Week 4

Things are slowly but surely getting a little better.  Some days last week (which was our fourth week at home) felt terrible, but even on those days, I could see that we had made progress over the previous few weeks.  Two or three times last week, I found myself feeling genuinely happy...because I could start to see light at the end of the proverbial tunnel and envision more clearly what our family life is going to be at some point.

Here are a few highlights/lowlights of the past week:

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Last week started with having good friends over for a bbq on the deck.  Here is Matthew with his best buddy, and his dear family.

 

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Over the past five years or so, we have come to know our letter carrier, Michelle, quite well; she and Matthew have become good friends.  Last week, she offered Matthew the opportunity to do walk part of her route with her.  Needless to say, Matthew was thrilled to go with her for about 45 minutes.  The two younger kids became quite worried that Matthew was gone, so I eventually loaded them up into the van and we hunted the two mail deliverers down.  They were adorable together.  Matthew was allowed to read the house number on each grouping of letters and, under Michelle's careful supervision, put letters into the house's mailboxes.  Best of all, she then gave him a ride home in her delivery truck.  Matthew was elated!

 

 

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All three kids seem to love grocery shopping (so far!).  The two younger kids sit in the cart, and Matthew and I push it.  Seth insists on loading all of the groceries onto the cashier's conveyor belt, and helps me load the groceries into the van when we're ready to go.  Best of all, Seth loves helping with the unloading of groceries at home...in truth, I haven't had to lift a bag of groceries into the house since coming home with the two younger kids because Seth insists on carrying everything...even the heavy jugs of milk, and bags of flour or sugar, etc.  He's a fantastic little helper at times, that one!

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It's not too often that the two younger kids actually sit somewhere together.  Though clearly extremely comfortable with each other, they don't really play together that much...usually the playing is between Matthew and Seth, or Matthew and Lizzie.  Here I found the two listening to one of their beloved tape recorders; they were listening to one of the recordings that Geoff, Matthew and I made before we travelled to Ethiopia the first time, for court.

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This is the third summer that Matthew (and his cousin, M, below) have taken summer swimming lessons together, in a private pool just outside the city.  There are four or five in the class, with a phenomenal teacher, and they go for one hour each day, for five consecutive days.  We do this instead of dragging him to the public pools for weekly swimming lessons in winter.  They have learned and improved sooo much - they're little fish in the water.  Some of the things they do are: front crawl; back crawl; diving from the edge of the pool into the deep end and swimming to the shallow end; swimming from the water surface to the bottom of the deep end, to pick up bricks and rings; etc etc.   Matthew just graduated from Red Cross Level 2, and will work on Level 3 in August, when he participates in one more week of intensive lessons.

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Matthew is a terrific little diver already.

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One of the things the kids were asked to do was slide into the deep end and then swim front crawl back to the shallow end; in the alternative, they would tread water in the deep end for a couple of minutes.

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Matthew with Amber, his teacher (two years in a row)

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While Matthew was in his swimming lessons, the younger kids and I hung out at the side of the pool, eating cheerios and chatting.

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Aren't they adorable??  Of course, I'm biased!

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Can you see Seth's missing front teeth, a few of the extractions from the previous week's surgery!

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Can you see the kids staring (half terrified, half excited) at the parrot sitting outside of his cage?  The parrot swims, too!

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Last week, the kids experienced their first rain since being home...and it was quite the rain/thunder storm.  They ran outside onto the driveway and simply played for a while, getting soaked to the skin and having a blast.  I couldn't capture their delight well enough with the camera, but they raised arms and faces to the sky, enjoying what was clearly their first ever rain storm. 

 

 

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I was touched when Seth approached me for a huge hug and cuddle session last week, followed with him 'doing my nails' with stickers.  After going through such terribly difficult times with him in the past month, it was really gratifying that he started wanting to be close to me. 

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One day, while out and about around lunch time (with no lunch with me), I picked up a couple of small pizzas and took the kids (along with their beloved water bottles!) to a little park for an impromptu picnic. Of the sixteen pieces of pizza, I had two pieces; the three kids consumed thirteen of the remaining pieces.  Lizzie would have eaten the last piece (for a total of five!) but Seth got tired of sitting and starting collecting the garbage together; he declared, in a loud and deep voice:  "NO MORE PIZZA.  CAR."  Lizzie complied, and we eventually made our way back to the car!  Below are the kids eating pizza - all three kids were sitting on my lap/legs at this point!

 

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Here's Uncle Andrew with four kids (my three and my niece) piled onto his lap.  He kept them howling with laughter as he repeatedly dumped them off...only to have them clamber back on again.

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One of the main activities of enjoyment continued to be bike riding last week.  They are crazy about their bikes!  It wouldn't surprise me if Seth is off of his training wheels sometime this summer yet - he's sooooo determined to do whatever his big brother does.

