If you smile at me I will understand...

"If you smile at me I will understand
'Cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does in the same language"
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young


My husband and I just went and saw CSNY in concert at the out door red rocks amphitheatre. At one point one band member commented that we were lucky- I thought- wow is that ever true. We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful place and have wonderful friends- like the woman who offered to watch our 5 kids that night so we could see the concert. The last time we saw CSNY was in 1991 in San Francisco. I originally titled this post "Ayo! Ayo!" because that is what Maren shouts all day long- I wanted to comment on language and communication. As he knows more English we hear more Amharic and Wolitan...he also acts out more stories. I remember when we first met the boys- I had learned how to say "Beautiful Child" "Kon Jo Lej" and I was so nervous but tried to say it and all of the Ethiopians were smiling and laughing and happy that I was trying to speak their language. Later- a few days later- I heard Maren say it- we were looking at a photo of him and he said, "Kon Jo Lej" It was then that I knew he had understood me that day and probably how important it was to him to meet these strangers and have them try to say something sweet and loving that he could understand.


Maren is a loud child. We have heard this is common coming from orphanages in Ethiopia...I wonder if its common from all orphanages or just Ethiopia. We say that he has no sense of voice modulation- and his favorite thing to yell "Ayo!" which means "Look!" but as I type this he is actually yelling "Look Maddie Look LOOK LOOK LOOK" it’s a sign that he is losing his language. He was fluent in two languages when he came to us. And now he is learning his third. He can communicate really well with us now, and the more comfortable he feels with English the more he tries to tell us in Amharic or Wolitan. He also is fond of singing. He sings a lot in his other languages- that we will miss when he no longer is able to do that. He has a great voice....and he sings in prayer and shouts Halleluiah! I am sure he learned that at the CWA care center. As I have mentioned, he has a lot of scars and just the other day wanted to tell me how he got one of the scars- I mentioned this before- but I wanted to tell the story again- he acted out a cow butting him with his horns in the leg. He says, "Oomba" for cow. And when we went to this Dairy farm in upstate NY he passionately acted out milking a cow and drinking the milk for us. It was clearly something he really knew about first hand.

So just a few minutes ago I was showing him a photo of a man from Ethiopia and he said Ashango, and said, "Look" and went and got a potato and started acting out picking potatoes. He then said, "Look" again and ran and got a little toy- a small music box with a handle and swung it between his legs like he was digging in the dirt and planting or digging up potatoes. He really wanted us to know this story. And then he made our daughter Maddie (below) be a cow- on all fours- "Maddie- Cow- like this!" and he started demonstrating something with a pencil and the cow's behind. We actually videotaped the whole potato planting reenactment, as well as the odd cow thing- because we are hoping he will acquire enough language soon to be able to share his memories with us before he looses them. He still loves to look at the photos of his caregivers and the friends form the orphanage- but now he actually says their name and tries to tell us something about them. I hope we can get some of these stories into our brains before they leave his brain. We know one day he will want to know so much more than we will ever be able to give him. So his precious stories are like gold for his emotional future.

And then there are words he has completely made up- but we all use, like for Ice Cream, Maren says, "Icesogood" now we all say "Icesogood" like that is what we have always called it. The other day Cal asked me, "Why does he call Ice Cream 'Icesogood'?" I said, my guess was that the first time he had it with Daddy and Phoebe and Cal that they all kept saying "Maren- its Ice cream and it's so good!" and Daddy probably said it so many times that he thought the name for "Ice cream" was "Icesogood" He actually has an amazing ability to repeat what you say exactly- without error- so why can't he say "Ice Cream"? I think he probably can- but this is how he said it and then we started saying it this way. He does this with a few other things like water is "watis" and Phoebe is "peebee" but he can say his "f" sounds and he can say "armadillo" and "hellohowareyou". Lots of phrases are made into one long word- and said loudly over and over again.
"IcesogoodIcesogood!! Ayo! Icesogood!"

