Mommy

Adi packed up an old canvas sack with some of her favorite family photos and has been carrying it around with her. Every few hours we open up the sack and talk about each photo. There are a lot of pictures from Africa in there, as those seem to be her favorite.

We went out for mexican tonight and on the way home in the car we opened the sack, again, and looked at them all. When we got to a photo of Belay with his birth mom, or African mommy as we say, Belay asked to hold it.  While it seemed he first cared more about the cool blue socks he was wearing in the picture, he eventually began staring at the faces. I pointed to his African mommy, said her name, then said "mommy".  At that moment his eyes were fixated on her face as he pointed repeating mama mama. 

It kinda shook me up.  I can't say if it was good or bad, but it did feel important and strong.
Watching my son stare into the eyes of the beautiful woman who gave him birth. The woman who loved him so much she gave him to us.  The woman he was supposed to call mommy. 

I know these moments will get more clear and more frequent as he grows and his speech and cognition grow too.  These moments and talks are only beginning, but this was defiantly our first.

a number of questions

Does anyone out there have a 3 year old daughter (or son) who regularly stops women on the street, in the mall, at restaurants, to tell them that they look fabulous? Or that they just love their shoes, or how great their skirt is? Because, no joke, this is what my 3 year old daughter does.

I began noticing her quietly comment on how beautiful these women we'd see out were. I guess she couldn't keep it in anymore, and she began approaching them. 

While in Florida last week for spring break she fell in love with a fabulous white flowy dress and then she saw the shoes. A simple Turquoise beaded wedge. Thats what broke her. She squealed and shouted "I love your dress and those SHOES" to a woman who was older than her grammas (not that thats very old:) She may have made that womans day.
The same thing happen a day later only we chased a women into the bathroom to tell her how beautiful she looked. Where did this girl come from? She never tells me my shoes are great.

Next question, did anyone see the results to the Boston Marathon? The male winner ran 26.2 miles in 2:03 min! The fastest marathon ever. How does one get there body to do that? I'd like to know.  The woman winner did it in 2:22 min. Not too shabby. 8 out of top 10 male finishers were from Ethiopia or Kenya (and 6 out of top 10 women were also).  I can't help but feel a bit of pride when I read that. Maybe because one of my kids is Ethiopian and the other's middle namesake is Kenya, as in the country? Maybe it only means something to me because I've been running for 20 years and I would do anything to run like some of those those guys.

Either way, I am in awe.


My last question. Will I even run in the Boston Marathon? (or any marathon for that matter)

Florida thus far

trains and fedoras

hiding from Appa

kids table

flower coconut soup

with just a touch of rocks

looking through the glass

moves

more moves

a sad goodbye

I've been fighting it. I've been pretending that we don't have a problem. I sneak off to different parts of town hoping we won't be recognized. I can't seem to just give it up.  I'm in denial. 

We have no choice but to stop going back all together. I hope there will be a time again in the future when we can reconnect. But for now, we just have to say no.

There cannot be library trips with Belay in tow for a long long time. And lest I forgot, while we have 2 furry members of the family.

It all started when we madethe grave mistake of leaving a library book on the coffee table and the dogs locked in another room, and left for the day.  Only to return to nothing but shreds of a hard back novel costing  $24.  After coming up with different ways of trying to tape the book back together I had no choice but to hang my head in shame and admit that my dog ate the book.

The next trip back to the library, on a snowy winter day after my kids had been cooped up for weeks inside, we were asked to leave.  Well actually Adi was asked to take her brother and leave. Yes, a librarian approached my not quite  2 and not quite 3 yr old and asked them to leave because they were running laps around the bookshelves (did I mention we had been snowed in for a while?) What still perplexes me is why on earth that woman didn't come to ME and ask ME to take my kids outside. Yes, my kids show not have been running inside and yes I turned my head away for a moment to look for a book without pictures.  So we left, shamed again.

Well as you can imagine our string of library luck only got worse. Another book got eaten and until I pay the $20 fee, which I just can't bring myself to do, we don't get to bring any home. Yet I go back for more. Each time we are there I am asked to take Belay and leave for various reasons. Sometimes its because he is jumping off the tables or dive bombing the chairs other times its because I suggest he lowers his inside voice just a touch and his response ends in, well, it ends in us leaving.

In the midst of all the book eating dogs and wild screaming boy, Adi just sits reading as quick as she can.  See she know now that  1. we aren't allowed to bring books home anymore  and 2. We may and will be asked to leave at any moment.

What's a mom to do? One child who wants nothing more than to read books and be in a library and the other who banned from the entire county library system.

I think we have to say goodbye for a while.  My deepest condolences Adi, one day we will return again.

Why did we adopt?

 I was recently asked to talk about what lead us to adoption, and this is what I said...

 "Adoption is born from loss, there is no way around that. But until there are no more orphans left in the world then we can find joy when one less orphan has a mother and one more family gets a child.

 There are so many different ways to grow a family, no one way is more or less beautiful than the other. We went to Africa to grow ours.

  When I was about 8 week pregnant with Adi, and didn't know it, I was told it would be very difficult for me to conceive.  After about a day of mourning the loss of a biological child, Andy and I immediately turned to adoption.  Then within the next few weeks when I found out I was in fact almost in my second trimester, adoption never left our minds.  And when Adi was less than a year old we began back on our road to Adoption. The decision was easy for us.

Why Africa? We have always held a place for Africa in our hearts. Both Andy and I choose to travel to Africa at different times in our lives and both fell in love with the people and the land. And when we traveled to Ethiopia in May of 2010 as a family of 3, we returned home more than just a family of 4. We returned with Africa in our lives and we celebrate that everyday.  Adopting from Africa was always what we were meant to do.

