Our Own

One Day in Late January

2012-01-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

The sun came out on Friday. When we first got up, it was so cold we saw frost on our neighbor's roof and on the grass. We bundled ourselves for the trips to school and work.

The doors were all locked at work. A meeting. New carpet being installed in the building, so I made my way in through a back door where workers were wreaking havoc on the our offices. The seniors were arriving, so I let them into the reception area and in out of the cold, but we had nowhere to go. The room I was told I could have was in complete disarray. Made my way through the chaos and to my desk, turned on the computer, sat for a minute to figure out what to do.

Across the street is a donut shop. The sign claims them to be heavenly. Together, we picked up our lunch (delivered every Friday morning) and crossed the busy street. Hot, weak, diner coffee was poured for us, along with a couple of Lipton teas. No "buna-shai" here; we're in America, y'all. Our seniors unbundle themselves from their winter gear. We find seats. I deliver the drinks, the plastic tray of a couple dozen donut holes (my favorite as a pudgy Mississippi young-un). The sun. Oh, the sun. Blue sky outside on this dingy, busy corner in East Portland.

A senior points out that across the street our newest member is looking for us. I grab my coat but leave my purse. I jaywalk over there to collect her and bring her to us. She's Liberian, a recent widow. Knee-replacement surgery and lost 100 pounds. Arrives late every Friday due to her 9am zumba class at her community center. She takes my arm and we jaywalk back to the donut shop. I order more coffee, one for her and finally one for me. More donut holes. Everyone is talking. The sun is still shining. I pull out my new phone and start snapping some pictures of the lovelies I'm spending my Friday morning with. The old lady from Shashamene puts her arm around my head and kisses my face. She says she's my mother, me her daughter. She kisses me again. Her friend sitting across from us wants me to take his photo, so to get ready, he puts on his sunglasses and pulls out a pen from his jacket. He leans back, chin raised, holds the pen as if he's about to sign new legislation assuring equal rights for all refugees and assylum seekers in the world. I snap the photo. We look at it, and he laughs.

Our Eritrean elder arrives at his usual 11am time, having successfully found us but wondering what the hell we're doing in the donut shop. Another coffee. He eats the last powdered sugar donut holes, and we all leave together to the main office for lunch in the echoey gym. Our new Iranian ESL teacher arrives and teaches a lesson about family, food, traditions. It's a conversation. She does a good job. The strong sun is slanting in from the southern windows, and while the East Africans arrange seats for themselves in the shade, our Liberian elder places her chair away from everyone else, directly in the warmest spot available, the winter sun blazing down on her.

She comes with me to run my final work errands. She comes with me to my house where I get tea, apples, cheese sticks, and our son. On the way, she told me all about her husband, her kids. We talk adoption and church. I take her to her house, which is close to our daughter's school. She invites us in, and having some time to kill, we go inside and meet her two dogs, one of whom claims my lap as hers. I admire the photos of President Obama, the Jackson Five, and her other loved ones on her walls.

Abe and I have twenty more minutes before Beti's school is out, so we go to a hipster-central coffeehouse down the street, a place known for their pies. We sit at the counter together, and I think about that line from Twin Peaks, "This is where pies go when they die." It must be true. This cherry pie with whipped cream was that good. Abe and I race up the street in the sunshine to the car.

School lets out. Abe gives Beti her cheese stick. Parents talk. Gaggles of kids run in packs. The sun makes the time pass quickly. Before we know it, it's been an hour and a half, and some of us hear talk about an indoor soccer game being organized. In spite of the sun, our feet are getting cold, so the remaining kids on the playground and their parents go inside to the gym where we end up staying for another hour and a half. I sit against the wall listening to veteran parents discussing who's who among the staff, teachers, who you want your kid to get, who's retiring, all really interesting stuff. The organizers of the game let our little four-year-old play his strategy of taking frequent breaks from shuffling around the floor with his hands in his pockets. Our big-kid is so good and competitive that everyone swears she must have played before.

As we're getting ready to finally go home, Beti says she wants to go tell her teacher goodbye. I explain that I'm sure she's not there anymore because what teacher would be still at the school at 6pm on a Friday afternoon? Beti insists she's still there. To prove her wrong, I say, "Come on, let's walk down to her room, and I'll show you." Beti runs into the open door to tell her teacher goodbye, the type of teacher who is still in her room at 6pm on a Friday afternoon, organizing and planning for the next week. We chat for a while. She's close to retirement with her own kids all grown and out of her house, so she said she doesn't feel a big rush to get home and prepare dinner for kids anymore. She's the most "zen" teacher I've ever met. Earlier in the afternoon, one of those veteran parents described her as one of the two best teachers in the school. We're lucky and hoping our little guy gets her next year too.

As we walk out of the building with the family whose son is in Beti's class, it's completely dark and freezing cold again. We talk about how that corner needs a streetlight. We scramble quickly into our cars and turn on the heat. We mosy away, talking about where to get dinner. Take-out chain-store pizza and breadsticks await us. The kids are ecstatic. They drink flat 7-up with their pizza, excitedly blabbering about how "this drink has sugar in it!" Hey, it's Friday night.

A cold Friday night in January. The sun shone that day.

Read This Book

2012-01-23T12:05:00.000-08:00

"'Sometimes,' my five-year-old son said into my shoulder that night, 'life is so beautiful, you just have to cry'."

--from I'm Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers by Tim Madigan. This book made me sob and want to be a better human being.

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes.

2012-01-18T14:03:00.000-08:00

On October 31, 1998 in the High Tatra mountains of Slovakia, it started snowing. I looked outside the window of the little first room floor of the hotel I was staying in and saw it. I had seen snow before of course but as a person who grew up in Mississippi, it was rare. To be living in a country where it started so early in the year seemed so magical and exciting. I remember so clearly being filled with such joy that I picked up my new (used) cellphone and called my parents in the U.S., for the sole reason of telling them it was snowing. The short conversation cost an arm and a leg, but I didn't care. I felt an overwhelming urge to connect that current beautiful moment with the place I had left behind.

Last night Ted came in from teaching his class and said, "You've seen what it's like outside, right?" I hadn't. I had put the kids to bed early and was watching Mad Men on netflix. I knew it was supposed to snow but I didn't think it had started. I looked outside and saw our street covered in brand-new snow with more coming down. My favorite thing about snow is how it makes the night-time look so bright. We debated waking the kids up to show them and finally decided not to.

Finally though at 11pm when we were heading to bed ourselves, I decided that they needed to see this. The forecast was saying it would be melting by the morning, so I ran upstairs, Ted right behind me, and we woke Beti up. In her bright-eyed way, she sat straight up and nodded enthusiastically when we asked her if she wanted to go outside and see the snow. Her eyes were puffy and red, but she climbed straight out of bed, and I carried her downstairs. Ted and Abe followed behind me.

I grabbed a bathrobe I saw on the couch and put it over her head. Her legs were wrapped around my waist as we went out to the front porch. We walked down the porch steps and into the sidewalk. It was so bright out there! It was so beautiful. I felt the same elation I felt fourteen years ago in Tatranska Lomnica, Slovakia. I walked Beti over to a tree to show her how beautiful the branches look when they are covered in fresh snow. When she looked up, she got a face-full of snow, so I looked at her and sang, "Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes..." She smiled. She had huge flakes stuck to her huge eyelashes. She was intrigued by the way the snow stuck to my sweater and just hung there in clumps.

At this point, she was starting to shake, so I walked back inside. We put the kids back into bed, and they were instantly back asleep.

Just like the forecast said, it rained the rest of the night ruining that 11pm beauty. All day today, it's been slushy and wet and gray outside. I'm glad we woke them up. It was a moment captured. I'm not sure if they'll remember it, but I know I will.

And that is that.

2012-01-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

This morning I was retouching Beti's hair before she left for school. She asked me, "Mom, can you tell Abe 'bye' for me when he wake up?"

She'd never asked this before. I said, "Um, okay?"

"Because I love him."

Half an hour later, he woke up, came downstairs, stood on the toilet to look out the bathroom window at the snow. I told him what his sister said.

He looked at me, was quiet for a beat, shrugged, put his thumb back in his mouth and matter-of-factly said, "Well, I love her too."

These Days Are Numbered

2012-01-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

The sun came out today in a brilliant sort of way. I didn't go to work. I have been at home all day with our youngest while our kindergartener is at school. A friend who has a one-year-old came over this morning and had tea. It got me thinking about what those days were like when Abe was that age. The days did seem long and sometimes monotonous, but boy were they sweet.

Abe's been asking me a lot lately, "Can we do something just you and me?" So I let him pick where we went. We took a walk in the sun to a grocery store about a mile away that has nice free samples. He sang the Star Wars theme the whole way there and back, pedaling along on his little bike. We crossed very carefully the busy street together to go to the tiny little shop where I get my favorite tea. We took our time.

One of my favorite friends here in Portland I met when she had only a three-year-old. We met when Abe was only a baby, and the two of us would hang out a lot with our two kids on the days her son didn't go to preschool. It was just the two kids. Two. Now in just three years, there's five. Our two oldest are both in elementary school. Another two are in the same preschool (on different days). There's also a nice squishy baby in the mix. I saw her earlier this week and got to thinking again about the passage of time.

As Abe and I were on our walk today I couldn't help feeling a little happy that I've had to cut back on the hours I work. The timing is good. This spring is the last time that we will have a little one at home, one who doesn't spend the bulk of his week at school. I want to savor these last few days of having a preschooler following me around the house asking for hot chocolate or to read a book or to snuggle with me while sucking his thumb. These last remnants of the baby will fly away with the falling leaves this September when he's off to kindergarten. Of course we'll celebrate this milestone, but there's some melancholy mixed in there too.

Here's to savoring some slow sunny days at home before they're all gone.

Where I've Been

2012-01-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

just a little lost in my mind. Sorry for not posting and thanks for those who check in.

It is now a new year

2012-01-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

“Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light
and of every moment of your life”

--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

2012 Calendars!

2011-12-30T14:10:00.000-08:00

I have written here before about my job working with elder immigrant and refugees from Africa. I really love this work; in fact, most days it doesn't even feel like work. Something that often happens with volunteers in the program happened this morning: a volunteer ESL teacher found out yesterday about a change in her work schedule and has to leave our program. At the end of her class today, her eyes got red and she stood quietly looking at the elders. I asked if she was okay, and she told me how much she's going to miss coming. I told her, "They are endearing, aren't they?" She nodded, told them all goodbye and promised to visit.

Part of the program for these elders is an art class every Friday morning. In order to raise some money for art supplies, I had some 2012 calendars printed that feature one elder's artwork each month. I sold most of them already but one person who told me she was going to sell a stack of them at her yoga class flaked out and brought them back to me this morning.

So. Lucky you! I'm now offering the last of them here if anyone might be interested. All proceeds from the calendar go to buying art supplies for our wonderful elders. If you are interested in buying one, please email me at ourownrooney at gmail dot com, and I can give you details on how to get one. I can ship them anywhere easily. They are $20, plus shipping.

They were printed at shutterfly and really are wonderful quality. Here is a peek at what they look like:

Holidays 2011

2011-12-27T21:23:00.000-08:00

They were busy. In an eagerness to introduce our daughter to all our community has to offer in terms of Christmas cheer and revelry, we participated in the following over the course of the last few weeks:

A cookie decorating party.

Taking the train to see Oregon Zoo's "Zoo Lights" holiday light show with neighbors (on a school night, dumb idea--everyone was completely zonked the next day).

The Grotto's Christmas lights display with nativity and concerts and petting zoo and wandering St. Nicholas who hands out candy-canes.

A trip downtown with friends to see The Nutcracker (which I cried off and on through, thanks to the memories of my mom taking my sister and me as kids).

Some Jewish friends let our kids help make matzo ball soup one night when they were babysitting.

Abe's holiday party at his school where he got to invite one guest: his sister.

A crowded stroll with three cousins through "Peacock Lane," a street known for its crazy light displays.

We hosted a caroling party with neighbors.

A friend's annual "fishmas" party, which had our kids doing the limbo and conga line until almost midnight.

A Somali wedding reception, females only, outrageously beautiful.

Christmas Eve church service.

Christmas Eve open house at a friend's house.

Christmas Eve extended family white elephant gathering.

Christmas morning stockings, presents, breakfast, reading of the Christmas story, dinner with friends.

Day-after Christmas pancake brunch at our house with all the family still in town followed by a "Boxing Day" party at a friend's house.

First conga line, very late at night, in a fancy dress.

Gorgeous Somali dresses.

Lights, lights, lights.

He liked the gift his sister picked out for him.

We gussied ourselves up to see The Nutcracker.

There is nothing not to love about big bowls of chocolate chips.

St. Nicholas

Adorableness: she had never seen humans dressed up as animals and wasn't sure what this was all about at first. More testimony to her bravery, that she snuggled right up to this polar bear.

Four year ago on this day, we saw our son's face for the first time.

I married him in part because of the way he moves:

We are lucky that Abe's old babysitter, now a college sophomore, still has connections to his high school glee club. For our night of caroling, they performed this rendition of Carol of the Bells with no practice at all.

Just because the word is the same does not make every part equal.

2011-12-15T21:34:00.000-08:00

I'm just going to put this out there with little editing because by the time I figure out my thoughts about it, I may never get around to writing it down, and I think it's something worth discussing.

Someone told me today that her son, a friend of Abe's, asked her what adoption means. She answered him something about how it's what happens when a mom and dad have a child they can't take care of, so another family decides to make that child their family instead. Fair enough. I was impressed by the simplicity of the explanation.

But then. Oh, but then.

She followed it up with telling me that she talked to her son about how it's the same as what happens when people adopt dogs who don't have someone to take care of them. Her eyes lit up when she told me that this last bit about abandoned dogs is what really hit home for her son (as if a child in need of a family is less real to him?).

I knew that it hit a nerve with me but I'm still processing my thoughts about why I bristled at my children being compared to abandoned animals.

I put a query out there about it on fb and got some interesting responses, some people even telling me that I shouldn't be bothered by it because our kids are going to hear this kind of stuff and better to talk about it openly with them than get all upset about it. Again, fair enough. I agree. But it did bother me, and I'm torn about whether to talk to the woman about it or not. Is it worth it to try to explain to her that we don't compare our own children to dogs in animal shelters, and that this concept might be hurtful to our kids?

A friend of mine who hasn't adopted herself but who is a new mom and who has more sense and understanding than most anybody I know told me, "People have shitty dumb ideas about adoption and they’re going to keep passing them on without ever seeing their stupidity even if you point it out to them. If you do, in their minds, you’ll be oversensitive. The best thing you can do for her boy is to show him “adoption” by having him be around your family. He’ll know Abe isn’t the world’s saddest dog with a yeast infection and British teeth."

It made me laugh. I think she's probably right. It's just that in my protective yearning to keep my kids from ever experiencing pain of any kind makes it really hard not to say anything. Another plus to bringing it up with the other parent is that maybe she truly is unaware that this comparison is hurtful and she could actually learn something. Maybe bringing it up with the teacher is the right way? I'm really not sure.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, should anyone still read this blog.

Injustice

2011-12-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

There is an Ethiopian man in my program at work who is really too young to be in the program but comes anyway because he hasn't been able to find a job with enough hours to fill up his days. He comes to hang out with his older buddies in the program and to help me out. He's a saint of a person. I wrote about him earlier this year in this post.

My children had to get piggy banks to hold all the dollar bills and coins he has given them.

He grew the garden out back at my workplace and never ate a single bite; he gave it all away.

Back home in Ethiopia, he worked for a religious high school starting out as a volunteer elementary school teacher and eventually becoming the guy in charge of the dairy farm, seed nursery, vegetable farm, and supply store. In the years he was there, he doubled the number of cows and increased revenue of the store so much that the college was able to hire new teachers to educate the growing student body. He did this. The headmaster of the college also now lives here in Oregon and told me that all this is true.

I know all of this because I'm trying to help him find a job. We wrote his resume several weeks ago and have been getting it to as many places as we can. He is beyond competent; as an employee, he surpasses expectations and becomes a servant leader. I have never known anyone like him.

Yet I have failed in finding him a job. Every place we go to together, we are greeted by surly managers who treat him as if his presence in their place of business is ruining their day. I am extremely discouraged about this today.

This morning, we met at a nation-wide thriftstore (whose name I will not mention, but if you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I shop here a lot....though not anymore after today) to drop off his application, resume, and letters of reference. The Ethiopian woman who had given me the application the week before was there and called her manager to the front so she could take the information from my client.

We waited and waited and waited. Finally, a very huffy woman appeared, staring us down as she came to us. I asked if she was the manager (since she didn't bother to introduce herself), and she corrected me, "Yes, I am the store supervisor. What do you need?"

She then complained to us about how she can't get her job done if the cashiers call her to the front "every ten minutes" to take another job application. We never asked her to come there; it was the cashier's idea, a point I didn't bother to tell her.

We thanked her for coming up to the front to take the information and she said she'd look at the application. My hopes are low. I felt embarrassed by this woman, by her surly attitude, by this city I live in that seems to be full of "supervisors" who refuse to treat people with even the tiniest shred of respect.

My client and I walked outside and I apologized to him for yet another disrespectful, rude potential employer. He faces this everywhere we go, and I'm tired of it. I have known what it's like to look for a job in a foreign country, but I never faced this level of rudeness that he has. Is it because he is African? Is that all they see? Is it because he is shy? I try to get him to take the initiative to introduce himself to these people, but he always makes me do it. Of course he's intimidated by these horrible people! I would be too! And every last one of them has been horrible, terrible, no-good, God-awful. Awful. Horrendous. Smelly.

So I have a hard time letting these things go. I'm going to stew over it the rest of today I'm sure. A pastor told me once that I have "an overdeveloped sense of justice." Over twenty years later, I'm still not sure what to think about that description of my personality. I just know that I get a knot in the pit of my stomach when I see someone like this angelic client of mine having door after door shut in his face. I feel it viscerally, in my core, an unease and sick feeling that this man is not getting the opportunity he deserves, that rude people who know nothing of the suffering he has endured and overcome have power over him.

He is the faithful servant who took the little he was given and multiplied it.

So why is he not being given the chance here?

The life of the immigrant, refugee, one seeking political or religious asylum is a life of endurance and hardship, and I am honored to work with them. Today I simply feel embarrassed by this city I live in and frustrated that a very deserving individual spends his days doing little when he could do so much.

