Today is my Arrival Day. (And yes, for those of you who haven’t heard my rant over the last couple of years…I generally use Arrival Day. I really dislike (on many levels) the term “Gotcha” Day.) Today has really been a regular day for me, nothing special or exciting. I dropped off my son at school, went to work, picked up my son and came home. Truthfully, the only reason I remember my Arrival Day is because it pops up on my Palm Pilot. (I love my Palm Pilot.)
I’ve heard the stories about my Arrival Day. My parents flew to Chicago O’Hare to meet me. In those days (I feel old saying that), you could still wait at the gate. My mother always tells the story with much more drama and flare than I can, but the gist of the story is that they waited for a long time. The plane landed and all of the people came off, but there were no babies. Finally the pilot came out and asked why everyone was waiting and there was (I’m sure) a collective gasp of horror. Someone said they were waiting for the babies and the pilot said, “What babies?”, but then the babies came.
When I was little, I used to listen to that story over and over and over again. Since my mother is a natural born story teller, I still hear it from time to time. It is different now for my son. He doesn’t ask me to tell him a story. He tells me he wants to see his movie. He’ll watch it over and over and over again…just the way I listed to my story. How the times have changed (and I’m feeling old again).
I’m trying to remember when my Arrival Day became just another day. I think it was in High School, though I can’t remember for sure. It’s still a special day, just not a celebrated day.
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5 comments:
Happy Arrival Day, Mo - and thanks for sharing your family's story. I think every family has special memories of that day, I know we do.
We didn't even have a video camera when our first child arrived, our son, but fortunately we met another family who became our best friends, and they made us a copy of theirs. It includes pictures of P, so he at least has that, plus all the photos - a LOT of photes.
I always liked to hear my mom tell the story of our arrival (and like you, still do), though I have no idea what day that actually was. I don't think my parents have ever said either. I never knew it had a name- Arrival Day! I'm with you on the dislike of Gotcha Day.
We have our children's arrival days on video and still photos. My daughter likes to tell my son about the day he came home and "changed her life forever"
My kid's Gotcha Days (okay, so we use that word..my kids like it but if they get to where they don't, we can change it) are both this month..8 years with my daughter and 6 years with my son.
We say "homecoming day." We don't like "Gotcha Day" either. But I like Arrival too. When Jae gets old enough he can tell us what he likes, too, if he wants to change it.
I don't like Gotcha Day either! We use Plane Day (as in airplane). The only way we celebrate is by making airplane shaped cookies. :-)
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