Shorts

It's been a while - things have been really tough and glorious in pretty much equal parts, well maybe a bit more of the tough stuff, but the glorious bits seem to have enough weight to carry me through. Anyway, I want to get back into the swing of blogging again so I thought I'd start with some glorious shorts - those fleeting moments when I am reminded that there is a reason I'm so darn tired and stressed out all the time. Here they are, in no particular order.


On the drive to school
The kids and I had been discussing, for the first time ever, what it will be like when they can drive. I explained that in California you can drive when you're 16, but that Mommy and Daddy will still be the bosses when they're 16 so we will get to decide if they're ready to drive or not. We talked about how Mommy and Daddy would know whether or not they were ready to drive and how many birthdays needed to happen before they turned 16 - nine for Elsa and ten for Ashagre. The kids were daydreaming about the cars they would have. Elsa was dead set on a red car until a pink car crossed her mind and then there was no going back. Ashagre wanted a red truck, but then changed his mind to favor a bus like Daddy's. As the conversation was winding down and we were nearing their school, Ashagre got really quiet. "I'm scared Mommy. I don't want to drive." I told him that its ok to feel scared, but that he wouldn't be able to drive for a long time and that he probably wouldn't be scared when he was 16. I assured him that we would teach him how to drive safely. More silence, then, "I no want to drive. Mommy can drive me to school forever." Love him! I'm sure I won't feel this way by the time he's 16, but these days I'm so happy to be Ashagre's mommy and drive him wherever he needs to go.

Tonight after dinner about an hour before bedtime
Elsa pulls out her weekly homework. It's the first time Brent or I have seen it and the last night she has to get it done - none of which is her fault. This week has been crazy. Monday after school Brent and the kids had to take Lola to the vet to check out a leg that's been bothering her, Tuesday it was gymnastics and Wednesday both kids had dentist appointments. Brent had made the conscious decision to blow off homework this week. Tonight Elsa let us know that she wasn't going to support that decision. She demanded to do her homework after dinner (I know, believe me, I'm not complaining).

Reading through her packet, I quickly realized that Elsa's teacher had switched up the homework routine on us this week. Instead of the usual daily activities that seem to be designed to get kids to turn off their TVs and engage in their world (count your teeth in the mirror, find things in your house that float and things that sink, go on a walk and look for shiny things) in ways that our kids already do daily, there was a structured new program revolving around word families. The program is designed to teach kids word "rules" that help them become stronger readers and spellers. Each day of the week the kids are supposed to work with their words in a different way in order to learn the word rule, learn the words, use the words in context, and spell them correctly.

This week Elsa was supposed to work on the "at" words, but we had blown it by not looking at her homework until Thursday night. She would have a spelling test Friday morning. Feeling like a crappy parent, I had Elsa grab some scissors and we started with Monday night's activity - cutting the words out and grouping them. Her fine motor skills are still improving, and it took forever for her to cut the words out. I was certain I was sending her to school tomorrow to fail her first ever spelling test.

I have no idea why I was even concerned. Once the words were finally cut out we started running through them. She already knew all of them. She could read them, she could spell them, and she could group them and match them to their pictures. We used them in sentences and then we sat down for the practice spelling test. She spelled each word effortlessly and easily understood the rule when I showed it to her. She'll ace her test tomorrow. Elsa is such a complex kid. She's super smart and so strong. She's a fighter. She also has some really big challenges resulting from her early childhood that we're all working really hard on right now - challenges that you wouldn't expect to pair so easily with all her strengths. As her mommy, nights like tonight remind me why we're working so hard right now. She has so much to give this world and we can't let her challenges get in the way.

Today in the 40 minutes I allowed myself to leave the office for my lunch break
I mailed a package to Ethiopia. In that package are pictures of Ashagre over the past year, carefully selected with the hope that they will be able to convey to his family back in Ethiopia how much he is loved and how he is thriving. We also included a DVD of him reading and riding his bike - the year's accomplishments he wanted to share with his Ethiopian family. The package should arrive in Ethiopia in one to two weeks and find itself in the hands of a highly trusted intermediary and translator who has promised to deliver it to Sidama and show his family the DVD on his computer. I can't explain how it feels to know that his family will be able to see their happy, healthy, smiling boy.

Before school the other morning
Elsa was finishing up her morning routine and Ashagre, already done, was playing on the floor. I sat down at the computer to take a quick peak at FB. Up popped a message from a new friend that lives in Ethiopia who happened to be going to Elsa's former orphanage this weekend. She wanted to know who Elsa's friends were so she could say hello to them for her. Elsa really misses her friends and caretakers in Ethiopia. I've been trying to establish a connection to her orphanage for many months with very little luck. It breaks my heart to see her missing her friends so much. I can't imagine how it must feel to just walk out on your former life one day and not have the opportunity to reconnect with the people you loved. When I told her that this person would be going to her Ethiopia House this weekend and saying hello to her friends for her she beamed. She's been singing songs in Amharic all week.

Two weekends ago
We received a small package in the mail from another adoptive family we befriended in Ethiopia last January. In it was the Fall 2010 waiting child video from our adoption agency. On that video was Ashagre only a few weeks after arriving at our agency's care center. While both of our kids were "waiting kids" we had never seen this video. We had decided not to view the waiting child videos when we were in process to adopt; we just felt too uncomfortable choosing (or not choosing) a child from the video. Brent and I sat down to watch it. The clip of Ashagre was about 2/3 of the way through. Leading up to his clip we watched several beautiful children sit stoically in front of the camera, eyes staring straight ahead through the camera, barely breathing until their time was up. Then it was Ashagre's turn. His goofy, bashful grin was in full affect, he couldn't sit still, the narrator described him as one of the more "rambunctious" kids in his class. He giggled. He picked his nose. Both Brent and I knew, had we seen that video, we would have picked him.