Soucy Raffle!

2011-12-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

During that very long period of time when we were waiting for B to get here, a huge box appeared on our front porch that felt like it weighed a ton. It was packed full of girl-things that Jess and her daughter had picked out for our daughter. Some of those things, including a baby doll with a pacifier, went with us to Ethiopia. That doll is sitting in Abe's car seat at the moment; Beti still loves it.

It's kind of amazing that I've never met Jess or anyone in her family in person. She is an incredibly generous person, both with her things and with her heart. As we were waiting for B, she also would email me just to check in and see how I was doing. She gave wonderful, compassionate advice, and I am so thankful for her.

They are now waiting to adopt their third and are auctioning off one of these beautiful dolls made by my local friend Autumn.

Go here to enter the drawing and help support this wonderful family.

A Little Sap for Your Thursday

2011-12-01T19:05:00.000-08:00

The kids are sitting at either end of the long dining room table playing "rock, paper, scissors" while they're supposed to be eating their dinner. Leftover rice-krispy-treats go to those who finish. As I write this, they are recounting stories of what happened after school today on the playground. They had a lot of adventures with pine cones apparently.

We were all very tired today. It was the first time that Beti asked to go back to sleep when I woke her up this morning for school. Abe has been in his red footed-pajamas all day, even for trips to take and pick up his sister from school. He's wearing them now as he eats his dinner.

I forget how many things are still new for our daughter. People are amazed at how quickly she is adjusting to life, how much she's throwing herself into this new world of hers. Another parent at her school was telling me this week that a few of the parents in her class were talking about how remarkable it is that she's reading above the level of their kids who were born and raised here. Her teacher told us last week that she is a "teacher's dream" because of her intelligence and enthusiasm.

She read a whole 'level one' book to me this week. Three months ago, she knew about twenty spoken English words.

Last night we went to see the zoo all lit up for the holidays. This was her first time on the train. She seemed pretty nonplussed by the experience but she was entranced by the human-sized biped animals walking around greeting and hugging people at the zoo. Her eyes got huge when she saw the first, a tiger, waving at everyone as they entered. She stood back for a few beats and watched closely as our friends' kids went close to him. She decided it was okay, and with a huge smile, approached him, shook his hand, got a hug. She walked back to me and pulled on my arm. I leaned down and she whispered in my ear, "Mom, actually, it's a person in there."

A friend of mine with a one-year-old told me that her favorite thing is blowing her daughter's mind with stuff like aquariums and lights. I feel that way sometimes about Beti. Last night I got to watch her mind get blown by adults in animal costumes.

Abe, having grown up in a slightly different reality is fortunately still entranced by things like used earplugs on public transportation, which I realized he was snuggling next to his face as he was falling asleep in my arms on the train last night. He was so so so sad when I freaked out and threw it on the ground. His treasure! Gone! Just like that.

He is the kid at school that some of the boys fight over sitting next to during snack. Yes, and even that made me proud, that moment when I explained to the fighting boys that my son has two sides and that they can sit one to his left and the other to his right. He has also already made friends with the 'big kids' at his sister's school. I find it hilarious and funny when these first and second graders I've never laid eyes on before pass us in the hallway or on the playground and say, "Hey Abe." How does he know these people?

He still, when I lean down and hug him from behind, says "hi, Mom" and kisses my cheek. This morning, after the late night and early wake-up to take his sister to school, he snuggled next to me on the couch and fell asleep, his reindeer next to his face. I fell asleep too, and when he woke up, he was very interested in hearing about the dream I'd had about Lando Calrissian from Star Wars. Through puffy-eyed, pouffy-lipped sleepy-face, his eyes brightened as he thought about light-saber fights.

Tonight, as I went through the millions of papers Beti brings home from school, I found this one, and the swell, the swell, the swell of my heart.

I am not proud of the number of times I get impatient with them and whine about "needing a break." I should know better.

I got teary-eyed a few days ago as I nodded in sincere agreement with the Ethiopian woman working at Goodwill who, upon seeing one of my children in the flesh and the other in a photo, locked eyes with me to tell me, "You are so lucky." I am. Completely.

Why I Hardly Blog Anymore

2011-11-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

Our kids exasperate us sometimes, which I'm pretty much over with. Parents shouldn't be as exasperated as we are. That's why my son is upstairs asleep right now: he wouldn't eat his lunch and rather than get exasperated with him, after giving him the choice (twice) between a nap and lunch, I just made the choice for him.

Okay, nevermind, he's up. Maybe that didn't work so well.

Our kids also get along really well these days, so well that Thanksgiving week flew by with the two of them out of school the whole time. They create these little worlds now with each other using a few random items like a long string and laundry basket. They'll be swimming away from sharks or something, for hours.

Our daughter was described at parent-teacher conferences as a "teacher's dream." She's also well above every single benchmark that kids in her grade are supposed to have reached by this point in the year. She's so well above that we wonder if she should be in a higher grade. She won an award for "enthusiasm" last month. She now refers to most females, no matter the age, "that young lady," which is really all kinds of wonderful.

We have our Christmas tree up now. We hosted Thanksgiving with a brined turkey that was the best one ever. We are trying to explain to our daughter the difference between the holiday season and Christmas day. It's a lot to take in for her.

Vivid dreams lately, things like being held hostage and plane crashes and eating big bowls of sugary cereal with famous rappers.

This is why I don't blog as much anymore. These are the sorts of things I have to say at the moment.

Wonder

2011-11-27T18:30:00.000-08:00

"The Holy"

2011-11-17T12:41:00.000-08:00

If I would follow this advice, I would most likely have a stronger urge to write. This is a very inspiring read, from my oldest friend in the world.

Click here for the original post/blog.

The Holy

When I was a kid, the family tendency, as soon as we got home from church, was to strip off all our dressy church clothes, put on shorts and T-shirts, and watch TV the rest of the night. But I resisted this tendency. I don't blame the family for doing it (as I got older, I did it too), but something in me wanted to go into my room by myself, keep my church clothes on, do some quiet activity or do nothing at all (maybe even just go to bed and think), and above all avoid the TV. Something about immediately going back to "normal" just felt wrong to me, made me feel a little sick. I realize now that feeling has to do with the concept of the holy, which I'll attempt to describe here.

The experience of going to church -- if the church does it right -- puts you in another frame of mind, to allow you to think a different way, feel a different way, talk a different way, etc. That's what the stained-glass windows and candles and architecture is all about (not that my church had any of that). When the Bible tells you to separate yourself from this world, it's addressing this concept. As a boy (about age six to about age fourteen), I wanted to retain that different feeling. I didn't want to kill it as soon as I had the opportunity, especially since it would be gone by morning. It's not that the more comfy clothes and television were evil. They just weren't holy.

A lot of people say they get their best ideas in the bathroom: either taking a shower or taking a long dump. They might also get their best ideas while walking or jogging. Why is this? Easy. Because these are the times that you are by yourself, alone with your mind, away from what I'm going to call the glut.

When I was young, TV was the primary glut. It was the thing that best allowed you to do what you most wanted to do (whether you realized it or not): to be as far away from your inner life as possible. In the past decade, the glut has become more attainable than ever. As useful as cellular telephones can be, their primary function seems to be the twenty-four hour a day ability to disconnect yourself from the life of your thoughts. The main reason I don't use one (and I promise that this is not simply going to be a complaint about cell phones) is that I don't want people to be able to reach me at all times of the day. This isn't selfish. This is mental and spiritual health. I don't want to be the guy at the airport who sits down in his chair, nothing to do for thirty minutes, who looks around anxiously until he finally (and eventually this happens quickly, becomes second nature) realizes (oh!) he can call someone. And what does he say? "Hey, I'm at the airport. Yeah, I've got about thirty minutes till we board." Translated to: "I'm using you to avoid meditation."

If he were forced to sit there for that thirty minutes -- no cell phone, no laptop, no magazine -- he would be forced to have a holy moment. Maybe he'd look at people. Maybe he'd have thoughts about them: they look different, they look the same, they are moving while he is still, they have similar destinies, some tend to radiate more than others. Maybe he'd think of himself, at various stages of his life and of his future. Maybe he'd think of other people, which would connect him more to them than if he called them to talk glut, because he needed to kill time (and is now killing them and their own inner world). He'd, for that thirty minutes, be forced to become part of the eternal life that he's so afraid of.

As a kid going to a church that affected me in a positive way (and I plan to write about those days in a later post), the arrival home was part of the experience. The clothes, too, were part of the experience. Why? Because they were different. They weren't my daily clothes: the clothes I wore while watching a rerun of The Munsters for the fiftieth time. I remember thinking once, "This is why they say cleanliness is next to godliness." This is what dressing up is all about, to remove yourself, through clothing, from the everyday. And I felt I had to run away from the TV. It immediately came on (it was pretty much always on in the house) and I had to close myself off to avoid it. Certain religious groups preach against the television. They exaggerate, as always ("You're going to hell if you get one," "There's nothing but pornographic filth on it," etc.), but in a way they're on to something. Television's number one function is to distract you from anything real.

When I was older, I sometimes got those sick feelings too, when moments of holiness were juxtaposed with moments of glut. When I was seventeen, I saw David Lynch's Fire Walk With Me and the effect on me was profound. (Holiness, by the way, doesn't have to be a religious concept; it can come in different forms, in this case a movie.) Eventually after seeing this film, I had to creep back into the real world, and later that night, still feeling the holy feelings, I walked into a room where someone was watching television. The screen looked like it was covered with moving vomit, literal vomit. I couldn't make out anything on the screen: just smears of someone else's sick. My inner world was filled with art and my visual world was suddenly filled with the opposite, and that was the moment I first truly realized the destructive power of television for the mind and spirit. I had a lesser version of that experience a day or two ago when I was reading Joseph Campbell. I put the book down and (apparently too quickly) went to my computer and loaded up Facebook. Everyone's little posts -- "I'm about to eat some dinner, " "I'm ready for 5:00 to get here" -- and just the mundane look of the site made me a little pukey. (I hesitate to even write about that experience here, because I want this God Blog to be somewhat holy, separate from those kinds of places on the internet.)

I again promise you that I'm not just picking on certain kinds of technology (cell phones, television, laptops, social network sites, etc.). I'm not just being the old grumpy man. It just so happens that TV and cell phones seem to be primarily used for glut (while books are often not). I've seen true art on TV and had holy moments while watching it. The relaxation that television (even bad television) affords can even be therapeutic for your soul to a point, but after a while (once you've properly relaxed), it transforms and all you're left with is the crappy TV. It becomes glut. (The food analogies are obvious here: over-eating, "comfort food," etc. This kind of eating, of course, is usually paired with TV viewing.)

I also don't want you to think that because I'm talking about the inner life that my idea of holiness is only arrived at through solitude. The only reason I escaped my family those post-church nights was because they were returning to a place that I wasn't ready to go back to. My favorite nights after church, in fact, were the ones where we came home and sat together a little more and talked. We would talk about the Bible or about other things that may have happened, or maybe we just talked about something non-church related, just enjoyed each other--no television. Or we would have friends follow us home and we'd play the piano and sing. Times like those allow you not only to have a fun time together, but (if you're thoughtful enough) it also makes you aware, within the moment, that you are experiencing something special and gives you those special feelings. (If this doesn't happen, these moments can just turn into common noise: fun, but not holy.) Christmas can be a good time for that communal holiness. If you allow the magic of the tree lights, weird food, strange music you only hear one month out of the year, etc. to sweep over you, it can be amazing. This is that "special feeling" the songs are about, the "spirit of Christmas." You're removed from the normality of the rest of the year and enter this special zone. (Alternately, Christmas can be the noisiest, most depressing, spirit-killing glut-fest.)

I realize I'm not saying anything entirely new here (I never do), but I do think I'm saying something beyond just "Stop and smell the roses." I'm not just talking about getting away from the business of everyday life every now and then to have a quiet moment (though that's a start). I'm talking about attempting to go beyond the almost irresistible comfort of glut, so irresistible and comfortable that -- to some -- they don't know they're in it. For some, glut is life and the holy is merely boredom. (For me too, often, unfortunately.) This is why reincarnation (as a metaphor) is seen as a bad thing: it's just the same shit over and over again.

So -- to attempt a definition -- the holy is anything beyond the everyday that can alter or increase your consciousness in some way, anything that makes you thoughtful instead of thoughtless, anything that allows you to delve down to your inner life, anything that makes you feel that which is beyond words. And the glut is anything that is so mundane, artless, or noisy that it hinders the above.

For me, solitude does seem to work best for arriving at this holy state. Sitting outside with trees arching over me, birds talking, squirrels nibbling everywhere, insects crawling through the leaves at my feet like blood. A quiet room and a sheet of paper. An art museum--all that white space, all those echoed footsteps, all those pieces on display that wouldn't have as much power somewhere else. Staring at any given space and meditating on whatever happens to be there: a stack of CDs, two shoes arranged in that particular way on the floor, the base of a microphone stand, the top left corner of a window pane. All of this is holy, all of this is God.

Referral-versary

2011-11-10T17:38:00.000-08:00

On November 10th last year, while visiting family in Mississippi, we heard for the first time about our daughter. I was with my parents, and we printed these photos.

One year later:

That's kind of cool, right?

I would write more about this day except that two kids is a kick-in-the-pants that leaves little time for reflection, at least for me.

Pappy

2011-11-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

Pappy arrived, and we promptly went for a walk in the woods.

Perspective

2011-11-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

My dad arrives today for a week-long visit. Why did he choose a random week in rainy and cold November to come see the grandchildren (one of whom he'll be meeting for the first time)? Well, it's because Ted is working in Canada for two weeks, you see. He's been gone for eight days now, and his absence has made me realize how spoiled I am by being married to a man who believes so heartily in the sharing of all household responsibilities. Since every last one of them has fallen on me in the last week, I've gotten...frayed around the edges.

I didn't get around to taking out the garbage this week (it was Halloween night and who has time?). I only managed one simple hairstyle for Beti for the whole week. I snapped at the kids more than usual. When the kids were in school, I was 100% of the time at the office trying to squeeze in work. I haven't slept enough (I could relate to so much in this article).

Friday morning at work, the art lesson was to draw/paint your home in Africa (the art teacher was absent, and this is what I came up with on my own). One of our newer seniors, a woman from Somalia, started telling me about her family and her home. It was bright pink and had a coconut tree beside it that they would use in most of their cooking. Then I asked about her children, and I always forget what a painful question this can be for our seniors.

She told me that when fighting broke out in Mogadishu when her nine children were all at home, she only had time to grab and gather to her the youngest five. The four oldest, all teenage boys, she had to leave to fend for themselves, hoping they were meet up later in a safe place. They were capable and strong, and it was the choice she had to make in that moment.

She hasn't seen them since then.

Four of her children now live in Minnesota, but she chooses to live in Oregon because she can't stand the cold over there. She sees them regularly though. She has a Somali roommate she takes care of. She works at a hotel, cleaning the rooms. She comes to our art classes and creates beautiful pictures. She wears gorgeous robes, sometimes with sequins in intricate designs. It's easy to make her laugh. I love having her in the program.

I still feel a bit ragged. As I write this, it's Saturday morning, and my kids didn't really take too much to heed my directive last night, "Tomorrow is Saturday, so when you wake up, close your eyes and go back to sleep." They both woke me up way too early (as in, school-day early!) despite being allowed to stay up last night to watch a movie from start to finish. It's only 9am, and I've already felt frazzled by their neediness.

So really what I think is that I need to get over myself. My kids are here with me, alive and strong, and what do I really have to complain about. Nothing.

Thankful 1 (which should be 2)

2011-11-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

A good night's sleep and waking up fully rested an hour before the kids.

My library, which I know belongs to everyone in our county but that I still think of as only mine.

True-blue friends, the kind who never judge, who swear and let me swear, who make me and my children wonderful things by hand and love, who I can call at a moment's notice and who ask for help from me too.

Sunny fall days that start out right above freezing but warm up by afternoon.

The people of Ireland for creating and selling Barry's black tea.

Old Friends

2011-10-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

These two were born one year apart in the same city in Ethiopia. They traveled together to Addis Ababa.

Now they both live in the Pacific Northwest.

Now they have brothers and sisters.

And they'll always have each other.

School Meeting

2011-10-27T20:39:00.001-07:00

Tonight, we went to a meeting at B's school about changes that will be happening next school year. There was a fair amount of complex drama that happened last year about district lines and such. With no kids in the system at that point, we just listened from the sidelines; this year though, we are going to these meetings to educate ourselves about all the ins-and-outs. It's interesting.

At one point in the meeting, we were to join up in small groups to discuss the proposed changes and to clarify what our values are as a community. I ended up in a group with a four other parents, two of whom were African-American mothers. One of these women brought up the issue of diversity in schools, and how important it is for her kids to have some faces that look like theirs in the class.

I'm pretty sure at this point she didn't realize I was an adoptive mother of a black child, which I'm sort of glad about since I then got to hear her unfiltered opinions about white parents who adopt black children. She joked about how she and her friend sit on the soccer field and try to pick out which of the black children are either "mixed" or "adopted." She pointed her finger saying "Yep, look at that messy hair. Adopted. Mixed. Adopted, adopted, mixed." Then she started laughing.

She went on for a while about how these parents think that "love is enough" all while not preparing their kids for the "different reality" that their kids will grow up in, simply by having darker skin. She's exactly right. Turns out she's a therapist and that some black adult adoptees have come to her to talk about how they don't know where they fit in, how their white parents didn't expose them to black culture so they have no way to judge character. She said that these kids end up in wrong crowds sometimes because they don't have positive black role models who show them how to judge character and help them know their place in the world. She even said that some white parents don't listen when their kids tell them instances where they were discriminated against.

I also found it interesting that she makes sure when her children are placed in their classes each year that "if there is only one other black child in that grade, they better be in my child's class." I was also thrilled to hear that one of her children was taught by B's kindergarten teacher, and that she loved her. I mean, she gushed about how wonderful she is.

She does "curly hair parties" for moms like me who are just learning. She is a bright, shining light of a person.

I also got her card before I left for the night.

As Long as One and One is Two

2011-10-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

Today on the playground, I noticed Abe standing at the bottom of a slide screaming up at some bigger boys at the top. I called him over to me. He trudged my way with shoulders down, Charlie-Brown-style. He said they'd been making fun of him for sucking his thumb.

