I'm Super Me!

Foreward: This is a second-hand account of a happening today that occurred while I was in my office writing about the finer points of direct install toilet programs. I am retelling it as I heard it from Brent and Elsa. I'll see if Brent will take a look at it before I hit publish, but no promises.

A (relatively) new friend and adoptive momma of two from Ethiopia recently described parenting children that have been adopted as two steps forward and one step back but not always in that order. Friday night included a big step backward in our family - you know, the kind of step back that occurs when you unexpectedly get hit by a Mack truck. At least that's how it seemed Friday night. Needless to say its been a long weekend and is shaping up to be a long week. I think we'll be repositioning ourselves after this step back for quite a while to come.


But Friday night inevitably turned into Saturday morning. I don't know how many parents have to sit with the pain caused by looking their child straight in the eyes and saying, "I love you no matter what because I am your mommy and that's what mommy's do - they love their kids, no matter what" while hoping with all their hearts that just the tiniest, most microscopic spec of that message might sink in and plant itself somewhere within their child's brain and heart. That they might be able to hear it, if even for a second, or, better yet, feel what its like to have a mommy they can count on forever. We took on Saturday morning with a slower pace than usual. But swim lessons were at 10, and by 4 we found our little family solidly engaged in a family game of baseball in the park up the road.


Sunday rolled around and I had to work to make up some of the hours I missed last week staying home with the kids for the MLK holiday. Elsa had baseball tryouts since she is the magical age of seven (where you, apparently, are old enough to have to try out for baseball), so Brent and Ashagre piled into his truck and headed out to the same park our family had spent an enjoyable and refreshing hour the day prior batting and practicing our big throws. 


Both kids are playing baseball again this year. You might recall that last year, with no intention of doing so, we got our kids involved in Pony baseball just a few short weeks after they had arrived in America. They didn't yet speak or understand much English, but they took to the game - especially Ashagre - and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to play with kids their own age and perfect their skills, so we stuck with it. Elsa was always too uncomfortable to join the team, but she went to every practice and was given an honorary jersey and a spot in the batting line up on the last game of the season. Both kids' skills improved dramatically and their confidence soared. They couldn't wait for the season to start up again. 


This year we enrolled the kids in a different league. The games and practices are closer to our house and the kids don't have to sell coupon books (very important to Brent and me, especially Brent). Upon arriving at the field today Brent quickly learned that this new league was also a little more serious than the rag-tag league the kids played in last year. In short, we were way out of our league. Each kid arriving showed up with their own bat bag, several bats, and a batting helmet. Each kid towered above Elsa - she was lucky if she came to their armpits. Each kid - every single one - was a boy. None of them had brown skin.


Elsa was scared out of her mind. It was written all over her face. Brent feared the worse but remained supportive. He pointed out the adults she needed to pay attention to, told her to do her best, and to have fun. They sent the kids out in the field and threw them some grounders. Elsa stopped the ball with her mitt and made a respectable (although uncomparable to those of the other kids) throw back to the coach. They sent the kids out to the outfield and started lobbing pop flies at them. Brent had to turn his head and not look. Some of the other kids caught each pop fly like they had been doing it for years (which they had), others did their best to get under the ball and caught one here and there. Elsa just stood in the field with her mitt at her side as the balls dropped from the sky a few feet from her. Brent prayed that she wouldn't get hit in the face. 


Next it was time to bat. Elsa made her way back to the bench with the other kids but it was obvious that she was near her limit. Brent debated with himself for a minute or so and then walked down to give her a pep talk. "All that's left is batting. You love to bat. Just take three swings at the ball and we're done. It doesn't matter how you do. Just have fun." He engaged some of the boys on the bench and asked them to help her out since she was new to the league. A couple of them agreed and made an effort. Elsa sat rigid on the bench, her eyes bulging, her mind somewhere less scary. She did not get up and beg to leave when Brent returned to the bleachers.


