Summer all gone bye bye

The kids have all started school. Except the baby of course. Maren- our 3 1/2 year old aged a couple of years in one morning- a week ago we took him to the dentist and lo and behold he has big kid teeth- he is actually between 5 and 7 years old. This really threw us for a loop. We knew the ages were probably off- but when they are off by that much it can really turn your world upside down. Not in a bad way- just in the way you perceive things...for instance- he was not wanting to nap every day- well he probably doesn't always need one- and when he acts out- do I give him a 3 minute time out or a 6 minute time out? :) More importantly, we were trying to get him into the 3 year old ece program at our neighborhood school- but when he is probably going to end up with an age of 5 do we do kindergarten? or shoot in the middle with the 4 year old class? We ended up late Friday afternoon getting him into the 4 year old class. He was very nervous- he said, "No School, Maren Scared." He was very nervous about it- but frankly I was pretty much a wreck about it myself- constantly questioning whether I was doing the right thing. He has done very well this week..he says, "Mommy, everybody sing 'ABCD, LMNOP, HIJK' but Maren Quiet..." but yesterday, I picked him up and he said, "Maren sing 'ABCD, LMNOP, HIJK...with everybody!"

On Sunday we hosted this enormous gathering of local families who are adopting from Ethiopia. It was an amazing event with 90+ RSVPs. Our courtyard was full of families - many Ethiopian Children and the pastor from the local Ethiopian Evangelical Church. We ad Ethiopian Food and we made some American fare for the kids- I should have taken a picture of the food at the end of the day- the Ethiopian food was wiped clean and there was a TON of the Ziti and Mac and cheese left over! :)

We figure by next summer the picnic will have to be at a local park or something it will be so huge. Mark said it will be like the AIDS Quilt- back in the fall of 1992 we were volunteers for the

Names Quilt

when it was displayed on the Mall in Washington DC- and that was supposed to be the last time they ever thought it could all be displayed in one location again...it had grown too big...and that was 1992. They showed it in its entirety one last time in 1996.

The Names Quilt in 1996

Just think if we made a quilt piece for all of the people in the world who die each day of HIV/AIDS- an estimated 9,000 people die each day- what that would mean is every 4 days we would have a quilt the size of the one displayed in Washington D.C. in 1996!

In 1992, the year Mark and I worked at the quilt in D.C., the year we were married, there was a reported 23,000 deaths due to HIV/AIDS in the US alone- that was about 64 people a day...but at that time we had no idea what was happening in respect to this disease half way around the world. No idea. And in the next few years, the number of orphans in Africa threatens to reach 20 million. A number so big- it’s hard to even begin to wrap your head around it. But you can wrap your arms very easily around a single child. And depending on how many arms you have in your family....

The Dog Days of Summer are Dwindling

School starts here in Denver in one week- so there is one week of summer left with 5 kids- but this week is filled with dentist appointments, dermatology appointments, Yabsera's surgery to remove his extra finger and other events. So I feel a bit melancholy that the summer- the only summer I have ever been home with all my kids is about to end. And I guess I feel that I wish we had done more- it seems whenever we tried to do certain things something backfired and we were not able. So many days I was left feeling a bit frustrated. And of course it was not what I had imagined- but what is? Our trip to Rochester was probably the highlight. We never did get to go camping and we love camping. We did just spend a weekend with Mark's Office in the mountains and that was nice in its own way. All 7 of us stuffed in a hotel room could have been recipe for disaster but it was actually fun- we got a movie on the TV and bought snacks and watched a movie together- the two little ones slept.But it all worked out. Maren is talking so much- most people can't believe he has only been home two months. He is even starting to refer to himself as "I". So usually the conversation will go something like this:
"Maren do you see the horse?"
"Horse Maren I see you no" (which means, "no I don't see the horse” If he sees it he says, "Horse Maren I see you")
But now we can catch him saying, "I see you no Horse" which is closer to correct. He keeps telling us stories from Ethiopia- these are hard to understand because there are more hand motions and grunts and usually an Ethiopian (either Amharic or Wolitan) word thrown in there somewhere that we don't understand. He now refers to himself with his "American" name even in stories from Ethiopia - which we find odd- he has completely taken on the new name to the point where he talks as if it was always his name. Maren is his usual dramatic self!I have been working on my DVD which covers the trip we took to Sodo and he LOVES to watch this and talks about the women who cared for him way back in February. We are trying to piece together what little we know of his life for him- but it’s hard because we have some conflicting stories and the time line is a bit odd. I think they it might make sense that we think he might be older- because he has talked about when the cow hurt him how his Mommy helped him- but his Mommy should have been gone by then...unless, and its entirely possible- this was a new mommy...an Auntie or Granny. I still plan to post again more about the Sodo trip due to popular demand and because many families are not able to make the trip.

Finally, we are hosting our "End Summer Colorado Ethiopian Adoption Picnic" this coming weekend. We have 76 RSVPs! But our house is small- so pray for good weather. It should be a lot of fun and I look forward to seeing all of the growing families! Since Last January we have at least a dozen new kiddos home from Ethiopia! Say "Hi" to my bookends...my teenager and my baby! (and he is wearing her overalls! but since he is busting out of them we figured we had better take a picture...)

Giardia, Campylobactor and Polydactyly

This was a post I never completed - I was trying to gather as much info on infectious diseases that kids may come home with from Ethiopia- and since I actually gathered so much info...I never actually posted it here! I will pot here the list of things families have said that their kids have come home with from our CWA Care center- many of these kids at the time had come from the Sodo, Wolaita region of Ethiopia which is in the SouthWestern region.

here is the list:

Giardia
Campylocator
tinnea capitus
iodamoeba butschlii
blastocystic hominis
ringworm
lice
scabies
Chronic Hep B infection
Active TB
inactive TB
other stool parasites
Chronic Diarrhea
Malabsorbtion issues
failure to thrive
malnutrition- refeeding issues
Upper respitory infections including Bronchitis, ear infections and the common cold
Staph infections of the skin
skin lesions with superimposed infections
Scars related to past trauma including treatment by traditional healers, burns (both accidental and purposeful), and abuse
Hives- or allergic reactions
Urticaria Pigmatosa. The individual spots are called Mastocytoma
Milk allergies
abscesses
fungal infections of the toe nails Verses trauma of the nail beds
Emotional and attachment issues
female cicumcision