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.

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.

NaBloPoMo Post #12: A lot to think about

Today we found out that our adoption agency is temporarily closing to people who are requesting a child 0-24 months from Ethiopia. Currently there are over 400 people waiting for a baby which is pushing wait times out to at least 24 months. (Our estimated wait time in Dec 2007 was 6-9 months and extended to 12 months in October of 2008. We waited 11 months and 11 days for our referral.)

They are closing the program simply because there is not a need for parents in this age range. Once upon a time when the Ethiopia program was new (about 5 years ago) it was considered a long wait if you waited a week. Most people heard back within a day or two after submitting their dossier. But the program took off. It got big very, very fast and homes were quickly found for infants and toddlers.

There are people who will say that the program is closing because the “demand” can’t be met. And there are accusations about unethical practices happening. Personally, I don’t beleive that is what is happening with our agency. Has it happened elsewhere? Yes. It’s a tragic side to both international and domestic adoption that corruption and “blackmarket” practices exist. Do your research when looking for an agency. Be careful and cautious. At the same time know that there are plenty of agencies who are working to provide homes for children who need them. But the “whys” are not what this post is about.

This is about what we now need to think about. We really liked our agency. We had a good experience with them. We know that while Milo was in their care they truly loved him and took excellent care of him. The information we have about his background is priceless and the opprotunity to meet people who were a part of his life before us was amazing. And, all of that we have on DVD for him to watch when he is ready. We don’t want to switch agencies because we don’t want our next child to not have the same amount of information. I would have a hard time explaining to a child that Milo has a lifebook with pictures of his village in Ethiopia but he or she doesn’t because we switched agencies because we wanted a baby.

So that leaves us with some decisions to make.

Do we switch agencies? I doubt it.

Do we wait and see if the infant program opens back up? Well, that would put a lot of years between Milo and the next child.

Do we adopt an older child or sibbling group? I’d like to. I’d love to actually. But Milo is only one. We want the next child to be younger than him. So that would mean waiting until Milo was 3 or 4 before starting the process again.

Do we adopt a child from the Waiting Child List? That’s a possibility.

Lots of things to think about. But, one thing is for sure, it makes me grateful that we to the leap and applied to adopt when we did. I can’t really imagine our family without Milo.

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.

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.

A lot to say but not sure where to start.

Now that we are back home and not sick and not jetlaged I’ve been wanting to write about our trip and having Milo home but there is so much to say, so much to share, I’m not quite sure where to start.

First of all, thank you. Thank you to the people who brought us stuff for our rummage sale. Thank you to the people who bought stuff from the rummage sale. Thank you to the people who sent donations towards Kevin shaving his head. Thank you to the people who prayed for us. Thank you to the people who asked us about updates and listened when we were excited about updates and when we complained about wait times. There is no way we could have done this alone. So thank you.

About Ethiopia.

Ethiopia was amazing. It’s how I pictured it to be and completely different than I thought it would be. I can’t really explain it but even though I’d never been there before, everything felt very familiar. When we go back (and we will go back at some point) I want to see more of the country. Our trip was obviously focused on Milo so there wasn’t much sight-seeing or touring. What we saw was mostly out the bus window.

We went shopping at a small mercado. It was obviously designed for tourists. Then we drove through the real mercado. The small mercado was one or two streets of shops, all containing similar jewelry and wall hangings and clothes. The real mercado was huge. Single streets devoted entirely to textiles or shoes or cleaning products or clothes or electronics.

Hosanna

We drove down to Hosanna and saw where Milo lived when he was first brought into the care center. Up until recently, children were relinquished to a care center in their local area and then after a few weeks (sometimes months) transferred to the care center in Addis where they waited for a family. While we were in Hosanna we met one of the nannies who cared for Milo. We showed her a recent picture and she was very excited to see how happy and healthy he looked.

Hosanna is “the country”. It’s about 3-4 hours south of the city and looks like the pictures you see of Ethiopia. There are wide open spaces and traditional round mud and straw huts. There are donkeys carrying yellow jerry cans to fill with water and young kids driving cattle down the road.

