WHAT ARE SISTERS FOR?

Eden fell asleep on the couch on a particularly
tired afternoon. I walked by and saw paper piled
over her face while Safa attacked her toes and eyes.
Ava had been drawing pictures and putting them
on her while Safa poked and prodded her. She slept
through the whole thing.

WONDER GIRLS

Ava and Eden LOVE a show called
"The Wonder Pets". A few weeks ago
I made them all capes like the Wonder Pets
wear.

Happiness is a new cape.

FAMILY TOWER

FYI I have on paint clothes, lest
you think I've given up entirely.

On Tuesday we sent out the paperwork and a giant check to Citizenship and Immigration Services. Actually, we were told to make the check out to Department of Homeland Security. It chapped my ass. Erik said perhaps we should make it out to Haliburton directly. But it is afterall for a good cause. And it gets us one step closer to our next child. You know what is so weird? Everytime I need to say or type baby/child, it feels wrong not to say the plural. Or at least "child(ren)". How strange and exciting to not know what is coming our way.

Every paper we sign, every phone call, email, notarization gets us closer. But what I can not deny or shake is that whatever is happening now in our future child's life (or children's lives) is tragic. Right now they are struggling. Right now, wherever they are, whoever is caring for them--- they are hungry. And they don't have enough clean water. The people who love them, the people whom they love, don't have the medication they need. It is hard to watch the crust of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich go down the disposal when my Ethiopian children are hungry. It is hard to water plants without thinking of them. If I let it all in, it could immobilize me. So the only thing to do is let it remind me of how blessed I am and how thankful I am that eventually they will be here with us.

What's She Doing????

Ava has learned to wink.

Or perhaps I should say, "wink". Usually one eye is a little more open than the other. But her mouth always does what it is doing in the picture. The first time she did it, Erik was putting her to bed and it was kind of dark and he thought she was having some kind of seizure. What I can't understand is why she somehow has never looked more like me in her life than in this picture...

Boxcar Children

How I LOVE this picture...

Ava's Crossing Over Ceremony at school

Ava's school had a Crossing Over
ceremony for all the children that will be leaving Starbright to enter kindergarten. When we entered, I saw parents with Kleenex and I thought, "How stupid". Yeah, well... by the time it was over I felt like I needed to crawl into a hole and cry for about ten years. It was so sweet and lovely. Each child wore a crown and one teacher lit their candle, then they walked over a bridge, then blew the candle out. A version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was playing. They were all given necklaces to wear. And afterwards, they gave them tooth pillows since they would all be loosing their first tooth soon. Inside each pillow was a small, handpainted note. Each children's note said something special about who they are. One little girl's said, "I am a golden star." Ava's said, "I am a tender bud soon to open." I seriously feel like I need the hole just writing about it now. She was so beautiful and grown that day.

And proud.

Early Morning Ice Cream

I'm not going to go into the details of what went down before I decided to give my children ice cream cones at 8:02 AM last week. It may seem like a poor choice, but I'm pretty sure it saved my ass.

Today I went to Costco for the first time in three weeks. I'm not going to tell you how much I spent because I think it might make your stomach hurt. After two Costco employees managed to get all my groceries into my cart using some awesome Tetris-like packing I had to carry Safa and pull the loaded cart behind me. This is nothing new, but it was much heavier than I'm used to. And as I was doing it I quite seriously thought, "This would be a thousand times easier if I had some kind of donkey-like harness to strap to myself and then to the cart." I told Erik I might have to market it. He suggested I call it, "Big Family Donkey Harness". I think the name needs work. But I swear I would buy one.