Our Family Trip

I wanted to post a few photos from our family trip to New York. We are back in Colorado and are excited about getting together this Saturday with folks adopting from Ethiopia and who have already brought children home from all over Colorado.
It was great to see the family and Maren and Yabsera loved seeing their cousins and meeting their Aunts and Uncles and Grandma's and Poppa...they even met their great great grandma! We saw cows at a Dairy Farm (Aunt Kathy's), we went to an amusement park, we got ice cream (Custard!), swam a lot, has a big 4th of July Party and almost missed the fireworks, we went on merry-go-rounds, caught frogs and toads, did a piñata, played and played, saw the midnight opener of "The Pirates of the Caribbean", ate way too much, sang, danced, went to my 20th High School Reunion, celebrated my oldest's 13th birthday, drove to Syracuse to see the family who inspired our Ethiopian Adoption, they have 12 kids, 5 bio, one from china and 6 from Ethiopia- they home school and are amazing, while there we visited the house we lived in for 4 years and the place where Phoebe Darling- my baby girl, was born...we did so much and saw so many many good friends...all the while Maren was saying "Where Daddy go? Bye bye airplane?" He was sad without his Daddy and the day before we left I told him that tomorrow - he would wake up and we would get on a plane and we would fly to Colorado and see Daddy- so all day it was "Tomorrow, Maren Bye bye Airplane Colorado Daddy!" You can imagine how truly upset he was when the first plane landed in Dallas and I had to break it to him there was one more plane. He really melted down and went into "Helen Keller" mode- I call it this because he just looses it and partly I think its the inability to really communicate what is going on in his little head. When safely back in Denver with Daddy and Max- he finally told me how he got the scar on his leg- I think this is the real story because I was saying something else= that I clearly misunderstood and he corrected me. He said, "Oomba" and then acted out a cow butting his head into his though. WE know that Oomba is how he says Cow- its not the amharic word for cow in the phraseboook we have - so it might be woliatan- but we know its his worked for cow. he did the pantomime well. I wonder how old he was when it happened if he remembers it- its a pretty big scar in his thigh. He has many scars. I have more to tell about the day we came home- but here are some pics from New York!
This is us greeting the family at the airport!

These are some pictures form the Water Park- we went to a huge water park in Colorado today and all the kids had so much fun. Its true that Maren is somewhat obsessed with water as I have heard other Ethiopian adoptees are. Today we had to throw away all of our water because they were not in factory sealed containers and this really threw Maren for a loop- he was suddenly frantically parched and NEEDED the water right away! This is grandma and cousin Carolyn- they loved meeting the boys.




These are all the cousins on both my side of the family and Mark's side- we have a new cousin joining us in November.

I have more photos in a folder on my desktop to post - but it's late so I will sleep and try and post a few more tomorrow.

Trust in God, but Tie up Your Camel

Haggai 2:9
9 'The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the LORD Almighty. 'And in this place I will grant peace,' declares the LORD Almighty."

I know 5 families traveling right now and who had their embassy dates yesterday. I have known most of these families through most of our own journey to adopt from Ethiopia. Its been great to get updates from them and hear about meeting their children. I am even more excited that two of the families are from Denver and they will collectively bring home 4 Ethiopian children. These are kids I will hopefully get to know (2 of them I met when I was there!) over time and so will my children.

But I find myself this week thinking about my experience and some of the wonderful things about it and also some of the difficult things.

I found that I am still really saddened by the seemingly abrupt decision by my agency to close the doors of the home that our children were living in before they came to us. And how it was presented to us.

That as each family who goes and picks up their children misses seeing the center and the love for the children in the center- they will not have the photos for their children's memory books and that continuity- that bridge between their old life and their new life.

So, I sit and wait and wonder what this all means for me and what it means for future families of CWA and also for the families who will choose other agencies because of this and mostly for the kids. I also worry that other agencies may start doing the same thing and it is what makes adopting from Ethiopia so wonderful and unique. The love of the children. The ability to know something of their past- to have experiences with their caregivers that are meaningful and true. I read a blog recently where the mom and dad ended up keeping the Ethiopian names of their twin boys. they actually tried to change them but they could not make the new name stick- and the way the mother on this bog wrote about the caregivers in the orphanage who named her boys was just beautiful. Every family you talk to has these kinds of stories.