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I don't know what it is, but Lizzie will not smile for pictures.  She is normally so bubbly in personality, but turn the camera on and she reverts to the way most children seem to be in Ethiopia - non-smiling for the camera.  Here, I took the kids to a local environment centre for a walk and saw a perfect photo opp presenting itself.  I took about thirty pictures, and Lizzie smiled for none of them...despite laughing and smiling between every take.  Well, I tried!!

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Even Seth and Matthew tried to get her to smile.  Seth put her in a headlock (which usually makes her laugh) and still - nothing!

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At least I got one of her kissing one of her brothers.  She gives big, open-mouth, suction-cup kisses - it's sweet.

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I love Lizzie's face on this one...a very common sight when things don't go exactly her way!

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Her first time eating fishie crackers - what are those things, mommy?

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Lizzie with her adoring cousin!

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I don't think words are needed for these few pictures!

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A big hit of the week was blowing bubbles in the backyard...they did it for hours.

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The kids goofing around, just before heading out for a bike ride with Daddy (which was a chance to let a tired mommy go out for breakfast with a friend)

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She has many movie star qualities, being the dramatic sort!

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And of course, we had many of these moments last week, too!

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A cuddly moment between oldest and youngest...they are really starting to love each other.

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All three, likely trying to break the up/down feature on the chair's leg rest!

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Love this shot...but ignore the mess in the background, please!

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Discovering the 'vehicle cupboard.'

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One of the things that the boys have found in common is running...and chasing each other.  They love to run the 'main floor circuit' over and over...and over.  It's so great to see them starting to play together on occasion.  Being only seventeen months apart, they can be very competitive, but when they do play together, they are awesome.

Well, that's our last week in pictures!  I have so terribly many posts in my head that are waiting to be written or that are partially written...I just need the time to get to them. But they're coming eventually!!

An Interest in the Details.

We were expecting it.  We had (somewhat) prepared for it.  And now we're living it.

It's already amazing to me, four weeks (tomorrow) into our new lives with our children, how many strangers feel free to ask questions about our two younger children, or to make assumptions.  In the weeks that we've been home, we have noticed that we get a lot of targeted attention; lots of people stare at us and we get many comments and questions.  For example:

• A customer at Walmart saw me with the three kids and craned her head around to watch us walk by; as we passed by her, she bumped the person she was with and pointed to us (from three feet away); they started talking to each other right away and it was very obvious that it was about us.  

• The Jehovah's Witness missionary on our street last weekend asked if I was babysitting for a friend when she saw all three kids with me.  When I responded with a "no, they're all mine," there was a pregnant pause before she told me what she was doing in our neighbourhood.

• A woman at the grocery store last week said, as she passed me going in the opposite direction:  "I've got to find the aisle where I can get myself a couple of those cuties."

• I'm sure that I've already fielded more than twenty inquiries from perfect strangers as to whether the two younger children are siblings (I am really genuinely puzzled about why this is such an interesting fact to know.  Thoughts?).  My answer to this question has varied, as I've tried to see what words feel best on my tongue, and I'm glad on these occasions of experimentation that my two younger children don't yet understand what I'm saying.  I'm becoming increasingly confident about my answer though.  You see, I have three pairs of ears listening to every word I say.  Two pairs don't yet understand, true enough.  But the third pair is absolutely listening already to how I answer people's questions...and absorbing it.  If I answer (as I did the first few times) that yes, the two (ET-born) children are siblings, what does my eldest hear me say by implication?  That he is not their sibling?  That they are not fully a part of our family?  And when the younger two are able to understand what I'm saying, might they also then infer that they are not really a part of the family?  I've been thinking about all of these things.  As a result, I've modified my response to that question in the past week, and have tried to keep my tone light:  "Yes, they are siblings...all three of them."  And if my eldest is not with me in the moment and someone asks about the two ET-born children being siblings, I will now say that "yes, they are; and they have a brother at home as well."

I am normally someone who likes to make eye contact with people and greet even strangers passing by in stores or out in the park/neighbourhood.  I like being friendly, and I enjoy smiling at people...even ones I don't know.  But last week, with some sadness, I found myself avoiding eye contact with the curious strangers around me, when we were out in public.  It's eye contact that seems to give people the most freedom, the implicit permission, to stop me mid-stride and start the conversation, usually with an opening comment about the kids being adorable (which they are, and for which I will always say thank you!).  That comment is usually the entry point into a Q & A session initiated by the other person...the questions that I really don't feel like answering.  Every. single. time.

