Ashagre's First-Ever Boor-day Party

Ashagre's first ever birthday, or boor-day as he calls it, party was a great success.  Ashagre had a fantastic day and was all smiles all day long.  He definitely understood it was his special day and wore it like a rock star.  Our bashful boy held his head high and showed his beautiful smile to all that wished him a happy birthday - coming out of his shell more in a matter of ten hours than he has since he joined our family in February.  As the day was finally winding down and he was playing with some of his new toys in the living room he asked me if I liked his birthday party.  I told him that I liked seeing him so happy and excited all day to which he replied, "me too, my liked it, really liked it."

We started out the day with a yummy egg scramble made by daddy.  Ashagre could hardly sit through the meal because he had already been told that he could open some of his presents after breakfast.  Once we all had our fill of eggs we moseyed out to the back deck for a little family celebration.  Ashagre opened all of his presents sent to him by his doting relatives.  The kid made a haul in the toy department and was genuinely excited about every single one of his gifts.

Home-made card from Elsa.

She picked out her present to Ashagre all on her own.  The trip to the toy
store was completely overwhelming to her, but she found the perfect
gift in the end - the first thing she considered ended up being the best.

Super excited about his new clothes.

Elsa got a gorgeous blue dress.

And an adorable hat.

When it was all over, his impressive pile of loot
spurred a spontaneous happy dance.

After the family gift opening Mommy and Daddy rushed around like crazy to get ready for the rest of his birthday party while the kids played with some of the new toys. Preparations were pretty frantic, but seemed to pay off.  We arrived at the beach park on time and we even eventually got a picnic table and a grill.  The ladybug cake I envisioned pretty much came together as planned, complete with my mom's yummy, not too sweet, frosting.  One of the kids' Ethiopian friends showed up and they had a good time playing on the park playground.  Daddy grilled up some tasty burgers and hot dogs and every enjoyed the gorgeous albeit windy day.  And of course, the kids got more presents.

The Art of Apology

Little man got himself in some trouble today.  The offense involved his fingernails and a little girl's leg and the end result wasn't pretty.  The little girl ran up to show me the minute I stepped foot in his class room to pick him up; their teacher hurried behind her muttering, "they always get to the parents before I do."

Apparently little man's been showing some aggressive behavior recently, although this is the first time we have heard about it.  According to his teacher, the whole class has been off kilter and high strung and the majority of the kids are acting out.  She's been trying to calm and redirect the frazzled energy.  The weather's getting hot, summer's plugging along, and there's transition looming for many of the kids that will be moving on to kindergarten next year.  Ashagre's last day at this school is August 9th and his first day of class at his new school is August 24th.

Fortunately, I think Brent and I nailed the parenting on this one.  After getting the facts from teacher I didn't say anything to Ashagre.  He had just woken up from his nap and was still teetering in the netherworld in which, when given the chance, he can ease back into the real world his happy, silly self or, if challenged or frustrated, travel down a much less pleasant path.  I let him wake up and made sure to let him know he was loved and that I was happy to see him (not easy to do when I was so disappointed in his behavior). After running our daily after school errands we made it back to the house and got settled in.  When things had calmed down a bit, I called Brent aside to fill him in.  We then calmly called Ashagre into his room and told him that we had been informed by his teacher that he hurt a little girl today.  We discussed it - all 3 of us.  He made eye contact and was able to admit that he scratched the little girl because he was mad.  She had told him to go away.  We talked about other things he could have done other than hurting the little girl and made it clear that while getting mad is ok, hurting someone else is never an option.  We kept shaming out of the conversation but let him know that his behavior had disappointed us.  He fully owned the behavior and teared up as the conversation wrapped up.  We never lost our cool and kept the conversation stern but loving.  Then we gave him an opportunity to fix it and moved on.

