The Young Journeys

Random Tuesday morning

2011-06-07T10:00:00.001-07:00

Our playground

2011-04-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

A fantastic afternoon at the park with Dessi's best friend, Aidan, his little brother, Sam, and his little sister, Juniper, newly adopted from China.

Adai loves the slide! Basically she'll thrill to anything that gets the wind blowing through her hair.

Ethiopia Reads

2011-04-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

While in Addis we spent a morning with Alemseged, the in-country director for Ethiopia Reads.

Ethiopia Reads is great. They have a roaving library of books to reach far-flung locations (I think it's a cart pulled by a donkey) and they stock the libraries of local schools throughout Ethiopia. Without Ethiopia Reads, there would be school libraries, but no books. NONE!

We contacted him through email -- which is segedmh147@gmail.com (if you want to reach him send several emails with catchy subject lines because he will have to just happen to see it while scanning his junk mailbox) and offered to buy some Amharic books for a school. He called one of the local schools and got a wishlist from them, then we all went together to buy the books and drop them off.

We bought 35 books. The ones they picked out were a little more academic than I would have chosen myself, but I was glad we were able to do at least a little something (it worked out to about $75 plus cab fare) and that the books were printed and bought locally and written in Amharic. In retrospect, all these months later, I wish we had spent / bought more, but at the time I was going through so much every day just in hotel expenses. Now, the opportunity to do more is gone, but alas, it is what it is.

Here we are at the bookstand

Dessi helped package them all up for us

With the teachers at the school library

The local printing press

Less than two

2011-04-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

I came across this tonight while looking for something else. I just love it. Taken at a wedding at Lake Macdonald in Glacier Park.

It was the summer before Dessi turned two, and she was a handful. Challenging, obstinate, difficult overall, flush with humiliating tantrums and snottiness. More than once I drank wine while she had an afternoon nap. Our worst few months ever as a mamma-baby team. And then moments like this, full of wonder and intimacy and not another person in the world but us.

Snowboard Girl

2011-04-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

I do not tell her to make these faces. I just take out the camera and this is what she does.

Random moments

2011-04-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

Dessi found these goggles in the house and spent a solid two hours swimming around the living room. It's cuter on video, but it won't upload.

Here's Adai taking a break from banging her ketchup bottle against the cabinet.

And this is Dessi, drawing . . . ME!

Sisterhood

2011-04-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

The girls really love each other. Like, sooooo much. Dessi particularly loves to match her PJs to Adai's.

I had been having some trouble showering because every time I took even the fastest of hosedowns I would emerge with Adai crying. On this particular occasion, I heard laughing! Tons of giggles!! I smiled and poked my head out of the bedroom only to see Dessi standing at her new easel with a painbrush in hand, painting her sister. And I don't mean painting her portrait.

I feigned horror, Dessi took a time out, and then I sneaked over to Adai and took her picture.

Doesn't she look like she thinks she's in trouble?

Finger food

2011-03-22T20:09:00.001-07:00

Two quick pictures of our little wiglet eating herself some cheerios. I do love this stage, she'll spend 30 minutes happily gumming a few cheerios, and I can dress Dessi for school.

But anyway, the food's not the thing. I ask you -- how cute is this kid? Her face always looks like this -- big smile, kind eyes, such a sweetness. We love her completely.

Snow and sleds

2011-03-22T17:25:00.000-07:00

These are some random snowy moments from eric's trip home to montana. He's been gone three weeks now. We miss him.

These were some sunny fun days. Now the snow's dripping away day by day and that which remains is grey and molding. Alas, alack. IT's still spring, and it's nice to see it.

Allergy

2011-02-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to quickly write and say that Adai had diarrhea for the first six weeks she was with us. I suspect she has had it since birth. I guess most of the orphanage kids do, but hers did not resolve first with just good clean water and then with a round of metronidazole (flagyl). After six weeks, I on a whim switched to a soy formula and within a few days, it was gone. We went to an allergist last week, and voila. Positive for milk allergy. I also had an O&P and a giardia check done, but both those were negative.

I don't know if this is common with Ethiopioan kids, but if anyone else's new adoptee has a similar issue, it might be worth looking into. The allergist said that if I keep her completely away from any dairy for six months, the allergy might disappear; we plan to retest her in six months.

On a separate note, Eric is en route to DC as I write this. Thrilling! I didn't really believe it would happen until his plane left the ground, but now it has and he'll be two days in DC before coming to Whitefish for two weeks. I told dessi about it this morning, but she didn't seem to get it. Maybe she was just stunned.

iphone pics

2011-02-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

A few pics

2011-02-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

All is great in our little world, our little town, our happy life. Eric is probably coming home this week for a visit (!!!!!) and today is a bluebird sky and 20 degrees (warm, for a bluebird-sky day -- those tend to be cold).

Here are some pics that I scrounged up, stuff that the grandmas have taken and emailed me. I don't have my thing to download them from my own camera -- that was left behind in Cote d'Ivoire. Not that I've taken many pictures myself, anyway. I know I will regret that some day very soon. . . Adai already has changed so much!!

Safe and Sound

2011-01-13T17:45:00.000-08:00

We've had a bit of drama, really it's all okay, and I don't want to start with it and bury the lead, the lead being that Adai Marion Young is an amazing, 7-month-old light who smiles and squeals on demand; that Dessi is an ahMAZing big sister and never ever tires of kissing and hugging and making funny faces at her little sister and has yet to be even remotely jealous or unkind; that our family is full of love and happy and that we are safe.

The drama being that Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast, where we have been posted) had elections on Dec. 4. I waited until Dec. 8 before leaving for Ethiopia to wait for our US embassy appointment -- things seemed peaceful enough at home (no election clashes or problems) and so I got on the plane, leaving Dessi and Eric behind. That night, the current president (Gbagbo, with a sileng "G") decided to throw out thousands of votes and, despite pretty amazing international protests, declared himself the winner, swore himself in, closed down the airports and borders, and called it a night.

The next two weeks passed in a frenzy. I could not leave Adai in Addis, obviously, and I could not leave Dessi in Cote d'Ivoire, nor could I patiently wait for my US embassy appointment any longer. Suffice it to say I lost my voice after a week of talking people into things every single day, all day long. Ultimately, I got Adai's paperwork and photos, applied for her Ethiopian passport, ran the immigration hurdles, the US embassy moved our court date forward for us (please know, we didn't take any other familiy's place -- we were squeezed in because were a State Department family caught in a political crisis) and then . . . waited. Somewhere in there Cote d'Ivoire lifted its border closings and reopened the airport, but regardless, the government was in no hurry to do an American diplomat any favors (we were refusing to acknowledge the president, thus his government, and he controlled the embassies). So I was stuck. I couldn't get adai an Ivoirian visa, even to fly in and transit out 12 hours later with Dessi (to fly back to the US). It took me a week more of fussing and talking before I realized what we were up against.