Finally it was her time to bat. She grabbed her brother's bat, squared her feet at the plate, gave it a tap with the bat and focussed on the ball. The pitch was thrown and she hit it - a nice line drive right past the pitcher! Everyone in the bleachers erupted in a huge cheer (they hadn't been cheering for the other kids). Elsa beamed. Her eyes were still huge, but you could see that she was back on the planet, back at the plate, ready for the next pitch. Her huge smile returned and in it her pride. The next pitch was thrown and she missed. The third was thrown and she made another solid hit. She rounded the bases and handed off the borrowed batting helmet (the first thing she told me when I got home was that she was the only kid that didn't have a black hat of her own) and retreated to the safety and celebratory hugs of her daddy's arms. At her request, they went and grabbed some hamburgers for lunch - Brent felt it was the least he could do for putting her through tryouts. She beamed as she recounted hitting the ball when I got home and her daddy just beamed.


Two steps forward, one step back - not always in that order.

Tonight she wanted to wear her cape. I tied it on her,
telling her that she was now Super Elsa. She ran around
the house until dinner time shouting, "I'm Super Me!" 

Whole Lotta Hair

Many mommas of Ethiopian kiddos that I have a lot of respect for choose not to go there when it comes to blogging about their kid's hair. I appreciate this non-issue approach, since it is, after all, just hair, and it is also just one more thing to make a big deal about and, in the process, send the message to our kids that they are different from us and many of the other people that now surround them in their daily lives. Yes, different is good, and Brent and I are working hard to celebrate alongside our kids everything that makes them uniquely them, but we all also know that different can mean excluded or lesser than in our society too and that our kids are likely to feel the negative effects of being different far more than we would hope.

With ALL of that said (there's probably plenty there for a whole new post), hair is a pretty significant component of our lives here at the Perfect Space. Hair Day means large chunks of time set aside solely to care for my kids - to wash 'em up, lather their skin with lotions, butters, and puddings in order to bring out its rich shine, massage yummy smelling oils into their scalps and dig my fingers into their kinky coils with the attention only a momma can provide - attention that at least one of my two had never really experienced before joining our family. Hair Day means snuggling up with blankets and monkeys on the couch to enjoy a movie or cruising down to Hollywood for a stroll through the fabulous farmer's market, a morning with mommy at the salon and an injera-filled feast afterwards. My kids both take great pride in their hair. When Hair Day is finished, they beam. It's no wonder that, "Mommy? Hair today?" is a common and hopeful question around our house.

I choose to document our hair days because it is part of our family's fabric just as much as walks on the beach or weekend waffle feasts. I hope that someday the three of us will sit down and look at some of these pictures and smile remembering the time shared (and maybe laugh at my flat twisting skills, which can only get better, right?).

This weekend I probably spent a total of seven hours on hair. On Friday night I washed and retwisted Ashagre's locs. On Sunday night I washed and detangled Elsa's hair. This morning I flat twisted Elsa's curls. My back was sore from bending over them when I was finished. I found myself getting frustrated that Elsa's hair just isn't quite long enough to result in clean twists that run the length of her head. I may have pleaded with both kids on more than one occasion to please, just sit still. But in the end, the pride in their eyes when they scurried to the mirror to look was worth it.

Free and natural hair = happy, confident kid (and a
busy momma come time to detangle Sunday night).

All twisted up. Enjoying the end of the movie while his hair dries.

Momma's first-ever flat twists.

Definitely not as clean as the stylist's, but no tears
either - and I think that certainly counts for something.

Winter Crop

One of the treats of living in southern California is you can garden year round. It's also a bit of a challenge for Brent and me because it means we must sustain our attention to our garden throughout the year when its more natural for us, being born and raised in climates with good hardy winters, to let our farming instinct go dormant for a good half of the year. Last spring, shortly after the kids came home we planted a garden together as a family. It didn't do so well. Our lives got pretty hectic and we didn't keep up on watering (a no-no when it only rains 14" a year if you're lucky). Ashagre's much-anticipated corn died. He hasn't forgotten.