Daddy tore off a piece of butcher paper the length of our kitchen table.  We told Ashagre that since he had hurt the little girl and made her sad he needed to do something to say he was sorry and make her happy.  He was told to do his best job drawing her a really big picture.  He was expected to work on it for 45 minutes until we had to go to swim lessons.  When we returned he, on his own accord, sat right back down and kept working on it all the way until dinner.  Here's the end result, complete with ladybugs, butterflies, a paint pallet, a worm, and, apparently me, his martian mother:

Daddy helped him spell I'm sorry, but he wrote his name all by himself (something he couldn't do a week ago).  He put his heart into the picture and is proud of it.  I am proud of him for taking responsibility for his actions and being so sincere in his act of apology.

Beauty

His best Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful pose
(actually he was grumpy that I wanted to take a picture
of his hair after spending over an hour finger-detangling
and combing it out).

And one of his smile because that's truly beautiful.

Our First Attempt at Making Injera - Day 4 - SUCCESS!

It worked!  Our attempt at making injera was a success.  Tonight we feasted on gomen, shiro, and tibbs, all wrapped in spongy sour injera and dipped in extra berbere powder.  The kids were so excited!

The prep work is complete.

The judges look on as Daddy prepares to pour the
first cup of batter.

Not looking too bad.

Eager anticipation.

The first piece is revealed.

And does not materialize as a piece of injera after all.

Waiting on the second piece.  Ashagre has LOTS of
pointers.  (Note the tin foil lid my brother made.)

The second piece is revealed.

Cheers abound!  Our first piece of injera!

I think they just might be a little bit proud of their dad.

Three pieces of injera!

Now its time to make the rest of the meal.

Gomen, tibbs and shiro right before it was inhaled by two little Ethiopians.

Jockeying for the next tasty bite.

Elsa even ate the green peppers (jalapenos).  How come she finds much
smaller pieces in everything else we make and refuses to eat them?

Overall, I would say that the injera came out better than I thought it might for a first attempt.  We all left the table stuffed with the slight smell of berbere on our hands.

With that said, we're going to do a few things differently next time:

1. Continue to season our griddle with salt.  Our first piece of injera stuck so bad we had to throw it out.  The next two came off pretty smoothly.  I think a few more seasonings and our griddle should be broken in.

2.  Order a lid for our griddle.  While my brother's improvised tin foil lid worked well, I think investing in a lid is will make our lives easier in the long run.

2. Order teff online.  Apparently the teff we used isn't recommended by seasoned injera makers.

3. Make at least a double batch.  We only got 3 large pieces of injera out of our first batch (granted we threw one more away); next time we'll make a double batch so everyone gets their own roll.

4. Maybe let it ferment one more day.  We made our initial batch of batter on Thursday.  It needs to ferment 36-48 hours.  I think if it would have went one more day it might have turned out a little more bubbly and spongy.

I Don't Want to Forget

I think it was our third day visiting Elsa at her orphanage during our first trip to Ethiopia for court.  On the first day's visit we spent all day inside getting to know each other, thoroughly examining the contents of our day pack, and playing with our sunglasses and camera.  On the second day we played outside on the rusty pieced-together playground equipment in the searing Ethiopian sun.  On the third day we needed something new to do.  The playground was a lot of fun, but we had gotten too much sun the day before and instead hoped to have a quieter more intimate visit with Elsa.  

A fellow traveler had several huge bags of crayons with her that were to be donated to a school she was planning on visiting.  She suggested we take a few.  When we arrived, the usually quiet and tightly run orphanage was a little more lively.  It was Saturday and instead of being in school like they had the past two days, hundreds of other kids were out playing and milling around the compound.  We easily found Elsa and were quickly mobbed by the four and under set.  Obviously a bit frustrated with the competition for our attention, Elsa led us up a hill toward some traditional huts found on the property.  The mob thinned a bit as few of the younger kids couldn't keep up and fell back, but a small posse, including a little girl that probably had only learned to walk a few days prior, tottered up the steep cement stairs towards the huts with us.

My attention focussed on Elsa, I didn't notice the baby wobbling up the steps after us until I felt a small hand softly grab mine.  I looked down to see a little boy, probably no older than six or seven, gesturing at me with a disappointed glare on his face to go pick up the baby.  He was looking out for her and didn't want her to get hurt.  Baby on my hip, we climbed more steps up to the huts.