Ultimately, Adai and I flew to Ghana, Eric and Dessi flew to Ghana, we had 7 hours together, then I flew to the US with the girls and Eric flew back to Abidjan. Although all US families and non-essential staff have been evacuated from Cote d'Ivoire, there are 15 US diplomats left; Eric can't leave Abidjan (the capital) until things get either a lot better or a lot worse. And at the moment, neither seems likely. (A good source for more information is BBC Africa or this story, http://news.myjoyonline.com/features/201101/59140.asp, if you're interested.)

So the girls and I are in our sweet little two-bedroom house in Whitefish, Montana, wearing a collective $800 worth of winter gear between us. (It's friggin FREEZING!) It's a little small, and I'm ridiculously busy (thinking of changing our blog's name to bottleproppingmama.com, ha ha, but we are laughing a lot, sleeping a little bit less (Adai was up every two hours on a 24-hour cycle for the first 20 days. She's doing a lot better now) and staying warm. I'm perpetually stunned that I've kept it all together (my hair stopped falling out a few days ago, wahoo!) and Dessi is in love with the snow (everything about the snow. The fluffiness, the coldness, the gear). She adores her new Montessori school, and I just glad to be home in this community of amazing friends and love and support and aunties and yoga and sushi and fantastic hiking and running every day.

I see so many families still waiting for embassy appointments, or dealing with setbacks, and my heart breaks for them. When I feel overwhelmed or barely above water, I think of them. When I think of being separated from Eric and how he is missing these sweet, sweet days, I also know that this is an inconvenience for our family, but it is a complete disaster for the beautiful, kind people of Cote d'Ivoire. Plus, in our separation, I try to remember that this is what military families go through all the time. Hi honey, welcome home, here's your new baby.

Plus, he does still have the cat. (They both sleep at the US Embassy nowadays.)

That's our story. I just reread it, it's really crap. It says nothing about the amazingness of what we're all feeling right now. But I'm tired (it's 7:30 pm, betime) (no joke) and it's a start.

I don't have a single picture available of the three of us in our new digs, but here's a pic taken from my iphone the day I took Adai from the Thomas Center. (By the way, her name is pronounced like I couldn't wait a day longer. It's an Ethiopian name, it's a species of Ethioipan daisy, but it's traditionally spelled Adey.)

Daytrip from Addis

2010-11-30T06:07:00.000-08:00

The Saturday before we left Ethiopia we visited a pretty little church called Debra Lebanos (the Lebanese Church). It's about a 2-hour drive along nice roads that cross all sorts of hillsides and villages and eventually end either at a good Ethiopian-German restaurant on a stunning arroyo with cliffside dining (an eagle actually swooped down and grabbed another patron's chicken thigh from his hand, it was incredible thing to see) or the church. There's also a Portugese-built bridge you can get to by following a trail from the German-Ethiopian restaurant. From the church you can hike to a hermit's cave in the nearby mountains.

Here we are waiting for our driver to pick us up for the day! Coffee.com, we love you. A 2-minute walk from our guesthouse to pretty much the best macchiatos we've ever tasted. All for 14 birr (90 cents.) Are you going to Ethiopia soon? If so, bring a to-go cup!

The church itself was not a highlight for us. It's 100 birr to enter, not a deal-breaker per se, but then they also had a sign that menstruating women were not allowed. I can't stand that kind of stuff. I told Eric in English that I didn't want to pay because I didn't want to support such misogynism, and then the priest immediately told me in English that if we didn't pay we couldn't hike in the surrounding grounds, either. So ha! And Ha!

Here is the church; you may notice we found a way to climb a mountain, anyway :)

We walked down the road a little and followed a little cobblestone trail we found, and we took that off into the hills. (If you're approaching the church, it's about 300 yards before the church entrance on the right.)

Beautiful views ...

And an hour later we hiked back down. The trail was definitely too tricky for Dessi.

But she could walk on the main road alright, there was no traffic almost at all, and the weather was absolutely perfect.

Mompetition

2010-11-25T22:40:00.000-08:00

I thought this was hilarious.

http://mompetition.blogspot.com/2010/11/before-i-was-mom.html

She has some other ones about the things we mamas say to each other, which I thought was funny but then I started thinking it was kinda sad. Are we moms hard on each other? I guess we are. I know we're hard on ourselves. I'm lucky, for the past 15 years I have had ahMAZing friends (and now mamas) to share the world with; I've not experienced the cattiness that people so often associate with female friendships. I think it might depend on each person's tolerance for drama. Me, I can pick a drama mama out from 200 feet. I make wide circles around such people.

One of the finest books -- a total gift in the world -- I've ever read on motherhood is Karen Maezen Miller's book Mama Zen. It returns motherhood to service, meditation and open heartedness in a completely non-judgemental way. It stays on my bedstand, and I pick it back up any time I need a reminder that other people know, exactly, what I'm talkin about.

Best Guesthouse in Addis (IMHO)

2010-11-22T13:34:00.001-08:00

On this past trip to Ethiopia, Dessi and I moved three times before we finally found the best guesthouse in all of Addis. (In fact, we didn't keep moving because we were searching for the best. We were simply looking for acceptable. But we found the best one, I am pretty sure.)

The guesthouse is called BJoe's, it is located downtown across from Makoush (the italian restaurant with the fun art gallery in front), down the street from the Edna Mall and a 2-minute walk from coffee.com (all these places are on Bole Road). So, the location is great but they're 500 feet down a dirt road so it's very quiet.

Nannies are available, and there are at any given time 2-4 exceptionally cool women in the house. It is run by Genet, who returned to Ethiopia last year after working in the US as an accountant for the past 20 years. She is awesome. A great resource, a kind spirit, and just the type of person who after one week you feel like you want to know her for the rest of your life.

Residents each receive a cellphone to use, and there is reliable internet.

The guesthouse has room for three families. I think there might be room for two more (they were building two new rooms while I was there) by early December, though. All the rooms are $85 per family. There are two one-bedroom rooms, and there are two two-bedroom adjoining rooms. Whether you want the single room or the two adjoining rooms, the price is the same -- $85 (total). You pay in USD when you check out.

The house is spread out on just one level and a downstairs, we were downstairs, it was a little bit cold but fine. It has wood / parquet floors and that makes it quiet, unlike the guesthouses that are highrises with tiled floors.

Laundry is free and breakfast is free. A tip for the whole staff of $50 to $100 per week is appropriate (according to the gladney literature -- this is traditionally a gladney house, but people from other agencies are welcome). You would want to tip anyway because those women rock -- anything I ever asked them about, they basically started climbing over each other to see how they could help me. They loved Dessi, but they really loved ALL the kids that were there.

Her email is gtafesse@gmail.com. Their phone in Ethiopia is 011 251 11 55 19 250.

I don't get kickbacks, btw! I just thought I would share.