This weekend we decided to give it another go with some winter veggies - greens, lettuces, broccoli, cabbage and some herbs. I'm pretty sure Ashagre will make sure we keep up on the watering, if not just take care of it himself.

Everything is right in the world when our Sidama
Boy is diggin' in the dirt planting veggies. 

Boys planting the broccoli while the girls take on the
mustard greens.

Little Miss City Girl is starting to get pretty into it too.

Now all we have to do is remember to water and keep
the chickens at bay.

Teetering On The Edge Of Something Big

It may be premature to write this, but its been banging around in my head for a few days and I feel like I need to give it a shot. If you're reading this, that means I was able to get somewhere within the web of thoughts occupying much of my spare time these days (Who am I kidding? What spare time? These thoughts must just be distracting me from whatever else is going on).

Before Brent and I ever committed to international adoption I started reading adoption blogs. Time and time again I ran across the same theme. Parents of kids with all sorts of stories came to the same conclusion, "I needed this kid more than they needed me." Before becoming Ashagre and Elsa's momma this thought wasn't much more than an enduring sound byte to me. It seemed like the right thing to say, if you will, in a world of, "those kids are so lucky to have been adopted." At best, I heard this statement as an honest attempt to sum up the complexities of a parent's motivations to adopt.

However, about two months ago that phrase took on a whole new deeper meaning to me. The vast majority of our family has been working pretty intensely with our attachment therapist for nearly two months now. It turns out that when I posited in this post How do you blog about the fact that your attachment-challenged kiddo also seems to have an attachment-challenged momma? I wasn't far off from reality at all.

Today was one of those days in therapy where everything that's been thrown out there to swirl around in the room in a disorienting mess coalesces. Seemingly disparate issues all of a sudden have meaning when linked together. And the unifying theme, is ME - me and my shit.

Issues, thoughts, and schemas I've been carrying around with me for as long as I can remember - and successfully burying when things are going well - are all of a sudden no longer ignorable. This thing, this piece of me, has always been there. I've know of its negative effects on my being for quite some time. But now, if I want to help my kid heal and reach their fullest potential I have to stop and heal myself. I have to stare down a part of myself that has been holding me back on so many levels for longer than I can remember, own it, and ask it to move on.

It's a pretty scary place to be. I definitely feel very precarious, like I'm teetering on the edge of something so much bigger than I've ever experienced before. I feel more vulnerable - the kind of vulnerability that strikes with precision at your core - than I've felt in a very long time. Just writing this post makes my chest tighten and my breathing become laborious. But its also an exciting and hopeful place to be. It feels like if I can take this thing on and work through it I'll reach an entire new level of being. A place of more contentedness, more compassion, and a greater ability to live in the present. A place where I can more deeply experience the love, the passion, and the pain that life has to give us. A place I've been yearning to be for a long time.

I have a feeling I've been searching for this opportunity for much of my adult life and probably even longer. Who would have thought I'd have to travel half way across the globe to Ethiopia in what I thought was a journey to become a parent in order to find it? So yeah, it turns out I might have needed my kids just as much, or more, than they needed me.

Whoopie! It's De-Lurking Day.

So I read somewhere that today is National De-Lurking Day. Nevermind that today is almost over. I'm a busy mom of two busy kids. We had swim lessons and had to buy some new veggies to put in the garden (winter crop) and visit with Uncle Chris and re-twist Ashagre's dreads today.

The kids are now tucked snuggly in their beds and today's the day (or tomorrow would be fine too). It's time to de-lurk. If you've been reading for a while and never commented or if its been a while since you commented why not come out of hiding and say hi. Let us know who's out there. How did you find us? What keeps you coming back? We'd love to hear from you.

I mean, come on, where else would you get to view this?

This has got to inspire a comment or two. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Corey for the hour long giggle fest. As much as I shouldn't admit it now that I'm a mom, a little potty humor is sure to elicit a uncontrollable laughter, and who doesn't need a little more of that in their lives?