The CHSFS bus makes the Hosanna trip every Sunday so I think we were an event for the kids along the way. They ran to the edge of the road, waved and wanted us to take pictures.

The Plane Ride

Let’s face it 20+ hours on a plane just sucks. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It was typical plane seats with minimal room and food that was pretty bland. The ride home however was great. We lucked out and got the bulkhead seats and a bassinet which meant we had leg room and Milo could sleep in a bed. And jet lag wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Milo

Milo seems to be adjusting to life in Minnesota pretty well. He sort of naps in the morning, takes a decent nap in the afternoon and only half wakes up at night for a couple of bottles. And by half wake up, I mean he wakes up, cries and then can barely keep his eyes open to eat.

It’s been fun getting to know him. He’s smiley and happy and for five months old is pretty good at letting us know what he wants.

He likes to be held but is content to hang out on the floor and play with toys.

He thinks Lexi and the dogs are fascinating.

He sucks both thumbs at the same time.

He thinks being naked is really funny. And bath time is a blast.

Along with being naked and bath time he also thinks that spit bubbles, burping, blowing raspberries and chewing on his burp rag are also amusing ways of passing the time.

He took to a bottle right away and gets MAD if he not being fed as soon as he starts to fuss for food.

He likes to be bundled up in blankets and is a total sweat bomb when he sleeps.

He likes riding in his sling. He seems to prefer the ring-sling over the others but I think it’s because he’s a little too short for the other ones.

More updates will come. Like I said – lots to say but not sure where to start.

We’re in Ethiopia

We are in Ethiopia. I won’t be updating my blog but Kevin will be twittering (as technology allows) and he’ll be updating his blog.

I promise – I’ll have updates on my blog as soon as we are back home.

But until then, I’ll just leave you with a few very cute pictures:

Lexi and Milo at about 6 weeks old.

Lexi and Milo at about 5 months.

Cute kids, huh?

The post in which I whine and complain…

That’s a warning for you. If you don’t want to hear about my crappy week then just stop reading.

Let’s complain with bullet points, shall we?

• My class sucks. Yeah, I know teachers aren’t supposed to say their class sucks but guess what? This week and last week sucked. I have yelled more in the last 2 weeks than I have ever yelled in my whole teaching career. I hate yelling at my kids. Hate it, hate it, hate it.  But every single other approach I have for dealing with kids who refuse to listen or follow the rules is not working. Apparently the entire class has chucked their brains at the door and have gone with the approach of just pummeling each other for the most ridiculous of reasons. The swearing and obnoxious words have multiplied exponentially, in both English and Somali (want to know how to say poop, butt or fart in Somali?) and are being shouted out at any given time during class. They declare that they want to go to the office, they like making bad choices and missing fun activities like learning labs or choice time is “fun”. And then when they get sent to the office or miss out on fun activities they are pissed at ME for not letting them do anything fun. Seven working days left and I am on a plane to Ethiopia.
• Milo is sick. Yes, my little boy has some type of intestinal bug, lost a bunch of weight and is now on round two of antibiotics. And he’s on another continent and there’s nothing I can do. I did talk to several other parents whose kids had the same thing while in the care center and it sounds like he’ll be fine but still…my baby is sick and a million miles away.
• Lexi is sick. We went out to eat tonight and she started complaining she was tired and wanted to go home. When she started trying to sleep at the restaurant we decided to get our food to go and head home. About 1 minute into the drive home she puked. Blech.
• Family drama is thrown into the whole mix.
• Good friends in a country they may need to be evacuated from.
• Other good friends going through rough times.
• Oh and work drama is being taken up several notches.

I think that’s it. Next week is going to be stress-free. No drama, no bad news, no sick kids. If you have anything you’d like to tell me or you’d like me to worry about you need to speak up before Sunday because on Monday I’m not listening.

An Open Letter to Our Family & Friends

An Open Letter to Our Family and Friends,

We’ve been on this adoption journey since the summer of 2007 and we’re almost there. As we write this, we’ve just cleared court and Milo Rahimeto Hendricks will be coming home on March 27. We’re beyond excited.