Passing Court

2010-11-21T04:26:00.000-08:00

Peace has come. The paper from MOWA has arrived. The judge has signed. The child is ours.

Here is Baby Adai, the newest little light of our lives.

Thank you for sharing this journey with us.

Return from Ethiopia

2010-11-17T04:38:00.001-08:00

We have met our baby and she is so beautiful, so amazingly perfect in every way, good natured (she was even smiling a bit) and seemed to be in good spirits and health and an absolute bright light. She can hold her head up well, roll over, she eats well and is just a calm little bug, always watching us, looking around, and then laughing a few times when we were really over the top ridiculous. She cried once for a few seconds when she was hungry, but seriously, mostly she was just checking it all out.

Dessi immediately took to the role of amazing big sister, when we all huddled together and tearily told her that this was her little sister, she very sweetly and softly kissed the baby's head and then just stared and stared at her. Then she started the examinations. She removed socks to compare feet and toes, checked out her mouth and hair, stroked her tiny head . . . she seemed to just get it. The orphanage, the adoption, the sister thing.

Everything went very well in Ethiopian court. We broght dessi along so we all met the judge, and we were approved as the parents for the baby. Technically, however, we did not pass court. The letter from MOWA was not there. It should be sorted out next week.

The thing was, I had not planned to return home after Ethiopian court. I had planned on doing One Long Stay and keeping the baby with me at the guesthouse until our US Embassy appointment six or seven weeks from now. But, because we didn't pass court and because would have extended my stay to an unknown degree (I mean, they say next week, but it could be the week after, let's be honest), I decided to return home with Eric and Dessi.

So, here I am. All along, returning home for a few weeks has seemed the right thing to do. So obvious and reasonable. But now I"m home, head reeling, heart busted open, empty crib waiting . . . let's just say, it's hard. Today is hard. If we pass our next court date (tomorrow), I'll return to Addis on Nov. 28 for One Long Stay -- Take TWO.

I have a lot more to say, about Dessi's and my adventures around Addis and the amazing guesthouse we stayed at, about Ethiopia Reads and friends we've made, hikes and massages and some places we ate. But for now I'm going to unpack and do some yoga and not think about Ethiopia for a little while.

Funny Face(s)

2010-11-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

I thought I should make a record of the sweet nuttiness that is our life.

Rainy days

2010-11-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

School is closed this week, so it's just been me and Dessi and I have to tell you, it is a lot of work but I have missed these times of just hanging out with endless hours stretched before us.

This is her taking a picture of her favorite puzzle with her favorite camera. I personally do not like this puzzle, it is not very cleverly designed, I don't think, but she is really into it at the moment.

And this is rain. When it's not raining, it's about to. When it's neither raining nor about to rain, it's 100 degrees. So, take your pick. I think it's pretty obvious what Dessi would choose.

Halloween in africa

2010-11-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

We spent the morning making peanut butter cookies that I cleverly sprinkled with some allegedly all natural food sprinklings (orange) that I bought in Dakar. Very Martha Stewart of me, except that it turned out to have been salt colored with tumeric, so those cookies went right in the garbage, and then I had orange stain all over my clothes and hands for the rest of the day. Oh and my lips, too. Very gouhlish.

Then we visited with a bunch of europeans who, I will tell you, they had it going on. Somehow one woman had found TWO pumpkins (yes, they were brownish with yellow streaks, but c'mon), we carved those, had candy, did fingerpainting, and drank orange juice-laced vodka (all things orange were okay, at least for the adults).

But before all that, Dessi was a butterfly. At 3pm, she had wings, antennea and gossamer pink fabric floating from her arms. By 4pm, she looked like this. By 5pm, she just had two unraveling antennea, and by 630 she was pretty much naked. I don't argue with these things. I'm just the camera man.

paint it up

2010-10-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

Here's what we did today. Why not? The idea of painting on a bathroom wall seemed to break her imagination wide open although, I admit, I might very well live to regret this moment if the concept is extrapolated very much. But for today, it was so fun!

Sleepy

2010-10-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

I think this is the sign both of a well-lived life and bad parenting. Big day of school, no nap, lots of swimming and and playing with the visiting Henrik equals face down in the salad by 7.

The next day, we focused more on resting:

Court Date!

2010-10-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

I couldn't have hit the refresh key on my email account for a single day more!!! This news comes just in time to save my sanity.

Referral: July 24
First Court date: Nov. 11
Second Court date: Dec. 13

We will almost undoubtedly choose to travel for the first court date.

So happy, relieved and hopeful! It is suddenly so soon now.

Court Date Speculations & Crocodile Legs

2010-10-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

We received more pictures last night!!! Of course we can't post them yet, but I can say that she's too young to discern much about her personality, except that she is perfect in every way. She looks kinda despondent -- in two pictures she's looking down and away in a manner so similar to some of Dessi's old pictures so that it breaks your heart a little. To us, who have admittedly spent what might almost be an unhealthy amount of time staring at the previous pics, we see positive change, though!! She looks fuller and more alert and I think it's very clear now from her eyes that she is destined for great things in this world.

Seriously.

I honestly cannot believe how beautiful she is. I think she looks so similar to Dessi when Dessi was that age (although Eric completely disagrees with me), and ... but ... she's her own little being. I'm not doing any compare and contrast, and I hope I never, ever will. But I see glimpses of Dessi in her, and that makes me feel closer to her. For now, it's all I have. If I think about it too much, I physically ache.

Still no word on a court / travel date for Ethiopia, but we're hoping to hear ANY day now (seriously!) (even Patty says so. Any day now.) Strangely, I also dread it --i'm afraid it will be too sad and far away. In a nutshell, we're hoping for end of November, we're happy with end of December, and we are pretty darned bummed if it's in 2011. (but trust me, I also have 400 nuances of happy/un built into that, and a flow chart of possible mitigating/complicating factors. I have been VERY busy with all of this. Very.) But honestly, despite my grumblings, worry and flow charts, I know this is going to be all okay. Soon it will come, and until then she is in a very good place, and we know that.

I have heard of a few other families who have court dates assigned for Nov. 12 and Dec. 3, and I"m betting (but just guessing) that the nov. 12 date is for a first court appointment and the dec. 3 date is for a second (not every agency allows parents to choose to travel for the first court date). So, with all this additional speculation entered into the flow chart, my best guess is for November 24. That's my guess. Maybe sooner?! But not to get our hopes up either way. (Yeah, right.)

In the meantime, our little bug has eaten .3 kilos worth of food in the past week. What a relief! It had been our biggest worry. (For Eric, it had been his only one. How does he do it?!) She hadn't gained but .2 kilos in the last month total. Her weight, 5 kilograms, works out to a little more than 10 pounds. For a 3-month baby that's pretty scrawny, but as long as she's gaining, we're cool with it. She's still below the 5th percentile for height, weight and head circumference, but it's not scary anymore like it was (for us, anyway. The THomas Center made no mention of it). The kid just needs a dada and a mama and, of course, a big sister.