Children Play With Earth

Okay,
The way kids are living is 100% European
African boys and girls:
Set down your Nintendo joysticks right now!
Unplug the television and make way for an old vision
Which will now be a new vision
Yes
Headliner, lay the foundation


Dig your hands in the Dirt,
That's right 
Children play with earth
That's right (X 10)

Gain knowledge of the big but small earth around you
Dig your hands into the dirt, the dirt that made you
Get acquainted with the earth, the earth that eventually will take you
And the world that hopefully will appear to wake you
Children,
Play in the fields
Play in the grass
Climb Mr. Tree
Get to know each branch
Give it a name
For the branches resemble the many decisions you will have to make in life
Eat of the earth children
Grow an apple tree 
Taste the apple
Communicate
Watch and listen to the neglected mother of all
Short tall children play with earth

Eat rhubarb wet from the rain
Beautiful fruits all the same
Pears, oranges, and grapes from the vine
Children it is the earth's time

LYRICS BY ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT


Saturday Garden Workday at the kids' school: Bringing our Sidama boy happily back to his roots and giving our city girl the chance to connect to Mamma Earth too.

Telling Our Ethiopian Kids About America's Racist Past - Part 1

After reading this post over at Rage Against the Mini Van and taking a quick glance at the calendar - Martin Luther King Jr. Day is only a week away - I emailed Ashagre's and Elsa's teachers to see if they would be teaching about MLK this week. I'm glad I did.


You see, Brent and I as of this morning, had not discussed America's racist past with the kids. It is one of those topics, like so many others, that requires a certain level of shared language. While we would have certainly been open to such a conversation if the kids had brought it up earlier, we weren't ready to initiate the discussion without feeling like the kids had the tools they needed to express their thoughts the way they might like to and to understand what we were trying to tell them the way we would like them to. Until just recently, the kind of introductory discussion we would have liked to have with them would have been pretty tough due to the kids' burgeoning and amazing, but not entirely complex, English language skills. 


When Ashagre's teacher replied back that, yes, she would be discussing MLK and the segregation and racism he fought so passionately to inspire our country to overcome, Brent and I knew the time had come to tell the kids that, with no choice of their own, when they landed on U.S. soil and instantly became American citizens they inherited a history of racism that will affect them for the rest of their lives. To quote an explanation I provided to the kids' very open and understanding teachers as our email discussion progressed:


In all reality, while racism is a collective part of our history as Americans that Ashagre and Elsa now get to inherit and live with, it is not their history as Africans, especially as Ethiopians, which was the only country in Africa that was never colonized by Europeans (something Ethiopians are VERY proud of). I try to imagine how it must feel to realize that your new home, which is already unfamiliar and scary in so many ways, also has a history of treating people that look like you badly, and it makes me feel awful for putting A and E through it.


Don't worry, we kept it simpler and lighter than that when we discussed it with the kids, but we did have a good discussion.


We first told the kids about the MLK holiday and why it was important that our country honored Dr. King. We talked about segregated schools and drinking fountains and the fact that people were mean (no details or descriptions of violence yet) to people with brown skin just like theirs. We talked about how things have changed. We talked about how they haven't. One of our kids shared a story about being made fun of at their orphanage in Ethiopia because their skin was darker brown than some of the other kids'. The kids both confirmed that, yes, they had experienced someone being mean to them because of the color of their skin. Ashagre was quick to point out, on his own accord, that this had NOT happened at his current school. We talked about how sometimes people are afraid of what is different and what they don't know and they act meanly out of fear.


We let the conversation run its course, following the kids' lead on when to let it fizzle out. They never seemed too alarmed and maybe even seemed a bit relieved to have this discussion with their pink-skinned mom and dad. We made sure to emphasize that this conversation was one we would not shy away from and would openly discuss freely, over eggs at the breakfast table. 


I felt relieved to have gotten started. I am glad to know that they will have had the discussion at least once before with their mom and dad before learning about it in school. I know that there is a lot Brent and I have to learn as we continue down the road as a transracial family. I know there are things we aren't doing now that we need to make a priority. I know that we won't always get it right. I am committed to keeping things open  and following the kids' lead to try and figure out how we can best support them. I am sure there will be more parts to this post in the future.

