finally.

I Don’t Want My Kids to Be Happy

I fell into a rabbit hole in blogland this morning and ended up here. More specifically, I ended up here, reading a post by a mom who doesn’t want her kids to be happy. And realizing how strongly I agree with her.

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Need to Kick-Start the blogging again.

I was on a role for a while. Not quite sure what happened. Well, I do know what happened. I’ve been trying to spend less time on the computer. And that’s been a good thing.

Random things I’ve been up to….

….Milo learned to walk. He went from tottering between furniture to chasing Lexi and the dogs around the house in about 5 days. We now have a human tornado living in our house. He also likes to spin himself in circles until he’s too dizzy to stand.

….I got called for Jury Duty. It’s not a bad deal. I call in at night and they tell me if I need to show up or call in. I’ve lucked out and have only had to call in at nine and/or noon the next day, only to be told I’m not needed and to call in again tomorrow. Only downside is the two weeks worth of lesson plans I’ve had to write. But, really, not complaining about it. It’s been fun to do stuff like take the kids to the zoo.

….went to the Minnesota Zoo with Lexi and Milo. Milo learned a new phrase “See it!” or “See it?” depending on whether or not he spotted the animals. Both kids love the dolphins. We watched a short training session and then spent another 20 minutes just sitting in the bleachers watching the dolphins swim and splash around. Incidentally, the MN Zoo is a great winter activity. Discovery Bay, the Tropics Trail and the Minnesota Trail are all connected and it takes about 30 minutes to get through each one. And you never have to go outside.

….I taught myself how to crochet over Christmas break. And I really like it. It’s super fast and looks really cute when finished. So far I’ve made about 6 hats, a sweater, a blanket, a poncho, and about 30 headbands.. Only downside is it takes much more yarn than knitting so depending on the project, it can be a little pricey. I’ll try and get a few pictures up in the next couple days.

….I’ve made a few sales from my etsy shop. Oh, and I started making jewelry as well. I needed a lanyard for work and decided to make one and I had left over supplies so I made a few other things. Then when I raided all my craft stuff I realized I had a pretty big pile of beads and other jewelry making supplies so I gave it a shot. It’s not my favorite thing to do but it’s different than sewing or knitting or crochet, so I like it. Oh, and my etsy shop is also supporting charity:water.

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Milo’s Hair…Tonight’s Adventure: Braids & Beads

Milo’s hair is getting pretty long. It’s probably about 3 inches or more when stretched straight. Tonight I put in 12 braids (just the front 2/3 of his hair) and finished each braid with 2 beads.

The parts in his hair are not pretty, but braiding hair on a 15 month old is like trying to wrestle a mad octopus, so I took what I could get.

I want the braids to hang a little straighter without so much curl near his scalp and I think a few more beads will help with that but I didn’t want to try and put 5 or 6 beads on each braid only to find out none of them stayed in his hair overnight. The two beads will be our test run.

Okay, what you want…pictures. Remember it’s a work in progress.

Update: When he woke up this morning he had 14 out of the 24 beads still in his hair. I managed to find 8 of the 10 missing beads. Not sure if he ate the last 2 or if they are just in the blankets somewhere. Also, I think I had two problems keeping the beads in. 1) I didn’t use any product so his hair was super soft, making it easy for the beads to slip and 2) I think I was using really crappy elastics that I couldn’t get tight enough.

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Practicing on Milo’s Hair

Christmas Eve I put in coils. They were cuter before I mashed a hat on his head. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture before we left.

Today, I tried flat twists. They didn’t last because I didn’t put bands in at the end or any styling stuff in his hair. He was in a good mood and I was just playing to see what they would look like. I also discovered that if you sit him directly in the bathroom sink and let him chew on all the toothbrushes within reach he will cooperate for at least 15 minutes.

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2009 Photos: A Year in Review or An excuse to post a ton of photos

Here’s our year. It’s not even close to everything that happened this year but it was a good year.

