Never Has a Manila Envelope Been So Exciting!!

Last Saturday, on June 14th, we received in the mail the Holy Grail of all adoption paperwork. The thing we paid the Department of Homeland Security for. The thing we were fingerprinted in San Antonio for. The I-171H. This paper means our government has said we can adopt from Ethiopia. It says we have been picked over, checked out, and scoured for anything that might make us ill-equipped as parents. Or worse. I have friend who put hers into a lock box. I read about another woman who was at home alone (who had been checking the mail hopefully everyday like I had been) and when she discovered it was there, ran and jumped onto her unsuspecting neighbor who happened to be watering the lawn. It is hard to explain the monumental meaning of a piece of paper to people unfamiliar with international adoption. But it is THE paper. And I'm thrilled to have my sticky, happy, shaking fingers on it.

EDEN IS FOUR!!!!!!!!!!!

She choose all the poses herself. I didn't tell her what to do. She loved it. It was so hot and she just wanted to stay in those fancy, synthetic clothes.

Oh my sweet Eden. What a joy... Such a tender-hearted goofy girl. She forgives easily, doesn't retaliate, can't follow directions to save her life, and is a ladybug magnet. She has a quiet strength that is easy to miss. She could win a medal for pouting. She loves deeply and fiercely.

Here's my most recent funny Eden story: I generally try to not have to go to the grocery store with all three gals. Target or something is fine. I can even do Costco with no trouble. But there is something about the small Sun Harvest around the corner from our house that brings out the crazy in my girls if they are all there together. It is a small store that gets surprisingly crowded. They save up the crazy for this store. I spend the entire time either apologizing to other patrons, or saying things like "Please stop being a train."

So with school out, I found myself in the parking lot of Sun Harvest taking deep breaths. So I say, "Okay, I want to talk a bit about behavior in the store. I want to see calm bodies, that stay close to me, and children who listen to my words. I don't want crazy jumping in the aisles, or silly, loud noises. It is a small store and when you guys go crazy in it, it makes me feel---" Now I didn't pause, or struggle for my next word, but Eden with a smile on her face, before I can speak my next word says, "Bossy?" And I started laughing even though it was annoying and I said, "Nooooooo, I was going to say frustrated, but I can get bossy real fast..."

That trip was smooth sailing. And I didn't even have to get bossy.

Fingerprints Friday

I read a few previous posts and realized I seem to post here most often when I'm feeling particularly melancholy. Sorry. Now for a change, a bit of diary...

The CIS situation finally got sorted out, and Erik and I received our appointment notice. We never received our original appointment notice which was originally in January. So they dropped our application because we never showed. On Friday, April 25th we left bright and early for San Antonio to get our fingerprints taken. Meghan stayed with the girls. Our appointment was for 9:00 AM. We arrived early at an rundown strip mall next to a Tuesday Morning store. Seriously.

We took a number (that was the answer to every question--"take a number and get in line please". We must have been told that 4 times.) We waited, read our books, and finally my number was called. Erik was a few minutes behind me. We were back in car by 9:15.

We had a lot of time to kill so headed downtown to the riverwalk. We found ourselves in the middle of Fiesta! A giant weekend long party in San Antonio. All for us. Ok, so it just felt that way. We rode the river boat and had lunch on the riverwalk. And we celebrated one more step in the journey to get our children home.

The Waiting Game Sucks, Let's Play Hungry Hungry Hippos

I've had three babies without drugs. After I had Ava, I marveled how someone could experience so much pain and still live. I know physical pain. I've heard of ignorant or perhaps even just plain insensitive people, telling adoptive mothers something like, "well, you did it the easy way!!" in the name of jest or exclusion or just because sometimes people don't know how to respond to something they don't understand. For the record, this gestation is no easier. The rollercoaster that is adoption is like all the physical pain of labor and birth spread out over the course of an adoption process and transformed into emotional pain. Family planning, the process of bringing a child into your family, is rife with ways to break your heart no matter how that child comes to you. It is also filled with eventual joy of course. But for the international adoptive parent there is no feeling the baby kick. There are no sonograms, or hearing the heart beat. These are replaced instead with waiting and wondering. And then someday, a phone call. A picture. A name. Magic...
But for now, we wait.

Last Night, 2:41 AM

It is not unusual at our house for children to wake up in the night. For a long time, at least one person would wake up each night needing something. And then we have nights were multiple people are waking multiple times. Those are the killers. My plan of action is usually to wake up just enough to attend to the need so that I can hopefully get back to sleep. When Safa wakes, we rarely know why unless she is sick. Eden rarely wakes up, but if she does, it's because she is sick or had a bad dream. But Ava takes after her mama. She has a lot of bad dreams. She wakes because she needs water, has an itchy mosquito bite, or just plain old can't sleep. And a handful of times she has woken to ask a question that REALLY could have waited until morning. When Ava and Eden wake up they come to our doorway and call in a sing-song voice (all three call in exactly the same way), "Maaaama or Paaaapa, Maaama or Paaapa" and one of us gets up. So last night this happened. And I walk over and see Ava.



"What's up, sweetie?"

Long pause.

"Uh, I'm sorry if I shouldn't have woken you up for this, but I wanted to show you something." Her voice is cracking and she sounds worried. She's starting to cry. She's afraid I'm going to be cranky because she woke me up for no good reason.

"What do you want to show me?"

"There's a full moon and I want you to see it." My heart melted. I wanted to hold her forever.

"Show me."

So we hold hands and she leads me to the bathroom window. And she points to the moon. And through the trees, only at Ava's head level, I could see the moon. I thank her for showing to me and walk her back to bed.

When I get into bed it takes me an hour and a half to fall back to sleep. But it was worth that moment with her.

When my children show me their world, it is a gift. If I'm smart, I wake up enough to receive it.

It's All in the Details

I think I have told this story to almost everyone, but I'm going to write here so I don't forget someday. A while back, on a Friday during dinner, Ava was asking me questions about babies. How they get inside the mama, etc. We've covered this stuff multiple times before, but this time her questioning was begininng to push the limits of my preparedness. (or lack thereof). So thankfully after I'd already given my, "Well, you need a mama and a papa to make a baby, then it grows inside the mama...blah, blah, blah", Mima calls and I have to get the phone. Because let me tell you, my answers were not satisfying her and I could tell. So she got busy playing something else and I was off the hook.

The next Monday, we are five minutes from school and she says, "Mama? On Friday you were telling me about how babies get inside the mama and we were interrupted." So I try to gather my thoughts, recognizing that although everything would be over Safa's head and Eden probably isn't paying attention (God love her. She's just usually daydreaming), there are two younger siblings in the car. So I take a deep breath and say something like, "Well, mamas have tiny, tiny eggs that we can't even see. And papa's have something very tiny that we can't see either. And when you put those two parts together, a baby gets made. And it starts off so small that we can't see it, and it grows and grows inside the mama until it is ready to be born."

Not good enough---"But HOW?"

Another deep breath, "Well, a mama and papa decide they want to have a baby, and then they lie very close to each other to make the baby."

And she says, in a very matter-of-fact tone, "Like on the floor, or at night, or what?"

So I say, "Well, that's up to the mama and papa to decide."

She was satisfied. At least for awhile.

Monya and Grandpapa Visit

Dinner storytime with Grandpapa

EASTER AFTERMATH

After the morning Easter festivities, we went to Alice's house. It was a long day. Here are the pictures I took of the girls in the car on the way home. Hilarious. Safa has my scarf wrapped around her neck and is "reading" a book about the first day
of kindergarten.