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.

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.