The First Week Home

Things are going along great, but you know, I'm not sure I realized how much WORK this was going to be!  Like physically exhausting work.  All day I'm fixing and holding and hugging and redirecting and cleaning and wiping and lifting and tying and flushing and blowing and rocking.  A great post-adoption parenting resource I have says to imagine the new kids are just like toddlers.  Everything in their world is brand new and needs to be explored and learned about the same way a 2- or 3-year-old does.  For example, Tinsaye came up to the glass storm door and put her sticky hands on it while she was looking out (of course, it was freshly cleaned).  I had to show her how she made prints all over it by doing that, which she thought was really cool and then had to try it again.  I had to explain how that's not what we do.  She was fine with that, but that little moment happens about every 3 minutes all day long.  They need to learn every single "rule" we have in our culture just like a toddler does and I can't get mad or frustrated that they don't know how it's supposed to be or even that it takes them more than one "lesson" to learn and remember it.  And then I have to clean the glass again (or more likely just leave it and wait for Brian to complain about how it appears we now live in a crack house).  The other piece of this is that by the end of the day they have been told "no" so many times that they are tired of hearing it, very frustrated, and as exhausted as I am (just like a toddler).  We haven't had any temper tantrums yet, but I can see them coming. 

Getting everyone to bed seems to be a Herculean task these days.  Everyone is filthy and sweaty from playing outside all day so that means four showers.  Solomon always negotiates desperately (and unsuccessfully) for "small wash" (meaning splash water on his face and call it good), Tinsaye would prefer to take three 45-minute showers everyday, using every body wash, scrub, and lotion we own.  Thomas hopes he can stay under the radar by taking a quick shower with no supervision, so God only knows if he's actually clean.  And remember Meredith, the Slowest Child in America? Yeah.  Still is.  And then they all need a snack, which means Thomas and Solomon eat everything in sight, Tinsaye whines that she "no like" everything offered except ice cream, and Meredith literally made herself sick on Moon Pies that Aunt Mandy bought her.  All this excitement is followed by tooth brushing (four at a time, spit everywhere and Solomon manages to fling water all over himself, his siblings, and the entire bathroom), and prayers which means everyone piles on the boys beds without shoving.  The GREAT news is that everyone falls asleep immediately and for at least 10 hours.  Brian and I try to sit and reconnect, but we both just fall asleep sitting up, so we've given up and just go to bed. 

Sound like sheer misery?  Remarkably, it's not!  All the tough stuff is also intermixed with moments of wonder.  A car wash?  "Vat ees zees?  So noisy!"  The playground at their school.  Fountains in a pond.  Speed limit signs... "we go 50 now mama?  So fast!"  Magic doors that open on their own, magic money that somehow comes out of the plastic card in mom's wallet, cold water, hot water, an entire aisle of Barbie dolls, tiny boxes full of photos and movies and music (aka iPods).  Peeing in a cup at the doctors, elevators (lifts, remember how they think they're British?),  talking into a box and someone hands you food out the window at McDonalds.  The list is endless.  Can you even imagine how much they are trying to absorb in a single day?

Solomon needed more batteries for his little camera that my friend Deb gave him that NEVER leaves his side.  He literally sleeps with it.  When the batteries died in his imagination it became a cell phone and now he hold it up to his head and chatters away in Amharic to some real or imagined person.  It's hilarious.  Anyway, we found a package of 20 AA's at Target and I said, "here, Bud, these will work".  He looked at them, counted them all, and looked up at me in wonder and said  "Twenty?  For me?"   "Sure, honey, for your camera", I replied.  Tears of joy sprang to his eyes and he grabbed my legs in a huge hug and said, "Thank you Mama" as if I had given him his dearest wish.   I am so blessed to have these exhausting days also filled with moments like this, where joy is so visible and so pure. 

Welcome Home Video

Brian put together this short music video to capture the essence of our trip.  It is awesome, but WARNING, you will definitely need tissues!  We cannot be held responsible for damage to your computer caused by excessive snot and/or tears running all over your hard drive!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V73J01ASSio

Settling In

So I know everyone is dying to hear about stuff... unfortunately I now have four kids.  It worked out crappy that way.  So I'll give it my best shot, but be warned, I may need to cut this (or any) post short and pick back up in a day or two. 

