Sunday, December 19, 2010

Blue Marble

I am sitting with a cup of tea and a house so silent I can hear the bunnies chewing. Yesterday I dropped the girls off with my mother, after meeting her halfway. They will spend a couple of days with her for the school break. I am thankful for the child-less time, as it gave the the chance to stay up until 2am at a Somali wedding last night, sleep in until 12:30pm today, and muck out the chicken coops and other dreaded chores. My yard labors treated me to an amazing view of a golden, full moon rising.

Seeing the moon's face reminded me of an interview I heard on NPR with a Muslima astronaut, Anousheh Ansari. She said that the greatest moment of her space travel was looking at Earth, shining and blue. What's amazing is that almost every astronaut will give the same answer... something about seeing Earth from a distance provides context for how small and precious and fragile we all are.

Today, looking at the moon, I am reminded of this and wonder at my life. I rush around all day, cleaning, typing, working... and in the big picture it means nothing. I marvel that I am conscious, and that my love for my children can be so deep. It is so implausible that my body lives and works to love them, and meanwhile the cosmos is indifferent to this love. Most of the time, I feel like my labors are fruitful-- something about looking over to the moon makes me realize I cannot take myself so seriously.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

A Day in the Life


Monday: I took the day off so I could help in the kindergarten classroom. Witnessed 60 kids pounding nails into wood with gusto. Had lunch in the cafeteria with Nur. Noted all the staff I should make cupcakes for. Ducked out before recess, fed chickens, loaded some laundry, went to Costco to buy the doll for $19.99 that is identical in every way to the one Mareshet wants that is $95. Stashed it in the back of my closet to wrap for her birthday. Booked ice skating party, and ordered invitations online. Tried to figure out eBay; gave up. Did two more loads of laundry. Went to Target, bought paper bags, art supplies for holiday gifts. Realized I had to get back to pick up kids. Took them to ballet. Stalked my doctor's office for news of the adoption referral letter. Left a thank-you gift in the hopes it will grease the letter along. Picked up some books for emerging readers. Took kids to U bookstore, desperately seeking the"right" 2011 planner. Bumped into my student; realized I haven't done her evaluation yet. Drove home the long way to see the lights on Candycane Lane and the "crazy" bedecked house by the mosque. Got lost. Arrived home to make fish sticks. Helped kids distracted by glitter glue to focus on homework. Brushed three sets of teeth. Listened to new stories read by both girls. Yelled at them to stop whispering and go to sleep. Cleaned rabbit cage and went outside in dark to put the chickens in the coop. Went through my receipts. Found a lost doll shoe. Realized my bed wasn't made. Reluctantly dredged my sheets out of the dryer, made my only Salat prayer of the day, and crashed into bed.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Saturday, November 27, 2010

World AIDS Day Dinner

Please join us on Dec 1, World AIDS Day, for a dinner celebrating the lives of loved ones lost to HIV disease, AND the joy of a possible adoption. For every HIV positive child adopted, another one can other one can take her place and receive lifesaving treatment. We are hoping to bring home another little girl in 2011, and you can be part of it. Drop in between 5:30 and 8:30pm, Wednesday Dec 1, for a delicious Ethiopian feast. We are your hostesses, as you sample an assortment of meat or veggie dishes straight from Ethiopia. Assimba restaurant is located at the corner of MLK and Cherry St. (2722 E Cherry St, Seattle 98122). Bring your family and friends. Whatever we collect at the end of the night pays for dinner and with any luck... plane tickets. Pick up a red ribbon, sign a card to your legislator, or just groove to the Ethiopian music. Can't wait to see you!