I was at our friend's house yesterday. They have 12 kids- 6 from Ethiopia. She was talking about how its done with her agency- the consistency in how a child learns about their family and how a child meets their family and how they have the goodbye party and how all the kids anticipate this event - this all normalizes what is happening for all of the the kids- they see families come and then friends go with the families- it makes it easier and more normal when their time comes. A child meets their new parents in the place they feel the most safe. the parents can ask the caregivers for helpful information on caring for their child- their likes and dislikes. They don't do this in all the other countries - but its the way it should be done and the fact that its the way it is done in Ethiopia is beautiful and one of the reasons we chose this country. The caregivers being able to meet the family who will take the child they have loved and adored is so important- frankly they go through repeated trauma loving and saying goodbye to children. They need the closure. They need to know who we are, like we want to know who they are. We want to be able to tell our chidden, "This is the woman who loved you- she told me you were a sweet baby who always smiled." That will mean millions to our kids as they grow. They deserve it and the caregivers deserve it and we should expect nothing less as families going through this costly (financially and emotionally) process.

I have edited this part of the blog, because it was mostly some private thoughts on Christianity that I have been processing. If you read it before I edited it I would love to hear your comments.

This is not about my agency. This is about me, and how I am processing some of the experiences I have had. This is about how I feel that I still need to come to some peace about these experiences and learn form them.

Blind faith is saved for my God.

My oldest will be 13 this weekend. When she was 2 1/2 she had to undergo open heart surgery. Our pediatrician was a wonderful man and a great doctor. We met with him before the surgery so we could just talk. He was an older man, we lived in New Haven, Connecticut, he was an Orthodox Jewish man. There was a large community of Orthodox Jews in new Haven. He knew that we were Christians and we would sometimes talk about religion and faith and of course this was a time when that came up and he said to us, "You know there is an old saying, 'Trust in God but tie up your camel.'" He said this in response to me saying that I was worried about my daughter and should I be questioning a well known pediatric Cardiothoracic surgeon? Do I have the right as a parent to ask questions? Can I get other opinions? I mean if this guy is the best doesn't that mean he knows best?" This was his response. Put your faith in God, but take care of those people and things around you. God gives us that responsibilty as parents to care for and raise our children for Him.

So where does this go from here? I don't know- but I can tell you it will go somewhere. God never puts things on my heart lightly. There is a purpose for all of this pondering.

Maybe the first thing is knowing exactly what my camel is...for sure its my children and my family. But what else out there has God given me responsibility for? I think I have an idea...

Daddy Bye bye Woof woof...

This was how I explained to our boy where his Daddy was this morning when he woke up. They have been so bonded since day one and at first - while in ethiopia- I kept dreading getting home and Mark heading to work- what would this little boy who has lived either in this man's arms or on his shoulders for the past two weeks do? But he met the challenge and it was good because he had to come to me for his water, to take him to the potty, for food, to get shoes on...that was all good and important- lest we end up as the chapter in some psychologist's book on attachment disorders in internationally adopted children one day. He also started coming to me for the hugs and the snugling- that was VERY good. But then we came home to NY to see family and he had his Daddy every day again for a week- and now he is gone. He woke up today. "Daddy?" I said, "Daddy bye bye." I said, "He went on a plane...on an airplane...bye bye...but he will be back." (he gets planes, he gets Bye Bye..." He responded, "Maren plane bye bye?" Very hard to explain that we will go back in 10 days and see him and that he still loves him but has to work. How do you say we will go back home? We keep calling this place "Home" and then there is Ethiopia- this kid still talks about our trip to Sodo and Awassa and Shashamene...He still talks about the kids at the care center. This kid is supposed to be about 3 1/2 and many times seems like a solid 4 year old- he understands a lot of what we say and can say so much in two other languages- but this concept of Daddy leaving is broken down to "daddy Bye bye plane" and so I thought about what he knows in Colorado and that is our dog Max. We love how he says "Max"..."Mackes." He makes it two syllables- he does this to names sometimes - it makes them sound much more Ethiopian. So I told him Daddy had to go and be with Max- the dog. He can picture that. So all day its "Daddy, bye bye, Plane Woof woof." At one point Mark called- Maren got on the phone and well... if looks could kill...he was really mad and would listen to Mark intently but would not talk back. He was not happy. But without Daddy this kid swam by himself today and went to sleep without someone laying next to him for an hour...so in some ways he shows a little more independence without his Daddy...but check back with me in 2 or 3 days and see if I have lost my mind. Me doing 5 kids solo is what is really probably worrying this kid- like I said he is a smart guy and knows that I need that Daddy guy as much as him!