I'm a cry baby.

So I just watched the Blind Sid@ for the millionth time and always it makes me cry.  It touches me in so many ways.  For those of you who don't know, I'm a social worker.  I work with foster families and also adoptions.  This movie hit me the first time I saw it because of the way the system can fail its children.  The ones that they are supposed to protect and how sometimes it doesn't work that way.  But it also hits me with my son.  While I realize that Gizatu's story is so different than Michael's, there is that part of me that relates.  Will I be ready to take someone down in the middle of a football game for any disparaging remarks made about my son?  When he's in his first car accident and I race to him, will they question the fact that he is my son?  As I watch his momma leave him for college, I'm gonna be a basket case.  I know I'm getting way ahead of myself, he's not even close to beginning kindergarten, but these are all thoughts that run through my head. 

Everytime I see a young black man, I wonder who he's going to grow up to be.  Will he be tall, or average?  Will he want dread locks or braids?  When is the time that he is going to wish I understood all that it means to be a black man in this world?  Because as much as I wish to protect him from the prejudices and stereotypes that this world has, I won't be able to.  So I will, instead, prepare him for them to the best of my ability.  Make sure there are men and women in his life who do fully understand it and get it, because they live it everyday.

Okay so that was a much deeper post than originally planned.  To end on a happier note here are some pictures from our first Thom@s the Train event with our Ethiopian buddy. 

Dancing to the music.

His first tat!

Love these boys!

The first time I saw your face.

One year ago today was the first time I saw his face.  This boy who has so changed my life.  Its amazing to think about how it all came about.  This is the first picture I saw of him.  It was so small and hard to see.  Of course the tears in my eyes didn't help any either.  You can read all about that day here.

I then received this picture about 3 weeks later...

(I can't figure out how to get the picture to flip on blogger.)

 

 

 

 

I was so excited to get this picture.  I could actually make out his face and his features. 

He's an amazing little boy.  He's brought so much to my life.  Its changed in ways I could never imagined.  Love you little man.

Wordless Wednesday

I need your help choosing...

So in December, my friend Daphne who adopted Ben told me that her BFF wanted to take pictures of G and myself.  Of course the Thursday prior to the photo shoot I fell and busted my face all up, so it became a photo shoot of G with a little bit of Ben thrown in for good measure.  He did so good and with Daphne's help the following smiles were captured. There were about 30 pictures.   So now I want to get one of these pictures blown up and put on canvas.  I've narrowed it down to 8 photos. Of course I can't choose so I want your help.

6 months home!

Its so hard to believe that it has been six months home.  I'm more thankful than I can express that this precious boy is my son.  I was thinking the other day what life would be like without him.  At first I thought I can't even imagine, but honestly I can...

Sleeping late...oh how I miss you.
No toys on the floor...my feet would be happy.
No timeouts, no pouting, no tears...silence is golden.

But what I would be missing...
Mommy wake up, its time to wake up and kisses lots and lots of kisses first thing in the morning.
Mecinas (cars) everywhere and the joy in his face when he's playing.
The happiness that he brings.
I can imagine my life without him but I don't want to ever have to live it without him again.

On to the facts...
We still use some Amharic words...
Mecina...Cars
Shintet...Potty
Kaka...Poop
Behuala...Later
Nege...Tomorrow
Na...Come

I hope that we will continue to use these words the rest of our days...and I figure that means I need to continue to use them in our home.

6 months ago I couldn't imagine how much better things would be.  Those first weeks I cried every day.  It was just hard, to go from being this single lady with 2 cats and a dog, being my only responsiblity to having the little boy who was totally dependent on me.  This boy who we couldn't communicate through words, this boy whose life had been flip turned upside down.

He learned to show me what he needed, he'd grab your hand and guide you to what he wanted.  Now when I ask him what he wants, he says" I show you."

When we first came home I would ask him if he needed to shintet and then would help him go, now he heads for the potty all on his own.  Doesn't need me at all.  He has also started brushing his teeth "by himself".  (I do a little follow up on this).

We co-slept for the first 5 months of him being home, we started the transition into him sleeping by himself in early February and hopefully I'll be in my own bed by the end of March.  He's doing great.  Sleeps the entire night now without waking up.  The first week or so he would wake up, and I would get off the twin mattress on the floor next to his bed and comfort him and he'd go back to sleep, but that only lasted about a week before he was able to self-comfort and fall asleep on his own.

This past Friday night was the first time I let someone else put him to bed.  My mom and dad had the honor and he did great.  He slept the entire night, woke up about 5:45am (which is way earlier than he usually does), and looked out the window to make sure my car was in the driveway.  It was so sweet.  He then crawled into bed and went back to sleep for another hour or so.  I'm so glad that he's in my life. 