Truth Pandemic

Truth Pandemic

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Autumn Days


I am having a hard time adapting to the end of Daylight Savings this year. I feel totally confused. I also have been outrageously overbooked, so before I really wake up, the day is ending again. Combined with my ongoing battle to eradicate headlice in a certain child, leads to some pretty severe sleep deprivation. This can only contribute to the sensation of being a record played at the wrong RPM. I feel like my life is flashing in front of my eyes, and my kids are embodied evidence of this. They have totally left babyhood behind, and I fear that their childhood is also slipping quickly away. I feel a combination of pride and loss with each new thing the girls can do. Nur is just beginning to read now, and has many sight words memorized. She loves to write notes about what she did that day. "daly news. we wnt pe. we had lunch. we had free choise." Mareshet is developing all sorts of competencies. She has also become well known in the local bookstores, often stepping behind the computer to check whether or not books are still in print, and make recommendations. I find that the owners of our local independent stores do order the books she endorses, as they later appear on the shelves with some prominence. I try to be so mindful of the moments we have together, and to enjoy them. Of all my life, I believe that my memories are most clear in my seven to eight year old years. So it is really something to be doing things with them that I so clearly recall doing back in the day. Like playing Uncle Wiggly and Old Maid. Raking leaves. Drinking cocoa.

Last evening I had a wonderful evening out, with two other moms, at a divine little restaurant. My friend Susan gave me a gift certificate to Tilth, in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood. It was a blissful evening with lovely friends and possibly the most amazing food ever. I had pumpkin soup that smelled like the essence of autumn. Then salmon over spaghetti squash and under delicate mushrooms. And chocolate torte for dessert with cocoa from Theo chocolate. I don't know if I will dine in such splendor again. But it will make a lovely memory.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Tragedy Strikes Coop


Early Tuesday morning, a sad fate befell our two favorite hens, Daisy and Peaches. A whiskered intruder, probably a raccoon, made a meal of them. The surviving chicken, Sharpay, was distraught and missing a tail. Needless to say, I will be locking her into a safer coop each night, with our teenager, Amelia Bedelia. Of the 12 chicks shipped, 11 remain, one having been incurably injured.

In other news, Mareshet participated in the local high school cheer squad at a football game last Friday. Nur and I enjoyed the marching band, hot dogs, and watching Mareshet shake it with real pom poms. She has some moves! I don't remember much about football, but I'm guessing that dropping the ball with one foot to go to the end zone is not cool. I felt bad for the kid, particularly given that he was on our home team.

Finally, we all spent Saturday on Bainbridge Island, as part of the Open Arms Perinatal Services strategic planning retreat. I really enjoyed getting to know the staff and new Board members better, and I think we agree that our mission and vision are hard to improve upon. We will tweak a few words but the passion for creating a world that really honors and protects the birthing woman and her family, is one that is still strong. For more information, or to to participate in our annual auction, go to www. openarmsps.org. I love that all of our kids are friends (the Adjunct Board) and got to play together at the children's museum and on the ferry ride. We are really blessed to be part of such a community.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Best Adoption Books