So it begins.

I guess I sort of liked that his response was to yell back at them, despite their being older than him, bigger than him, and at the top of the slide with him at the bottom. I also admit to liking that he let me pick him up and walk with him out of sight of the big boys while he rested his face against my face with his thumb back in his mouth. I told him about how this is one of the reasons we've been telling him that he should reserve the thumb for the bed. As I'm telling him this, he looks at me sort of googly-eyed, leans forward and kisses my nose.

Substitute "father" for "mother" and "daughter" for "son," and you've got my feelings for my son. Sometimes, it's a literal ache in my chest, my love for this boy.

Life

2011-10-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

Life has sort of gotten in the way of writing. There are a lot of things going around in my brain that I think I should take time to write about, but then something comes up like needing to get the girl who has fallen asleep on the bathroom floor to put on pajamas.

We Love Our School

2011-10-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

A few things we love about our daughter's school this year:

1. Every month, the principal hosts a coffee hour right after the start of school. The parents sit in an empty classroom with chairs in a circle, drink really good coffee (we're in Oregon, you know), and talk about whatever needs to be discussed.

2. After school, the kids play outside (if it's not too rainy) and the parents stand around talking, sometimes for over an hour like last Friday afternoon.

3. The "community" feel of this school is really amazing. We have yet to meet a parent who is not friendly and helpful.

4. Parents are very involved but not obsessively-involved in that "granola stepford-wife" way that results in quiet judgment and competitiveness among the parents. Yuck. Can't stand that.

5. In Beti's class, there are several other children of color, and the "room mother," is part of a transracial family. It's comforting to know I am not the only pink-skinned parent of a brown-skinned child.

6. The teacher this morning sent the kids to hang up their coats according to their skin color. She had a poster with about ten different colors of construction paper taped to it that she would point to and say "Whoever has beautiful skin this color can go hang up their coat." Diversity, diversity, diversity, understanding, understanding, understanding.

7. On the playground after school, we see the mom with the long salt-and-pepper hair who wears a "Peace" armband every day. The gawky, awkward, lumbering dad with the red-headed boy in clunky glasses who always is there every day for pick-up and drop-off. The adorable chubby boy and his spitting-image father who is the spitting image of this kid, my favorite character from Hook. The wasp-y looking mom whose hard exterior hides kind pragmatism (she rushed to help me one day when I lost Abe on the playground at a crowded event). The sprite of a black-haired, blue-eyed adoptee with artistic parents. On and on and on. Wonderful characters.

8. One morning this week, Beti's teacher had calmly brought an older kid into her classroom to have him write an essay for her about "What you did wrong out there and how you plan to do things differently next time." It was awesome, funny, and a little scary.

9. As soon as you walk into the classroom, you see a sign that says, "Rosa sat so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Barack could run. Barack ran so our children can fly." Even typing that, I get choked up, as I do every time I read it.

10. This one is the biggest of all. About two weeks into the school year, I sent a short email to all the parents in the class saying basically that Beti is new here, is still learning English, so if they or their kids notice any odd behavior, it's because she's getting used to things.

I've gotten nothing but support in response. It is blowing my mind. I haven't gotten even one bone-headed or intrusive question. I mean, seriously. Not one. Parents have written me emailed responses and have stopped me at the school to thank me for the email and tell me that they have talked to their kids about how they should be welcoming and patient with our daughter. Another one of the transracial moms wrote to tell me her daughter's story, and we emailed off and on all afternoon (turns out we know some of the same people in the immigrant community). They tell me how amazing they think Beti is, how they can't believe she's only been here two months, how she keeps up with every little thing in the class. They've been inviting her over to play after school. I get a happy tightness in my chest when I think about this supportive place we have found for her, for us, eventually for our son.

At the principal's coffee this week, as he was wrapping up, he asked if anyone had any last thing to add. Ted raised his hand and said, "My wife and I transferred in from another school, and we love the vibe here. For us, it's about the vibe, and we feel so supported..." Then he got choked up, eyes turning red and welling up with tears.

We feel so lucky to have founded another soft landing spot for our daughter.

Two Unrelated Things

2011-10-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Our children have reached that magical phase of not wanting to hurt each other most of the times. They moved from that to ignoring each other to finally playing more than fighting. They make each other crack up belly-laughing, and every time I hear them doing this, I sigh in relief. Every belly-laugh means one more strand tying them together. The chord is getting tighter every day.

Listening to NPR the other day about the debt crisis in Greece, I heard someone talk about how difficult life has become for the average Greek. Three examples were given: 1. Families rarely eat out in restaurants anymore. 2. Parents are buying less high quality food for their children. 3. Multi-generational households are happening more often because the adult children and grandparents can't afford to live on their own.

I then thought about how relative the term "difficult" is. These three examples were even referred to as "suffering." What? Really? I don't mean to be unsympathetic to the crisis to those living in the EU now, but have they not read stories like this one?

What Daddy Does For a Living

2011-09-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

We have had a hard time explaining to Beti what her daddy does for a living. He leaves the house at pretty random times (excluding the twice a week college class he teaches), sometimes for half an hour and other times for a few days. He also does his work at home too, so the whole thing was confusing.

Today, all that changed. We think she got it.

When we visit Daddy at work, we sometimes get to eat from the craft food service trucks. That is really fun and delicious.

We watched Daddy hanging around outside waiting for his cue to go inside, and then we watched him on the monitors. We giggled a lot when he looked into the camera and waved right at us and made goofy faces.

The nice sound mixer gave us headphones to hear the action. We listened very intently.

The main face we kept seeing in the monitor played with us for a while before we went home.

We are so over the paparazzi.

Hopefully this afternoon's excursion to a television show set will have put an end to the befuddled look on her face when we say that Daddy is working (and hopefully there will be many many many more sets to visit...).

TMBG!

2011-09-28T21:49:00.001-07:00

Why is our daughter laughing so hard?

Because my oldest friend, the famous Uncle Rusty (friends since we were 13), sent her a package in the mail full of They Might Be Giants magical goodness.

I highly recommend all three: Here Come the ABC's, Here Comes Science, and Here Come the 123's. We can't wait to scour all three over and over and over.

Here is Beti watching her favorite one (so far). This is the second time watching it; the first time, she nearly fell off her chair belly laughing. Thank you, Uncle Rusty!

The Golden Child

2011-09-27T20:00:00.001-07:00

We sit down to dinner and one child is dawdling instead of eating. This is an ongoing thing for us. We tell the dawdling child to eat or nothing until breakfast. Sometimes this child will eat; sometimes, not.

But inevitably, this is what happens if the dawdling child doesn't eat. The child who is eating makes some easy-breezy remark about how clean his/her plate is already. My response is always the same: "Yep. You're the golden child."

"The golden child" isn't reserved just for who is eating. Anything can prompt his/her appearance. The golden child appears when getting dressed before school, brushing teeth at night, helping out with dishes, etc.

It's never too early to teach sarcasm, right?

The sibling rivalry stuff is still going on for sure, though maybe lessening. It comes in waves, a lot like nausea. The kids have their moments. One of my favorite things lately is hearing them crack each other up. Both of them have definite fake laughs but they have recently been doing things to make each other genuinely belly laugh. Tonight on the way home, it was karate moves in the backseat of the car. I could giggle because I knew they were strapped in and unable to really hurt me or each other.

Sometimes they drag each other around the house by the clothes just cracking up as they do so. They are like two puppies they way they wrestle and roll around.

Then there are the times that they do or say something that cracks us up. Like last night at dinner when Abe was called back to the table after a time-out. He came to the table completely straight-faced and wearing a ridiculous infant sun hat from the dress-up bin. He did it to make us laugh.
Beti has taken to repeating whatever we say, which sounds more annoying than it is. Sometimes it's actually very funny. She will also spaz out at times, falling over laughing at herself or I'm not sure really. But it's funny.

Abe, in another time-out recently, looked up at me as I came to him and said, "Mom, did you know I farted two times sitting here on the step?"

I couldn't help giggling. It's gross, I know. It is. I should have been more stern, but I had to laugh.

Considering the stress we've been under lately, I don't mind fart jokes. I also don't mind the frequent appearance of a golden child. It means that at least one of them is behaving.

She's like the wind.

2011-09-25T19:23:00.001-07:00

See the tall, gangly girl in the shirt with an Ethiopian flag? The girl with the adorable headband and a huge smile? She girl with perfect posture, shoulders back, head up, swinging arms, long stride that makes it look so easy as she passes every other runner on the track?

That's my daughter. I am proud. I have never seen a child run like this, so effortlessly fast.

Every Little Thing

2011-09-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

My favorite part of today was being woken up by our four-year-old. I told him it wasn't time to get up, thinking it was two hours earlier. I looked at my phone and saw that it was 9am. I had just slept 10 hours straight. I opened the window, and we got back into bed. The other two were off playing tennis. The rockstar and the princess cuddled in bed for the next 45 minutes, until the athletes in the family got back home. Then we ate their leftover donuts.

But maybe my favorite part of today was when I sat down with a plate of injera, greens, chicken, salad, and doro wot. I was very hungry. I ate my fill. I had just listened to a 17-year-old Ethiopian immigrant tell me "If you don't know how to fall down, you will never know how to get back up." He is a junior in high school and probably the most mature teenager I've ever met. He wants to be a doctor. I have no doubts about his future.

But actually, here it is. My favorite part about today: We were driving on the freeway with a song I like playing. Our daughter asked me to turn it down but instead I turned it up. Then I turned it up again. She realized what a good song it was. We exited the freeway. The next song was Bob Marley "Three Little Birds." I reached behind me and put my hand on the rockstar's leg. The athlete's hand then covered mine. It was a long light. I turned behind me and we all sang.

"Don't worry, about a thing. Cause every little thing is gonna be alright."

Tomorrow morning I board a very early flight to a funeral in my home state in the South. It will be my daughter's first time without me. I've prepped her the best I can. She says she doesn't want me to go, that she has a ticket so she can come too. But I know she'll be okay. I know she will.

Tomorrow, I get to smile at the rising sun. The three birds at home reminding me of their message, a melody pure and true.

Disarming Fear

2011-09-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

We have gotten so much good advice from other parents who have adopted older children. One of the best things we've heard was this:

"Playfulness disarms fear."

One night this week, Ted was teaching a night class, so I was the one putting the kids to bed. We did our usual routine of bath, pajamas on, video, snack, teeth-brushing, bathroom, upstairs, in bed, tell a story, sing a song, kisses, goodnight.

All was well right until the end. Beti didn't want me to leave. She is getting more and more comfortable with falling asleep quickly and on her own but this night, maybe because Ted is usually the one who does this part of the night-time ritual, she tried to cling to me. She poked out the bottom lip (oh, she is so good at this) and looked like she was going to start the tears.

As true of most six-year-olds, she has some drama-queen tendencies, so we're still learning which tears are real and which are the ones pulled out in a power struggle. I sensed that these were the real ones. I hugged her tight, kissed her forehead, told her I loved her, that all was well.

The just clung tighter, asking me not to leave. I crouched down near her, snuggled her, and told her how important it is for her to go right to sleep since it was a school day for everyone the next day: for her, for her brother, and for Bang Bang.

She immediately stopped whimpering. She stared at me blankly.

"You didn't know that our cats go to kitty-school after you leave for kindergarten every day?"

She smiled hugely.

"Yep, they love kitty-school as much as you love school."

She started laughing, real giggles (not the fake kind she also uses in power struggles).

"Mom, Chitty and Buddy go to school too?"

"Oh yeah, they've both been going for a long time."

At this, I kissed her head again, told her goodnight, and as I walked out of the room, she was still smiling. She was asleep within a couple of minutes, hopefully dreaming about our cats wearing backpacks and doing math problems.

Bang-Bang, our therapy-cat.

Us Two

2011-09-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

"Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Pooh,
"That's right," said Pooh to Me.

"I'm not afraid," I said to Pooh.
And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo!
Silly old dragons!"--and off they flew.

"I wasn't afraid," said Pooh, said he,
"I'm never afraid with you."

It isn't much fun for One, but Two
Can stick together," says Pooh, says he.

"That's how it is," says Pooh.

--A. A. Milne

Ethiopian New Year

2011-09-10T23:38:00.000-07:00

What we'll be doing tomorrow, just on a smaller scale. On a hot Oregon day. Shoulder-shimmy, anyone? Maybe it's the late night, but this video just made me want to cry.

Break-in

2011-09-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is our daughter's first full day of school. We agonized over where to put her and the short story is that we pushed to get her out of our local school (one of the best in the city) into one that is more diverse. There was a lot of thought that went into this decision, many conversations with parents with families like ours, lots of reading and research, and when we finally decided, we felt relief.

Then we had to push to make it happen. The school we got her into had a waitlist of 21 kids just for kindergarten. While not the best in the city, it's still good enough that 21 families want their kids there. We found a sympathetic secretary who made a call. I wrote a letter and then hand-delivered it to the central office. Two days later, we got a letter saying she was in.

We gave that secretary today a thank-you note and gift certificate to our local coffee joint.

This morning was B's half-hour assessment with her new teacher. It went fine. She could do everything the teacher asked of her, including addition and subtraction. Afterward, I let the kids play for a pretty long while on the school playground. We walked to our car to leave with Beti running ahead on the sidewalk.

She stopped in her tracks and gasped, then yelled for me. Our girl has some drama queen tendencies, so I shrugged it off. Then I got closer and saw for myself: in the hour and a half we'd been in the school, our car had been broken into, the passenger side window completely smashed and our gps stolen. Glass was everywhere. I had no idea what to do.

I was at first worried about the glass. Then I was worried about our daughter being freaked out by this and maybe deciding she was better off in Addis. Turns out she quickly got over the shock of our car being "broken" and was really worried about the bag of lipgloss and nail polish she got for her birthday that she'd left in the car.

Of course, the irony hit me. We'd agonized over and then pushed to get her out of the "good" school (that is 99% white) and into the school in the "sketchy" neighborhood, only to have our car broken into on her first day at school. Had we made the wrong choice? Should we have stayed in the "safe" district where most of the kids show up on their first day wearing brand-new Hannah Anderson dresses instead of hand-me-down and yard-sale purchased clothes (like some families we know, cough, cough)?

The break-in experience certainly left a feeling of yuck about today, but you know, we're still excited about this school year. Her teacher told us there are four other kids of color in her class. For the city we're in, that's that bad. People want to be in this school. We are still committed. I've filled out the PTA membership form. We know that this break-in could have happened anywhere.

So tonight, her clothes are laid out ready to be put on in the morning (capris a hand-me-down from friends and the pink top bought by me and Goodwill over a year ago). Her hair is done, only needing to be retouched in the morning. Both kids are asleep, probably the earliest bedtime ever, and I've got this stuck in my head.

Good days ahead. No need to worry, my girl. I will always guard your lipgloss.

while you slumber
in case you ever wonder
if a summer breeze just brushed your cheek
know its me

Now We Are Six

2011-09-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

Now we are six.

Our daughter is six years old.

She got a tiara from her grandmother, my mother. She wore it all day, with one short break because the combs were hurting her head.

Ballet flats until hopscotch.

The feather boa came on for the short walk from the front door to the car, then off since no one could see her inside the tinted windows.

She pouted because she couldn't sleep with her make-up bag of nail polish and flavored lip smackers, a gift from a sweet neighbor.

She jumps into rivers.

She teases and antagonizes her little brother.

She pushes the cart around the grocery store and asks nonstop for items but never complains much when she hears 'no'.

Sometimes she hears 'yes' if it is a pack of birthday balloons, balloons which she blew up and tied curly string on to give to friends at her party.

A friend watched her today for a couple of hours while we went to work. The last half hour, she was asking about us, when we were coming back, anxious. I was glad. Maybe she is now expecting us to always come for her.

For her birthday, she requested hotdogs and strawberries, so we had both, along with strawberry cupcakes. We played pandora's Michael Jackson station (her favorite artist) and got "Let's Get it On" and "Sexual Healing" during that hotdog dinner.

During her short party, towards the end, she came to me with outstretched arms, asking "up please." She clung to me. She wanted kisses. She didn't want down so I held her.

Then she played hopscotch with friends. It was her first time to play.

She jumped into it. With gusto. Shoes off but her tiara back on her head.

Swim

2011-09-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Our kids are both moving up to the next level of swim lessons.

(Ted cringes at his "blah-blah-blahing" in the background)

Unleashed

2011-09-01T21:20:00.001-07:00

Being in the thick of things, I have little to say.

Life right now is a roller coaster. More accurately, our daughter is a roller coaster. This is to be expected, and we are, of course, letting her have her emotions. But it leaves me at the end of every day with few brainwaves for writing things down.

There is one incident I could try to recount, though I think I'd rather forget it. It involves a woman at a park who was letting her unleashed dog run in the kids' play area, though this is clearly against park rules. My daughter is terrified of dogs and won't play as long as this dog was running around.

After half an hour of my child clinging to me on my lap, I politely and apologetically asked the woman to keep her dog in the off-leash area of the park since my daughter was so afraid. I even let her know how nice I'm sure her dog is.

"Well, you know the best way to let your kid get over her fear is to let her be around nice dogs."

(Never mind that this woman is breaking the rules of the park by letting her dog run free. And don't you love unsolicited parenting advice from rule-breaking park goers?)

"Yes, I know this, and we plan on doing this but she is from Ethiopia where dogs are often used as guard dogs and not pets per se, so if you please wouldn't mind keeping your dog in the off-leash area..."

At this point, the woman got, shall we say, huffy. She told me that she was trying to watch her kid and her dog and couldn't really go to the dog-area without her kid.

"Oh, I know, that's hard. I totally understand, but see, my daughter can't play as long as your dog is running around. And honestly, you're breaking the rules of the park by letting your dog go free."

"See? You're not asking me, you've been telling me this whole time."

"My daughter has been here only three weeks. You could try to be a little understanding."

At this point I walked away, shaking in anger and sat down next to my friend who proceeded to take up the cause, raising her voice at the lady, telling her how she has a kid and a dog she takes to the park all the time and how she respects the rules of the park by tying her dog up in the kids' area.

It was nice to have my friend there to yell at the woman.