January

Now that we had our referral and the holidays were over we started to get things ready for Milo’s arrival.

We built new shelves in the closet, put together bunk beds and put up the crib.

Lexi got a much needed hair cut.

And we got ready for her 3rd birthday -  she requested a “W” cake for her party. (In case you’re wondering. This year she wants green circle cakes. Nope, no Elmo birthday cakes for us.)

February

We passed court! Milo was officially, legally, 100% ours. We also got his birth certificate and a travel date.

March

We started to get ready for our trip to Ethiopia. We borrowed the three biggest suitcases ever.

Our last photo as a family of 3. About 15 minutes after this was taken we headed off to the airport.

And we were off.

This was the first day we were able to bring Milo back to the Guest House from the Care Center.

And headed back home.
A boy from our travel group. We were all waiting for our connecting flight in DC. He held Milo for a while.
And friends we met at the airport. They went through a different agency but live in St. Paul. Our kids are about 2 months apart in age.

And we are officially a family of 4. Lexi met us at the airport.

April

Lexi decides to sleep on the floor. She did this for several weeks. And she and Kevin did a lot of work for Start Seeing Art.

Our first Easter as a family of 4. And Lexi enjoying being the big sister.

Kevin and I (and the kids but they are always barefoot – we’re lucky if they have pants on) went One Day Without Shoes.

May

I braved it and drove to Green Bay, by myself, with both kids. My sister was there and we took the kids to Bay Beach. Cheapest, greatest summer entertainment for kids under 10. I love this picture because I have the same picture of me at about 3 years old riding the same ride.

Kevin and Lexi wore their Red Wings jerseys to church on Pentecost Sunday. Milo wore his as well.

Kevin’s hair getting longer. In May he challenged people to help him raise $600 for http://www.charitywater.org/. That’s enough clean water for 30 people. If the goal was met by his 30th birthday (a month later) he promised to shave his head. People donated $2300.

He also walked about 2 miles from the Misissippi River to our house carrying the can Lexi is holding above. The can was full and weighted close to 25 lbs. On a daily basis, people without access to clean water carry these cans close to 3 miles for water. It’s mostly women and children who fetch the water.

June

We went to White Robin Farm for a family photo shoot. It was a ton of fun. Lexi helped.

Kevin’s birthday. Before:

And after:

July and August

We took care of 5 kids under 5 for a morning. Two belonged to us and three belonged to a friend. We got out of the house and walked to a park to wear everyone out.

But the best part of the year (after bringing Milo home) was flying to Connecticut and visiting our best friends for close to two weeks. We ate out a lot. We played games. Made a lot of popcorn. And just hung out.

Lexi also sat in on one of Uncle Tim’s lectures at Yale.

We saw Times Square and Tim and Nicole took the kids home and Kevin and I saw Stomp.

We met up with other college friends in Amherst and hung out for the day.

Kevin with two of his college roommates and me with one of my college roommates

August is also the State Fair. This is Lexi being “State Fair People.”

September

Happy birthday to me.

We also got to meet and hang out with Mark Horvath from InvisiblePeople.tv.

October

Happy 1st birthday, Milo. In case you were wondering, he does like cake and he does like chocolate. Even tried to swipe his sister’s cupcake.

Halloween. I cut the jack-o-lantern, per Lexi’s instructions and she decorated it. Lexi was a Green Princess and Milo was a scarecrow. This year, the costumes were made by me.

November

It was freakishly warm around here in November. This is how warm Lexi had to dress to go rake leaves with her dad.

Milo became extremely mobile, deciding the quickest path from point A to point B was a straight line, no matter what was along that line.

We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving. Every year Joanna and I buy the kids matching Christmas PJ’s and insist on a picture. This year, 3 really excited kids would not sit still so every picture is just a big ball of stripes.

December

Kevin tried to teach Lexi to ice skate. She wasn’t a fan.

We went to Kevin’s parents’ house for Christmas. Lexi insisted we take this picture after church.