Saturday we went to hear Seattle Women's Chorus sing all about families of every persuasion. They used video clips from Rosie O'Donnell's documentary about families, including a beautiful lesbian wedding that involved their two sons, and clips of kids talking about what families are. Basically I cried through the whole thing. Then we all, including two other single moms and their adopted kids, went out for Ethiopian food. Lately we have been talking about adoption a lot, and fortunately there have been natural opportunities to talk about Mareshet's birth mother and father, and her earliest memories. She can remember an older sister as well, who went to live with another relative. I think constantly about returning to Ethiopia to find more relations. All this prompted me to blog about our family's top 5 adoption books for kids. These are basically great for older children who remember finding their forever family, and life in their family of origin. First on our list (10 out of 10 according to Mareshet) is Star of the Week: A Story of Love, Adoption and Brownies with Sprinkles, by Darlene Friedman and Roger Roth. It is the story of their daughter's adoption from China as an infant, and how she decides to tell about herself when she is Star of the Week in kindergarten. Mareshet took this book to class when she was Star of the Week last year. With its colorful illustrations and straightforward language, it can help an older child with some of those questions that are sure to arise in school. I hear it is going out of print, so grab some copies quickly! Second place goes to The Best Family in the World, by Susana Lopez. This story is about little Carolta's dreaming for a family-- the most exciting family ever. Will they be tiger trainers, pastry chefs, astronauts? Find out how Carlota's dreams come true in this new book. Third place is Yaffi's Family, by Linda Pettit. Just off the press, this book with beautiful watercolor illustrations, touches on the grief adoptive kids feel at leaving family, friends, and caregivers, even as they find love in a new forever family. It speaks also to the openness of the adoptive family in honoring and loving a child's birth family. You can get this one at amharickids.com. I have always loved Stallaluna, by Janell Cannon, one of the best books in exploring culture shock. Little Stellaluna the fruit bat baby is separated from her mother and taken in by a bird family. She learns that her ways are not welcomed by mother bird, and learns to adapt to fit in and get her basic needs met. Eventually she is reunited with her birth mother, and she learns how her special adaptations make sense in bat culture. Finally, we recommend God Found Us You, by Lisa Tawn Bergren. When Nur was born, I found another book by the author about how a baby comes into a bear family by birth. I always wished that she's write one about adoption-- and luck for us, she did! Baby fox doesn't look like his adoptive mother, but she reassures him that they were made for each other. She explains how much his birth mother cared for him by finding him a forever family. It is a very cute book and I am partial to it because the Mama Fox is likely a single mom. Mareshet and Nur often ask for each of "their" books to be read before bedtime. By the way, the girls think that we should do a Top 5 Ethiopian stories blog sometime. So stay tuned.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Corn Maze



This past weekend we, together with friends D. and his son R., went to a corn maze. It was a lot of fun, with the cornfield in the shape of Washington State, the barn kittens, the hay bale maze complete with slide, duck races, and pig show. I liked seeing the baby alpaca and all the rabbits, and the hay ride was fun too. But the best part was getting to hang out with this amazing pair of dudes. All together, we posed as a family unit for the purposes of entering under a single ticket. We were: joined together by birth, adoption and fostering, from Jewish, Muslim, and Ethiopian Orthodox Church heritages, gay and straight, and a passel of ethnicities all rolled into a single family for the day. How cool to recognize the many currents that brought us together, world over.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

New chicks!


Enjoy this video clip of our 12 beautiful new babies, which arrived yesterday. The darker ones (that look like chipmunks) are Welsumers, a "chocolate" egg layer. The yellow ones are Red Star, which are also a friendly, backyard-friendly bird. While it is quite frowned upon to do any kind of fundraising for adoption by the Ethiopian government, and this is not a blog that will bandy about the f-word... if you would like a beautiful hen for the backyard garden that lays rich brown eggs, we'll give you one in the spring and thank you in advance for supporting our adoption! I received word yesterday that there are many new kids who came into care in the kindergarten age range. I am going to redouble my efforts to get my Dossier complete in the hopes that one of these little girls is a match for us. I also can't stop thinking about a little girl from AHOPE named D. She is about eleven at this point. I know that she was really trying to win me over while I was there, sidling up to me for hugs, and quietly a presence. But it worked! She is definitely unforgettable. Earlier in the year I emailed to see if she already had a family and I never really got a complete answer. But she is still on the list of waiting kids, so I presume that I could ask to see her file as well. It's really interesting to hear the girls talk about adopting again. You would almost think that "the new girl" as they call her, is already here.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Harvest


I love this time of year. When straw-stuffed scarecrows are propped in gardens, when bushels of apples are pressed into cider, and pumpkins line porches. We harvested our potatoes, beets, and tomatoes. Surprisingly, we are still getting the odd strawberry. Each morning our hen Daisy leaves us a perfect, cafe-au-lait egg. The other two hens, now plumped up, should be ready to lay soon. The air is more crisp, and it feels good to pull a wool blanket up to my cheeks each night. Last weekend, we were in Walla Walla which is a perfect place to celebrate harvest. We drove out to Klickers to look at the antiques and peaches. Our friend Clare loaded us up with zucchini bread and tomatos. Yum! And the Henckels plied us with blueberry pancakes and turkey sausages, then the Hoffs with turkey burgers and homemade fries. Seriously, I have some great friends!