She kept her dog there unleashed for a few minutes ("out of spite" as my friend said) and then got lost. Sometimes, people act like jerks. That's about as deep as this post gets.

Serenity now.

Stopping the Insanity

2011-08-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

Tuesdays are one of my main work days, so with Ted being home with the kids, he decided to institute a 'no tolerance' policy to fighting, rudeness, snatching, tattling, pushing, yelling, trying to rip each others' head off when we're not looking.

He told me that by noon, our daughter had kissed our son twice. Without being asked.

There are some amazing books out there about parenting and sibling rivalry and adoption and attachment; we have read some and need to read more. In the meantime, I have asked people I know and respect who have also adopted older children (especially out of birth order) to give us some advice. Here are some of the things they said:

"For our kids, finding small ways that she could help him, helped their relationship. It's not the "right" thing according to some books, but it worked like magic. She got self esteem from helping, he attached to her b/c she helped to care take, etc. The nice part, now that they are attached to each other, is that I see him help her in ways that she needs. He's very protective of her ("Dentist, you be nice to my sister!") and helps her socially (introduces her to friends he makes at the park, etc.). So it's no longer one sided. At all."

Our daughter is a natural caregiver, so we hated seeing her reject Abe. The last couple of days, it's been great to see her be a true big sister to him.

"We would talk about our family values in small doses. Like, 'we're a family so that means we forgive each other'. Or 'In a family we spend time together and love each other'. I don't know if it really helped them but it helped me to keep my goals out in the open."

I loved this one. We have been doing this too. It's helpful to explain "In this family, we forgive each other," or "In our family, we don't grab things that aren't ours."

"We tried to get them laughing together. Photo booth was easy and fun for this. All of us trying to make the same facial expressions. This was good for them."

This one has been pretty easy since B is quick to laugh, especially at her brother when he is pouting or simply being dramatic. It didn't hit me until last night how truly funny his dramatic faces are. So she and I have been imitating him (fine line between this and mocking, so we're careful) when the eyes furrow and bottom lip comes out with anguished cries about his movie being over. We all stand in front of the mirror and take turns "being" A, and it's not long before even he is laughing.

"We gave them joint jobs like clearing the table together or painting a picture on the same canvas. This always started out as competition but over time I think it helped them to see they were a team."

Yes, we love this one too. Yesterday, I directed the kids as they cleaned the entire kitchen together. They wiped the table and counters, loaded the dishwasher, swept the floor, washed the pots. They seemed genuinely happy to be doing a job together. I was shocked. And happy.

Working puzzles together counts as a 'job' too.

"We started special date times with each of the kids."

We haven't made it to this one much but we hope to soon.

"I started keeping a gratitude journal. It was not fun to constantly be putting out fires. I was stressed and afraid that things would always be difficult. And, this is hard to put out there, but I began to worry that we'd make a terrible mistake. Its hard to be a loving, attentive momma with a mindset like that. The gratitude journal really helped me. I also made sure I had time for yoga a couple times a week. I also started drinking more wine. These things helped me keep a heart of love and parent from a point of strength and calm. I also did this little experiment where I would look at my life through my pictures at the end of the day. It does something good for your perspective. I prayed. I talked to people I could trust not to judge me but just to listen and offer empathy or advice."

Yes, wine. Thank you.

"And yes, Abe will be ok.
In fact, Abe will be BETTER.
Abe will be great, even because of this change, you just can't see it yet.
He was made for this too."

This one, of course, made me cry.

I don't want to make it sound like the sibling rivalry issues are over. They're not. The kids still fight and push and get annoyed with each other and snatch. The difference now is that we don't let anything slide anymore. When it happens, here is our basic 'method'.

All activity stops.

The kids come to us and stand still to listen.

We say simply whatever our 'value' is and how their behavior is not reflecting this.

They turn to face each other and apologize as needed.

Hugs required. Kisses optional.

I am so thankful for the wise people in our life. We couldn't do this without our "village." There is now some light at the end of this tunnel.

Just hanging out at the top of the slide. Sister. Brother.

Treacherous Waters

2011-08-22T20:40:00.000-07:00

The lake we were swimming in has a roped off shallow area that was swarming with people because it was the warmest day of a very chilly summer. One of our kids has had some swim lessons and the other hasn't. We were watching them like hawks.

Ted had gone to sit down in the grass after I'd had my turn reading my book. It was now me and the kids. The scene was making me uncomfortable because of two factors: my kids don't like each other most of the time and the place was swarming with people. So it's not as if our kids were together playing much. They kept going in opposite directions, no matter how many times we tried to keep them together.

At one point, B yelled for me "Look, Mom!" so I turned her direction. I immediately turned back to check Abe. Watching our two kids in this shallow lake was like watching a tennis match. Back, forth, back, forth.

In the time it took me to turn my head back to where A was, he was gone. No sign of him. The first two seconds, I didn't freak. I just called him name. He didn't appear. I called louder.

Second three: my heart started racing, and I started counting how many seconds it had been. I am aware of that two-minute mark of a kid being under water. I started screaming. Louder. Louder. LOUDER. Everyone in a twenty-thirty foot radius of me got quiet.

Where is Abe?! TED?! Where is Abe?! WHERE IS ABE?!

These seconds, which Ted promised me were not longer than ten, were the worst seconds of my life as a mother. I saw the blank, dark area of water where my son had just been. Try it: count to ten. Imagine the terror of thinking your child is under water, stuck, unable to get to air.

In the midst of my yelling, Ted appeared at my side, Abe with him. Our son has simply decided that he was tired of being with me and his sister. He simply decided to go find his dad who was sitting on a crowded grassy hillside. He simply decided to do this without telling me, though he knows he is never to wander away from one of us. His simple decision plunged his mother into the depth of terror.

As all four of us walked to our spot on the hill, many mothers looked my direction, concerned and sympathetic looks on their faces. I sat down. The kids immediately started asking for drinks and snacks. I put my head in my hands and lost it. The tears came pouring out as I shook, my body releasing all that adrenaline. Of course, I wanted to shake and yell at our son.

Instead, I pulled him to me, squeezed the bejeezus out of him, locked eyes with him and told him how terrified I was when he left my side. I think he got the message not to do it again.

I don't know if his wandering away was connected at all to the tough adjustment period we're in. It could be. It might not be. I just don't know. I know it's a phase we'll get through. But right now? It's not easy. B told me tonight as she was helping me with the laundry that she loves me, she loves Daddy, but that she doesn't love Abe. He has told me that he's finished with her and doesn't want a sister anymore. The two of them constantly antagonize each other.

People tell us this is normal sibling stuff, but I know it's not. This is adoption stuff and language acquisition stuff and changing family dynamics stuff.

Eventually, we'll get through it. Sometimes our kids get to fighting so intensely that they start laughing. I don't know how it happens, but it does.

Tonight after swim lessons, the kids were playing at the park. As B was going down a slide, Abe yelled from the other side of the playground to a kid near the slide, "Hey! That girl is my big sister!"

This simple declarative statement by our son gave me some hope. We'll make it through.

Swim lessons.

Siblings

2011-08-17T16:31:00.001-07:00

The relationship now:

The way we hope it will be:

One Week Home

2011-08-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

All that stuff they say about the transition from one to two kids? It's true. It's a kick-in-the-pants. We've been in survival mode for the last week.

We've been home exactly 8 days.

Every day gets a little better. Except when the nights get progressively worse because one kid wakes up early and the other sleeps in, and then the early kid is waking up during the night and then going to wake her brother and hang out with Dad for a couple of hours.

It's like having a newborn at home.

I get to sleep through it because Ted is father-of-the-decade and knows that Mama doesn't handle sleep deprivation well.

On that note, after traveling 37 hours to get home after not having slept so well before the journey and then waking up at 6 am your first morning home, it's advisable not to drink a second cup of coffee because after a few hours, while doing laundry, you will get so sick, sick, sick, that you find yourself sitting beside the toilet begging God to please let you throw up, please, just throw up, to puke, to vomit, to rid your body of that coffee.

Then your blessed husband lets you go to sleep at 8:30 and sleep for 11 hours, and you don't drink coffee for the next 8 days.

Those were my first two days back. It wasn't fun. A flood of neighbors, family, and friends came through to say hello, bring gifts, meet our daughter. But I hardly remember. I sat on our front steps in a stupor for two days.

Our first day home, our daughter sat next to our son and went together through her photo album, naming as many names as she could. As she did this, our son whispered my direction, "Mom, I'm so glad I have a sister."

They napped together the second day home. They giggled and liked each other.

Then that stopped. Beti finds Abe to be funny when he's not intending to be funny, like when he's walking around with his thumb stuck in his mouth or when his face is pulled into a forced anguish about something nonsensical (i.e. whining). She would giggle and point at him. She started calling him the "baby." Well, that did it for Abe. The newness has worn off. Abe is done with having a sister. Done. He wants us to take her back.

This changing family dynamic has been...challenging.

I could spend the rest of this post gushing about our daughter. Really. She's that great. Her smile will make this rainy city much brighter this winter.

Watching the world through her eyes is a trip. The look on her face when she discovered the vacuum cleaner and what it does? Worth every bit of pain and angst of the adoption.

Then she discovered the ice maker. Holy moly.

She already teases Abe. And tattles. But she also feeds him injera and doro wot from her hand to his mouth, then gives him his cup of milk and napkin since it was pretty spicy.

This weekend, she said the sentence, "Mom, Abe is running and fall down" with a look of worry on her face.

She's a linguistic genius. She's already pretty much memorized Hop on Pop.
I can't wait to introduce Go Dog, Go! to her.

She giggles uncontrollably when I wash her feet in the bath.

She answers the video narrator of Tsehai Loves Learning as she watches.

"Do you want to sing along with me this next song?"

Then a loud "Oaw..." from Beti.

She always remembers her bike helmet and if she gets ahead of me by two houses, she looks back and asks, "Go, Mom?"

She made sure Abe remembered his cape that he wore to the park this weekend.

She played tennis with Ted's best friend for the first time and is a natural.

She already knows the names of all the kids on our block and just today has started to greet them when she sees them with a loud "Hi!"

Last night, she started saying "see you later!" and then giggling.

She eats everything we offer her except for certain raw vegetables, which she'll still chew up and swallow if she's been promised leftover injera from the night before.

She is much more athletic and rambunctious than we thought she'd be. She wrestles Dad with the best of the boys. Yet she still likes to color and wash her doll's hair and paint fingernails.

She makes excellent silly faces, even as good as Abe's (don't tell him).

Her eyelashes are the longest I've ever seen.

I should go to bed. Life is intense these days. Good, but intense.

Affection

2011-08-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this down with little editing because I don't want to forget it.

We know a teenage girl who was taken from her family at the age of four. A relative took her secretly to another relative's house in a foreign country where she lived until she was ten, after being tracked down by a private investigator hired by family who agonizingly missed her.

This is a remarkable girl. We love her. She is only here part of the year, and we all feel lucky when we get to see her. Tonight was her going-away party. She has been very interested in our daughter, and tonight she pulled me aside to talk to me.

She said a lot of things. I wish I could remember them all. She has beautiful, huge, piercing blue eyes that stare straight into you when you talk to her. She is as intense and soulful as her eyes. So with this soulfulness staring into my eyes, she told me about what it was like for her to be in a brand-new place at the age of four, where no one understood her language and everyone was a stranger.

Her eyes filled with tears. She told me, "Give Beti a lot of hugs. Make sure you always hug and kiss her. Smile at her. If you smile at her, she will want to do anything for you." She said that the new people she was with gave her
affection but "it was never enough."

She remembers one relative harshly scolding her when she disobeyed. She told me that Beti will "do weird things" but to be patient with her because she'll get it eventually.

I teared up as I listened to her talk about her experience and told her about how this morning, as I was still groggy and waking up, Beti asked me to lift her. I did, and she wrapped her long legs around my waist and held on to me so tightly, her head laying on my shoulder. She squeezed. I could have done jumping jacks, and she wouldn't have fallen off. I squeezed back.

I must remember to always squeeze back. I must remember to smile always, no matter how I feel, to pick her up, to rub her back, to remember that she is brand-new and scared and needing affection. She needs the comfort of knowing she is someone's baby.

Thank you, beautiful Miss S, for the heart-breaking and kind reminder.

Our very first moments together, she leaned into me and held my hand.

Landed

2011-08-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

We are home. Let's all now have another cup of coffee, shall we?

Long Pane of Glass

2011-07-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

Abe has been in a camp this week with mostly new kids. Our social, outgoing son makes friends everywhere he goes, at least until this week. I don't know the full scoop on what these other kids were like, but here's what happened when I went to pick him up today.

I arrived about ten minutes early for pick-up and stood outside the door like I've done every day this week, watching through the glass the cuteness inside. The teachers usually have the kids singing songs with lots of motions right before the parents get there.

Today though, the kids were just sitting in a mass on the floor holding their lunchboxes. Well, this is what they were supposed to be doing. One huge blond kid was whacking another blond kid in the head with his lunchbox. The smaller kid getting whacked in the head didn't seem to mind too much (maybe because he'd been whacked in the head so many times that he wasn't really noticing anymore?). I didn't see Abe. I just saw these two boys using their lunchboxes as weapons.

Abe then came into the picture, holding his lunchbox and then sitting down near these boys. And wouldn't you know it, not only did my son get whacked with a lunchbox, he then was tackled by the evil whacking kid. The smaller boy then jumped on top of the pile, which my son was on the bottom of.

This was a soundproof door, so I ouldn't hear anything. But I' watched with growing alarm, wondering when the teachers were going to notice, wondering what Abe was going to do, wondering if I should go in the room. We very much want Abe to be independent, so I didn't want to be the helicopter-parent who comes running in to rescue her child. We try to teach him how to solve his own problems with other kids.

Well, eventually a teacher turned around and pulled the boys off Abe. At this point, our son ran several feet away to get away from these boys, turned and sdt down (still holding his lunchbox) and faced my direction. I could then see his face. He was not just crying; he was squalling. Again, I didn't go in. One of the teachers brought him over to her desk and sats him in a chair and I saw her pulling out a first-aid kit. Abe was still sobbing, and I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed the doorknob to go in, but the door was locked.

Abe spotted me looking in the window and the look on his face made me want to rip down the door, Incredible Hulk-style. We were separated by a wall of glass, and was killing me. I felt that deep pain in my chest, dying to get inside to pick up my boy and comfort him.

Finally, finally, finally, they opened the doors, and I rushed in. He walked to me with first a frown, then a smile, then another frown on his face still wet with tears. I picked him up, and he whimpered while laying on my shoulder. He never let go of his lunchbox.

He showed me his band-aid on his knee. When the big boy tackled him, it knocked a scab off, one he'd earned from the new bike-riding adventures going on at home. The teacher apologized and expressed frustration about the aggressive boy. She said he'd been like that all day, really all week.

I just sighed and thought again about how mothering means your heart breaking a little bit every day. That moment when my son was wailing and looking my direction, and I was stuck behind a locked door? Excruciating.

This weekend my dad and grandmother are coming out here to stay with Abe while we're out of the country. I trust them with every inch of my being, but even this trust doesn't erase the pain and worry that enters the picture when I'm away from my son. I want to always be the one who comforts him when he's hurt.

My son, these next few days, I'm probably going to smother you. I'm going to lay next to you in your tiny bed and hold you tight. I'm going to give you special things you normally don't get, like squeezable packaged food products in your lunchbox and cereal bars for breakfast. I'm going to ask for extra kisses. I'm going to pick you up more often just so I can smell your head. You might wonder why I keep staring at you, why I keep touching your nose with my nose, why I run my fingers along your hairline and then kiss your forehead.

It's because we're about to have a lot more than a locked door and pane of glass separating us. It's because your mom and dad are going to meet your sister and bring her to you. It's because I'm overwhelmed by the depth of my love for you, a love that breaks my heart just a little bit every day.

One Last Raffle For the Road

2011-07-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

As you may already know, Ted is an actor. Once upon a time, he had a recurring role that mostly consisted of him mumbling every so often while walking a couple paces behind Sally Struthers, his wife on the show. It's not a role he's particularly proud of, but like any actor, he was grateful for the steady work. After we got married, it was always nice when I'd hear him say, "Gilmore Girls called again."

Interesting factoid: with our first adoption, we had to get a coworker to write a letter of reference for us. I wasn't working at the time, so that left Ted. As a character-actor who rarely worked for longer than a few days at a time on one set, finding this coworker was a challenge. So. We called up Sally to see if she could do it. She did, with the caveat that we promised that she'd get to be Abe's "fairy godmother" once he got home. She and Ted are also from the same hometown in Oregon, and my father-in-law was her teacher in high school. She is a lovely and hilarious person.

Because tickets are, ahem, outrageously expensive right now and because Ted is taking a side-trip up to the north of Ethiopia where Beti is from, we decided to hawk some of Ted's old yearly cast gifts to help lift some of the financial burden of this trip.

We have honestly been "blown away" by the support our friends, family, and cyber-friends have offered us on this road to our daughter so far. Another amazing factoid: the raffle of Autumn's doll several months ago plus the epic yard sale raised enough to pay for all expenses to Addis and back for court. Incredible. That was you, you did that, and we are grateful.

Are you or do you know a Gilmore Girls fan (and come on, everyone does)? These items are not the sort of thing you can find on ebay; each year, cast and crew were given these items as gifts by the writers and producers of the show (Dan Palladino and Amy Sherman-Palladino). The yearly gifts were as unique as the show itself. Just so you know what we're offering here :)

For every $10, your name will be entered once into the drawing to win all three items. Click on the "donate" icon to the right to put your name in the hat.

Item #1

The Luke's Diner plaid flannel shirt.

Back of the Luke's Diner shirt.

Item #2

The Gilmore Girls bowling team shirt

Back of the bowling shirt

Item #3

The Gilmore Girls coffee mug. This is one of those solid, heavy mugs you find in diners, like Luke's.

Two Little Whos

2011-07-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree

smiling stand
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
now and here

(far from a grown
-up i&you-
ful world of known)
who and who

(2 little ams
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)

-- e. e. cummings

Yesterday morning, we found out that we had embassy clearance. Beti is coming to stand under our tree. The beginning of August. She is coming home. This morning, I hung Meazi's picture up in our house.