We've had some great times over these last 6 months...
visited the zoo with different friends.
played at the McW@ne Center.
been to 5 birthday partys.
flew on an airplane to visit a family we traveled to Ethiopia with to each bring home our sons.
played at the park, he loves the slide.

So that's the last 6 months in a nutshell.

These are pictures from our labor day weekend, our second weekend home. 

And these are from this past weekend. He's gotten so big.  But he's wearing the same wolfpack shirt in the pictures that he was wearing in the last picture.  

Swimming and a little song.

Last Sunday, our children's ministry from church hosted a warm up swim party at the local universities' in door pool.  This was Gizatu's first time in a pool.  He had a blast.  Of course he preferred his uncle Daniel, and at first I was like really, you want your uncle Daniel not your mother.  But then as pictures were being taken I decided that not being in them in my bathing suit was not such a bad thing. 

 

I did get to swim in the water with him now and then, and my nephew was also there who I swam with.  Although I will give you one tip...don't, do not, don't even think about going into the hot tub before going into the not so hot pool.  Its cold and not fun.  And then don't go back into the hot tub for 2 minutes to be dragged back into the not so hot pool for 2 minutes, to be dragged back into the hot tub to be dragged back into the not so hot pool.  Just not fun. 

But to end on a fun note how about a little song.  Can you guess what it is?

2010 in a nutshell

I know I'm way late, its already almost halfway through January and I'm just now writing a post.  I'll be honest by the time I get done with the day and G's in bed, I sit down to blog and end up reading everybody else's.  Which I love, the ones that make me laugh could possibly be my favorites, but I also like the ones that make me tear up.

But I know that at least a few of you guys like an update on G's and my life together, so here it goes.

2010 in a nutshell...
It was an amazing year.  I honestly thought that I would just now be returning home with Gizatu (of course I had no idea who he would be) when I started the process of adopting, and now we've been home for 4.5 months, almost 5.  It is crazy.

When I started the adoption journey I thought I would be bringing home a child between the age of 6 months and 12 months.  Then things changed and I opened up to an "older" child (children older than 2 in the adoption world are considered older) and received a referral for a 3.5 year old boy who was tiny on Good Friday.  And it was a good Friday.
Then came court in Ethiopia and we passed on the first try and in those court days before you had to travel that was highly unlikely.
Then the embassy delay, which in the end only cost us about 2 weeks I believe.
Then on August 19, I meet G for the first time.  And it was amazing...

And I also realized that my son was more like 2.5, not 3.5 almost 4. So more changes in my world.

I took custody of him on August 23.  Our family day.  I have really mixed feelings about family day.  Some of you may agree, some of you may not.  And that is fine.  That was the day that I became his and he became mine, but it was also the day that he truly lost his birth family.  Adoption is hard and it is full of loss, it is also full of hope and love and joy, but at the root of adoption is loss.  And it is sad.  (okay sorry for that small tangent... i will move on. )

We spent the next 3 days either in the hotel, at the embassy in Addis, or on an airplane.  They were rough days for me.  He did great.  I was a basket case.

We left Addis at 10pm on Thursday, August 26th and arrived home on Friday, August 27th to a crowd of lovely people at the airport.  It was an exhausting flight and I walked the plane more times than I can count, but I was sooooo glad to be home.  You will see the exhaustion in the following picture (normally I would never post a picture of me after only have about 5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours but here's the real me... :)

Those first weeks home were hard.  Harder than anything I've ever done in my life.  But slowly life with G became my normal and now I have a hard time remembering life before him (although I do miss my sleep, of course I could be in bed right now, but no its quiet and the TV is off and no one is climbing on top of me...ahhhhh)

I took two months off of work which was amazing.  I'm so thankful for the time we had together. He started daycare in November.  We transitioned the week before he started by just spending time at the daycare, getting to know his teachers and classmates.  It helped that his cousin also attends the same daycare.  He enjoys it there, and that helps put my heart at ease.

In November, my church family and biological family dedicated ourselves to G.  It was the sweetest thing ever (Anne I still need those pictures :)!

In December, he became officially mine again.  In order to apply for citizenship for G, I had to readopt him.  So mom came down and we headed to court.  5 minutes and it was done.

Tried to hide my band aids from when my face meet the concrete.  I did a pretty good job of it if I say so myself.

G also was in his first Christmas program.  Love my sheep!

So then Christmas, which I actually did a post about, so you can read that one if you want more Christmas fun.

It's been a crazy wild year.  But an absolutely amazing one.  Looking forward to 2011.