So yesterday was a long day. Today was a long day as well, but in a different sort of way. But let's revisit our last day in Korea prior to letting you on how life is here in the Ritzmann household at this minute (it's ever changing).
After a rather emotionally taxing Monday, Tuesday arrived and we were greeted by a different little boy. I'm not going to say that he was running into our arms professing his love, but he was pretty happy. We started our day with a stop at Dunkin Donuts and a trip to the park across from our hotel.
What we learned that morning?
Camden doesn't love donuts and he is very territorial on the playground. These discoveries were evidenced by throwing up on the table at donut capital of Seoul and the two hands to the chest shove of an unsuspecting little man at the park that happened to attempt to ascend the same set of steps our bruiser was climbing.
After the park, which was exceptionally nice of course, we took off back to our hotel for a brief respite from the humidity. Following our break we took to the subway bound for Seoul's most recognizable place, Gyeonbokgung Palace. After all, how could we be in Seoul with our little guy without taking the time and dealing with the never ending looks on the subway in order to get some pics of him at the palace. Sounds great right? Well, it would have have been had the palace been open on Tuesdays. It's not. But the trip wasn't for not...we did get a few great pics of the very handsome Camden in front of the incredible palace.
After getting back to the hotel and ditching the clothes that were now soaking wet thanks to the humidity again, we rode the elevator down to what we thought might be Camden's favorite spot on Earth...Pororo Park. Pororo is a wildly popular children's cartoon in Korea (I would liken it to Cars or Toy Story here).
Have I mentioned Camden is pretty energetic? He is off the wall, and at Pororo Park that was on full display.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, Camden ate fish on a stick, he stepped in Sara's fried rice, he ate a tiny bit of rice wrapped in seaweed, he got what may or may not been his first mohawk in the bathtub, he confirmed his love for Sara's high heels, and he went to sleep much later that we had hoped without having any idea that the wake up call was coming at 4am.
This is the part where the "Whatever is Takes" motto came into play. It was going to the longest day of our lives, literally and most likely figuratively, hence we decided whatever it takes to keep the young man happy, we were going to do it. After all, it was guaranteed to pay huge dividends if we could make it work. Did it work? I would have to say so. He traveled really well considering the circumstances. There were no meltdowns, there was relatively little crying, their was quite a bit of sleep and more Pororo than I knew existed. I would venture to say he traveled the best out of all three of us, and that's saying something because Sara was quite the trooper as well. She is the one that had him strapped to her chest more often that not it seemed.
Without boring you with the details, I would advise any international adoptive families out there who are wondering what airport to fly into to avoid Detroit like the plague. Immigration single handedly caused us to miss our flight to Cincinnati, which didn't sit very well with me, but I think I handled it well. Ask Sara for a more unbiased opinion.
The gist of this post is that we made it. We made it through the longest day ever and we are here to tell about it.
Now the adjusting begins.
Melt my heart!! Praying for all of you during this big transition. It's such a blessing but can still be so tiring all at the same time.
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