Sidewalk Anger

2011-07-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

"So you expect me to make my son who just learned to ride a bike ride in the street because you think it's okay to park this thing in the middle of the sidewalk? You expect my friend who is pushing her sleeping infant in a stroller to walk in the street because you can't be bothered to use a wheelbarrow and a shovel to do your work?"

None of the workers looked up from their work as I yelled their direction. The home-owner was standing in the driveway talking to someone, maybe the idiot contractor who lets his workers park their trailers in the sidewalk, completely blocking the way for pedestrians and small (tiny!) children on bicycles. Because I thought maybe they hadn't heard me, I yelled it louder as I walked slowly past.

"It seems you'd rather a tiny child ride his bike in the street than carry your work stuff 12 feet!"

After guarding my tiny bike rider as he went around the construction trailer blocking our way and into the street, we got to the end of the block and crossed. My friend I was walking with said, "Let's stop just a second." I asked Abe to slow down and stop. With deeply furrowed eyebrows, I turned and looked at her after making sure Abe had stopped fully and not careening gleefully into traffic.

She said, "I need to give you a hug." She stepped forward and hugged me. I sighed. I said, "Should I go back and tell the homeowner to her face?...I'm going back..." I took one step and then turned back around, saying, "Nah, it would only make me more mad."

As we continued down the street, I realized that I have a considerable amount of pent-up anger. Lately, it has felt like the workings of this world are orchestrated only to put my children in imminent danger, from bureaucrats who won't give one child a visa to gardeners who park their shit in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing the little one to ride his bike in the street. You know, the place where cars go speeding by. That street. The one where people get run over.

I've been living with a knot in my belly, burdened by sad news at every turn, not just about our lack of embassy clearance but about drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, about the light of hope suddenly going dark for a close friend, about reduced or completely cut funding for the seniors at my job, about one of my seniors who has had fifteen children in his lifetime but lost eight, and about the creeping darkness that human beings are capable of.

So I go for a long walk on a chilly summer day with a friend and end up yelling at the one thing I have some control over: people who force my son to ride his bike in the street. Later, as we're almost to our house, I discover ahead of us a gardening truck blocking the sidewalk. I wonder if my friend was cringing as she saw the look on my face. This time, the worker (probably the home-owner) was right close to the truck so I was able to look him in the eye and tell him how unacceptable this is, that maybe he's not aware that his laziness is forcing small children into harm's way. He apologizes. Abe, squeezing by the truck, gets scratched by stray limbs and poky plants. He complains to me. I yell, "Well, that's because sometimes people don't realize that sidewalks are for walking, not parking!" Or something like that. I don't remember. I think I needed another hug.

My children in harm's way. One so far away that I can't even wrap my mind around what to do for her.

One of her best friends, the boy she traveled with from Gondar to Addis, is going home to Washington next week. His mom and I have become friends and talk or text every other day or so. They will only be a few hours away from each other. We had hopes of the two of them actually flying from Addis to the Pacific Northwest together too. But it's not happening. I suddenly got overwhelmed with sadness this afternoon thinking about how B will feel when her friend leaves. I stood at my kitchen sink scrubbing the dinner dishes while country music blared, crying (I listen to country music only during two instances: when I'm sad and when I'm driving in Los Angeles-- I have no idea the reason for this compulsion).

Then the thought occurred to me that maybe seeing her friend leave will give her hope that we will eventually be coming for her too.

I don't know how to end this post. I've lost the will/inspiration to write anything cohesive. From now on, I know that I can quote Municipal Code, title 16 Parking Violations to offenders before calling the parking police if they don't bust their ass to move their vehicles out of my child's way.

And if you want to do something to help the suffering in East Africa, go here and donate something so some children can have access to Plumpy-nut. I met a charming and precocious little boy in New York earlier this month whose life was saved thanks to this wonder-food.

Two Wheels plus Pedals

2011-07-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

This is the new thing in our life.

Nesting

2011-07-18T09:49:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I started at the top of the house and made my way down. The boys were gone, so it was easy to do that quarterly purge of Abe's room of clothes he's too big for and toys he never plays with. A neighbor with an 18-month old boy came over and took about half of the stuff.

I cleaned everything I saw, including corners sometimes overlooked. I moved things around, cleared closet space, did laundry. I pulled out all the boxes and bags of clothes we have for our daughter. I sorted them into piles: things she can wear now and things she can grow into. I made piles of shirts, shorts, skirts, jeans, and shoes. I hung the dresses up. Oh, the beautiful dresses. I hope she likes dresses. I went through some of the books and toys we may take to Ethiopia for her.

This nesting stuff is tricky. I remember doing the same thing after our referral for our first and then having the rug pulled out from under me a week later with bad news. I put all the baby things into an empty room and shut the door for two months.

So I can't help feeling a little superstitious about nesting for our second. We're hoping for some good news later this week. It's been a daily change in status for our embassy clearance, but the latest is that once one document with one name moved from the wrong column into the correct column gets delivered to Addis (happening today we hope) and submitted to the embassy, we might maybe hopefully God-willing perhaps get clearance to travel.

When we get the green-light to buy some plane tickets, thanks to all that nesting yesterday, I'll go into the attic and pull out the purple "now" bin of things for our daughter. I think it's all ready.

Maybe perhaps perchance hopefully and God-willing.

Drought

2011-07-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

In the class I teach on Wednesdays, the question was about how many children the seniors had. The next question was about how many grandchildren. A Somali elder told me that he had five grandchildren. Three live here in our city. The other two...he paused a couple of seconds, folded his hands and put them next to his face like he was going to sleep, then said, "...in Somalia." In Somalia, they died. He looked down. I cleared my throat.

"I'm so sorry."

He nodded while staring at the table.

And now, this continues.

All is Grace

2011-07-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

In an email from a close friend today, "...Have you ever thought that life is just hard? I am thinking that this week..."

Yes, I am thinking this too.

This world is broken. The people in it are broken. The systems they created are broken and the damage goes on and on and on.

A compassionate friend in Los Angeles posted this on fb yesterday, and I keep coming back to it. At one point yesterday, I was staring into our backyard, crying about the brokenness of this world, the words in this clip filling me.

In the dark valley, this is somehow still true.

Big Apple 2011

2011-07-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

A quiet few hours at home by myself. Who knew? A friend invited Abe this morning to go with them to the zoo. I asked if he wanted to go. Yes. "I'll miss you, Mom, but I don't want you to go. I will miss you though." Then we snuggled more, determined not to get out of bed until the sun was sufficiently high enough in the sky to warrant the day a lazy one.

The need for some quiet hours is great. It's been a busy couple of weeks. Ted was working in New York, with his shoot dates getting changed left and right. Finally, he told them that they either fly him home or fly us out there. So a week ago yesterday, Abe and I got a free trip to New York City, one of my favorite places.

It was really hot. We did a lot of this.

I should have written my daily post about the city like I did in 2009 when we were there for a month, but alas, our ibook was being repaired, and our only internet access involved sharing Ted's iphone. So. Some highlights.

1. Cranky, hot, sticky, irritable thanks to traveling from The Strand bookstore up to Central Park with a boy who was bouncing with excitement at getting to be with three other little boys, all on a city bus. A deflating phone conversation with our caseworker while walking through the park. Arriving to our meet-up location and telling this lady how pissy and deflated I felt about our daughter not being with us yet. But then: a dad appeared, handed me a paper cup of white wine from a bag and took my son and his son rock climbing, and suddenly I felt lifted again.

We met the pied piper, and he took my son rock climbing in the park.

2. My son and I climbed atop a rock and made a pretend campfire with roasted marshmallows while a group to the south of us did yoga. A man with a small dog walked by, and I asked him how to get to the Alice in Wonderland statue. He climbed up the rock, sat down right next to me, pulled out his phone while letting Abe pet his dog, and showed me where we were and how to get to Alice. We chatted a while. He was lovely, as most New Yorkers are. This is why I love this city. Native New Yorkers are some of the best people in this country. Don't believe what you hear about them being rude; they're just in a hurry. Ask them for help, and they'll do it. This post by one of the folks I got to meet earlier that day explains what I mean.

Summertime downpours make everyone slow down. Or really speed up.

3. I had to get re-fingerprinted, so early one morning while Ted was working, Abe and I took a cab down to the CIS support center, and more of these incredibly helpful New Yorkers got me in and out of this appointment in ten minutes. Then we took the subway down to the Staten Island Ferry to look at the Statue of Liberty. A Jewish tour guide and board member of his synagogue chatted with me the whole way back about why he's nonobservant yet so committed to preserving his heritage in this city. We also talked about the wonder of Voo-doo donuts while Abe snoozed on my lap.

4. We got to watch Abe fall in love for the first time. She is ten, has long curly hair that she pulls up into a top-knot most of the time, and eyelashes so thick it looks like she's wearing mascara. She's lovely, sweet, kind and gentle (except when her big brother is tackling her), and has a slight Australian accent picked up from her parents, old friends of Ted's from his years in the city.

We walked through the park with her on Sunday afternoon after having lunch with her family. The next day, we climbed onto the roof of her building with the other party guests to watch the fireworks over the Hudson River. The next morning, Abe opened his eyes and said, "Mom? Do you think we might run into her today?" The following day, he was more direct: "Can we please go see her today?" We did. They jumped on a balcony trampoline, and her big brother gave Abe his Yankees cap, showing him how to wear it backwards while making the "V for victory" sign. On our way back to the apartment, Abe laid down on the sidewalk outside of Penn Station, thumb in his mouth, tired and lovesick, and I gave up on trying to keep him clean in this city.

Hat backwards, sunglasses on, lesson in hailing a cab.

5. I was sitting on the 14th Street subway platform waiting for the train. I notice what I think is a tiny bird landing softly on my hand and jumping onto my knee. It wasn't a bird. It was a cockroach. I jumped up, freaking out, and a nice Greek man squished it. His nice Greek wife gave me hand sanitizer, and I couldn't stop shuddering for the next hour or so. Cockroaches on the subway are a rite of passage for New Yorkers, I hear. I was jumpy the rest of the trip.

6. My college roommate lives in Brooklyn, and I love being able to see her when we're there. We went over ten years without any contact, but now we've seen each other twice in the last year and a half. She showed Abe where to look for rats on the subway tracks. Her husband took us to his office at the google headquarters, and we played for a few hours with leggos and huge exercise balls and massage chairs and fusball tables, and pool tables and wii games. She calls it "preschool for grown-ups." Absolutely. They also have delicious snacks and stock Stumptown coffee in the espresso machines.

Google rocks.

7. Our last full day in town, Ted was working so it was me and Abe chasing public fountains and air conditioning. Word to the wise: if you're ever in the city by yourself with a four-year-old in 90 degree heat, take the time to take frequent rests or else you might find yourself crouched down on the sidewalk fussing at your kid as he sits in a time-out while leaning against the Chrysler Building as hundreds of people rush past you.

The children's room at the New York Central Library is a nice place to cool off after said meltdown in midtown.

8. At the end of our first full day of Mom and Abe time, we needed food so stopped by the Five Guys Burgers right down the street from our place. A big guy in line ahead of us let me go first because he said he always lets beautiful women go ahead of him, and I felt verklempt and happy because seriously: I was sweaty and sticky and grouchy and needed that.

9. My favorite thing about this short trip was our nightly ritual. We'd come in at the end of the day, heads and hearts full of the wonder of this amazing city. We'd be sweaty and gross. Shower Abe off and watch the brown water run down the drain. Shower ourselves off and open a bottle of cold white wine. While Abe watched Ratatouille every night, we sat outside on the huge terrace of the place we were staying (which belonged to some old friends of Ted's who are only there part-time).

Recommended New York City activity: have a glass of wine and climb onto the roof. This was our terrace table, chairs, wine, lantern.

This was my first time staying in a legitimate "penthouse," and I felt fancy. There was something so wonderful about the feeling of being clean at the end of a sweaty day, a glass of chilled wine in my hand, letting my hair dry in the warm night air, the hum of a thousand air conditioners around us (just not at our place), staring at the lit windows of other apartments and wondering what those people were doing, listening to Ted practice his Irish accent for his job, thankful for this trip, this free summer vacation to one of my favorite places.

Fourth of July fireworks over Manhattan.

She Knows.

2011-07-07T22:36:00.001-07:00

On a sticky-humid late afternoon in Central Park (more on this last-minute trip later...), we found out thanks to a borrowed iphone from a friend that B knows who we are. She is holding the photo album I left for her in Addis.

I have no words for what I felt upon seeing this photo.

The Switch Got Flipped

2011-06-30T20:51:00.000-07:00

What happened today? This morning?

After dreaming fitfully about hearing about embassy appointments? After waking up and finding out that our case continues to be stalled in red tape? After finding out that our own government is causing these inexplicable delays? After being told to "be patient" one more week?

Yesterday, for the first time in this process, I got explosively angry.

I wanted to cry but just shook instead. Something's gotta give. And soon.

The Funk

2011-06-26T09:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was one of the first sunny, not-cold days we've had this year. When I sit in my house in late June shivering, I get grouchy. Having grown up in Mississippi, I've had my fill of hot summers and usually feel really thankful to live where I do in the cooler Pacific Northwest. However, the daily need to figure out every day whether to put on a jacket, sweater, or down-filled vest after the summer solstice has put a damper on my mood.

So in spite of yesterday's few hours of warmth in which I could leave all outer layers at home, in spite of the huge neighborhood yard sale in one of the richie-rich neighborhoods, in spite of grilling burgers in the afternoon, in spite of the impromptu beer on the front porch with a former neighbor who happened to be biking by, in spite of the strawberry patch in our backyard producing like crazy... I was in a funk.

Last night while sitting outside eating dinner, we were trying to deconstruct my funk. There were probably several things contributing to it but probably the main one is that Abe is still, for all intents and purposes, an only child, even though there is a 5-year-old across the globe who now officially shares our last name. She has a new birth certificate with our last name. She has a passport with our name. She has a new name but she is not here, and this is getting increasingly frustrating to me.

So many people recently have approached me and said, "Oh! You have a new baby at home by now!" I have to correct them, "Well, no, she's not really a baby, and she's not really here yet." They look at me confused and sometimes say something about how wasn't it two years ago that we were in this process? Yep.

"And weren't you in Ethiopia last month?"

Yep.

"You met her, right? But she's not here yet?"

Nope.

"So when do you go back?"

No idea. None. Not one clue. I then have to spend a few minutes explaining how extra documents (some only obtained through added court hearings) are now being required that have never been required before, how even though everything has been completed in strict accordance with the law, we can't even be submitted to the embassy until these suddenly-added documents are in-hand.

I picked up a registration packet from the local grade school this week. Abe and I looked around the kindergarten hallway and wondered which classroom would be his sister's. The secretaries told me not to turn the packet in until she's here. Even that was frustrating to me. I wanted to get her paperwork in. I wanted to fill out those forms. I wanted to hand someone in authority my daughter's official registration into school and have them tell me all about the ELL program and which teacher would be the best fit for her. I wanted to know that her name has been added to the roster and that her teacher is making her a little name tag for the backpack cubby.

Instead? I have to wait until she's here. Until then, no one really knows she exists.

I don't want her to come here in August right before school starts to be thrown straight away into the hectic fall. I want her here now, while our days and slow and increasingly warm outside. I want here now so she can see that this city isn't always a dark, drizzly place with grey skies and never-dry sidewalks.

It's time, it's time, it's time, and I'm frustrated and full of funk.

One on my shoulder, another a symbol near my heart.

photo @ 2011 Jillian Doughty

Margaret Wise Brown

2011-06-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

I cried the first time I read The Big Red Barn too. That time was because I was so happy. This time is because I'm so anxious.

Easy Like Monday Morning

2011-06-20T23:17:00.000-07:00

I don't usually go in to work on Mondays. Last night, Abe and about five other kids were at our neighbor's house until 10. That's what Portlanders do two days before the summer solstice. We stay up.

Abe didn't wake up until 10:40 this morning. Yes, that's right. It amazed us too. When he did finally get up, this video shows what he did, right before sitting on my lap on the deck, staring at the trees, silently, for another 20 minutes or so. Sometimes thirteen seconds of swinging after twelve hours of sleep requires a break.

We got not-good news today about our embassy date. Rather, our lack of embassy date. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. I would very much like this process to be over and for Betelehem to be here with us now, taking it easy on summer mornings. Please God, let it be so.

This international adoption stuff? Not for sissies.

Strangers

2011-06-18T08:45:00.001-07:00

Did I mention that the first meeting was awkward?

It was awkward.

We arrived to the care center right on time, and I walked in on wobbly knees, heart racing.

She wasn't there yet. Sigh. All the kids were in a big room being read to by the Gladney volunteer who's been living there for the last eight months (she's amazing in a thousand different ways, by the way). These books are interactive, so with the kids all reading along and singing, it was loud in that room. The caregivers were all sitting among the kids, and all their eyes were on us, the two ferenji women who had just walked in. I spotted my Seattle friend's little boy sitting in the room . We waited, and waited, for truly what seemed like forever.

Finally, I sensed something going on and started to hear the word "Betelehem" scattered through the room. The bundle of electricity in my stomach started firing sparks again, and I just wanted to sit in a corner so I wouldn't pass out. One of the Gladney reps said, "She's coming."

I walked to the door, but she still didn't come. I don't know what was taking so long. Even though books were still being read, all eyes seemed to be on what what going on with us, a feeling I strongly disliked. I have never liked being the center of attention: at parties, I am happiest to be the wallflower watching what's going on and talking to individual people. In this case, I am about to meet the newest Rooney while her friends and caregivers from the last almost-year are studying me. I was suddenly aware of every hair on my head, what I was wearing, how I was standing, every single move I made. Awkward. I wanted to shrink. I hated how tall I am.

In retrospect, I should have just sat with the other kids and not waited for her at the door. But really, my emotions were so over-the-place that I seemed incapable of doing anything except standing at attention like a guard at a palace gate, waiting for the VIP about to enter the room.

One of the Gladney reps was standing in front of me at the threshold of the door when she was ushered in. She walked past him, then brushed past me to go join the kids listening to books. Her hair was pulled back into four braids which had become wispy and lovely around her head. She was wearing a blue school uniform over a white collared shirt, accented by sparkly sequined blue converse shoes. This two-second glimpse of her sent me over the edge. She was the daintiest, most lovely, Audrey-Hepburnesque five-year-old I had ever seen, and I was overcome. I had to walk away.