It all made up for the week of drama following an infestation of lice. Poor Mareshet was sobbing as I combed through all those curls again and again. She always had her hair close cropped at the orphanage, in the event of lice, though she said she never had them in Ethioipa. She has desperately wanted to grow it long ever since we came home, and a year later it falls in ringlets to her shoulders. I couldn't cut that hair, not for a thousand dollars. So it was up nights until two am, combing. I kept scratching the imaginary bus on my body for another 10 days. I'm finally free from the PTSD, and hope to never go there again.

Today I've realized that the past year has not ben very conducive to physical fitness. The hardest part about single parenting is that I can't just go for a run or spend time swimming laps like I used to. I never have anyone to watch the kids and I don't have extra hours of child care to allow me to squeeze in a workout after work. So today we went to the gorgeous new Y and signed up. I love the Y for their Family Camp, which we attended this summer. I love the gleaming new pool. Best of all, I love the single parent family rate. While it's not like I have extra nickels, I feel okay about signing up because women in my family live to be nearly 100. I figure, I'm not yet 35. I have a WAYS to go yet, God WIlling. I don't mind a little plush, but I think that I need to keep my ticker in top shape. The Y has a child care facility, it has swim lessons. I am going to try to get myself moving, and my kids can have fun too. They are old enough to be in the same space together, and perhaps this will help with separations. Wish me luck- I have about fifteen pounds of post-adoption, post-divorce, post-pregnancy (five years ago) weight to shake off.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Welcome Back


This is a new edition of my blog, which will hopefully be updated once a week with recipes, poems, deep thoughts, parenting moments, book recommendations, comics, photos, breaking news, and updates on my foray into another adoption. If you're reading this post, you have been invited to be part of it all.

It has been a year since Mareshet came home. I wish I could say that I have met all of her challenging moments with grace, but I can say that I met them head-on, with good intentions, and mostly did a good job. There are a few moments that I wish I could erase. I have also become expert in "just try me" threats. "Keep it up Mareshet, and just see whether I drop what I'm doing later to take you to that birthday party." However, most of the time, I aspire to the coolheadedness in Love and Logic and if I can't drum it up, my sense of humor usually leaves me in good stead. I have no problem throwing myself under the wagon if that's what it takes, and usually both of my kids end up laughing when I can recall something stupid I did or said as a kid their age, or something stupid I did today. One of our favorite books is by Judith Voight. It is called ... Sometimes Even Mamas Make Mistakes. That is now our credo. If I meet that woman, I am going to kiss her, because no manner of parenting expertise can ever be as reassuring to a child as a parent admitting that, "maybe you had a hand in this, but so did I... and sometimes even Mama makes mistakes." The other standing joke in our house is that I am Queen of this household, under God only in terms of power in our universe. Mareshet asked, wouldn't the President fit between God and I (picture innocent face and mocking tone). I cleared up her confusion right away. The President would be asked to take off his shoes when coming over, just like anyone else. It goes God, Mom, Grandma, the President, your Teacher, other people's parents, babysitters, and eventually down to you. Kids are the bosses of precious little, but they are the boss of their rooms and their toys and our rabbits. The rabbits boss the chickens, and the chickens boss the bugs. That is the Natural Order and for the most part, it is respected when I can rehearse it rapidly in a very convincing tone of voice.

Looking back, it feels good to have banked a year in the life of a kid who needed a family. Frankly, she couldn't have scored better in terms of moms, which I say now because there are plenty of times that is not the first thought running through my head. It is only after some contemplation that I realize this is a fact. For whatever reason, we are in a place where it is papatable to consider trying this adoption thing again. The girls and I took a vote: it was unanimous. We have enough to go around and anyone would be lucky to have us. So, wherever you are kid, welcome to Family Movie Night with popcorn and hot cocoa. Welcome to camping. Welcome to Your Turn to Fold the Laundry. Welcome to our awesome elementary school and to riding bikes and to digging for potatoes. Welcome to Grandma coming over with cupcakes and Waffle Saturday. We're expecting you!