I get that some reading this may think me too particular on this subject...maybe you think I should 'lighten up' or 'take a pill.'  After all, I'm in this situation by choice and we had fully expected some of these issues.  Perhaps you might say to me that most people have good intentions when they ask the questions that they do...and I would agree with you (usually) on that point.  But really, really think about it:  Would you truly be ok, every single time you head out to the grocery store and the gas bar and the drug mart and the playground, answering the questions of perfect strangers about whether your children are your own, just because, say, you have brown hair and your children have flaming red hair?  Or would you also get tired of it?

Almost two weeks ago, while trapped in a queue, and while several other people (including my children) were listening, a stranger I'd made the mistake of making eye contact with told me that my kids were adorable.  I said "thank you."  She then proceeded to ask (pointing at the two younger kids) the most common questions:  "Are they siblings?" and "Where did they come from?"  But the questions didn't stop there.  When she heard that the children were from Ethiopia, she went on to ask, "So did their parents die of AIDS?"  Can you imagine asking a perfect stranger, in front of her children, whether their parents died of AIDS?  As far as she knew, my younger kids had lived here for years and were as English speaking/comprehending as my older child - and she asked this in front of them.  I was burning inside, but managed to say with grim politeness, that we didn't discuss our kids' lives or history with anyone other than immediate family.  Her response:  "Oh, right.  But is he yours?" and she pointed at Matthew.  By this time, I was done.  I simply said "They're all mine," and turned my back on her.  I think I need to get to that point sooner in the future.

I get that people are curious.  We are an interesting family to look at now, in some respects.  I have been tempted myself, at times, to ask questions of strangers that I would now consider inappropriate.  As one of my cousins (also an adoptive mom) recently put it, though: any line that starts with "it's none of my business, but..." is really a question that is better not asked.

On the weekend, Geoff and I took the kids to a nearby play structure to play for an hour, and I met another woman there with her three daughters.  She commented that the kids were cute, and I braced myself for the usual onslaught.  But she surprised me, in the most delightful way!  Rather than starting with the questions I anticipated, she said that she loved Lizzie's dress and how she wished two of her daughters would wear dresses.  Then we talked about where all of the kids go (or don't go) to school, and where we lived in the community, and various other non-consequential things.  About ten minutes later, our kids pulled us in opposite directions of the play structure, and the conversation ended.  No awkward or inappropriate questions/comments; no staring or pointing.  Nothing.  It was such an ordinary conversation.  In hindsight, I see how much I relaxed during that conversation.  I am so thankful for that woman and the sense of normalcy that she provided me with; she gave me the courage and sense of hopefulness to, once again, pick my head up and start looking people in the eye!

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An adoption organization, Rainbow Kids (and an online friend of mine) posted the following article not that long ago and I wanted to share it here as well; it explains better than I can why we have chosen to keep most details about our ET-born children private.

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Privacy Matters in Adoption
June 01, 2011 / Elisabeth O'Toole
The following excerpt is from the book: In on it: What adoptive parents would like you to know about adoption

When my husband and I were in the process of completing our first adoption, an established adoptive family invited us to their house to talk with us and answer some of our questions about adoption. Feeling all flush with adoption information and maybe wanting to demonstrate just how ready I felt I was to become part of the adoption community, I asked what I thought was an insider's question. I asked, in front of their 6-yer-old child, what they knew about his birthmother. Looking back, I see just how gracious his mother was. She glanced at her son, who appeared to be occupied with his cars (though now that I've watched my own son look busy while eavesdropping, I realize that this boy was completely tuned in to our conversation), and said to me, "You know, that's not something we talk about outside of our family." Of course it wasn't. I was breaching the boy's privacy. I could still kick myself for asking that question. I wish I'd known better. But karma being what it is, I've now had plenty of opportunities to try to respond graciously to other people's personal questions about my children.

People sometimes ask adoptive parents questions of a far more intimate nature than they'd ask a biological parent. From an adoptive parents' point of view, "What do you know about the birthmother?" is a question just as presumptuous as asking a biological parent, "What did you use to get pregnant?" People who were adopted do not forgo their right to the same level of privacy as others. An adoptive child has no less of a right to privacy about his personal information than any grown-up or non-adoptive child.

That said there is valid confusion about what is private adoption information and what is okay to ask about. The not-very-satisfying answer is that boundaries around privacy are likely different for every family and will differ from person to person.

Adoptive parents struggle with the public/private nature of adoption all the time. They are challenged to balance their family's sometimes obvious public status as an adoptive family with the privacy of the family's individuals. Most adoptive families are proud of their families and want to present a positive attitude about adoption to others, particularly their children. The precarious task for adoptive parents is to be open enough about adoption that their children don't see adoption as a secret or as something to be ashamed of, while at the same time taking care not to compromise the right to privacy of everyone involved. So, even as they're trying to protect their children's privacy, adoptive parents are also trying to normalize adoption for their children and for others around them.