Dessi simply rocks. She adores school. Every morning, she's so excited to go. Eric and I think the teacher is pretty weird, actually, but dessi likes her so I guess really who cares what we think. She is really really into her letters now, she learned the A and B and now has started seeing them all over town and it's added a new level of utility to the whole thing that she finds thrilling. She can write her A, B, D and P (They started as bad B's, so we made it into a teachable moment ;) She is so SO excited for her sister now, sometimes she whines and complains about it -- she will throw up her arms in exasperation and say, Where is my LITTLE SISTER?! I fear we've talked it up too much or something -- I mean, it's going to translate into considerably less attention for her, at least sometimes, and it's not like her sister's going to play legos with her. But whenever she looks at the pictures her eyes get wide and dramatic and she says, 'mama, isn't she sooo cute?!"

It continues to rain here, a LOT, and we've all started on meflofquine. Whatever. I couldn't think about it anymore -- should we, shouldn't we -- so we did. Voila. We plan on taking it just until the dry season begins. Whenever that is.

:)

OK, I"m off to bed. Eric's out now with our dear friend Henrik, who is visiting from Senegal this week. Henrik wanted to go see a reggae band and somehow Eric rallied and they left the house in a 10 pm blaze! (Not really. They were both so tired, I could tell, despite the cappucinos. But they went and did it, and that's what counts.)

I feel like I just mindlessly babbled my way through this post. Maybe I will write a more organized one soon, with some stories about the fun people we've met here so far, and the sawed-off crocodile leg someone tried to sell me by the side of the road (I had pulled over to buy pineapples) and the awesome house right on the beach that we rent ...

Or maybe to report on a COURT DATE!!!!

So okay, more later.

Birthday #1

2010-09-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

Dessi is going to turn 3 on October 13, but we decided to celebrate her birthday in August.

We have a pretty darned joyous kid to start with, but I have to say, I have never seen her so happy as she was at that party. It was one of the best days of my life as well; any happy day of Dessi's is a happy day of mine. The best part was that wasn't about the gifts (no gifts, please) or really even about her so much -- it was about celebrating! Friends! And playing tag and hide-and-seek and, for the adults, eating and drinking wine and laughing our tails off at all the amazing, sweet children in our lives.

And of course, what party would be complete without turning over the mesob and then popping out of it like a lady from a cake? (We adults looked up from our wine glasses and the kids were all doing this. Hilarious!)

There was also soooo much food and some cheesecakes

The last little boy in the picture is her best friend, Aidan. Everyone at the party was like, WHO is that sweet little boy?!?! He and Dessi completely adore each other. They dance together at our weekly farmers' market, they are playmates at school (many a time I would arrive to pick Dessi up from Montessori and she and Aidan would have their heads together in a corner somewhere or, my favorite, once they were in a distant field, he pulling her in a red wagon). Aidan brought Dessi a butterfly balloon for her birthday and he was just bursting at the seams to give it to her (she was napping for the first half hour). He is an amazingly open-hearted little boy. At one point during the party I was sitting with his parents and he was running with the other kids around the yard ... as he ran by us he shouted, "I"M HAVING FUN, MOM!!" Kids just slay me. His brother, Sam, is just as darling.

We are surrounded by aunties and good parents and sweet friends. It is a joy beyond words to have people like this with whom to celebrate.

Update from Addis

2010-09-20T03:57:00.000-07:00

More pictures arrived last week -- the newest littlest one seems to be doing alright. She is absolutely precious. I have been trying not to look at photos or think too much about it -- just play it cool and bide my time until court opens (8 days!) and we can at least be moving toward a court date. Right now, we're not moving toward anything -- just floating, floating, waiting, waiting. Patience, patience.

She is 11 weeks and not quite 10 pounds. Teeny tiny! And yet the child has the head of a melon! She could grow to be six feet tall and her head would be fine just as it is. But as of now she is ... ten pounds. Can you imagine? I can't. I pick up things around the house that are ten pounds and I try to see what it is like to hold such a weight, such a small thing. It is like air. With such a fragile, tiny thing in tow I will no doubt return to creating worst-case scenarios for every room, vehicle or situation we encounter for the next several years. This will simply be my job, and I will not judge it this time around. (Oh, how things will be different this time! I will be calmer and more prepared! Less overwhelmed and worried! More present! Yes! Yes! Yes!)

As excited and impatient as we are to bring her home, I am also strangely calm and ... content. Our lives are gorgeous, and I'm finally getting enough sleep so that I can see it. We're balanced and easy and hitting our stride. Beyond any reasons I could list, our little family seems to be completely ... I don't know. Happy. Quietly happy, ebulliently happy. Happy sleepers, eaters, play dough designers, gardeners, bicycle riders, vehicle passengers. We even come out of time outs pretty happy.

We are very, very far from Square One. The poop, the laundry, the messes, the tied-down-to-a-schedule, I don't mind those things so much. The loss of sleep is what I fear. I really do. I'm a much better person with a solid niner each night, and I am no fool; I know I am not going to have one again for a really, really long time.

Nonetheless. I cannot wait for all ten pounds to be hoisted on my back forever. I can't wait to feel her weight on my chest as I sing her to sleep, I can't wait for the passing of hours and days and days again, and my being intertwined with another being too perfect and tiny for so many words. Of just gazing -- because for so long there will be no words -- and of knowing and conveying, This is how we are now. Forever. We are ready for her!!

Last night I tried to rock Dessi to sleep and have her rest her head on my chest the way she used to. She wanted nothing to do with it. Just Bounce me, mama and Sing me songs and Let's clap and wiggle! And then a swift hug and a kiss and off to bed. I see her moving away from us in this heartbreakingly beautiful way -- our bright, sweet, delicate light. She is strong and perfect and confident and I love it, but I miss her, too. I miss her needing me the way she used to.

Which is all a surprise to me. All that needing was sometimes a bit overwhelming, to tell the truth, and I kinda thought we were adopting again not to fill our needs but to give the universe back some of this love overflow -- because we are fat and happy and blessed. I can see now, though, that a second child won't soak up the leftover love; she will create more. Just seeing her pictures and thinking about her, I realize she already has. I think it will break my heart wide open forever.

Court dates far into the future

2010-08-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

I read today that someone whose referral was submitted to the courts the first week of August has just been assigned a court date ... for Nov. 28. Courts are closed in Ethiopia, but I guess maybe they are still doing administrative work?

I am heartbroken that we're that far far far away. I had my heart set on end of October. Don't ask me where I got that from. I made it up. Still, it sounded good to me -- reasonable, and yet not ridiculously painful. But Nov. 28 (and it's not lost on me that that's not even OUR court date; it's someone else's) is ... it's ... well. It's three months away from TODAY -- not a long time away if you're waiting for a new car, or a vacation to Disneyland, or to get a cast off your leg. But for a baby that's already yours in everything but the technicalities, it seems just completely undoable. As in, I'll never make it. As in, I feel it in my stomach that I have to find a way to make this something other than the way it is.