And of course, present opening.

And seeing Papa’s pigeons.

And hanging out with second cousins. Emelia and Milo were the newest second cousins this year. Emelia is 9 months in this picture and Milo is 14 months.

We got back from Kansas to discover there was a lot of shoveling to do.

And on to next year. Here’s to 2010.

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A Year Ago Today.

Last year, right about now I was heading back to my classroom from the bathroom. While I was in the bathroom my cell phone rang. I ignored it because, you know, I was in the bathroom. On my way back to the classroom I checked my messages.

“Hi Abby, this is Angie from Children’s Home Society. Could you give me a call back before our meeting tonight?” I called her back. I was thinking she was going to cancel our meeting to update our homestudy. (She has 2 kids at home, it was December, I was assuming sick kid.) It was 10:20 am and since I didn’t have to pick my class up from computers until 10:30, I decided to give her a quick call.

A really perky voice answered the phone.

“Hi Abby! I’m so glad you called me back. I’ve got some news for you! (at this point I was trying to unlock my classroom door, dropped my keys twice and was desperately trying to get to my computer) We have a referral for you to look over.” Now she read me all the details of the referral. But she still hadn’t given me a name, age, boy or girl, etc. I was pretty impatient at this point. I cut in to the details with “I need to know if it’s a boy or a girl! I have 8 minutes left to call Kevin with the news, look at the pictures on the computer and pick up my class from computers.” She laughed and said “It’s a boy. His name is Rahimeto Keyredin and he’s 5 1/2 weeks old.”

I called Kevin and at the same time checked my e-mail. When my slow (ridiculously slow) computer finally opened the file I saw this:

and this:

I hung up with Kevin and went running down the hall at school, interrupted about 6 classes to announce “It’s a BOY!” on my way to pick up my class.

We got back to the room and I briefly explained what was going on. I told them they could color or play with toys or read books or basically do whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t hurt anyone or break anything. (not one of my finer teaching moments, I’ll admit it.) And I spent the next half hour pouring over his referral paperwork.

I printed off his picture and carried them around in my pocket for the next week at least, showing them to anyone who walked past me.

The two pictures above are Milo Rahimeto Hendricks – 5 1/2 weeks old.
Here’s Milo over the next year:
We didn’t get any more pictures until he was 4 months old

We met him in Ethiopia when he was 5 months old.

6 months

7 months

8 months (hanging out with friends from Ethiopia. Harry was at the Care Center with Milo. We met Claire on the plane ride home.)

9 months

10 months

11 months

12 months

13 months

adoption, family, things that make me happy | Comments (3)

Quick Milo Updates

Milo turned 9 months last Saturday. Here’s the latest on what he’s been up to:

• He can hold is own bottle.
• He can sit up.
• He can roll wherever he wants
• He’s attempted to escape from his sling, his bouncy seat, and his swing.
• He pretty much insists on holding a spoon while we feed him.
• He can finger-feed himself those baby puffs.
• He’s really interested in real food. Last week he stole my pita bread and ate most of it. (Okay, by “eating” I mean he stored the pieces in his mouth like a chipmunk.)
• He babbles all the time and can make sounds that sound a lot like mamamamamama.

And here’s some cuteness.

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What Milo has been up to…

Milo is just over 7 months old. And it’s amazing how much he’s changed in just the short time he’s been home.

• He’s learned how to grab on to toys and shake and bang them around.
• He thinks that blowing raspberries with a mouth full of food or milk is pretty funny.
• He can roll from back to front and front to back. But only one direction so he’ll roll across a room and then we have to turn him around.
• He can give high-five if you ask him.
• He’s ticklish. Really, really ticklish.
• He knows who Mom and Dad are.
• And he likes us better than other grown-ups.
• He recognizes Lexi and thinks she’s a great source of entertainment.
• He’s almost figured out how to sit up.
• When he takes a bath, he splashes out most of the water.
• He’s also figured out his own way of holding a bottle.