When we reached the huts the kids ran around a bit and showed us how brave they were by jumping off a huge cement wall that was much taller than they were.  Elsa, always with her huge bright eyes and radiant grin, was sure to show us her jumping skills and her general fearlessness.

Finally we decided to sit down and pull out the crayons.  We hoped to draw with Elsa and maybe trace her hands and feet for sizing once we got back the U.S.  However, as soon as the crayons came out mob mentality overtook the kids.  "Colors! Colors! Colors!"  Little hands flashed in from all directions trying to get at the brand new crayons.  What happened next led to the first moment I've ever felt a parent's pride for their child.

Elsa, frustrated with the chaos calmly indicated that she wanted all the crayons.  We gave them to her and she climbed down a few steps from where we were sitting and ordered all the grabby little kids to calm down and gather around her.  One by one she broke each crayon into three pieces.  Each child got a piece of crayon.  All were expected to wait patiently for their piece of crayon and no one went without.  When all was finished, the crayons were dispersed and Elsa had none.  The kids wandered off to find a piece of trash to color on and Elsa got a few moments with her mommy and daddy before the other kids came staggering back with a scrap of cardboard or small piece of paper to show us their coloring.

Elsa is still that kind and sharing girl we got to know just a little bit better that day at the orphanage and I am still proud to be her momma.

Our First Attempt at Making Injera - Day 1

Everything we need can be found at the local health food store.

A little help from Uncle Shea.

The best part of making injera is that it's best mixed with your hands!

Now we wait.  The injera batter must sit and ferment for  36-48 hours.  So, if all goes well we'll be eating fresh, spongy injera on Saturday!

The Casual Email - Our Referral Anniversary

When you are in the process of adopting a child internationally one of the most monumental things that can happen is THE CALL.  The majority of adoptive parents can tell you exactly what they were doing and who they were with when the call came.  The call is something they have often waited so long for that they thought they might truly lose their minds.  Worlds turn upside down when it comes.  When the call comes families learn for the first time a little something about the newest member(s) of their clan.  There are often crazy ugly cries, non-sensical jabbering, and general hysteria when the call comes.  It's a big deal.


Today is the one year anniversary of the day we found out about Elsa.  However, we did not get THE CALL.  We weren't even officially waiting for a referral yet when we learned that she was out there in Ethiopia waiting for a family.  We had just mailed our homestudy to our adoption agency; I am pretty sure we hadn't even received our dossier packet yet.  We certainly hadn't started working on it.  Usually its not until your dossier is done that you can even begin to expect the call.  Instead, for us, information arrived in the form of a casual email - embedded in an answer to a totally unrelated question:


Hi Dakota,
It is nice to hear from you!...[answer to my unrelated question]...So tell me what ages/genders you are open to or hoping for? I have a little girl turning 6 this fall I would love to place, and several boys close in age to her if you would be open to that age. Let me know!


That was it.  Three little lines in an email and Elsa became something more than a daydream.  She was a 6 year old girl waiting for a family - our family?  I was sitting in my office checking my email during lunch when I first read these words.  I was shocked.  We had been told 3-6 months minimum after our dossier was complete until we might be able to expect a referral.  I did what anyone would do - I called Brent and stammered into the phone.  It was an awkward phone call.  We were both at work.  I didn't know how to drop such big, unexpected news on him.  "So, uh, there's a 6 year old girl for us to consider if you're interested (nervous chuckle)..."  I'm pretty sure he didn't even reply at first.  If he did it was with a weak, "what?"  


Instantly all of the signatures and reference letters and documents we had been gathering took on a whole new meaning.  Dreams quickly turned into reality.  There was a six year old girl in Ethiopia waiting for a family.  That family could be us.