An important reason that parents try to control the dissemination of their children’s information has to do with the fact that the child himself, particularly a young child, often does not yet know all of his own personal information. Parents are responsible for safeguarding facts about the child's life for the child until he or she is of an appropriate age to hear it. If the child's information becomes too commonly known, adoptive parents risk the child hearing things before he or she is ready. One adoptive mother tells of her daughter learning she had biological siblings in a very abrupt way, when another sibling used it to wound her in an argument. The parent had intended to discuss this under gentler circumstances, and when she felt her daughter was ready to hear it. This mother wished she'd been more careful about sharing her daughter's personal information with others, even within her own family.

Privacy Plans
Until the child is old enough to manage his own personal information, it is your loved ones' very important responsibility to maintain and protect the child's privacy on his behalf. Adoptive parents need to actively think through what information is 'in-house,' and what information is for public consumption. One family kept two photo albums of their new son. One, the "public" album, remained on the coffee table for viewing by all of the visitors coming to see their child. It documented bath times and park visits and other images typical of any new family. Another "private" album was for just the immediate family and included things like pictures of the child's foster family, the first meeting between the parents and child, and other very personal moments in the inception of this new family.

I suggest that new adoptive parents, including those still in the adoption process, develop for themselves what I call the Privacy Plan. They decide what information is off-limits (e.g. birthparent information, certain details about early living conditions, specific reasons the child was available for adoption) and have a plan for responding to inappropriate questions. For example, when someone asks me what I "know about" my child's birthmother or for some other information about his personal history, I’ve developed a standard reply: "That’s not my information to share." I try to keep it simple; I say it lightly and move on. People usually get the idea pretty quickly. They don't mean to overstep. Often they've just never thought of it that way before.

Some parents will be comfortable sharing some of the intimate information about their children with those close to them. Some may, in fact, share more than you might want to know about a child's personal history. Not every adoptive parent has developed boundaries about their child's privacy nor has it occurred to them to do so. But I've long been guided by the experience of one adult adoptee who recalled how much it bothered her to hear her mother talk about her adoption with strangers who approached them when they were out in public (grocery stores again). She felt that her private life was being discussed casually with people she didn't even know. But until she was old enough to articulate her own feelings, her mother was unaware that she was compromising her daughter's privacy.

Sometimes an adoptive family will encounter someone who really presses them for information, who feels they have the right to know all about a child's personal history, often because the child is now a relative. Know that, in general, unless it's a health issue or some other aspect of background that impacts how you interact with the child at present, you are probably not entitled to detailed information about the child's background before the time that the child entered the family. Much of a child's personal information can wait until such time as the child can choose to share it himself.

So where is the middle ground? The fact of an adoption is not something to be ignored or treated as a secret. Family and friends will have questions. Following are a few rules of thumb to follow when it comes to asking questions about a child and his adoption:

For Friends and Family, a few suggestions:

Not in front of the child
Critically, no matter what adoption questions you have, try not to ask them in front of the child. It's a recurring complaint among adoptive parents that people ask inappropriate questions in front of their children (as in me asking about the birthmother in front of the child). Even if you feel assured that any question you have is legitimate, the parents will thank you for asking it out of the child's presence. Remember that even a child's adoptive status is not a matter for casual conversation (i.e., "Was he adopted?"). In fact, many adoptive parents, though they may make significant eye contact or vague comments indicating a mutual recognition when they encounter other apparently adoptive families, say they try to respect the privacy of their children and other adoptive children and don't comment on or question their apparent connection with strangers.

Ask yourself: Why do you want to know?
There's an important new person in the life of your loved ones and you want to know everything about them. But before you ask a question about the child, in order to determine whether it may be relevant, one strategy is to ask yourself, "Why do I want to know this?" If you don't have a good answer, maybe it's not information you need to have. Ask yourself if you should know about things like the existence of siblings or the role of the birthfather before the child is able to know and understand it himself. Remember that it's the child's information first, even if he doesn't yet know all of it.

Don’t take boundaries personally
Do try not to take it personally if you're told, hopefully graciously, that certain information is off-limits to you. You don't mean to intrude. But parents have to let you know where their boundaries stand. It's part of their responsibility to the child. If you have questions, consider framing them so that they show you to recognize there are boundaries around some information: "Please let me know if I’m overstepping, but I wondered…"

All of the child’s information is precious
Finally, it's helpful if those who hold any private information about the child are careful not to treat it casually. It's not fodder for small talk; rather it's precious and should be treated as such. Sometimes you will have the opportunity to discuss the child's adoption with someone who doesn't know the family or the child. Remember that you show respect for the child and for adoption by preserving the child's privacy, even when you don’t have to. When it comes to protecting a child’s privacy, you can provide tremendous support to your loved ones: by understanding what information is personal, by respecting the family’s boundaries, and by protecting information on behalf of the child.