Indulging, I know I am, in the bummerness. (Count your blessings! Chin up! Grow up!) Don't wanna. Not tonight.

Mountain harvests

2010-08-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

An heirloom zucchini from our garden. I swear I looked just two days ago and there were nothing but wilted yellow flowers.

The baby the baby the baby the baby

2010-08-13T21:41:00.000-07:00

I wrote in my last post how ... oh, something about how I "can't let myself go there" (to the love love LOVE phase) with this newest little one quite yet, how the next few months would be just unbearable if I did. How I'm really not that type of person, anyway. Etc.

Nonetheless. Somewhere around last week, I fell off the end of the earth for that little being, and I am still in freefall. What happened, mostly, is that we received three new pictures, and something about those pictures, her eyes, the sad bags under her eyes, reminded me of Dessi's first pictures, her scared little 2-month-old face, and somehow that little girl became so real to me, and so OURS to me. And so now I'm in this impossible position of scheming of ways to get this child home sooner (there are none) or speculating on court dates (we have none) or how our family can relocate to Addis between Ethiopian court and Embassy appointments (which is a loooonng shot, but at least it's not based on total and complete fantasy, so I spend a lot of time with it).

So, so strange. How can a heart just open like this? How can I be so in LOVE with just a few pixels' worth of a baby?

Dessi, at any rate, remains mostly unmoved by the concept. We thought she'd be THRILLED! A baby sister! (She'll be so great at this!) Yet the first time I brought it up, so excited to finally be speaking about it with her, I asked, "Would you like to have a baby sister?" I didn't really think she'd understand the concept or know what it would mean, but in fact her response was: No. I just want it to be you and me and daddy.

Being slow learners we asked and were turned down a few more times until Eric suggested that I stop asking. That was last month (before the referral, actually). We instead started talking about it obliquely -- reading books on big sisters and baby sisters and how cool it is to have a sister without mentioning (or asking) any specifics. She started warming up to it, and we started talking about it as a fact, like, "You are going to be such a great big sister!" and "Your baby sister is going to poo in her pants, but you can show her how to use the potty!" Etc.

This morning, she referenced "when I'm a big sister," and so I told her. The whole story. (!) A baby sister! I showed her the referral pictures and I said, "We are going to go to Ethiopia and adopt this baby." And my sweetest most amazing child said, very quietly so as to not dash my big plans, "But I think she might need to stay with her mama."

We printed a picture for her to keep. She was so happy. She talked all morning about it. She went to school this morning and told all the kids and the teachers that SHE was going to have a baby sister!!

Then she peed her pants twice in three hours.

These are, admittedly, confusing times for all of us.

At long last

2010-07-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

CHI called Monday afternoon and told us to expect an email. THE email. Which led, of course, to my pressing the refresh key about once a minute for the next seven hours (!!) until finally, at 10:30 pm, voila.

Our sweet little pumpkin arrived. We looked at those pictures and were completely stunned. She is perfect and beautiful and ... wrinkled ... and seven pounds ... because ... she's three weeks old. I have never heard of such a thing before, such a young baby. Three weeks! I want to be so happy, and I AM so happy, but at the same time my heart can't help but break for this poor child, three weeks old and no mama. At three weeks, all you KNOW is your mama. But, we are so happy, and Eric in particular is fully head over heels in love already (I just can't let myself go there so early in the game or I'll be out of my mind within a month).

She is already at the Thomas Center, getting the same amazing care and love that Dessi received so many moons ago. So we do feel peaceful, knowing she's there, picturing the crib she sleeps in and the women who feed and snuggle her, the dimly lit quiet of the nursery and the caring administration of Abdissa. So, that's nice. But also, to hell with that! We just want to leap up from our chairs and go get her NOW!

Courts are, however, about to close (aug. 6 is what they're predicting) and I don't know what that means for us in terms of court appointments and travel dates. I've always felt so sorry for parents who get referrals before the court dates. Like, how could they possibly live through that long of a wait with absolutely nothing happening?!?! Sigh. :)

So, it's 11:54 pm over here and I'm going to try to sleep (I didn't go down 'till 3 am last night).

Namaste, peace and love from Whitefish. I'll post as soon as I hear more news!

Next on the list!!!

2010-07-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

Holy crap!

So, once a month (on the 7th), I ask where we are on wait. We've moved one a month for the past nine months. Inquiring has mostly been for kicks.

Suddenly today, Jessica said we're first. As in next. As in, the next child will come to us.

This is such a confused and beautiful time, of gratitude and tenderness and of hooking into the sacredness of this process. My heart is just bursting open trying to send love and support to our little one and her caregiver as our roads wind their ways to each other.

Namaste.

Crunchy or creamy?

2010-04-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across the PB&J Campaign. It's rooted in the idea that we don't need to be vegetarians to save the world. What we "pay" for our meat is unfathomable. In fact, every time I read the statistics (half the water used in the US goes to raising animals for food; it takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat, while growing one pound of wheat takes 25 gallons; animals in factory farms in America produce 20 tons of fecal matter each year for every US household), I think, What? Those numbers can't be right.

So the PB&J campaign is just saying, can we all just cut back a little? Here are some factoids from their website (I love the part about the low-water showerhead. I truly do hate those things):

Each time you have a plant-based lunch like a PB&J, you'll reduce your carbon footprint by the equivalent of 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions versus an average animal-based lunch like a hamburger, a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets. For dinner you save 2.8 pounds and for breakfast 2.0 pounds of emissions.

Those 2.5 pounds of emissions at lunch are about forty percent of the greenhouse gas emissions you'd save driving around for the day in a hybrid instead of a standard sedan.

If you have a PB&J instead of a red-meat lunch like a ham sandwich or a hamburger, you shrink your carbon footprint by almost 3.5 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.

You'll conserve water at lunch too! How about 133 gallons of water conserved at lunch versus the average American lunch? To put this in perspective, five PB&Js or other plant-based lunches per month would save more water than switching to a low-flow showerhead. If you're replacing hamburgers, it should take you just three lunches to conserve more water than the low-flow showerhead.

Don't forget the land you save from deforestation, over-grazing, and pesticide and fertilizer pollution: about 24 square feet at lunch.

Here's the link to their website:

http://www.pbjcampaign.org/how

The Waiting List

2010-04-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

We are seventh on the list. We were eighth last week. Which sounds good. Like movement. But we were also eighth in January. We have been waiting since October 5.

It's slow. We'd love to think it's because all the orphans in the world are otherwise occupied. We are pretty sure that more people are adopting from Ethiopia, and yet the courts can only process a certain number of children each day.