We are all doing just great at home now.  Tinsaye and Solomon are eating and sleeping really well.  Solomon eats like he does everything:  full bore, nonstop, intense and stay out of his way.  Yesterday for lunch he ate:  three pieces of pizza, a banana, an avocado, three tubes of Gogurt, a glass of juice, a glass of milk, at least two glasses of water, and he would have kept going if I hadn't removed him physically from the table.  Unfortunately, about 20% of all that food wound up on him, the chair, and the floor.  Using a fork is still a relatively new concept for him, since traditional Ethiopian food is mostly always served on injera flat bread and the bread is the utensil, you just shovel it into your mouth.  The second Solomon realizes the meal is over, he says, "Lunch finished?  Go bicycle now?"  and regardless of the answer he is out the door.  The only good thing is that he actually thinks the garage door is magic and we've neglected to tell him how to open it, so he can't get his bicycle into the street if we keep it down.  And of course, as I mentioned in the previous post, he does not know how to ride his bicycle.  When he's not perseverating on his bike, he's playing soccer with the crew of 10 year old neighborhood boys who are in awe of his amazing soccer prowess.  When he's finally in bed at the end of the day, he is completely asleep in about 30 seconds.  As soon as his eyes open in the morning he says, "Sleep finished.  Go bicycle?" 

Tinsaye is much more sophisticated and ladylike in her meal routine.  She takes everything we give her, cuts it all up into tiny pieces, smooshes it all together and eats it in a "sandwich" of wheat bread, which is mostly scooped up like injera.  She is pickier that Solomon and frequently doesn't want to try new things, refusing to even have them on her plate and whining dramatically that "I don't like!"  Yesterday at the grocery store she found a display of pineapples and jumped for joy, grabbed one and kissed it, saying "I LOVE pineapple!  I love it!!" But when I cut it all up and gave it to her she pushed it off her plate and wouldn't eat it.  Who knows?  It appears she could live on bananas and peanut butter and scrambled eggs, so no problem.  Her obsessive activity is swimming.  Everyday, it's "Go swimming today Mama?"  Tragically, we don't have a pool, so we are reliant on the kindness of neighbors.  

Their English is very good, especially Tinsaye's.  Unfortunately, their accent is very heavy and for some reason, they sound like Boris and Natasha from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.  "Vat iz zees, Mama?"  "You are cRRRRRazy driver, Mama!" (rolled R).  Plus they have learned English from Ethiopians who learned it from British, so they say weird non-American things like "Need a plaster!" instead of asking for a Band-Aid. 

Meredith, as usual, is just floating happily along with her new brother and sister.  No worries, no problems.  Thomas is taking his role as oldest child WAY too seriously and worrying about them a lot.  He made himself sick with anxiety right before we came home, but he's lightening up now.  He's at a day camp this week, and it has been wonderful for him to have a break and do his own thing. 

That's it for now.  Next time I'll fill you all in on the trip. 

We are home!!!  WOW!  So much to say... I don't quite know where to start.  I guess I'll just say today that our trip was great.  We had totally smooth flights there and back, no problems with immigration or any of the paperwork, none of us were sick at all, everything went exactly according to plan.  I was marveling about the fact that most of the other Americans we met in Ethiopia were puking at some point and my brother in law said, "Well, you did have a LOT of people praying for you."  He is completely right.  We were aware of the power of your prayers the whole time and I can't thank you all enough. 

Now comes the fun part!  Astonishing things this morning have included the vacuum, M&M's, crab legs at the grocery store, and carpet.  "No shoes?  You sleep on this?"  Very disappointed to learn that the white limestone landscaping stones at the neighbors were NOT snow.  Solomon keeps running out to look at his bike and he stares at it and whispers to himself with hushed awe "...bicycle...bicycle...we go now, Dad?  Please?"   So we're off to see what happens... keep praying.  I'm not winning Mother Of The Year if we end up in the ER first day home!