What you can do:

• Understand the child’s right to own his own personal history, some of which he may not even yet know himself.
• Differentiate between secrets and privacy. Adoption is not a secret. But some information about an adoption will remain private. Recognize what information is and is not necessary for you to know about a child’s background.
• Understand the parents’ responsibility to protect their child’s privacy until such time as the child can do so for himself. Don’t take it personally when they enforce boundaries around information.
• Refrain from asking about the child’s personal history in front of the child.
• Demonstrate respect for the practice of adoption by maintaining the privacy of others, even when you don’t have to. Avoid sharing the family’s personal information, even with people who don’t know the family.

For more information you can visit www.inonadoption.com

Through the Eyes of a Child.

Everything is new to my two youngest kids...it's like having newborns at ages three and five. Absolutely.  Everything.  Is.  Novel.

• Escalators.
• Elevators.
• Suitcases disappearing on a moving belt behind the airline counter.
• Suitcases reappearing on a revolving baggage claim machine of sorts that looks so fun it must be climbed onto.
• Headphones.
• Seatbelts and car seats. We've been lucky that our kids have never resisted these things; for them, riding in the makeena/car is an adventure every time, and when we're dressed and ready for the day (at about 10:00am), the first thing they ask is whether we're going in the car now.  I've learned to do any errands at that time of day, so that we can get out many days!
• Our very own vehicle(s)...and the thousands of vehicles that they see around them every day as we drive around.  The awe, oh the awe.
• Hummus.  Yummmm!  
• Warm tap water.  The kids still shriek and pull their hands away as if burned if, when washing their hands, the water is warm instead of cold.
• Rain.  Yesterday, we had our first rain/thunder storm since the kids have been home; and they loved it.  I let them go outside onto the driveway, where they lifted hands and faces up to the sky and tried to catch the rain; they stomped in puddles; they ran delightedly through the streams of water pouring off of the garage roof.
• Airplanes flying overhead when playing in the backyard - what is that noise up there?
• Toilets that flush...over and over.
• A bed that's not a crib, with lots of fluffy pillows and teddies.
• Shelves to put one's prize possessions onto...just 'cause.
• Water bottles. Oh yes, water bottles.
• Light switches.
• A 'meow meow' that lives in the house as a pet.
• A fridge full of food.  And a freezer, too??
• Books, especially the ones that make noises when buttons are pressed.
• A grocery store with endless aisles of things to eat...this must be greeted with a gasp and a hand clasped to the mouth.
• Ice cubes.  The kids screamed in terror the first few times they saw them, and even now Seth is skeptical about their purpose...though they also like to try to fish them out now, and pop them into their mouths.
• Rules to follow: share; no hitting; no pushing; take turns; be gentle; please and thank you; sit down at the table while eating; sit down at the toilet; no walking or driving the bike on the street without mommy or daddy; etc etc.
• The washing machine.  Both kids love to sit on top of the dryer and be the one to put dirty clothes into the washing machine...they often fight for the opportunity.  When it comes time to pull clothes out of the dryer into the laundry basket, they love to be the ones to put their whole upper body into the dryer and pull out every last sock. 
• Machines that make music.  They still jump when I turn on a CD.
• A closet full of clothes.  
• A dozen pair of hand-me-down socks that must be tried on daily, with awe, and then stowed back carefully into the basket they came from.  He was fascinated by how I put the socks together again after he had finished modelling them, and had to learn how to do it himself (fine with me!). When we're going out, he usually insists on the fashionable look of socks and croc shoes!
• A slide, a swing and a climbing wall in the backyard.
• Teeth brushing.
• Jam.  We've gone through six jars of strawberry jam since we've been home!
• Bumps on the road the car drives over (even the smallest bump still brings forth surprised/scared noises).
• Pump soap.  Seriously?
• Sunglasses...could there be anything more incredible?
• Scissors - what are those and how does one use them?  Wow!
• Chocolate chip cookies (which they call chocolate dabo/bread).
• Sprinklers and water shooters/guns.
• Stairs.  The first few days, we had to be very careful with the kids on stairs because they'd clearly never used them.  They caught on immediately, but didn't realize how dangerous they could be.  On day #1 at home, Seth was four stairs from the bottom when he tried to simply step onto the tile floor.  Obviously, that didn't work, and so he crash-landed onto the hard floor...ouch.  Lizzie still has to be cautioned once in a while because she'll try to hop from one stair to the next as she makes her way to the main floor - my heart jumps into my throat every time.
• Bicycles and helmets.  It took a few days for Seth and Lizzie to figure out how those pedal things work on a tricycle, but after that, they were off.  Seth is now on a two-wheeler (with training wheels).
• Cousins who love to play with them.
• Baths (the kids were showered at the orphanage and transition house, so baths are exciting adventures).
• Restaurants.
• Parks and play structures.  Slides are incredible, aren't they??!