Although we are patient (there's so many other chores), we are never far from this particular distraction. Of wondering everything there is to wonder about The Little One, as we have taken to calling her.

We are so ready. We're excited to talk to Dessi about it, but we won't until it's much closer. Like, passed-court closer. She has three wooden butterflies, all different colors, that we bought at a craft fair here last year. We hung them on her bedroom wall, and she immediately chose one as the daddy, one as the mama, and one as Dessi. Six months ago I started searching for the butterfly artist again, to buy a fourth. I think it's a graphic that a 28-month brain could wrap itself around. A fourth butterfly. The Littlest One. We have that now. It's yellow, just like Dessi's, but the markings are different.

So you see, we're ready.

You Lie! Maybe! I can't tell, actually!

2010-04-19T02:56:00.000-07:00

A Senegalese man knocked on my friend's door this morning. He was crying a lot. He said that his son had just died of meningitis and he needed 75,000 cfa ($160) to bring him back to his village to be buried. Could she help him? She had never seen him before.

"He really did look upset," she said. "He really was just crying and crying. I gave him 10,000 cfa and hoped that he was lying."

On the one hand, the high-road hand, you give some money and hope, I guess, that you're being had. That there's no dead son, just a good actor, making his rounds through a rich neighborhood, to whom you gave the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you don't start thinking about how that sure seems like a lot of money to ship a body home. Or that, even if it is a reasonable amount, and even if it's a true story, it's not the best use of your money (you could feed 30 streetboys for three days with 10,000 cfa).

Dakar, Senegal, is a scammer zone. Now that my aura of newness has worn away, I don't see them anymore. But when I first arrived, despite what I thought was a foolproof, traveled-the-world-and-have-seen-it-all visage, I was swindled in 15 minutes by a man, Amadee, to whom I gave 30,000 cfa ($70), basically because he asked me to. And then within seconds he disappeared into a crowded street while I "waited" for him on said street. I spent about five minutes reviewing whether the French words I had learned thus far (My name is Linda. I live in Virage. I am fine, thank you) could in any way be combined ask anyone for help. And who would they be? And what would they possibly do for me? Then I went home.

What's so sad to me, even still, is that I had thought Amadee and I were going to be friends. He was a musician, he spoke English, and he seemed cool although, looking back, he definitely did a few odd things. I looked for Amadee on the street for months (he is graying and missing one front tooth) before finally forgiving him and more or less laughing it off. But it did not feel very Buddha-like. It did not feel like generosity. It was humiliating. The idea that one might consistently give people the benefit of the doubt here, well, it's not a reasoable approach. Which leaves you somewhat coldly assessing the story of a man bawling on your porch.

In the past few years I have taken to never lying for my own convenience. (I will sometimes, if pressed, still under-guess a person's age.) But if I have an appointment scheduled and I can't find a way to cancel it with integrity, I make myself go. I remember one hike I was reeeaaallly dreading, I went on about it for two days, I could say this, I could say that, but all my excuses were either misleading or just not true. (The truth was, I didn't like this person and didn't want to spend 90 minutes with her.) Then the morning of the hike, she sent me an email which said, "Not gonna make it for today. I'm sorry." Voila! No lie, no explanation. A lesson learned.

Lies are never harmless. If nothing else they erode the public trust. When you live in a place where scammers abound, that truth becomes very obvious very quickly. Although it does provide the unexpected comfort of leaving us to hope that some sad stories aren't true.

Update April 19th: General consensus seems to be, it was a highly unlikely scenario and almost definitely a scam.

Family Day

2010-04-15T04:30:00.001-07:00

Two years ago today, Eric and I stood outside the Addis Hilton at 10 am and waited as the rattling old car pulled around the curve. Abdissa was driving, and his wife was in the backseat holding Dessi, with another child (Johannes) on the seat beside her.

She got out and handed Dessi to me. Eric took a picture. I mumbled something. We stared at our baby. OUR BABY. She was so beautiful and small and quietly unblinking. We were awkward and emotional and really, I think, kinda stunned. That this scheme actually worked. That they were going to give us this beautiful child.

Dessi then proceeded to not move (although once she kicked her foot) or smile or even cry (unless it was suppertime) for the next two days. She just watched us. (We have six hours of the most boring adoption footage ever.) Then on the third day, Dessi napped and we, as always, sat and watched. She awoke, looked up at these people who were still just looking down at her, and she smiled. Finally.

And from then on we have been on the superhighway of kicking each other and saying, Good gracious, is this amazing light really our friggin kid? Because she is just. too. much. Anything anyone could ever hope to be or aspire to, she already is.

She is 2 1/2 today. We have been a family for two years today. We can't really express how happy we are, and I know parents can be soooo boring when going on about how amazing their kids are, but it's family day, so please excuse the indulgence. Here are some random delights of the past few weeks (beach pics are scenes from last month's trip to Casamance):

Dessi says 'No poopoo here, No peepee here,' mostly after I insist that she just sit on the potty and TRY.

Her favored expressions lately are 'Pas ça,' and, alternatively, 'Pour moi.' (Not that / For me.) She also likes to look at us all mooney-eyed and say, "Daddy, I love ... and you think she is going to say 'you' and instead she says .. POOPOO! I love PEEPEE!"

She calls me honey. Sometimes hon.

Before bed we name the people we love. She says, "I love you grandma. I love you Tata Erin. I love you Daddy." Each person gets their own "I love you." It can take a while. It's worth it.

At night before we eat, Eric and I say something that we're grateful for. We're not allowed to say our family (too easy). We assumed she had not really understood the exercise. A few weeks ago we asked her what she was grateful for. She reached her hand to me and said, very sincerely, "I'm grateful for mama." Then Eric. Touching his hand. "I'm grateful for daddy."

She says thank you not only for a toy or an orange, but also after a great outing to the beach or the playground. And sometimes, just walking down the stairs together. Her tiny hand squeezing my hand. "Thank you, mama."

She loves drama. Mama, make a sad face. Daddy, make a happy face! And then there's the face of Grumpy Bird.

Last week I snapped at her. Half an hour later we sat down and I said, "Dessi, I'm sorry. I should not have yelled at you. I wanted to get your attention, I want you to come when I call you, not to run away. But I should not have yelled at you, and I'm sorry. Do you understand? Mama shouldn't have yelled at you. I am sorry. I am not going to yell at you anymore."

She looked at me for ten seconds, then hugged me and patted my back and said, "I love you mama."

About six months ago, I did the same thing (snapped, then apologized). She did the same thing, too. She wasn't even two years old then.

She hides. She goes behind the curtains in her room (which, for the record, are transparent) and says, "Where'd Dessi go?" A few weeks ago she did it at a hotel in Casamance. Here is a picture:

She sings herself to sleep at night. Sometimes for an hour. She wakes up singing in the morning. Sometimes, if I come in too immediately, she'll ask me to go back out. I think she likes to have some time for herself. (Although, God only knows why she doesn't want any during the day! Because boy howdy she does not.)