Thank You! Ubuntu!

Today the kids each got a package in the mail. The kids LOVE mail. They've been fixated on the mail since nearly day one of living in America. They were stoked before they even opened the yellow bubble-wrap envelopes, but when they opened them up and found MOOSIK inside they were beyond thrilled. When we put the CD in the computer and they heard some of their favorite musicians - Bob and Ziggy Marley, Jack Johnson, and, of course, Michael Franti (and some new soon to be favorites too) they couldn't help but dance.

Each kid received two custom-made mixed CDs and Mommy and Daddy also received two. The music, and the obvious love emanating from the carefully chosen tunes, came from our new-found friends over at Selam-Ubuntu, who are currently waiting for a referral for siblings from Ethiopia. Here's the explanation of their blog name:

Selam means hello in Amharic
(the official language of Ethiopia).

Ubuntu (uu-Boon-too) means
something like I am because you are. 
Ubuntu has roots in traditional African philosophy.

We've actually never met MB and J over at Selam-Ubuntu; we connected through the Perfect Space and chatted over email. Yet, our shared experience and life philosophies make that connection, while still new, promising and meaningful. There's lots of good reasons why someone might choose not to blog about their adoption or their family, but the love filling our living room as our kids danced to the rhythm of their new CDs is a pretty darn good reason to keep it up. The human connection - isn't that what this is really all about anyway?

So thank you MB and J. May your home soon be filled with the laughter, energy, love (and chaos) that ours is these days. And thank you too to all the other people we have had the pleasure to connect with through this process. Please believe me when I say we feel the love. Ubuntu!

Back In The Groove - Nearly Wordless

Day Two of being back to the school routine and we've already found our groove. On the way to school...

He's not as upset as he looks. He had a loose tooth
he couldn't stop wiggling with his tongue.

Just stunning.

To Neverland and Back

This is a strange feeling - one I haven't had for probably about four years back when I was in grad school sitting down late at night to get started on a paper that was due early the next morning. It's 9 pm on Monday night of a three day weekend. Tomorrow morning, starting at about 5:30 its bye bye winter break for the kids and back to the grind for Brent and me. Our family has been fighting something involving sore throats, a lot of snot and lovely coughs for a few weeks, and staying up until midnight for New Years has really taken its toll on the parental folk in this household (yes I'm just a year beyond thirty and I admitted that to the interwebs). I just helped Brent cut up two bags of organic kiwi for snack for Ashagre's class tomorrow, and I must write a blog post. Yes, must. You see, my friend Kimberly was having a hard time getting back into the swing of blogging after the holidays and asked me for some inspiration. I delivered. I suggested we both write on a common theme and post at the same time. Kimberly's post is already up. I have to hold up my end of the bargain.

We agreed to write on what it's like to go from living life as a childless couple to parents of two (or more) walking, talking, bike riding, opinion stating, hugging, snuggling Ethiopian kids over night. Brent and I met Kimberly and her husband Charles in Addis in November when we traveled for our court trip. We were staying at the same hotel. They had traveled in hopes of a court trip too. They happened to be from the same small town in Idaho I was born in. Brent and I stalked them - we played it off very casually enjoying our machiatos on the veranda they had to pass through to go to their room - hoping they'd want to join us for dinner. They had already had the same idea and plans were set. We did dinner again the next night and have kept in touch ever since. We even visited them in Idaho when we traveled to see my family this summer. Kimberly's three, yes, THREE, kids came home a few months after ours and we have been comparing notes ever since. I can't tell you how reassuring it has been to have someone out there that I could share anything with during those first few months that would quickly write back to say things at their house look pretty much the same as they did at ours. I also can't tell you how grounding it was to, every once and while, think, "Wow things must be REALLY crazy over at the Manning's right now." After all, we only adopted two at once. They adopted three!

Ok, on with the theme or its going to be a long night.