I stood in the hallway outside the big room and cried. Being able to quickly hide this eruption of tears was the one good thing about standing so awkwardly in that doorway. Gladney has a pretty strict policy about not letting your referred child know who you are. Many of the older children have suffered profound disappointment and even depression when the adoptive parents leave after court to go home to wait for the embassy trip. The idea is that it's too disorienting for children who have already suffered such loss to understand why someone comes to adopt them and then promptly leaves for weeks (or months), so the official policy with older kids is to remain as anonymous as possible.

I get it. I do. It's why I was trying so earnestly to hide my tears from her when I saw her walk in the room. I stayed there in the hallway trying my hardest to pull myself together. The big question mark for me though is whether she knew who I was anyway. Considering the circumstances of her having gone to school and then being sent home to the care center in the middle of the day to be greeted by two ferenji women who were visiting... my guess is that she probably knew.

I walked back into the room and found a seat on the low couches lining the walls. She was next to me. The caregiver next to her kept looking at me. I'm sure it must be a strange feeling for the caregivers to meet the foreign parents coming in to adopt the kids they have loved for months. If I were one of them, I would stare too, no doubt about it. That being said, this very much contributed to the awkwardness of this meeting. I have one particular photo that sums up this first meeting: Betelehem is smiling and looking ahead at the book reader while I am sitting on her right and the caregiver on her left is leaning forward to examine me.

In that moment while the books were being read, my emotions were just barely under the surface. I didn't notice until later when I saw a video of the moment that I was smacking away on a piece of gum. It must have been a distraction from the dominant thought in my brain of "do not cry again, do not cry, do not cry" and "I hope she likes me, I hope she likes me, I hope she likes me." As her caregivers examined me, she would only steal glances. Once, she looked up into my eyes and smiled. I smiled back. I wanted to do nothing more than reach over and hold her hand. But then she inched closer to the caregiver on her left.

I felt like I was auditioning for the role of "mother."

Book-time was over and exercises began. The whole group did jumping jacks and stretches. Then everyone paired up. Betelehem and I sat on the floor with our legs stretched straight out in front of us, the soles of our shoes touching. We stretched forward to touch our fingers to our toes while counting to ten. This was our chance to really study each other. We were face to face, feet to feet, fingertips to fingertips. Counting to ten. Smiles. I winked at her. More smiles. Then time to stand up for the hokey-pokey.

A small group of us goes up to see her room, and it is then that I realize how shy and introverted she really is. Even this was awkward. I wanted to carry her back down the stairs but I am a stranger.

I was meeting a stranger I had known about for six months, a stranger who would become our daughter six days later. What are you supposed to do when you meet for the first time a new family member? She's an immediate relative whose language I don't speak, who I don't look like, who shares no memories with our family, who has lost other immediate family members, and who doesn't know who I am. I am a stranger who sees her and starts crying. I am a remarkably tall white woman who puts a tattoo on her arm.

I cross my legs and she crosses hers and we sit facing each other. She picks out a flower tattoo. This is my chance. This is when I get to hold her hand. All the kids are gathered around watching (she wasn't the first to get a tattoo so by then, she knew the routine). I look into her eyes and she looks into mine. I ask if she's ready. I put the flower on her forearm, put the wet sponge on top, and we all start counting. I have thirty precious seconds to hold her arm in my hands. She counts too. She looks at me then looks at the caregivers. She's checking in with them. She looks back at me. I take the paper off and we all 'ooh' about the flower on her arm. It's still damp, so we blow on it to dry it. She smiles at me, then smiles at the caregiver.

The moment is up. It's someone else's turn. She gets up and sits among the crowd of kids as I put the next tattoo on.

We only had one hour. She was playing with her friends when it was time for us to go. There was no goodbye from her. Some of the other kids gave me hugs and kisses. Not her. She was with her friends and caregivers.

This is okay. Right here in this moment, we are still strangers.

Photos, part 1

2011-06-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

I have no idea where this is exactly, just somewhere on the way to Dubai. We basically followed the sunset/dark most of the way there, so it looked like this every time you looked out the window.

The very futuristic, huge airport in Dubai. It was also very hot here (of course). This was before our morning flight to Addis, after a night's rest in a hotel. It was very hot, very, very hot, even early in the morning.

The morning I met Betelehem, that coffee and tiramisu to kill the time as we waited for her to get home from school.

This what was going on at home in Oregon.

Meeting Her...part 1

2011-06-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

I'll tell you about when I met Betelehem for the first time.

It was awkward.

There had been a lot of build-up to the moment. There was nothing natural about it, not one thing. Susan and I had traveled for many hours to land in Addis at 11:30 in the morning. As we drove down Bole Road to our guest house, everything felt familiar. I mean, of course it was; I had been there before. This was my first taste of what the theme of this trip would become: take it in. With Abe, I was so focused on being a mother for the first time that after a while, I think I checked out. I only sort of looked around me. I had bottles to make, and a nose to wipe, and beautiful laughing eyes to stare into. I realize this is probably a terrible thing to admit to, but I don't think I really absorbed the country my children were born in the first time I was there. I really didn't.

We checked into the guest house, got a little settled, went straight back out to exchange money and buy water. It felt so nice to be there. "Nice" is a boring word, I know, but that's how I felt. I had slept the night before thanks to the long layover in Dubai. I was pretty well-rested. On the flight from Dubai to Addis, I sat by myself (due to Susan inexplicably getting bumped up to business class!) and listened to the entire playlist my friend Julie gave me on a little ipod shuffle. I stared out the window watching Africa beneath the plane and cried off and on. It was the perfect thing to prepare me for entry into Ethiopia, to prepare me for what was coming. So as we drove around Addis, I was aware. I was present. I was looking. I was taking it in. I wanted to drive and drive and drive, to look and even gawk, to walk on Bole Road, to feel the dirt and rocks of Addis under my keens.

We ordered take-out and went to bed. As became the pattern for every night we were in Addis, I couldn't keep my eyes open much past 9pm. I woke up at 6am from a dream of a much-sassier-than-real-life Betelehem looking me in the eye and telling me I better learn how to fix her hair.

Our scheduled meeting was for 9:30 at the care center. It was Friday. I couldn't decide what to wear. I kept changing. Feeling sentimental, I decided on the purple shirt I met Abe in three years ago.

Betelehem was supposed to have been kept out of school for the day, but as we were driving to the center, we called to confirm and found out that someone had forgotten we were coming. She would be there by 11. I thought that waiting around the care center would make me more nervous than I already was, so we turned the car around and went to the closest Kaldi's. I ordered tiramisu with my machiatto. How I managed to eat tiramisu that morning, I'm still baffled by. But it was delicious. I shared with Susan and our driver. I couldn't talk but listened to them discuss technology as they tinkered around with our driver's ipad.

I kept checking the phone. Finally, it was time. I was all nervous energy at this point. Suddenly, I became terrified about being late even though we were only ten minutes away. I gathered my stuff and stood up, willing them to get up too. I walked to the door. I had said maybe twenty words all morning.

I sat in the front seat as we drove east of the city. The day was sunny but cool. I was ten minutes away.

Another Reason I Haven't Written...

2011-06-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

...we've been preparing for this, to celebrate our son's fourth full year of life.

"Pan, who and what art thou?" he [Hook] cried huskily.
"I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg."

"When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."

"Second to the right, and straight on till morning."
That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland

"On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more."

"You know that place between sleeping and awake, that place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always think of you."

So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land.

I'll teach you to jump on the wind's back, and away we go.

"Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it."

photos @ 2011 Jillian Doughty

Quiet

2011-06-09T15:33:00.001-07:00

These are my two nieces who have been visiting us for the last couple of weeks.
They came before I got home from Ethiopia. They were at the airport as part of my welcome home committee from the trip, along with their mom and my older niece's boyfriend. Having teenagers in the house? Fun. Really. It's noisy and the tv is often on and they eat a lot and play pirates with Abe and are able to sleep through most anything, even when sleeping on the living room couch. I was introduced to a lot of music and weird youtube videos. I introduced them to some too. I now know quite a lot about Ke$ha. Their new favorite song is by Foster the People, thanks to cool Portland radio.

That picture was taken at the airport early this afternoon. They are on their way home, and our house feels really quiet. When we got home from the airport, Abe made a "nest" and just laid down on the couch. I wasn't sure what to do with myself either.

Hopefully soon, I'll start writing again.

This blog is not dead...

2011-06-04T16:02:00.001-07:00

...we just have three out of town visitors, all of whom are teenagers, one of which we just found out has strep throat.

This blog is not dead...

2011-06-02T23:04:00.001-07:00

...it's just been a really bad case of jetlag.

We are hers.

2011-05-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

After a harrowing few days in Ethiopia, this little girl became "Rooney" on Thursday, May 26, 2011.

(more details about the trip later...)

Next thing: Julie!

2011-05-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

Part of getting me through the "next thing" of leaving Abe was looking forward to having tea with this lady and her little boy. Here I am, up since 5am and no make-up but so happy to be writing this from Julie's dining table.

This morning at the airport was a-okay. Abe wanted to come with, so we let him and he gave me as many kisses as I wanted. I only cried a little.

Next step, meet up with Susan at the airport and 15 hours to Dubai.

This is It

2011-05-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

The notes on my hand this afternoon at one last quick trip to work. Passport: seems obvious but easily forgotten. Bus tickets: for our clients so they can get to the program while I'm gone. Pepto: no comment necessary.

Today I have gotten so many kind texts, emails, hugs from neighbors, phone calls, and even drive-by "good luck!"s from friends.

One friend, in an email, wrote this about her grandfather, "I was reminded through my Grandpa's passing of a saying: "Be easy." Gramps was never one to stress about difficult things. And this man had every right to be bitter and mad at the cards life dealt him. I think all of us are on a journey of healing in one way or another. Our childrens' need for healing may be more evident than our own, but we are not immune to it either. My grandpa took those scars and made them into something beautiful. When life handed him defeat, he stood by and said 'be easy'."

And then another from someone else, the one that made me cry:

You can do this- you're made to do this, you're the mama.

This mama is leaving one to go bring the other one step closer to this home. I can do this. I'm armed with pepto and xanax. Wish me luck.

The Next Thing

2011-05-15T17:13:00.001-07:00

This is what "doing the next thing" looks like. I'm almost finished packing. Listening to Pandora's Fleet Foxes station and making a double batch of peanut butter cookies so my boys don't forget me while I'm gone.

No One Told Me

2011-05-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

It didn't start to sink in until we bought the tickets on Tuesday: I am leaving early Tuesday morning and won't see my boy for 11 days. I had no idea the ensuing panic and worry and longing that would happen as we nailed down the details about this upcoming trip.

Of course I'm glad that the next step is happening in getting our little girl here. But Abe is so little, and what was I thinking leaving him like this? Two summers ago, I went to visit a friend for three nights, and I cried off and on the whole flight to Colorado. This is going to be on the other side of the globe.

I keep sending texts to my sister, reminding her of little things about Abe that she needs to know. Things like: wear nice smelling lotion at all times because he really likes good smells. Other things about who his favorite friends are. And things like how generally wonderful and magical he is and to please cuddle him a lot and often and tell him how much I miss him every moment I am gone.

I was exhausted yesterday after a long busy day, yet as I started to drift to sleep, the thought of Tuesday morning made my heart race. Really race. And I know there's some stigma attached to it, but I'm going to say it anyway to make others not feel guilty: I took something to calm me down so I could go to sleep.

Someone I see as a sort of mom-mentor reached out to me in my panic. Here are a few of the things she wrote, all of which made me cry, including today while sitting at my desk at work.

I would do anything to help ease those panic attacks...if I could. I totally, totally, get it. the hardest part of traveling twice to ET to get my kids was the leaving my little boys home. I mean, I broke down more than once, before and during and had a total panic attack the night before, tucking them in.

However, adn please remember this: they were fine. They got through it better than it did. And they understood and understand that I would travel across the world for my kid (one of them was the kid, the first time)...nothing would keep me from my kid if they needed help getting home.
Abe will get that. He will. His heart already knows it.

You'll be ok mama. And I'll be praying for you and for Abe too, the whole way (fwiw).

Then today, this email, the one that made me break down at my desk at work:

...They still seem so vulnerable. And your mama heart and mama bear self frets to leave them. But really, think of it, think of the hands you are leaving him in: your sis. She is family too. This will make Abe stronger and bring him, well, eventually, the greatest gift you will ever give him other than your own bottomless love: his sister. That is worth it. Worth even your xanax. Thank God for xanax. No kidding!!! Hooray for meds. Use it. No kidding.
I wish I could take away the dread of this trip. I so know it's icy grip. But it is only the hounds of hell howling in your ears.....shut them up, kick them out. You ARE strong enough to do this and you will, bc Abe is strong enough to do this, and little B needs you more, now. And therein is your first REAL step into being a mom of more than a singleton. And therein lies the triage you will do, reflexively, the rest of your life. And you can and will and must. And it's good. It teaches Abe that he is stronger than he knows too, it grows his heart. And I promise, sweet dear Lori, that you ARE strong enough to get thru t his, maybe w/ xanax and your dearest girlfriend along for the ride, ugly crying the whole way...its' all ok. These trips are EVER ever so different when you have smalls at home. They are brutal but even in that brutality and sheer ripping of your fibers at the go.....there is such beauty and you find a deeper place in yourself lori. And it's there, we all see it even when you don't. It's reflected in Abe's eyes and sureness as he leans into you.

When it gets too hard. Oh...this weekend and Monday, just do the next thing. Go on autopilot if you have to. Do the next thing. Fold the shirt, flip the laundry, fill the tank with gas. Do the next thing. And the next thing you know, you'll be in addis and then, even then, your heart will be in your throat and you'll shake and then you'll...do the next thing. Do it. You so can. I know it.

It helped so much to know that others have felt the same way as I am feeling as I get ready for this trip. But no one told me it would be this hard. I'm telling you now: if you have a little one at home, the anticipation leading up to going to meet your next child is one of the worst feelings you will ever feel. You want to meet your next child, but you feel this angst about leaving the little, and then you feel guilt about feeling the angst because of course the new child is just as important as your current child.

It's the triage she referred to. I wasn't prepared. Not one bit.

At work today, one of my Eritrean clients came just to give me a gift to give to his daughter in Addis. This client is usually all smiles, all joy and peace. But when he handed me the small purple cloth bag and the phone number of his daughter, he looked down and covered his eyes. When he looked back up, they were red and full of tears. Parents should not live so far from their children, not even when they're almost 80.

If nothing else, these 11 days are going to give me a small taste of what these seniors feel every day. At least for me, I know my return date. For them, this is a possibly permanent separation, no hope of reunion until heaven.

I don't know how they bear it. I guess their days are filled of "doing the next thing."

New Job Foreman

2011-05-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

Another nonprofit has teamed up with the nonprofit I work for to build some raised garden beds for our seniors to grow some veggies in. One of the kids building the beds took the mysterious plastic baby doll that had been lying in the parking lot for the last few weeks and turned it into our friendly garden mascot. It makes me giggle.

I really should be doing other things but this is a nice distraction from my every ten-minute freak-outs about the reality I am facing of leaving our son for 11 days next week. Heart palpitations, and not the good kind, the "please hand me a xanax" kind. I'm excited for this trip, of course, but if you have met the little boy Abe who lives with us, you know how magical and delicious he is, and the thought of not having him near me for that long is sending me into panic-mode.

Deep breaths.

One of Us

2011-05-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

Our phone rang this morning telling us that we can buy the tickets. MOWA submitted in court Monday a favorable letter. Considering the recent slowdown, this letter being added to our case is huge, and we are very thankful.

There was a buzz of energy in the house this morning after the phone rang. I confirmed our guest house reservations. We are still trying to nail down the right flight. My traveling buddy is in Los Angeles, so that makes things more complicated.

Abe went to school, and I went to work. I was finally able to tell the clients at my job the dates that I'll be in Addis Ababa, where many of them have relatives. An interpreter came to the community room at my workplace to make sure we weren't losing any vital phone numbers or dates. She explained to them why I was going, where I would be staying, how long I'd be gone.

I will be taking photos and letters and I'm not really sure what else to give to their relatives for them. One of our clients, with a huge smile and opened arms said that she had nothing to give her family so she just wished me safe travels and to come back to them soon.

Another client broke down in tears, saying he had nothing to give his son, the one who used to support him in Oregon but has since been deported. I pray I get to meet him anyway, just to look him in the eye and say how much we love having his father in our program. I want to tell him stories about his father in Oregon. I pray this happens.

Another client's wife is on her deathbed in a hospital in Addis. He asked me to visit her for him. I will try my best to do so.

I will be staying in the same neighborhood where the daughter of one Eritrean client lives and works. He is going to call her and arrange a meeting for us. He is the one who reminds me most of what Abe might look like when he's in his 70s. Of course, he's incredibly handsome.

Our other Eritrean client began speaking to the interpreter in Tigryna. He spoke for a a long time. He kept locking eyes with me. My friend and interpreter told me that he was explaining that he knows how much I love them, that they consider me a sister, that I am "one of them." He wished me safe travels and to come back soon.

I have had a lot of wonderful moments in this job, but this moment may be the one I treasure most.

I leave next week. I'll be carrying their hearts with mine as I go.

"Caring for our seniors is perhaps the greatest responsibility we have. Those who walked before us have given so much and made possible the life we all enjoy" - John Hoeven

Your Mother and Mine

2011-05-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to have heard today if our first court date went well. We were supposed to have bought some plane tickets by tonight. You know how that goes. Don't count your "supposed to"s before they hatch.

All we know is that the in-country staff "couldn't be reached" today, so we couldn't find out if we got our favorable letter for our adoption or not. We're supposed to hear in the morning. Supposed to.

Today I've been thinking about attachment. Abe does this thing when he gets tired where he climbs up on my lap, sticks his thumb in his mouth and covers his face with my hand. He takes really deep breaths, like he's breathing me in. He's a scent-oriented guy. When I told him my sister was flying out to be with him while I'm in Ethiopia, his first question was, "Does she smell good?"

When Abe's face is covered by my hand, he's usually asleep within a minute or two. He did this on Mother's Day afternoon, and it was maybe my favorite part of a really good day. He didn't fall asleep because he heard his best friend outside and ran out to play. These moments are so sweet. They are what makes me pretty sure that our little boy is pretty attached to us.