It's endless.  Everything is: amazing; new; sometimes scary; mostly an adventure; to be explored.  It's fascinating, seeing things again through a child's perspective.

Week 3

In some ways, it's hard to believe that Seth and Lizzie have been part of our family for 3.5 weeks already; in other ways, it seems like an eternity, given how hard it's been at times.

Early last week, I posted a few pictures...here are a few others from last weeks' adventures.

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Here's Lizzie standing in a corner - totally self-imposed.  She needed to use the toilet but was refusing to, for some reason.  So she stood there, becoming more and more distressed, until she got over whatever she needed to get over, and then told us she needed to use the bathroom!

 

  

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My parents took us to Montana's for dinner on kids-eat-free Tuesday last week.  While I was in the bathroom, Seth decided that he wanted his face painted, too.  For some reason, the face painter chose to paint him as a devil (something I would never have agreed to, but it was already well in process by the time I saw him)!

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I'm so grateful that the weather has been so great since the kids have been home.  We've spent so much time outside, and the kids love it.  Seth is here on his tricycle, which took him a while to learn to pedal...but once he caught on to the required motion, there was no stopping him.  Lizzie is holding her beloved water bottle, which is always to be found somewhere near her...she drinks 4-5 of these, filled with water, every day...which may explain why I seem to spend about a third of my days in the bathroom with one or the other of them!

  

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Matthew, trying to figure out how to use a perfectly good long board that he found in a neighbour's garbage!

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Snacking on the front step: toasted and buttered cinnamon bread; oranges; and, of course, bottles of water.

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More tears...thankfully, Lizzie usually overcomes her frequent teary episodes quickly.

 

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I have already posted about Seth's dental surgery on Thursday.  He's feeling a lot better (though still in some discomfort and in need of occasional tylenol/advil).  In these pictures you can see a bit of the work that was done: six extractions (of rotting teeth); multiple crowns and spacers; etc etc.  Thankfully, he seems to feel considerably better than before.

 

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Beautiful little thing, isn't she??

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Seth's first bath (probably ever).  So far, we'd been showering them, like at the Transition House, but both had their first baths last week.  To say that they loved it would be a gross understatement.  They had no fear of the water either; they dove below the surface with gusto and held their breath while 'swimming' around. 

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A cool dress on an incredibly hot day (41 degrees celsius).

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We spent Canada Day afternoon in our backyard with cousins and their kids...and had a great time.  I should have taken pictures of our eldest and their eldest engaged in intense water gun fights - all of the kids (and one of the dads - sorry Tim!) were soaking by the end of it.

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Seth's not in this picture but I thought it was a good one of the other cousins indulging in hot dogs and chips!  What's not to like?!

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Daddy with his three blessings, shortly before bedtime on Canada Day.  Seth is holding the little tape recorder that we gave each of the kids as part of their post-court gift; he loves that thing, and is constantly taping our conversations and playing them back to us!  This keeps us on our toes, 'cause you never know when he's going to play out loud what he's been recording!

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An afternoon with other cousins, once again loving that splash pad.  That was a great $10 investment from Walmart.

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Lizzie and Seth with two of the cousins they love...and who love them!

 

My sister, with her daughter and mine!

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Two of my favourite little girls.

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Seth is the happiest when out of doors, being physically active.  He's a very physical child and has a lot of energy to expend.  It's great seeing him enjoy the outdoors...there's not much he won't try!

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Matthew, acting like the ham that he is at times.

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All three of my kids, on the play structure.

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This picture of Seth on his new two-wheeler is a bit blurry, but I'm including it because of the look in his eyes.  This is Seth: incredibly intense; very determined.  Can you see the resolve?

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This is the beaming look we got when Geoff asked Seth if he liked his new bike.

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Matthew wanted me to take this picture because he thought he looked like a farmer, with a long piece of grass hanging out of his mouth!  I didn't have the heart to tell him that it takes a lot more than this to be a farmer...but maybe it's time for a trip to a farm!

That's it for now!  Week three has come and gone, and we're well into week four.  More to come!!

Loving Your Neighbour

Sometime last year, new neighbours moved in next door.  Slobo and Beba are older than us, with two grown daughters, and so there are no play companions there for our children.  However, they are a truly lovely family, and we have been getting to know them bit by bit, as time passes...and as summer weather has us all outdoors a lot.  They are putting a lot of work into their home and yard, and it frankly puts our yard maintenance this year to utter shame!

Last week, Beba and one of her daughters knocked on our gate while the kids and I were playing in the backyard, and they came in bearing a huge platter of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies "to welcome the new Canadians home."  How lovely was that??  Our younger kids had never eaten cookies before and their faces indicated that it was a heavenly introduction.  They refused to call them cookies, and insisted instead that they were "chocolate dabo"/bread - they simply could not believe that bread could taste so good, and they inhaled that platter of cookies with embarrassing speed.  It occurred to me that we ought to bake cookies together sometime soon.