Peter: I want always to be a boy, and have fun. 
Wendy: You say so, but I think it is your biggest pretend. [Peter Pan]

Tonight was hair night for Ashagre. Now that he has dreadlocks, hair night only comes around every month or so, but his dreads were getting fuzzy and fluffy and I figured I might as well re-twist them and clean them up before the big day back to school tomorrow. Brent scanned the selection on Netflix and I convinced him that the movie Hook wouldn't be too scary. Ashagre was SO not into it until Robin Williams finally returned to Neverland and the adventures began. I kept telling him to be patient, that it was one of my favorite movies. He really had no choice since I had one or two of his dreads pinched between my figures at all times so he settled in and ended up cheering and raving about the movie in the end. Elsa, who can scare easily from movies, teared up once but absolutely loved it.

What does this have to do with going from zero to two kids over night? One thing no one ever told me about having kids, especially ones that can walk and talk and have their own ideas about how the world works already, is that the experience is sort of like being in the possession of a large, unavoidable mirror. No matter how you try to advert your eyes, your reflection is always right there staring back at you. Becoming a parent to a vivacious 6 year old girl and a silly 5 year old boy overnight for me was sort of like returning to Neverland for Robin Williams in the moving Hook. I've learned a lot about myself in the past few months. Actually, learned isn't the right word. I've had to face and come to terms with a lot about myself in the past several months and some of it hasn't been all that flattering. Challenges I've known I've had for a long time, but have chosen to push under the rug have come dashing out of hiding demanding for me to attend to them since the kids have been home. Its been pretty hard at times, but also one of the most inspiring times of my life.

You want to know a secret? Since we announced that we'd found an attachment therapist and started therapy several months ago our therapist has only seen the kiddo that was struggling once for an evaluation. The other six? eight? sessions have been either with Brent and me or just me alone. It turns out that if you want to help your traumatized kid heal and build healthy attachments you have to be whole yourself. You have to be ready to take on whatever trauma they throw at you with warmth, compassion and understanding. You have to teach them that no matter how bad it gets you are strong enough, capable enough, and loving enough to ride it out with them and love them through it.

Going from zero to two kids overnight has made me aware of how selfish I am. Despite the fact that Brent and I wanted to parent these two kids with our whole hearts and every cell in our body and have never regretted that decision, I've had a really hard time redefining myself as a mom. As anyone that has been reading the Perfect Space knows, Brent and I lived many years together with a good dose of the Peter Pan mentality.  We were never going to grow up. There were days when the kids first came home that I had to lie in bed for a few minutes after I woke up and give myself a pep talk to make myself get up and care for them. Not because of anything having to do with them, but because there was still a part of me that was holding tight to the freedom and independence you so quickly loose when you become a parent. I wanted to be Elsa and Ashagre's mom, but a part of me still didn't want to grow up. Up until I became Ashagre and Elsa's mom, the only beings Brent and I had to attend to were our dogs. They're pretty darn easy and don't ask for much. All of a sudden there were these two little beings in our home who's needs occupied the top of the list. Everything else came second to them and some little voice in my head wasn't very happy about it.

Going from zero to two kids overnight illuminated the fact that I am not a naturally nurturing person. It made me admit, out loud, to a complete stranger that I was having difficulty loving one of my kids the way they needed to be loved. Going from zero to two kids also taught me that, while I wasn't the snuggly, hugging, cooing mom I had painted myself to be as I imagined motherhood, I also had more of a natural mothering knack than I would have once given myself credit for.

Going from zero to two kids overnight is helping me redefine what's important in life. It's showing me, for the first time ever, the value of living in the moment. The importance of being present enough to let those fleeting moments of utter joy get through my 100 mph, always planning the next adventure or complicated schedule, mind. This is not easy for me. Living in the present is something I've been avoiding for nearly my entire life. Going from zero to two kids is helping me allow myself to feel the inevitable pain that accompanies parenting kids with such sad stories so I can also feel the sublime joy. The kind of joy that comes from watching Elsa effortlessly and without anxiety engage and ecstatically playing with her new friend, Bobby, at the playground today and then pause to help her other new friend, Dinkinesh, join in the game without even a glance in my direction for reassurance or help. The kind of joy that comes from overhearing Ashagre announce to himself that he is really good at building things with his Erector set. Choking back my own tears as Elsa's eyes welled up in response to the little girl in Hook steadfastly believing in the ability of her mommy's and daddy's love to keep her safe.