A few nights a week, we put on hip hop and dance in the living room. She has all the moves. Sometimes she will get on her back and spin around like the brakedances used to do. (You know. In the '80s.) She loves dinosaurs and looks for them everywhere around town. When we walk up to the lighthouse on the weekends she will point to each mashed-in cow patty and exclaim, "Dinosaur poopoo!"

I used to call her my plum blossom, which she couldn't say so she calls herself Plumplum. Mama, you hug your plumplum? Mama, Dessi is your plumplum.

She is a light beyond all lights to us, with an almost heartbreaking tenderness and vulnerability and compassionate joy for life. Her beauty shakes me awake every day. We are pretty lucky people. These days are good.

Easter 2010

2010-04-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

So, these eggs are ... where?

Easter was a mama fail, li'l bit. All the little children had these sweet little baskets that their mothers had decorated for them. Dessi had a red beach bucket that I found rolling around in the car as we pulled up, late, for the hunt. Which we ended up missing. (They started exactly on time! Who does that?!) We had to have our own private hunt with eggs I borrowed from another mom. Nice.

Luckily, she is incredibly adaptable.

We told her they were dinosaur eggs (she's so into dinosaurs right now. I don't know where that came from. We've been reading Where the Wild Things Are, and I think maybe she thinks the monsters are dinosaurs.She's always gasping excitedly and pointing in the air or in the grass and shouting, "Dinosaur!" Then she tells me all about it, the yellow eyes, if it's big or small or blue. So I bought some 3" dinosaurs and hid them around the house. We were sitting in her room reading and I looked up, gasped, pointed to the doorway and said, "Look! A dinosaur!" She was duly freaked out. It was not cool.)

Here she is, showing off her bounty.

After the hunt we went next door and swam with Erin and Terri, great friends who were married last week in Paris. Dessi LOVES this woman. Just can't get enough of her.

My finger's stuck

2010-04-12T04:02:00.000-07:00

This is how the child entertains herself so that her parents can read the newspaper for a little while at night. Do you hear this crazy language she is speaking in the second video? She sounds like she belongs at the Star Wars bar. The book on her head, I have to say, she got from me. Because the women here carry stuff on their heads all day long and so they look absolutely gorgeous just walking down the street, all things in alignment, proud and muscle-y and beautiful. Which leads me to ... I have been trying to walk with a book on my head. I do it about as well as our Dessi girl.

I've been thinking about these videos, waiting for them to load. ANd I've been thinking about how these little 30-second snippets worthwhile enough (in my mind, anyway) to be videotaped are actually just common things -- random moments on a random Sunday evening. And the actual abundance of these moments that we read the paper through or cook dinner around or, just, whatever, it's almost heartbreaking when one considers how rapidly a week, and then a year, and then a lifetime, can just pass by. There are so many of them now, and before I know it she will be off to college.

Which is to say, we leave Senegal on April 30th after a 2 1/2 year post. We are off to DC for two weeks, then Montana for two months, then Cote d'Ivoire in the fall for the next chapter in this wacky little book of ours.

Baby Thieves

2010-03-09T02:24:00.001-08:00

Really? I am stunned.

I occasionally tune into Ethiopian blogs that occasionally (or constantly) fret about the possibility that Ethiopia's adoption process is corrupt, that people are harvesting children (which is when adoption agency employees go to remote villages and say, "Who wants to give their baby a better life in America?! Line up here!" Etc. (It's wrong and illegal to do it.)

I just have always thought that no system is always perfect (not that I would ever excuse such tactics or anything underhanded or sneaky, but that things go wrong because they always go wrong, and then you fix them as soon as possible and as completely as necessary and you continue on) and ... just, there are SO many orphans in the world. Nobody needs to trick birthparents into giving them away.

But, and yet, people have. Maybe not in Ethiopia, but in Vietnam, in Cambodia, in Guatemala. And apparently, at least one organization (damn Christian World Adoption!) is, at the very least, doing some things that have twice (that I know of) led journalists to believe they're lying and stealing and behaving badly. In Ethiopia.

Really?

We are waiting to adopt our second Ethiopian child. We are, like, eighth on the waiting list.

So. We received a notice today from our agency detailing the US Embassy's newest policies regarding orphan declaration. It looks like it will slow things down for us, but I'm for that. Slow it down, do extra research on the child's history, and make sure it's all perfect. Eric and I are in this process to help, not to grab for a child that has a place with someone else -- our dream would be that there is no orphan for us. And until then, we and our baby will wait a little longer to be together, and it will be for the best. But the DOS letter's first line is: The Department of State shares families’ concerns about recent media reports alleging direct recruitment of children from birth parents by adoption service providers or their employees. (This is the aforementioned child harvesting.)

I wanted to find out what recent media reports these were. I knew of one of them, about CWA, and whether the reporting (from a film crew in Australia) was rooted in fact or not I could not tell, but there were so many things that were factually wrong and it was sensationalized enough that I thought the whole piece was basically not credible. The DOS letter isn't clear if reports that led to the new State Department policy concern practices in Ethiopia -- my guess is that they're about Haiti. But anyway, a little bit of research brought me to other blogs where waiting parents are in a panic -- apparently this is how it started in Vietnam and in Cambodia months before those countries were shut down.

This is not how we want this to go -- and not for the sake of me being eighth on the waiting list, either. I worked for several months across three years in an orphanage in Cambodia in the years after the adoption ban was in place. There are children collecting in orphanages with no hope of forever families or of any kind of future in Cambodia. There are toddlers by themselves on the streets of Phnom Penh, begging for food. In Cambodia, I know the issue that pushed it over the edge involved agency employees who were giving money to birthmothers. Of course, that's just wrong wrong wrong, but being in Cambodia, I can see how it could happen innocently enough -- imagine a single mother with four kids, she has a baby and gives it up for adoption. She's struggling to feed the kids she has left. I think anyone might think, well, if I help her now, maybe she won't need to give up any more of her children.

Of course you can't. You can't help. But I think it's pretty possible that the Cambodian situation was borne of something like this (this is what I was told, anyway, by people who ran the orphanage where I volunteered, who knew the American who went to jail. Yes, went to jail.) In fact when we go back to Ethiopia Eric and I intend to find Dessi's birth mother and to connect with her and to let her meet Dessi if she would want to. We have toyed with and dismissed, though, the idea of sending her to school or trying to help her. Which is so right and just so wrong, too. How am I going to explain to my soon-to-be-12-year-old daughter (this being Dessi; I'm planning ahead) that we never did anything to help her birth mother? I don't know. It's hard to explain to myself, really.