Before all the crazyness of travel and bringing Milo home sets in, we wanted to share with you some of our expectations and rules. This adoption thing is new and exciting for us, but there’s also a lot to learn. We want to share some of that with you ahead of time and explain the rationale behind our choices. We’re always open to questions, but we may not be very receptive to those questions after 18 hours on a plane with a screaming infant. Hopefully this will resolve some of that.

Language
First and foremost, we need to be sensitive with the language we use to talk about adoption. We’ve brought up a lot of these issues already, but it’s good to be reminded and will become even more important when Milo is home and as both Milo and Lexi hear you talk about adoption.

Some examples of language to avoid:

• “own child” – (example: “Why don’t you want your own child?’). Milo is our own child. Just as we are God’s children or Jesus called Joseph his father without a biological relationship, Milo is our own child regardless of a genetic connection. If you need to speak about a specific, genetic relationship, please use terms like “biological child” or “birth child”.
• “real” – (example: “Where are his real parents?”). We are Milo’s real parents. If someone asks you that question, please correct them by saying, “Kevin and Abby are his real parents.” Instead use terms like “biological family” or “birth mother”.
• Introducing Milo as our “adopted child” is unnecessary. It will be pretty obvious that he was adopted, but more importantly a statement like that can imply that he’s somehow second rate (did you introduce Lexi as our “biological child”?).
• “Orphanage” – This term isn’t offensive, but it can have negative connotations and people can make assumptions about the level of care received.  Please use the term “care center” instead. (For the record, Milo received better care and attention in Ethiopia than he would have as an infant in daycare in the United States.)
• “Third World Country” – Please use the term “developing country” instead as this is the politically correct term for countries such as Ethiopia.

Milo’s Story
The story of how Milo was placed for adoption and what happened to his birth family are private and personal. We’ve decided not to share that information at this point in time. This is sacred information to an adopted child and we want to be sensitive to Milo and make sure he learns his own story in the proper time and in the proper context. The only way to ensure that happens is to protect his story.

We realize this makes for a difficult situation. Even Lexi will be curious about Milo’s story, but we don’t want her to know the story before Milo does. As kids do, she could taunt him with details of that story and deprive him of learning about his own past in the proper context.

This is all about protecting Milo and helping him to understand and appreciate his story. And it won’t be easy. More than likely we’ll end up telling him bits and pieces or generalized versions of the story as he’s old enough, and then it will be up to him whether or not he wants to share those pieces of the story with you. If he asks you questions that you can’t answer, simply tell him to ask us.

We hope you’ll understand our reasoning and give us grace as we try to sort out what we can share, with who, when.

Coming Home
One of the biggest challenges we’ll face is the need to bond with Milo. Thankfully he’s very young and that should help the transition, but it will still be a challenge. He’s likely to regress and need to re-learn basic skills.

Because of the importance of forming a quick and strong attachment with Milo, we’ll be doing things a bit differently than we did with Lexi. We’re going to seem rather over-protective, but it’s all in the name of forming an attachment with Milo so he can feel safe and thrive in our family. We’ve done a lot of research on this, so we hope you’ll trust us and not second guess our choices.

What does that mean? It means we’ll be promoting attachment with Milo in a number of ways, including:

• Sleeping in our room/bed.
• Baby wearing. We’ll be holding or carrying Milo as much as possible. Lots of time will be spent in a sling.
• “Funneling” techniques. This is a big one. The basic idea is that we need to be the only source for Milo’s needs. Everything needs to be funneled through us. This means all feeding, changing, holding, comforting, bathing, dressing, etc. needs to be done by us. Don’t worry—this won’t last forever. It’s only during the initial attachment period, and often the younger the child the shorter this period needs to be. You will get to spend plenty of time with Milo, but he’ll need to be in our care. There won’t be the usual game of ‘pass the baby’ (you may not even get to hold Milo when we first come home) until that attachment is firmly established. And we don’t know how long that will take, so please be patient with us. Trust us, as soon as Milo’s ready we’ll be happy to let you change his diaper and comfort him when he’s crying. But until then we have to be the ones to meet his basic needs.
• Cocooning. When we first bring Milo home everything in his short life will have completely changed. One way to minimize that trauma is to minimize additional new experiences. A good way to do that is to bunker down at home and not introduce him to lots of new places. For the first few weeks or months at home we might not go anywhere or do anything. Limiting new experiences also means meeting new people. This will depend on Milo’s personality, but we may need to take it easy with visitors at first. You will get to meet Milo right away, but we may need to keep those visits short at first.
• Bonding with Lexi. Milo and Lexi will also need to bond to one another and we’ll undoubtedly face some jealousy and regression from Lexi as she gets used to losing her place as the only child. While it’d be tempting to let others take care of Lexi while we deal with Milo, that won’t always be helpful. We’ll probably have to do some of that to preserve our sanity, but we need to be sure that Lexi has her time with Mom and Dad and her new brother.

These are just a few of the ways that we’ll be working on bonding with Milo. We’ll need your help as we go through this, but unfortunately that help will likely mean doing things around the house as opposed to holding the cute baby.

Racial Issues
We’re now a multi-cultural and multi-racial family. There are a lot of issues that can come up here and we want to be open and honest about them. More than anything it’s important to keep an open mind about racial issues. We’re all learning here.

As an example, it’s important that Milo see people and families who physically look like him and his family in his books and toys. This is also important for Lexi. As a family (and really as people) we should be celebrating diversity. That means all races and cultures, not just black and white. For example, it’ll be kind of weird if Lexi always gets a white baby and Milo always gets a black baby. They’ll both need diverse toys. This is more our responsibility as parents, but we bring it up just as something to keep in mind. Diversity is the goal, and as Abby has always said about her classroom, it’s not diverse if everyone is black.

We also need to be clear that we will not tolerate racism. We will not put up with any prejudice or racist comment of any kind about any group of people. We hope that you will also not allow negative, hurtful, racist, or bigoted statements to go unchallenged. Our family will have a zero tolerance policy to these kinds of comments. That may mean confronting someone immediately or simply leaving a situation completely and dealing with the person later. This is non-negotiable. We understand this may be a difficult issue for some, and we’re more than willing to educate and promote understanding, but we will not tolerate continued racist comments or attitudes, whether they’re directed at Milo or not.

In relation to that, we will be working very hard to keep Ethiopian culture alive for Milo. We hope that you will respect and encourage that as well as this culture is now part of our family’s culture. We will not tolerate any negative statements about Ethiopia, her people, culture or food.

In Closing
If you have any questions please feel free to ask us. Part of being adoptive parents is helping to educate others in adoption and it’s a role we take very seriously. Ask the hard questions and we will do our best to give you an honest answer. If it is too personal we will simply say “that’s not something we are willing to share” and leave it at that. We want you to be familiar and comfortable with this whole process and talking about it before jetlag sets in is the best time.

Finally, thank you. You have all supported us through this long and tiring process and that means the world. We’re almost there and we know you’ll continue to support us and help us welcome Milo into our family.

Love,

Kevin & Abby

——-

If you are interested in any of our resources these books were a huge help to us during the process:

The Weaver’s Craft

There is No Me Without You

Attaching in Adoption

Adoption Parenting: Creating a Toolbox, Building Connections

I am Chocolate, You are Vanilla

A Few Fun Updates

• Lexi got bunkbeds this weekend. Which means bedtime and naptime is a big decision: Sleep on the top bunk or the bottom bunk? Decisions, Decisions.
• For her birthday, Lexi got a year pass to the Minnesota Children’s Museum (thanks Mimi and Papa). A pass lets our whole family in for free. Score.
• Our court date is 18 days away. Honestly, I’m trying not to count the days – someone else pointed it out to me today. I’m also not trying to get my hopes up because, as with everything in international adoption, it’s totally unpredictable and we may not pass court the first time.
• I was elected to the vestry at church.
• Lexi’s decided that potty training is now worth her time.