A few months ago, the smart funny lady at one of my favorite blogs started a topic about attachment that many people responded to and wrote about. I never did for two reasons: 1. I found it hard to find the time and 2. I was afraid that I wouldn't have anything useful to say because we were one of those families whose attachment seemed to happen with a couple of days. Even the in-country staff noticed the difference in Abe's personality with a day. He'd lit back up. He seemed to know instantly who we were. He wanted us over anyone else. It's like we couldn't get enough of each other. We did a lot of breathing each other in.

I know that with this little 5-year-old girl it's most likely going to be different. Before Abe, I think I knew what it meant to mother a baby. I could anticipate all those physical things like bathing and changing diapers and the weight of a baby asleep on my chest and making silly faces to induce giggles. All these things happened within our first few hours with Abe. But what does it mean to mother a 5-year-old daughter? I really don't know.

Who is Bee? What does she like to do? What makes her laugh? What makes her cry and how does she best like to be comforted when she is sad and confused? Does she like to have her back rubbed or her hand held? Does she like piggy-back rides? Will she want me to paint her nails and tie her shoes? What books should I read to her and songs can I teach her? Will she want to brush and braid my hair (oh, I hope so!)? Will she be patient with me as she teaches me some phrases in Amharic? Will I know how to comfort her when she starts missing her friends in the care center? Will I be able to pick up on her cues that she's freaking out about all the monumental changes going on in her life?

When will we feel attached? I really don't know.

I want to see her face. I want to watch her play. On this first trip (on which I may be leaving next week), I don't get to tell her who I am. I can only meet her and watch her. I can't even begin to fathom what this is going to feel like. Will I erupt in tears when I find her in the crowd of children? Will I feel nothing? Is she going to wonder if I'm there for her? What will our interactions be like? If she sits next me, am I going to have to resist the urge to scoop her closer and breathe in the scent of the top of her sweet head, the one with those beautiful diagonal braids?

I can't even begin to imagine what this is going to be like.

One thing for sure is that I am so thankful that my friend is going with me. My friend with a heart the size of...Texas. My friend whose eyes tear up faster than anyone else I know. My friend who is stubborn and determined. My friend who is going to be the one to be there with me as I behold for the first time with my own eyes the beauty of a little girl we've been calling our Little Bee. A little girl we pray becomes our daughter.

I will be the mother of a daughter. Holy crap. I am filled with fear and longing at this thought. Mothers and daughters.

More than anything, what I feel is anticipation for the day when she is here and standing on the step stool in our kitchen, beside me baking. Or coming home from school telling me about her day. Or laying in her bed with the fairy sheets talking with her little brother. Or making friends with the amazing little girls her age we are lucky enough to have in our life. Or trying to braid her mama's slippery hair into braids like hers. Or rolling her eyes and then laughing as her dad as goes into one of his actor-y routines.

This beautiful little girl has lost her first mother. I will never replace this mother. My prayer though is that at least I am gentle enough to be like the mother Wendy sings about. I hope that one day, maybe many years from now, when Bee is away from home, she will feel homesick for me the way John is in this scene. Whenever I hear this song playing from the other room (which is about every other day considering that we live with Peter Pan), I tear up. Every time. I hope I will kiss her cheeks enough and be the angel voice bidding her good night, the helping hand guiding along, whether she's right or whether she's wrong.

Beautiful Little Bee, I will try to be worthy of my post.

Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

This Mother's Day.

I woke up at 7 but then slept another two hours.

Abe's gift to me was to promise not to whine all day. We got about an hour. It's a start.

Ted made breakfast. The bacon got burned, and I wouldn't let anyone eat the charred bits because I don't want any carcinogen-induced cancer in this family.

This is a post I could have written. I think about our other child today, as always. I loved this post. Please read it.

It's pouring down rain right now. It usually does this on Mother's Day in Portland.

I wake up every Mother's Day since being a mom thinking about my friends who long to be mothers and aren't yet. I want to buy them all a drink because this quiet suffering is a particularly cruel form of suffering that gets ignored by most people.

No one who might be reading this blog is the one who made the dumb comment I wrote about in this post. I promise. A couple of really nice people who asked about B's bumps thought I had written about them. It was all about context. This person who asked at the yard sale about her bumps had not sandwiched her question with any form of support for our family or of Bee. Her question seemed to come out of a place of fear. One of the many reasons I love Ted: he told me that he wishes he had heard her question so that he could have answered, "Oh those bumps? That's just the plague. But I hear it's not catching." I love my husband's potential for snark.

I am a protective mother, though I hope never an over-protective mother. Abe told me that a little girl in his school told him last week that she didn't like him and that he couldn't play with her. Sigh. It begins. Kids can be mean. So can their parents sometimes. I asked him how he felt about this, and he shrugged, saying that it made him sad. She's missing out, that's all I could say.

After breakfast, we lit three candles, one for each of the important mothers in our family who we can't talk to today.

We placed a candle under a photo of Dolores, Ted's beautiful mother who I never got to meet. In the photo, she is standing with one of the old ladies in the neighborhood she took care of. We told Abe that she is in heaven now and we'll have to wait until then to meet her in person. We remember her.

We placed a candle under a photo of a young mother in Ethiopia. Abe knows her name. He has conflicting feelings about her but he told me yesterday that he misses her and wants to see her someday. We love her. We remember her. Abe lit the candle himself and placed it under her photo.

For the other mother, we will most likely never have a photo. I lit her candle and placed it next to the other two. She birthed a little girl five years ago in Gondar, Ethiopia. She is another mother I will have to wait until heaven to meet. My life is forever bound with hers. I love her. We remember her.

Mother's Day. 2011. Blessings. Pouring rain. Nourishment and quiet. Charred bacon. Whining. Remembering the heartache of Mother's Days past. Candlelight. Mama-bear protectiveness.

The hope for redemption.

The grafting four families into one, bound together by God's grace.

First School Play

2011-05-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

After his first school play, we decide to walk down the street to get a treat. Abe runs the whole way. It becomes a race between him and Ted, with Abe yelling over his shoulder, "I bet you can't catch me!" and occasionally stopping for a sword fight with Captain Hook, who can never seem to quite catch up to Peter Pan, no matter how hard he tries.

As we approach the shop, we see that the local fire fighters have come for treats as well. This is one of the things we love about where we live: this same group of fire fighters regularly stop in for coffee or treats down the street from our house, and they always stop what they're doing to give the kids stickers and even to let them on the truck. As they drive away, they always turn on the siren and lights.

The chase between Captain Hook and Peter Pan continues on the way home. There is a lot of running and sword fighting, and I find it hard to catch up. About a block before our house, Peter Pan finally slows down. He turns around and walks to me, arms out-stretched. I pick him up and his little green-clad body folds into mine, legs wrapped around waist, head on my left shoulder, thumb in mouth.

He asks if I can carry him the rest of the way.

"Sure."

"I love you, Peter Pan Mom. Can you be the Peter Pan Mom?"

"I'll be happy to, Peter Pan."

I will never grow a mustache,
Or a fraction of an inch.
'Cause growing up is awfuller
Than all the awful things that ever were.
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up,

Pointing the heat-seeking device camera thingee at my hot bod. That thing is actually really cool.

Lit From Within

2011-05-05T09:35:00.001-07:00

So I reworked the design of this blog and then pretty much stopped blogging. I don't like when life is this busy. With end of school year events, big projects going on in my job, epic yard sales at our house, trying to get ready to travel to Ethiopia, last minute weekend road-trips and slightly warmer temperatures that draw us outside whenever possible, I seem to have lost that "blogging mojo."

A couple of things from the last couple of weeks:

If you ever get bored during a church service (especially a contemporary, "emergent" one), count the times the pastors say the word "just" during prayers.

If you are ever at our house and get to see photos of this little girl in Ethiopia who we are hoping becomes Abe's big sister, please only remark on how beautiful she is, how lovely her smile is, how gentle her demeanor seems to be, how her eyes sparkle and seem to radiate kindness. Don't look at her picture, lean in and squint your eyes and ask, "What are those bumps on her face?" If you say this, I will get all kinds of crazy "mama-bear" defensive and need to shove down the rage. And by the way, the person who asked this question is a mother herself. Ted thinks she was just curious and didn't have much a filter, that she didn't mean to be a jerk. Can you imagine, though, her asking a similar question to someone who had just brought a baby home from the hospital? I doubt it (at least I hope).

I got to talk on the phone yesterday with a Gladney mom whose little boy is in foster care with Little Bee. She traveled for their court date two weeks ago and got to meet both kids. It seems that all the official updates we get from Gladney about Bee's personality are true. She is "peaceful," "timid," and "kind." She regularly takes care of the smaller kids. She has good friends there and is "all girl" who teases and is teased by her buddies. In the last photo we got from Gladney, she was pretending not to want her photo taken but one of her friends got her giggling. So we have a photo of what she looks like laughing. Laughing. Little girl laughing. Little girl who likes to take care of little brothers. Little timid girl, possibly an introvert like both her new parents. Little "all girl" girl who hopefully likes to braid and put little clips in her mama's hair. Girl. Girly girl. Pretty girl with a face that could launch a thousand ships.

The sun came out this weekend, plus into Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This is how we felt about it:

Photography Debut

2011-04-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

Back in September, Abe said in this fancy-cool video that he wanted to be either an actor or a "sartographer" when he grew up. Ladies and gentlemen, here is Abe's debut as a photographer:

Me and one of my favorite friends in Portland, the one I tend to hang out with at hipster grocery stores. Also, if all goes according to "plan" (ha, we're talking international adoption here), we'll be having coffee together in Addis Ababa in May. Very cool.

Pan Lives On

2011-04-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Peter Pan phase lives on, as strong as ever.

Speeches

2011-04-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

The end of a long day of work, and I'm tired. Headache. Dinner with friends to celebrate the "family day" for their 3-year-old from Ethiopia. Before cutting the cake, speeches are made, the first by the 6-year-old big sister who quietly says something about being glad she has a little sister. Everyone claps. My right eye won't tear but my left eye is shooting them from the inside corner, running down the side of my nose. The kids in the room take turns making speeches, which are all amazingly appropriate for the occasion.

Later as the boys wrestle, I watch the speech-giving big sister and her good friend, another adoptee from Ethiopia, a little girl Bee's age. These two are the same height. They organize a game of hide-and-seek. I imagine another little girl in this mix and hope they will be friends.

I stand in the kitchen for a few moments to say goodbye to the host. Another mom comes in and gives her own little speech about how she looks around at these kids and knows that, though their road to parenthood wasn't what they expected, they feel so lucky that these are the kids they get to raise. The tears start, again running down the left side of my nose.

As I go to gather Abe, the big sister's friend from Ethiopia, the one who reminded me two weekends ago that one of the best parts about having a little girl will be (hopefully) someone to brush and put little clips and braids in my hair, ran crashing into the back of my legs, hugging me tightly. She almost knocked me over. I turned around and picked her up and told her that those kinds of hugs are my favorite kind. She asked why. I told her, "because all you can do is just stand there and take it."

Discussion on Race and Adoption

2011-04-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

What follows is a slightly edited version of a fb discussion I had last night with a couple of women I love love love. All names have been changed.

Zorah
Ya'll - We had our Trans-Racial discussion night tonight with a speaker who was adopted internationally in 1980. SOOOOO amazing. I learned so much. He's also a social worker and works with adoptive families so he knows what he's talking about. AH-MAH-ZING.

Haven

SHARE SHARE SHARE please. Or was it recorded?

Zorah

Okay, this will be random from my notes. (Not recorded - small group in a circle, sharing - so cool.) Excuse the randomness. Randomosity.

*If you don't give your child the language of adoption to connect to their feelings about it, they will not be able to process their feelings, and it will come out negatively - anger, aggression, etc.

* For PreK you can google "Identity games" and find games to play to help your child figure out his/her identity (haven't tried this yet).

*When discussing adoption w kids or being black in a white family, put it on yourself. "That man sure had a lot of questions about our family. I felt {insert feeling} about him asking so much."

*Always recognize that the WHOLE FAMILY's identity changed when you became a trans-racial family. It's not that you are still white with a black child, you are a part of a trans-racial family. The identity is the family idenity - "our" identity. (Obv. that only applies to parents - you want the child to learn his/her own identity within that family.)

* One easy way to show parent's connection to the culture is to discuss current events about the country of birth. Show that you are interested. And not just about poverty/helping, but just about the people, the country.

*The speaker said one of the most important things you can do is surround yourself with other adoptive families. And, he felt that it would be most beneficial to have a parent's support group that meets to discuss issues on a regular basis. So that you are using the language and bringing up the issues with other APs and then can do the same with your child after working through it yourself.

*This is a big one - Never refer to your children in the possessive when discussing adoption. (Obv saying, "My sweet baby," is fine....) Gotcha day - no. When people ask where you "got" him, take the focus off him and say, "We adopted from Ethiopia." So it's about the whole family and not singling him out. And not, "We got him from..." These are the only notes I took, but we also discussed racism, being uber-conspicuous as a family, how our kids may stick out in their school and have to deal with that. (Give them the language to discuss it - he kept saying this - the language and consistency.) I wish ya'll could have been there.

Kate
I like your random notes that aren't random when you think about it. I wish I lived closer, we have nothing like that down here.

Haven
Oh, I wish I could have heard this too. I've always disliked "gotcha day" and people asking where we "got" our son. I love the suggestion about knowing what's going on in the country, and not just "helping." Giving the language to talk is so important. I think all the time now about the school issue since our daughter is going to be going to an UBER white school this fall. I'm sort of dreading this. We are looking at houses in more diverse areas of town already too. Ugh.

Zorah
I was mostly surprised with how the speaker said it was important to talk to your kids about everything. Don't shy away from the fact that some people don't like people with brown skin. Talk about it. Talk about the fact that you all look different. Point out the differences (something I was so hesitant to do) so that the child will know how to talk about them when it comes up for him.

Haven
How early should you start talking about everything though? I don't want our son to know yet that there is a history of people who don't like dark-skinned people. I've tried to point out the differences between us, but he has resisted talking about it. It's weird. A couple of weeks ago at bedtime, he and I got into a long, intense, funny, and endearing conversation about adoption and his sister and his birth mother. I came downstairs and immediately wrote it all down so I wouldn't forget. So much to work through.

Zorah

The speaker said to just talk about it - even if they resist. Because at some point, they'll draw from those discussions. I told the story about how I lost it (crying) trying to explain MLK day to our son because I didn't want to tell him that people didn't like brown skinned people. But we read an MLK book and it had a part with a playground that was "Whites Only." I explained that MLK couldn't go to that playground bc people back then were stupid (choose your own word there ;) and thought that skin color meant you were different.

I went on to say how we passed a playground a week later and he asked if that playground was for him or not. And I thought this was a major fail. The speaker said it was a success. Our son *asked* about it. He is thinking about it and he felt comfortable and had the language to ask. He will sooner or later start to understand that it isn't like that anymore (for playgrounds) and he'll ask more.

And apparently it's never too early. It just sucks a bit for us parents to have to explain the ugliness of racism. SUCKS

Kate

I can see how talking about how you look different could be beneficial. Our daughter has two racially mixed cousins. One was raised where it wasn't discussed, Jean. The other cousin, Ben, it was discussed. Right now, Jean is 15 and she's very confused about her identity. It doesn't help that she has no contact with her paternal family (not her choice, they've never had anything to do with her. It's sad. ) plus, her mom is now remarried (white guy) and she and her husband just had a little girl a couple years ago. So you can just imagine how out of place Jean might be feeling. Her school is all white, so that doesn't help. She's told her grandma (my aunt) she feels out of place and uncomfortable and like she cant talk to anyone Its sad.

Now Ben is different. It's a complete 180. Both his parents are remarried to others, his mom is black, Charles, his dad is white. His mom Carissa just had a baby with new husband (both black) and Charles and his wife (white) have a little girl. But what Charles and Carissa and his grandparents have done is work together and told Ben from a very early age, yes, you look different than your dad and your dads family, but that's ok, we can talk about it anytime you need to. They've also got him in a school that is diverse. And that's a big help. It's night and day different between them.

Racism is hard to talk about, maybe only because it hasn't been eradicated and it is still out there. It would be nice to be able to tell our kids "there used to be a time where some people were stupid but not anymore". It would be nice to talk about it being in the past, that they don't have to worry about it anymore. But that's sort of like unicorns existing. You want it to be real so bad, but it's just an illusion of reality.

Zorah

OH! I also asked about this tonight: How do you tell if it's an "adoption issue" or a "kid issue," and the speaker explained it so well. It's both. Adoption will ALWAYS play a role in our kids' lives, so they can never really be separated. I loved that. They are layers instead of two separate entities.

Okay, that's it. Thoughts?

A friend sent me this photo yesterday of a little boy pirate who grew up to become president.

Another little boy pirate, dressed this morning for "pajama day" at school.

Spring

2011-04-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

It's still ten degrees colder than usual for this time of year, but at least, oh at least, we are getting glimpses of the sun, in scattered moments, between the rain.

"Mom, I brought you something."

We have tea all the time at home but never tea parties this fancy and beautiful.

Excellent Travel News

2011-04-16T09:17:00.001-07:00

We still can't book tickets until May 9th, but I did find out this week that this lady is going to be my travel companion on this first trip:

(I love this clip so because I despise the book she is referencing, the ones that tell us to "manifest" things in our lives that we might be lacking).

Susan and Larry are some of our favorite friends in Los Angeles. We actually shared a house for a while when we were living in Portland and traveling down to Southern California every month or so for Ted's job. When we got that life-changing call on March 3, 2008, Susan was the first person who heard the news, as I ran across the dining room and sent the phone skidding across the hardwoods in my frantic rush to find Ted. As I called my mother to tell her the news, Susan was basically screaming and crying in the background. When we got back to the U.S. with our son, Susan was the first person to meet Abe on his first full day here. Plus, one time, she knitted me a tea cozy, which I still use several times a week. Oh, and her book is wonderful, in case you are looking for something to read.

Susan is going to be the best travel buddy ever. I am beyond excited.

