you, but I grew up in the mountains and had plenty of opportunity to play in streams, rivers and creeks. I had a habit (and still do, I suppose) of starting to cross a stream by stepping on the most easily accesible rocks resting above the rushing water. But occasionally I would get stuck, without a clear path of rocks in front of me. I found that if I stood there long enough, a path would show itself, almost miraculously, and I could continue on across the river. This adoption experience has been a lot like crossing a river, and every time I cant see the path in front of me, a rock appears. in this case, two families of rocks showed up at Betty's place this week. A family from Texas (the mother, Maria, is from Mexico) arrived from Medallin with three kids ages 9,7, and 6 and going through the final stages of adoption. She speaks Spanish as do the kids. Another family from Indiana arrived with an adorable 2 year old boy; the mother is from Puerto Rico and the father is originally from Colombia, they both speak Spanish and a little English. Harry likes to play with the kids and finally has some one to talk to. I can commiserate with the other families about how long this process takes and we can all share horror stories (they have both been here for around 2 months already! yikes!). But the path shows itself in this way; Harry and I have a hard time communicating, my choppy sentences can get my point across, but he cant say his 's's or r's well, so I have a very hard time understanding him, on top of the language barrier. We had some miscommunication today and he threw a fit. a bad one at that. One of the mothers stepped in to translate and we diffused what was quickly becoming a bad, tense morning. and it was all due to poor language and not knowing how each other 'operates'. There will certainly be more of these episodes in the extended future, but for now, I am forever thankful for the stones that appeared before me and allowed me to get a little further along my journey.
-Brian