We actually didn't reply back to the email right away.  We decided we didn't want to learn any more about this little girl until we were sure that the possibility truly existed for her to join our family.  Didn't we have to complete our dossier first?  We hadn't been married two full years yet.  Did we need to wait 2 more months until we hit that milestone to consider accepting a referral?  We inquired about the waiting little boys.  Remember, we wanted to adopt two children so one of the waiting boys also had to be a realistic possibility.  We mulled around the idea of parenting two 5 to 6 year olds.  We began to form pictures in our minds.  Things started to get exciting.  We were sent pictures of some of the waiting boys before we even asked for them.  On July 27th we saw this face for the first time.

Ashagre's referral picture.

We tried not to fall in love.  We asked for more information.  On August 2nd we let our agency know we were also ready to see this face for the first time:

Elsa's referral picture.

Again, we tried not to fall in love.  Things were still up in the air.  We had to complete our dossier quickly in order to officially accept Elsa and Ashagre's file.  Another family further along in the process could have accepted them while we were still collecting the last few signatures and notarizations.  We completed our dossier in record time.

On August 11th we received this email:.

Good afternoon:

Thank you for letting us know your thoughts on these referrals.  It appears we are only waiting for your documents to be returned to us from the State Dept and Ethiopia Embassy, your one reference letter and the Interagency Agreement from your HS agency.  Once we have these items, I will process the placement agreements on the children and send them out to you and your dossier will be put into final format and my co-worker with ship it to Ethiopia with the next batch of documents she sends out.

Again, congratulations on your referrals.

It was official.  We were no longer hoping to adopt two children of any gender under the age of 6.  We were adopting Elsa and Ashagre.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Elsa and Ashagre learn about us for the first time.  This is
the only picture we got of them together until we picked
them up in February 2011.  Our agency coordinator swore
Ashagre had just woken up from his nap and was not
devastated by the news.  Now that I have woken him up
from several naps myself, I believe her. 

Trust

A few days ago, a friend linked to Karen Maezen Miller's Parent's Little List of Trust in her comments on one of my posts.  I have since been reading it daily (Thank you Jennifer). Right now this one phrase really seems to hit home:

Trust that when you can't handle it for one more minute, you can handle it for one more minute.

It's sort of become a mantra for me over the past few days.

This evening, not long after I wrote the Rest for the Weary post, Elsa vomited all over the back of the car totally unexpectedly.  Minutes after I pulled up in front of the house and summoned Brent for help, one of our neighbors pulled up in her car and stopped.  She is one of the few neighbors on our block that we don't know.  She rolled down her window and asked where the kids were from.  She introduced herself.

It turns out she's from Ethiopia - Sidama, in fact.  She spoke both Sidamenga and Amharic with Ashagre.  He was giddy with surprise and excitement and answered her questions bashfully in English.  She doesn't claim Ventura as home, but has been living here a while and thinks she'll be here a while longer.  She's working on opening an Ethiopian restaurant in Ventura.  She is ecstatic to get to know our family better.

And so another gem from the Little List proves timely:
Trust accidents and coincidences; trust imperfection and the unforeseen.

Rest for the Weary? Yeah Right!

Earlier today at an infamous chain coffee shop that I shouldn’t frequent as often as I do (or at all for that matter).

Barista: Hi! What can I get for you?

Me (in brain is in a zillion other places, eyes are glazed over, rapid-fire response mode): Uh, I’d like a grande iced non-fat chai.  Wait.  No.  I mean a grande non-fat iced coffee.  Um, I mean I want a grande iced non-fat mocha.  Yeah, that’s what I meant.  Final answer.  

Barista (with a bit of trepidation in her voice): Do you want whip cream on that?

Me (compensating with an overly decisive tone): No, no whip cream, thank you.

I thought I was doing a decent job of concealing it.  I think I’ve been deluding myself.

I am exhausted.  Brent is exhausted.  This parenting stuff is really hard.  It’s especially hard when there’s only two of you and your 5 (almost 6) and 6 year old kids arrived from Ethiopia only 5 months ago (at least it seems especially hard, but how would I know, I’ve never experienced it any other way).  

Brent and I have, since the very early years of our relationship, always operated under a “together we can conquer the world” mentality.  It has served us well.  Together we can conquer the world.  In typical Brent and Dakota fashion we have devised and choreographed a grand plan to make sure the kids’ educational needs and our career requirements are met without compromising the kids' needs for quality time with their new parents.