Yesterday, while outside enjoying the warmth, these same neighbours casually suggested that if we would like to come for a cup of coffee sometime today, we would be welcome...we were just to knock on their door any time it might work for us.  To be honest, after a busy morning and afternoon that precluded us from showing up on their doorstep until almost dinnertime, we felt a little silly knocking on their door at that point, and so I walked over with Seth first (well, I walked over and Seth followed me), intending to offer to delay things until today, or another day.  But I didn't even get the words out - they simply invited me to call Geoff and the other two kids over, and to please come in.

Well, I'm certainly glad that we showed up.  Not only did we thoroughly enjoy our time there, but their casual invitation belied the effort that they had put into hosting us.  After a quick tour of part of the house, to show us some of the remarkable improvements they had made to the place, we were ushered into the kitchen and then out onto the deck.  There, we were treated first to beautiful (and delicious) scoops of homemade mango/strawberry ice cream (made in our honour), topped with fresh blueberries, strawberries and cantaloup chunks.  It was served in lovely glassware/crystal that I was worried our kids would suddenly drop/hurl to the ground, but it was so pretty to look at that I enjoyed just staring at it before digging in.  This might sound silly to say out loud, but after a really hard few weeks, it felt incredible to have someone be so kind and to put so much work into the preparation and presentation of a dish of ice cream - it was somehow luxurious and I felt a little teary as I carefully spooned my first bit up.  After the ice cream had mostly been consumed, one of their daughters brought out another dessert (can you imagine Matthew's delight?):  spectacular  wedges of pound cake, topped with some kind of glaze that was, frankly, divine; this, too had been made in anticipation of our visit.  Finally, freshly brewed coffee (and milk or lemonade for the kids), was served in china cups.

We had a great visit, and really enjoyed getting to know them a bit more.  Our kids were on fairly good behaviour (despite the mountain of crumbs that accumulated on the deck below their chairs and which our hosts refused to let us clean up), and Matthew asked when we could come back again!  I felt like echoing his question.  He requested the recipe for the pound cake (I believe his exact words were: "We have to get this recipe from you!"), and was issued a genuine invitation to come over and learn how to make it with Beba sometime soon.

I was sorry to finally have to leave, but eventually the time came.  Matthew summed it up exactly when, after the last bite of cake, he said with the fervour only a child could possess:  "Please.  Don't Move."  My sentiments exactly!

There We Were...

...sitting on the sidewalk of downtown's busiest street, while my two younger children screamed.  Passersby stared, and on two occasions people shook their heads or waggled their fingers at me while "tsking" with their mouths (you know that shaming sound??!).  I was being rebuked for failed parenting, I guess.  All I knew is that I felt like adding my own howls to those of the kids'.

Moments before, I had parked the van on the street opposite the Ethiopian restaurant that I wanted to take the kids to, for lunch.  It was the day before Seth's dental surgery, and I was hoping to ask the Amharic-speaking waitress to tell Seth what was going to happen to him the next morning when he went in for surgery.  Geoff had raised the suggestion earlier in the day, and I thought it was a good one.

Seth had been in a horrible mood all morning.  First, he hated the breakfast that I made...despite my best efforts.  I know that the kid loves dabo/bread more than life itself, so I put out two (not just one, but two) kinds of dabo for him: banana bread; and cinnamon toast with lots of butter on it (melted in so that he couldn't see it - 'cause if there's no butter, he won't eat it, and if he sees the butter, it's...well...toast.).  I also gave the kids some fresh fruit that I'd just cut up, and big glasses of their beloved milk.  I thought it sounded like a nice breakfast.  But Seth didn't:  He threw the previously-loved banana bread across the table at me; spit out the one bite of also-previously-loved cinnamon bread; and picked out only the oranges to eat from his bowl of fruit.  When he demanded more dabo and oranges, I said no, and pointed to the food I had prepared (I stopped being a short order cook sometime last week).  He threw himself down on the floor under the table and shed bitter, angry, and loud tears for almost an hour.  He never did eat breakfast, though I left it out for him for half of the morning.  He's a very resolute boy.  That was reason #1 for his being angry with me all morning.

Reason #2 was taking him to the doctor's office late morning for his pre-op physical.  I get that we've already been to a few such appointments, and I get, too, that no one likes being in a doctor's office.  But really, the appointment itself (once we got in) lasted only ten minutes and he didn't even have to take off his shirt.  It couldn't have been that bad.  But he whimpered his way through it, and I maintained a cool, calm and comforting exterior.  I got that it wasn't where he wanted to be.  His mood wasn't helped by the fact that he was undoubtedly hungry, but he steadfastly refused to accept from me any of the snacks that I'd brought along for the kids - he was still mad at me, four hours after the breakfast debacle.