In her post, Kimberly writes about the moment she mourned the life she had lost after her kids came home. I have to admit I'm kind of jealous to read that. For me I don't think its been so concrete. Its been more of a constant battle. A continuous fight against the little voice that says, "I don't want to. Not right now. Can't I just have a moment to do what I want, to put my own needs first? Where are the rewards? When am I going to start getting as much out of this as I am putting into it?" Over time though, the voice is loosing its power. Its harder to hear it and easier to ignore it. Those rewards are either becoming more frequent or I am getting better at noticing them.

Postscript: I think when I suggested this theme to Kimberly I was hoping we would compare notes on the significance of becoming parents to more than one older child through adoption. Rereading my post above, I can't say that's what I've written about at all. Here's the truth though. Before the kids came home, when Brent and I would tell people we were adopting two "older" kids people would almost always stammer, "Two? Really? Why two?" Many told us outright that we were crazy (in a kind way). I'm not going to go into the specifics on why we knew this was the right choice for us in this post, but I will say that our answer to the disbelievers was always straightforward, "We've never had any kids, so we won't know the difference. Zero to one or zero to two, its going to be a pretty big change either way so why not adopt two?" I've told several people that adopting two unrelated kids of almost the same age was actually one of the best adoption decisions we made. I still believe that, and I, honestly, besides the obvious constant micro-battles for our attention, I really can't even begin to imagine how adopting only one would have been much easier.

If you haven't done so already, head over to BigLifeSmallTown and see what Kimberly has to say on the matter.

Good Bye 2011

Oh, the metaphors here are many, but I'll let you
choose your favorite.

I think I can say with all honesty that you were the hardest, most disorienting, most heartbreaking, most emotional (well, maybe second to 1993 - puberty was pretty rough on me), most inspirational, most heartwarming and most important year of my life thus far.

Hello 2012! 
Here's to hopes for simple routines, a slower pace, daily victories and more mind-blowing growth (for the entire family). Here's to hugs, new discoveries, sunny days by the beach, tickles, bike rides, snuggles, stories, new traditions and laughter. Here's to being fully present in the moment rather than constantly looking ahead for the next adventure or challenge (not really a resolution, per se, but definitely where I'll be putting my energy for a while - it won't be easy, believe me).

Actually, if today is any indication, the the first day of 2012 started off on the right foot in terms of that whole simplicity and being present thing. Elsa and I woke early (especially considering the entire family was wide awake at midnight to bring in the New Year) for an appointment at the salon. Elsa was scheduled for a trim and braid. We made a girl's morning of it with coffee (ice water for the wee one - her request) and breakfast, car chatting, and an injera-filled lunch. The boys spent their morning building model rockets and gorging themselves on Indian food at the buffet down the street.

When we finally came back together as a family of four it was finger nail painting (more girl time), wrestling (more boy time), shooting baskets with the neighbor girls (kid time while daddy snores on the couch and mommy catches up on blogs time), card games, movie watching and Buster snuggling. We were all present doing effortlessly what we've been fighting for and consciously and intentionally learning to do these past 10.5 months, being - yes, just being - a family.

Boy time - beating each other with A's flip flop
and loving it.

The results of girl time. Seriously, could she be any
prettier?

As the day was winding down Elsa and Buster did some snuggling on the
couch. Snuggling for Buster means he lays on top of you (an 80 pound
lap-pitbull). Elsa loved it. When it was time to get up for dinner she didn't
want Buster to have to end the snuggle session so she tucked him in. He was
more than happy to oblige her.