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Picture Day

Today we had our family pictures taken. Speak has done some modeling in the past and his agent is also a photographer. So we had Barbara O’Brien do our family photos. And it was a ton of fun. If you are anywhere close enough to drive out to her farm, do it. The farm is great. She’s got horses and a pony. Sheep, chickens, ducks, kittens, ducklings, chicks, and dogs. And all of them are friendly. We spent the evening following Lexi around as she chased the birds, fed the horses, held the kittens and ran around. And as we were chasing Lexi, Barb was following us with a camera, occasionally posing us or moving us to better light but mostly just taking pictures.

I don’t have any of her pictures yet, but Kevin got some fun ones on his camera so here’s what our day looked like:

First we met a few cats – then all the cats came to see us. When we got there Lexi asked Barb to see the cats. Barb said “Sure, we can call the kitties” and went “Kitties! Come on kitties!” I expected 3 or 4 cats to show up. Oh no, about 15 cats came pouring out of the barn. Lexi was thrilled.

Lexi checking out the sheep and then holding the kittens.

Finn the horse was really interested in what I had the sling. Milo was asleep at the time. Dover the pony was just the right size for Lexi.

Lexi getting a lesson in picture taking. They took pictures of a chicken and daddy.

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One Month Update

On Monday, Milo will have been home for a month. It’s a little hard to believe it’s already been a month. Some days it feels like he’s been with us forever and some days it feels like we just got off the plane.

People have been asking us if we’ve had any issues since coming home…no, not really. He is so young that it feels very similar to bringing Lexi home from the hospital. We didn’t know Lexi all that well when we brought her home. We knew we loved her and we knew she was ours but we didn’t know her eating habits, her sleeping habits, what she liked to do when she was awake – we had to figure all of that out as we went along. Same thing with Milo. Although with Milo we had the advantage of observing and talking to the people who cared for him for the first 5 months of his life so I feel like we were a little more prepared.

Since we’ve been home he’s started to show his personality a lot more. When we first met him he was pretty quiet and just observed and took in his surroundings. He wasn’t withdrawn, just very quiet. Now…well…now he’s found his voice. He loves to shriek and squeal. He thinks Lexi’s brand of comedy is freakin’ hillarious and will laugh a full-on belly laugh for her. He still sucks his thumb but now likes to blow raspberries while sucking his thumb. He makes that ppllbbbt noise all the time. His feet are one of his favorite toys. When he’s happy, he’s very happy.

He let’s us know when he’s hungry. And when he’s hungry, he wants food NOW. There is not much patience when it comes to food. Food issues were an issue we knew was a possibility with an infant and I’d say that while he’s not nearly as obsessed with food as other adoptees, he’s does have some issues with food. He mostly just needs the reassurance that he will get fed when he’s hungry.

We’ve had a few days where he needs to be held a lot but I’m not convinced that it’s adoption related. I think he just really likes to be held and some days he wants it more than others.

His sleeping his great. He naps decent during the day but at night he goes to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 and then sleeps until about 10. Gets a bottle and then goes back to sleep until about 6:30. Another bottle and then back to bed until about 8. We’ve had the occasional night of waking up at 2 or 4 wanting another bottle or waking up due to gas but all in all, I am not complaining one bit about his sleep.

I’m so glad we came home in the spring because he really likes being outside. There’s just so much for him to watch and observe.

Lexi seems to really like having a brother. She talks about him quite a bit. She asks where he is when he’s napping and always wants to kiss, hug or hold him. And when the social worker came to our house for a post-adoption visit, Lexi was very concerned that she was coming to take Milo back to Ethiopia.

Oh, and he’s putting on weight like crazy. We go to the doctor on Monday and my guess is he’s over 13 pounds. He’s actually putting on body fat in his legs and arms. And the muscles in his back and legs are gaining some strength. Today he spent a good portion of the afternoon attempting to roll over.

It’s been a good month.

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