We then left for the Ethiopian restaurant.  I told the kids where we were going and what we were going to eat, and Seth fully understood - we've gone there a few times in the past couple of weeks and his favourite thing in the world is injera (the sourdough, pancake-like flatbread that is the staple base in all Ethiopian meals).  Lizzie was smacking her lips in anticipation of the food throughout our drive to the restaurant, while Seth moaned rhythmically in his car seat, still not communicating with me.

Then came the ultimate travesty - the Reason #3 of Seth's anger towards me:  When we got to the restaurant and had to park across the street, Seth really wanted to be picked up; and I had to say no.  The street was a very busy one and I simply could not let my three-year-old toddle her way slowly through the traffic; I had no choice but to pick Lizzie up and hold hands with Seth while we made our way across the street.  I asked Matthew to take his other hand.  We had a one-minute walk to get to the restaurant and injera was awaiting him.  Seth was reluctant from the outset to take my hand, so I knew already that further trouble was brewing.  In hindsight I should have just called it a day and gone home right then and there; but I just kept thinking about how much he needed to hear what was going to happen to him the next morning, and I hoped, too, that having some traditional food would be a comfort to him.

So we launched forth...me half dragging Seth and barely hanging on to a squirming Lizzie.  My backpack strap slipped down the shoulder that was hunched over trying to maintain my grip on Seth's hand.  We waited at the intersection until we had the green light, and started to cross.  We made it half way across, at a snail's pace, and had to wait for whole another traffic light change to start the second half of the road.  Half way across those next four lanes of traffic is when my worst moment happened:  Seth dropped to the ground; face down; screaming.  Face buried in the pavement, still holding Matthew's hand, he lay there screaming.  The jolt of him pulling me downwards somewhat dislodged Lizzie in my other arm, who was shocked by the sudden movement and started to scream.  She took advantage of my temporarily loosened grip and shimmied down my leg and also landed on the street, face down in street grime, screaming.

For a long second, I looked over at Matthew, and he looked over at me.  I'm sure he was thinking the same thing as me:  let's just take off and make a run for it, just the two of us...maybe nobody will notice...well, other than the two or three dozen drivers suddenly watching us intently as their light turned green, and they were stale-mated because a crazy woman, a seven-year-old, and two prone and screaming children stood (or lay) in their path to freedom.

What do I do? I thought.  What do I do?  Could someone please help me?

I told Matthew to let go of Seth's hand and to hold onto the strap of my backpack behind me, so that I wouldn't lose track of him in the middle of the street. Then I bent down and grabbed Seth under the armpits and hoisted him into football hold, face down, under one arm; I did the same with the slightly lighter Lizzie, who I could just barely manage to lift with one arm.  I staggered across the remaining ten or fifteen feet of the street, made it up onto the curb, and then basically dropped the two kids onto the sidewalk, while passersby veered around us.  The restaurant was right there, two storefronts from where we were, but I couldn't make it.  I sat down on the curb beside the younger kids, and Matthew stood beside me, a little as if he were standing guard.

And there we stayed for the next almost-twenty minutes, while passersby stared and while, on those two occasions I mentioned, people shook their heads at me or waggled their finger and "tsked."  No one offered to help (I probably wouldn't have either) and I didn't know how to proceed:  Injera seemed only a remote possibility at this point; and the thought of trekking back across the street to climb back into the van was just too much for me.  So we sat.  And sat.  One can think a lot during a twenty minute period, but I could reach no conclusions.  And then something odd happened:  In the very moment that I felt, too, like lifting my head to howl at the heavens, I found my sense of humour.  I suddenly knew that things really couldn't have gone much worse and knew, too, that the day was bound to get better from this point on.  I looked at the kids screaming on the pavement, I looked at Matthew standing stoically beside me, and I started to laugh.  And when that second disapproving gentleman tried to make me feel badly with his silly rebuke, I looked him right in the eyes and laughed out loud.  It was great; it felt a little like I was giving him the finger...but in my own way, because of course I'd never actually do that.  It was a surprisingly good moment, under the circumstances.

When the decibel level went down by at least a fraction, I managed to get us all into the restaurant and we ended up having a comforting meal and a very helpful translation time between me, Seth, and the waitress.  (Though even that good lunchtime was punctuated by Seth's lying on the floor - quietly, thankfully, but resolutely - for the first forty minutes of our time there, and Lizzie deliberately spilling her untouched, large glass of water all over the table and floor while she stared me in the eye.  Oh well.  Whatever.)

In the end, we all felt considerably happier after we'd eaten, and Seth seemed to have forgotten his earlier struggles as he later walked peacefully beside me across the same street which will forever hold memories for me.  We made it home.  Mission accomplished.