It looks something like this:

4:30 AM – Dakota wakes up before her alarm (usually) to get ready for work.  The house is dark and silent when she rises and is not much lighter or more noisy (sometimes the dogs get up with me) when she leaves at 5:40 to be to work at 6:00.

5:45 AM – Brent gets himself out of bed (a modern miracle considering Brent’s love for sleep and ability to completely tune out even the most annoying alarm clocks) and prepares to get the kids ready for school.  They have one hour to dress, eat a nutritious breakfast, brush their teeth, moisturize their skin, and head out the door with a nutritious lunch.  One child is notorious for being the slowest eater in the world (seriously).  Brent works mini-miracles daily to make this happen.

7:00 AM – Brent drops the kids off at school and begins the 45 minute commute to work in Santa Barbara.

Both of us work our tails off at our respective jobs.

2:30 PM – Dakota leaves work, an 8 hour work day completed, and picks up the kids from school.  The afternoon is spent at the playground, playing at the house, running quick errands, and at numerous doctors’ appointments.  The idea is to provide the kids with a chance to spend quality time with mommy for several hours each day.

6:00 PM – Brent is home.  Dinner usually must be started.  Alternating days are bath nights for the kids.

8:00 PM – The kids start getting ready for bed with the goal of having them lying down, listening to daddy read them a story by 8:30.  Usually it happens.  Sometimes it’s later; sometimes a major meltdown happens instead. The hour or so we manage to stay up past getting the kids in bed is spent debriefing the day and preparing for the next one.

Under this schedule Brent and I continue to work our respective 40 hour work weeks so as not to let our employers down.  The kids get quality (mostly) time with their parents every day.  Brent and I get no time for each other and no time for ourselves.

I don’t think its working all that well.  We’re keeping it together – so far.  The kids are happy and healthy and our bosses are content, but I think we might be cracking.  If and when something has to give, what will it be?  How are we going to add in 6 hours per week of mandatory volunteer time at the kid’s new school come August?  What are we going to do with them from 7:00 AM until 8:30 AM when their new school starts?  How long can we go on abusing our own sanity and health (Exercise? When at 3:00 AM?) before the kids feel the effects?  What can we do differently?

Post script:  This is not a whine or even a rant.  Just a reality check.  Just the honest truth on how things are going.  We know we signed up for this and do not regret our decision for a moment (except for maybe at 1:00 AM when the pressure valve on the toilet mysteriously blows, rapidly filling the bathroom with water and all arrows point to little fingers that just can’t stay out of places they shouldn’t be).

Uncles, Sand, Friends & Twins

I have several posts banging around in my head trying to make something of themselves, but in the meantime, here's some pics to keep the blog fresh:

Uncle Shea is back in California for a short while, and the kids have really been enjoying having him around.  Seriously, their motto seems to be the more family the better.

Uncle Shea wakes up to our two most attention-loving girls.

The weather's warm and so is the water.  Every weekend since Shea has
been here has included a beach day.  This was one of the best yet. 

The approach...

...and the execution - headstand flippy-thing onto the towel.

She's so strong and coordinated - look at that back.  Gymnastics starts at
the end of August.

Beach days just aren't complete without a really big hole to bury Elsa in.

Earlier this month our good friends the Nunez's visited from Colorado.  Their boys lived at the same orphanage as Ashagre and our adoptions progressed on nearly identical timelines.  We first met them in November when we traveled for our court date and then got the pleasure of spending nearly a week with them at the guesthouse in January for our Embassy trip.  I sure wish they lived closer.  I could definitely use some regular opportunities to swap stories, garner and give support, and share advice with momma Nunez.

Four gorgeous friends, tired after a serious hotel pool session.

And finally, I'd like to introduce my two great-nieces.  That's right, I am a great aunt to twin girls, Kailee and Kylee, as well as their 2.5 year old brother.

That's about it for now.  Hopefully I'll actually get some words down soon.