Let Me Serve Them

2011-04-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

N is from Ethiopia. He is Oromo. He has the darkest skin of any Ethiopian I've met. He is shorter than most too. He always wears a suit, sometimes with a bright red scarf when it's cold out. He has been the most regular member of our program for African elders at my job in the almost three years I've been there. He stopped coming for a while when he got a job downtown directing traffic at a construction site but then he came right back when the job ended.

N doesn't say very much though his English is probably better than anyone else in the group. He understands most everything so all our teachers and volunteers regularly call on him to help translate. When someone asks for his help, he listens quietly to what is being said before raising his eyebrows to translate. As he speaks, he puts both his hands out, spreading all ten fingers wide, slowly gesturing and looking from person to person.

N's name, in Amharic, means "peaceful."

Every day I see him, he trails beside or behind me to take whatever I am carrying out of my hands. He jumps up from his seat to hand out food, to clean up messes, to pour coffee for others, to take the garbage out, to welcome the newcomers with handshakes and hugs, to stand behind his friends and rest his arms on their shoulders. He taught me to say "Galetooma," which, in Oromo, means "thank you." We say this to each other all the time. His children live in Shashamene, Ethiopia, and one of my deepest hopes for our trip next month is that we can meet each other. I want to look in their eyes with my eyes and tell them how loved their father is in his new home in Oregon.

N is currently fasting. He still brings his friends their plates of food and then clears the dishes away when they are done. Yesterday, another elder got up from the table before he did and started to clear away small salad bowls. As he rushed to finish the job, I heard him say "Let me serve them."

My heart swelled.

Let me serve them.

N is my current best example of how to live my life. Quiet calmness. Quick to serve. Slow to speak. Patient. Affectionate. Forgiving. His name means "peaceful," and he taught me to say galetooma.

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

I Won't Grow Up

2011-04-11T09:12:00.000-07:00

The soundtrack to our life, for the past eight months really, since we saw Peter Pan last summer.

Seems like years since it's been clear

2011-04-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

"I broke free on a Saturday morning, pushed the petal to the floor. Headed north on Mills Avenue and listened to the engines roar...I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me..."

During the dark wait for Abe in the winter of 2008, I used to listen to this song over and over as I rode my bike around my neighborhood and on the paths of a cemetery that I would often end up at. It was a regular date with me, an ipod shuffle attached to my baseball cap, asphalt paths in a big cemetery, and this song.

One of my most interesting friends, a woman raised Southern Baptist but converted to Judaism in college and an excellent vegan baker, was the one to first introduce me to this song. She said it helped her through a tough break-up.

I just found this afternoon a playlist on our computer from the first few months we were home with Abe. This song is on there. I made it through that year. There was feasting and dancing. With a child at home, I didn't have as much time to ride my bike around the cemetery as much.

I listen to this song and think about a friend of mine who has been waiting longer than anyone I know to bring their six-year-old daughter home. They have met her and held her and even developed inside jokes among their family already. A judge said 'yes'. But embassy snafus are keeping them apart. This wait is excruciating for them.

I went ahead in the playlist and this song is the one that made tears well up more than anything has in a long time. I think about my friend who is waiting for her daughter, whose son is waiting for his sister. I think about this long winter in Oregon, how the sun still seems so far away.

It's gonna be alright. One day. If it kills me.

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right

Bumble bees everywhere

2011-04-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me a link last week to a bumblebee necklace on etsy. Bumblebees have sort of become my symbol for the Little Bee we are waiting for in Addis. I just went to etsy out of curiosity of other handmade bee items. I'm not sure how this works, but on their home page right now, there is a collection of featured items, all of which are connected to bees. Does anyone know how this works? Is etsy or my webrowser so smart that it knows to find bumblebee items based on the one link my friend sent me last week? That's probably it, right?

Second thing: yesterday afternoon a friend was over knitting and keeping me company while I priced items for the yard sale this Saturday. I was telling her the story about the Easter Sunday two years ago when these guys came to our house in L.A. to take our honeybee hive home. As I was telling this story, a UPS guy knocked on our door to let me know he'd left a box. It was a box of hand-me-down clothes from M for Little Bee. The box from this family was delivered at the exact moment I was telling a story about the family and their bee hive.

As I was writing that last sentence, I overheard Ted say to Abe about some other topic, "All kinds of weird things happen." No kidding.

Being Abe

2011-04-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

Being Abe means making this face when things aren't going 100% fully to your liking.

Being Abe means doing things like this to your favorite cat. He's the favorite of the three-year-old for a reason.

Being Abe means riding the plasma car around the house a lot, occasionally sharing it with others (this is the shirt I was wearing the day we met Abe).

Being Abe means asking dozens of times a day "Can you tell me a story about when you were a little boy/girl?" and then listening with rapt focus when someone obliges the request.

It means not getting your new toy until you've found the one you just lost by throwing it down the stairs to the basement. In this case, it was a small Obama action figure. In the meantime, Batman and Associates have taken over. We're hoping the president is found soon.

Being Abe means practicing to perfection the Peter Pan bow.

Being Abe also means having phased out of naps but still wanting to snuggle mom, who he calls his "favorite girl," thus making the girl's heart melt to putty.

Making room for another

2011-03-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon a little girl Bee's age spent the afternoon and evening at our house. She was there with her little brother and her dad. She is dreamy. The best part of my day was when she sat on our kitchen counter and talked to me while I popped popcorn for everyone. She told me all about how she used to make tea and coffee for herself when she lived in Ethiopia. She told me all kinds of stories about her life there. Anything I'd inject into the conversation, she would take in with wide open eyes that stared straight into mine.

After dinner, as all the grown-ups were sneaking cookies that we didn't share with the kids (no sugar-rush right at bedtime, thank you), she was riding the plasma car in circles around the table and stopped to give me some invisible flowers. She asked me to hold them for her because she was very busy getting ready for a wedding, hers and Abe's. He didn't know about it yet. She hadn't gotten around to telling him since he was very busy cooking dinner in the basement with her little brother. I taught her the proper way to carry flowers around, blooms down so as to keep them hydrated, a trick I learned during my years in Slovakia.

She decided that when Bee gets here, she wants her to refresh her Amharic while she teaches Bee English. I think it's a good plan. One thing for sure is that these two girls are so beautiful that when they are together playing in our house, the place is going to radiate with sparkles. People are going to walk past our house as they walk their dogs and wonder how we managed to get fireworks to go off out of our windows.

Please excuse my indulgence into my hope for a utopia. I know it won't be exactly this perfect. I know there will be grieving and frustration and lack of sleep and communication breakdowns and a lot of emotional intensity. I know this. But yesterday, the sun came out for a while in the late afternoon and within about five minutes, there were nine kids under the age of ten outside in front of our house organizing themselves into a posse of astronauts who were blasting off in their rocket ship, counting down in unison so loudly that you folks in Kansas probably heard the roar.

With the news of a court date, my mind is now "going there." I'm imagining Bee joining the kid posse in our neighborhood and the thought of her blasting off in the rocket ship with everyone else leaves a tightness in my chest, a physical tightness that I'm sure is my heart

e x p a n d i n g.

It is making room for another.

Another. A little peanut of a girl named Bee with big almond eyes who has a set of astronaut friends waiting to initiate her into the posse. The sun is finally starting to come out this spring.

Honest to Goodness NEWS.

2011-03-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

I'm going to set aside my writer's block right now to just put the news out there.

We have a court date. Sort of. If all goes well. The "all goes well" portion is as follows:

Up until recently, cases sometimes went to court without the official letter of opinion from the Ministry of Women's Affairs, and it seems that some families would "pass court" and then be waiting for a while to get the opinion letter before things could be finalized.

To avoid this happening, there will be a first court date in which the powers-that-be at the Ministry will appear before the judge to present their opinion of the case. The date for this to happen for us is May 9th.

If a favorable opinion is presented, we are to arrive in Addis Ababa on May 19 in order to meet in person the famous Little Bee the next day (butterflies in my stomach at this thought). Our court date will then be on May 23rd.

May 23rd is the day that everything could potentially be finalized. Then we go back home to wait for an embassy date a few weeks later. We wish wish wish that we could stay in country the whole time but unfortunately our jobs will probably not permit us to do so.

That being said: We have been advised not to make solid travel plans until we hear the outcome of the May 9th court date and will most likely have to be paying exorbitant last-minute fares to travel. Therefore, we are having a really humongous (Abe's new favorite word) sale the weekend of April 8-9th. We have already collected fair amount of stuff from friends (thank you friends!), and if you live in our area and want us to take your Goodwill pile off your hands, we'd be happy to do so. We'll be happy to add your discards from spring cleaning to our sale. Ted has a cool truck that he can load everything in.

So. Real news. Finally and thank you, Jesus.

Lift

2011-03-24T16:54:00.000-07:00

About an hour ago, Abe and I were sitting at the dining room table having an early dinner. It's pouring out. I heard the rumble of a big truck, looked out the front window and saw a brown UPS truck stop in front of our house. I said to Abe, "Look, a package for somebody. Probably for dad." Ted orders a lot of boring stuff like ink cartridges online, so I figured that's what it was.

I met the deliverer at the door and saw it was for me. I felt that little rush of excitement that comes with "brown paper packages tied up with string." Abe immediately started pouting and saying, "I never get packages!" Oh well, little buddy, this one's for me.

I open it up and see a box of Target wine. I love that stuff, people. Love it. I started laughing. I told myself I should read the card first but I just ended up digging more in the box. A group of three friends in different parts of the country had gotten together and sent me things they knew I liked. I laughed and laughed and then laughed more. I couldn't stop smiling.

Mission accomplished, ladies.

Earlier this week, a friend who is awaiting news of a court date spent the afternoon and evening at our house, just hanging out with the neighborhood kids, eating dinner with us and watching Abe's new jig. We were talking at one point about how one of the really nice things about going through an adoption, especially when things get dicey, is how genuinely nice people are to you. It's really true. We talked about all the surprising people in our lives who we may not have a lot of consistent contact with but who suddenly go out of their way to be supportive and kind, like one of Ted's old college roommates who called me out of the blue this week to tell me how much they are thinking of us and praying that things turn out well.

I have had so many of these experiences. A few:

A fellow Gladney mom who I have never even met in person sent me a huge box of hand-me-downs from her 9-year-old Ethiopian daughter. Inside were clothes, barbie dolls, shoes, toys, amazing things a little girl would like to have. This box was crammed full of goodness.

Ted brought me cadbury eggs this afternoon.

About a month ago, two wonderful friends hosted a gathering to celebrate Bee. It was beautiful and thoughtful and they were handing me mimosas throughout, and I drove away feeling loved and excited about the women Bee will have in her life.

Another friend secretly organized a "blessing way" for me. Almost every day for the last week, small packages have arrived in the mail with supportive notes and beads, beads with special meanings that often make me teary, like the one that is a tiny golden bumblebee.

This world is full of kindness, skittles, goodness, boxed wine, generosity, thoughtfulness, beads, showers, lovely hand-written notes, brown paper packages, and Ewan McGregor...all things that lift my spirit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

At the moment, our nephew is showing our neighbor the scar from his spleen surgery while two little boys run around the house wearing superhero capes and fire helmets. It's loud. Really loud.

But this is what I will be doing when things get quiet around here.

Comfort

2011-03-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts of being a mom is having your little person come running to you after getting hurt, arms stretched out your direction, tears and snot, yelling, "Mooooom!" You pick him up and he drapes himself into "his" spot over your left shoulder, face nestled in your neck, ever-lengthening legs wrapped around your waist, holding on for life, come back to the safe place that is "mama."

This afternoon at a neighbor's house, an Ethiopian girl Bee's age got her finger slammed in a door. The pitch of her wailing made my ears ring. Her dad and the other grown-ups there nursed her with ice-packs, towels, band-aids and attempts at distraction. She was brave. Through her continued sobbing, she still said "please" and "thank you for letting us come over." By the time her dad was carrying her out to the car, her crying had quieted, but then she remembered: Mother. The crying started again with "I want Mom! I want Mom!" Thankfully her mom was waiting for her at home, and her safe mama place was only a little over a mile away.

Please, dear God, keep our little Bee's little fingers safe from doors that slam. And when the time comes, my left shoulder and arms are ready to hold this 37 pound girl who needs a soft landing place.

Newsworthy

2011-03-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

The sun came out today, after two solid weeks of rain, with no breaks.

All over Portland, people were out. Most of them had cameras. Rain was forecast for today, as it is for the next week. Today was a fluke, but whatever. We'll take it.

Caught in ABC and XYZ

2011-03-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

I'm reading all there is to read about the situation with adoptions in Ethiopia right now, from message boards and blogs to what our agency tells us and the updates from other agencies my friends tell me about. It's a lot to try to figure out. There is a lot of controversy about what the response should be from the adoption community. I am starting to form opinions but still am not ready to write about it. I admire those who have managed to be more articulate than I am and write down their thoughts about the situation.

Last night at a meeting, another adoptive mother who just got home with her second child was asking me about what's going on. I had to gulp a few times and look away when talking to her, especially when I realized that if ABC had not happened when it did then we might not have gotten caught up in XYZ, and the chances are good that we could have already had our court date and possibly even our embassy date which would mean that around now, we could be getting Bee introduced to the kindergarten teachers at the local school and settled into her bed with her fairy sheets and string lights to hang above.

But that didn't happen. Worst case scenario: the adoption might never happen. Bad scenario (but at least not the worst): some estimates are that we could be waiting a year for a court date. Better scenario: we get our court date assigned to us tomorrow, and it's two weeks from now.

We feel confident that, knowing what we know about her story and what we trust about our agency, this adoption is an ethical one. As soon as we heard her story, we felt that this should be one of those open-and-shut cases. That's what makes this so difficult. This little bumblebee of a glowing-eyed girl whose hair has grown out so much that she now has little puffs with little bows is now sitting in a foster home with a lot of other kids in the same position. There are worse places she could be. I know this. But I also know that we want her in a family, preferably in our family, with parents to study her and dote on her, extended family to shyly meet her, and a little brother who told me this week when I asked him if he could fly anywhere, where would he want to go, "to Africa, to pick up my sister." This foster home is not a bad place. She has food and is read to and I think watches Cinderella pretty often. She has friends there. She looks happy in the pictures we get. But it's not a family. Who stands over her bed while she's sleeping, amazed and thankful at getting to be her mother?

We got an update about her today from our agency. She had just woken up from a nap. She made her bed. Then, "It was obvious she had done it before because once she was finished, she walked over to a younger girl’s bed and straightened it for her. It seemed natural to her, as though this was just something she did. Then, she obliged me for a new photo." In these photos, she is crazy beautiful, as in "sign this child up for a modeling contract" beautiful, with eyelashes that curl up over her lids making her almond-eyes look like stars.

One day, we're hoping she helps Abe make his bed. He's not good at it now, and could use her patient instruction.

We Were Always Headed Toward Eternity

2011-03-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

O the dragons are gonna fly tonight
They're circling low and inside tonight
It's another round in the losing fight
Out along the great divide tonight

We are aging soldiers in an ancient war
Seeking out some half remembered shore
We drink our fill and still we thirst for more
Asking if there's no heaven what is this hunger for?

Our path is worn our feet are poorly shod
We lift up our prayer against the odds
And fear the silence is the voice of God

And we cry Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah

Sorrow is constant and the joys are brief
The seasons come and bring no sweet relief
Time is a brutal but a careless thief
Who takes our lot but leaves behind the grief

It is the heart that kills us in the end
Just one more old broken bone that cannot mend
As it was now and ever shall be amen

And we cry Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah

So there'll be no guiding light for you and me
We are not sailors lost out on the sea
We were always headed toward eternity
Hoping for a glimpse of Gaililee

Like falling stars from the universe we are hurled
Down through the long loneliness of the world
Until we behold the pain become the pearl

Cryin´ Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah

And we cry Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah

In lieu of news, photos.

2011-03-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

I have been reading all there is to read about the changes going on in Ethiopia but because something new seems to happen every couple of days, I'm still not able to fully get my mind around it all. On top of all the "facts" coming out, there are also numerous rumors swirling around to try to sift through and understand.

Eventually, I'm sure I/we will write about it here. But I'm not ready yet. So in the meantime: pictures.

I kept Abe out of school on Tuesday so I could bring him to work with me for International Women's Day. The men cheered on...

...as the women sang and danced. Seeing these Oromo women walk into the gym that morning dressed like this made my heart swell. I feel so lucky to get to spend time with these people every week.

Ted came home from a week in NYC, bearing gifts from Zabar's. We were up until after midnight sifting through the cheese, strudel and knish.

Someone now sees letters everywhere. We are proud.

News for Family and Friends Who Might be "out of the loop"

2011-03-10T13:41:00.001-08:00

My head has been swimming for the past week with all the news, rumors, and debate going on surrounding changes going on now with Ethiopian adoptions. I don't know where to begin with writing about it, so this post is mainly for our family and friends who may not yet be aware of what's going on.

You can click here to read the U.S. Department of State's statement about what is going on.

We have no idea yet what this news means for our adoption of Little Bee. Today marks our fourth month of waiting for a court date.

Holding it up to the light

2011-03-07T09:08:00.000-08:00

3 Years of Our Own Rooney

2011-03-03T14:45:00.001-08:00

It didn't hit me until this afternoon. I have never been good at remembering birthdays, anniversaries, important dates.

Three years ago, Abe became "our own Rooney," officially. What an amazing day.

I posted this the day before, on March 2nd.

And here is the story of the best phone call I've ever received.

March 2, 2011, in Sisters, Oregon.

Somewhere in central Oregon, there is a tree that a boy Ted scratched his initials into, over the course of a few decades. He always came back to this tree. The year we were married, he took me the tree and scratched my initials in it.

It was only fitting to add the next year and name.

There is room right below for another.

2 little whos

2011-02-28T22:13:00.000-08:00

Princess Bee was given a celebration on Sunday. Photos were put in an album for her, photos of people wanting to meet her, photos of her new family, of new friends and neighbors, people who maybe even already love her. One friend mailed hers in since she doesn't live in our state. Her daughter, here over a year from Ethiopia, drew this picture for us.

2 little whos
by e.e. cummings

2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree

smiling stand
all realms of where
and when beyond
now and here

far from a grown
up-i&you-
ful world of known
who and who

(2 little arms
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)

In the friends department? I am blessed more than anyone I know.

The Best Video on the Internet

2011-02-28T19:07:00.001-08:00