The processes took months of researching different African countries, then months of researching agencies, then once committing to Ethiopia it took 3 months to complete all the paperwork.  We were then placed on a wait list to be matched with a child.

After 5 months of waiting we were matched with Belay and saw his face for the first time in a photo. We learned that his birth mom named him Belay, and the meaning behind how she named him.  After 4 more months of waiting we were able to travel to Ethiopia and bring him home. The whole process took 11 months and we are grateful at how quickly we brought our baby home.

   Last May 2nd we walked into an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and picked up a 14 month old little boy out of the blue bumbo seat he was sitting in. I was filled with the exact same love that filled my heart when I was handed Adi the moment of her birth.

He weighed a mere 14 lbs and worse size 3 month clothes. His main source of food was still formula from a bottle. We spent that first week with him in Ethiopia cradling him in our arms and feeding him like an infant. We occasionally spooned pureed peas into his mouth, and even tried to feed him rice cereal. I immediately noticed his attachment to that bottle and how he snuggled his bottle before bed while I rocked him. It was the only source of comfort he ever knew.

  

In the first weeks of being home, Belay was off formula and eating everything. We then felt pretty stupid thinking about  how we tried  to feed him rice cereal. We went from an infant to a full blown toddler in a matter of weeks.    

He went from 2 teeth, to  all his teeth by summers end. 

The same 10 month old who wasn't able to hold his head up on his own when he got to the orphanage was running and climbing with in weeks of being home. It was a challenge to find any shoe small enough to fit our walking toddler who was the size of a 3 month old.

Now, at 2, We only buy him 2T's and size 6 shoe! Grant it the pants still fall off and he tends to trip while walking, but look how far he has come in less than a year. He came home at 14 lbs, and negative 20th percentile on the American growth chart. He is now pushing 21 lbs, and while he is still no where near being on the growth chart for weight, he is in the 10 percentile for height. 

Adi and Belay are best friends and fight like crazy, just like any other pair of siblings I have ever met.  Adi knows that Belay is Brown. She talks about it all the time. We celebrate our differences and what makes each one of them beautiful.  Sometime Adi will feel overshadowed by her brother with beautiful dark skin and almond eyes.  Other times Belays skin color  will make him feel different from all the family he knows. These are realities and we will take them as they come.

He didn't need us to save him. There are lots of families who would have been overjoyed to bring Belay home. We were chosen to be part of his life, we are the lucky ones. "

Happy Birthday Belay

 2 years ago today Belay took his first breath.  We didn't see it, we weren't there. But it still happened.

Birthdays are, for most, a day of celebration and memories. The exact moment of birth, the weight and length of the baby, the weather outside, the very first breath your baby takes. These are moments parents don't forget about the day their kids were born.

                 Opening his present from us, a spider man tee shirt. Look how happy his is.

Adi has blessed us with all these moments.   

But today is Belay's birthday, or so we were told. 2 years ago today Belay was born from the womb of a child.  Does she remember all those moments? What was the air like that day, was the sun shining? How big was he? was he premature?What did his little face look like the moment he took his first breath and opened his almond eyes?

We will never have these memories of Belay's birth.  We can not tell him about the day he was born. His birthday does not have the same meaning for us as Adi's does. It can't. We weren't there.  He wasn't born from my womb.  No matter how many details we can scrape together about his birth, it will never be the same.

Even though we don't have these moments, they were still very much there. We can't say whether or not that day was joyful or painful for her.  Was there peace in her heart for the life she created? Or was she filled with fear on how she was going to feed him as well as herself?    

Today a girl in Ethiopia is heavy on my heart and in my mind.  The courage it took for her to give us this gift of life is something I haven't ever known.

This little boy of mine has brought me happiness, joy, the occasional headache, but mainly love. 

We love you so much  Belay!  So much that we actually let you sleep in Adi's bed with her tonight. 

Belated Birthday post and the FLU

So Adi turned 3 almost a month ago and for some reason I haven't been able to upload pictures of her party or write about it.  She was so excited this year about her day. For weeks preceding the day I was hoping and dreaming about her actually being healthy for the first time.  Her first and second birthday's were filled with pneumonia and hospital stays.  It's my fault, I was responsible for her being born during flu season.  It looked like we may have actually stayed healthy this year. Then the flu hit. We have never done flu shots, none of us. This year the kids and I got it back to back. Influenza verses the common cold, which may still last over a week, is so so much worse. I didn't understand this until it happened.I literally couldn't sit up in bed for 5 days.  3 weeks of fevers hitting 104.5 and coughs without catching a breath in between. So Adi spent her  birthday morning (3 am) outside with me in the cold air trying to calm the cough, her birthday day coughing up a lung and burning hot and her birthday night at the doctors.  It was pitiful.

She had requested mac and cheese and broccoli, her favorite meal, and a pink cake with strawberry ice cream.  She didn't touch a bite of it.

I couldn't help add a heart explosion  mini heart cakes to the top.

She did muster up enough energy to open some presents and go to the toy store to pick our her annual birthday present from mom and dad.   Year one she picked out the Elmo sleeper sofa, still used daily, year two was the princess umbrella, broken within a month, and year three was a strawberry short cake doll. Strawberry shortcake must have gotten a make over from when I was a little girl but  she still smells like some weird strawberry plastic combo. So far Miss Shortcake is still getting major play time.

Adi and her cousin Padme, born ten days apart, shared a party. We went to this indoor play place with all sorts of stations for arts and crafts, dress up, bakery, post office, store and all sorts of other fun things. It was a huge hit and even though both my kids were hot, snotty, coughing messes, they had fun. 

rocking a baby doll in the nursery

baking apple pie in bakery

the rice table

present time

Maybe next year we will get flu shots, it was MISERABLE.