I just can't believe the situation in Ethiopia is so corrupt or so far gone that it would come to a ban. But ... And ... I'm torn between knowing that the vast majority (like, 99 percent? I really believe it's something like that) of those children really do need homes and knowing that our agency (Children's House International) and their people in Ethiopia (the Thomas Center and the loving and amazing Abdissa, whom I just KNOW is a straight shooter) ... I'm torn between feeling safe in the path we are on and feeling ... just yucky. And just not sure what's going on. And wishing someone else but my mother-in-law read this blog anymore so that someone would leave a comment and say what they know or what they think about it all.

...

...

For the past five minutes I've been sitting quietly, thinking. The bottom line is that anything unethical immediately needs to be corrected, but the fact that something has gone wrong somewhere doesn't mean the whole system (or even a double-digit percent of the system) is rotten. Ethiopia absolutely needs a way to place children with adoptive families. It's easy to be reactive about this, but Eric and I have done our homework and we absolutely trust our agency and their representatives. As lame / not-enough-ish as it sounds, we have done what we can to ensure our involvement does not contribute to anything but the good. We absolutely know that there are abandoned children who need homes. I would never voluntarily get off of this path of international adoption.

A needle pulling thread

2010-02-05T13:46:00.000-08:00

Here's our gal. I can get her to do this all day if I agree to show her the footage after each song. Sorry my voice is a little loud on this one.

MOSI

2010-02-03T03:21:00.000-08:00

Here we are during a December visit to Tampa' Museum of Science and Industry.

Running off without us ... she never used to be so bold!

Joely after his victory (he and his mom assembled this)

This was a really cool exhibit -- you stand in the dark, then the light flashes and it leaves your shadow printed on the wall behind you! Very fun.

With her cousins after a nice meal at Panetta's.

And this is Dessi on the merry-go-round after an afternoon of Christmas shopping. She's never liked these very much before, but this time she looovveed it. She was so full of joy, really. A beautiful two minutes.

Long Week

2010-02-01T02:46:00.000-08:00

We've had a string of little dramas in the Young household this week. One particularly crap standout began when Dessi and I were walking through the garden and came upon our cat sitting contentedly beside a pile of feathers. Former bird. Bad, bad cat. Then I saw a teeny baby bird, dead but uneaten, next to the cat.

It took me 15 minutes to find the nest, tucked in the farthest reaches of the bouganvilla's wiry boughs. It was so careful and secure, lined with down from the mama and twine and irridescent feathers from what might have been a peacock. There were two sweet, precious nestlings still warm and tucked away in there. Something about it -- the perfection of it, the care she took, the optimism of it. The idea of her being killed on her way to find or bring food ... it just broke my heart completely open. I cried for days. I am crying still, four days later, writing this.

(Here we are on a happier day):

I sat on the porch and watched for two hours, just to make sure that the feather pile had indeed been their mama. No other bird came, and it was getting cold, so we scooped out the nest and fed the babies ourselves. They ate less and less as the night wore on. By the next day they seemed pretty doomed. Too stressed, I guess, by me and my unbirdlike handling of things.

I put the box outside with a warm heating pad in it, and they both had hopped out and skuttled away within a few hours. Maybe they're alive even now, but I highly doubt it.

In the grand scheme of things, I guess it is no big deal. Some birds are dead, a home is wrecked, and a cat is fed. The cycle of life, the impermanence of all things, blah blah blah. I cause more harm and live with less integrity than my little cat, I am sure. (However, the cat is getting significantly fewer cuddles these days.)

My point being, this is just the way things are and I need to find a way to cry less instead of more as the years go by. I'm 40 years old, fergodsakes. But it's heartbreaking. The whole lot of it. The whole lot of us.

OK, maybe this is about more than the little birds. As a mama myself, and about to be mother to another, and the circumstances of what happens in the universe before these children find their ways to us ... it's not all lost on me.

On the other hand, it was really, really sad. Just for what it was. Just as things are.

I'm heartbroken.

Dancin Fool

2010-01-28T08:44:00.000-08:00

After dinner, we play Legos, shape Play-Dough, dress and undress the doll, sip imaginary tea and read the same 12 books. Every night. (This is why people watch TV. We get it now.) Last week we discovered ... electronica radio. We stream it through Itunes. Love it. The moves are being perfected. Our most favorite is the Gunslinger, wherein Dessi alternates this fabulous pointing / shooting in sync with the music.

There might be a short glimpse of that in this video, but not much. Not as much as any rational human would want and need.

Dessi has also taken to exclaiming, Mamma / Daddy, I love you. SHe says it alllll the time. It's so awesome. She has a thing for dinosaurs (she's into Where the Wild THings Are right now, and I think she thinks those are dinosaurs), a thing for kicking beach balls, and a total thing for going peepee in the potty. SHe just thinks it is a hoot.

Dessi singing

2010-01-17T04:25:00.000-08:00

This isn't the best clip, but it's a minor sample of what comes through the monitor every night, for 15 to 45 minutes, before our little Cricket drifts off.

Resolved

2010-01-15T06:59:00.000-08:00

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
-Anais Nin

If we are thinking of releasing, accepting, forgiving, opening, experimenting, leaping, trying, or loving in a new way this new year. . . there is no better day than today to begin!

Might I also recommend

http://www.myyogaonline.com/

It is a fabulous website with really great meditation, yoga and pilates videos with such a variety of information and teachers, it streams GREAT (no constant buffering) and it's really fun to see what new thing you can discover or try out.

It costs $10 a month BUT I have a code for a free two-week trial. Cut and paste this into your browser and you are there (you don't have to provide a credit card or anything like that. It's really free.)

…https://myyogaonline.com/joinnow.html&code=FYFT247

Happy New Year!

Potty Training in Three Days

2010-01-12T02:29:00.000-08:00

I tried to potty train Dessi at 7 months old using EC (Elimination Communication). After one month of mediocre success it shifted to staunch, back-arched refusal and we just let the whole idea go. Yet I wanted to start again asap because diapers suck.

(Does the above video play? I just downloaded it with my FLIP recorder, but it wasn't so simple.)

But was it really time? She's 26 months. We've had a potty at the ready for the last month, but most times when I offered it she would firmly say, "No. Diaper." Which I thought was pretty funny. She was interested in other people's involvement with it, to be sure. In fact, we were in the stall of a busy airport bathroom recently when she loudly cheered, "YAY!!! Mommy went poo poo in the potty!!!" (In fact, I had merely peed, but, whatever. Good stuff.)

Then we discovered a program called Potty Training in Three Days. The idea being, you just friggin do it. Clothes are removed, salty foods are ingested, therefore copious amounts of water are consumed, and the pee flows. Which means lots of practice opportunities. By the end of the weekend, the child has used the toilet so often that it's practically second nature.

I really didn't see this coming, but ... it worked. (!) The first two days we had about 12 hits and just two misses -- one on my lap while reading (bumMER -- on the rocking chair, too!), and another while watching Elmo; he is her special treat, and I guess she just couldn't pull herself away. But now ... three days, no accidents!

We stayed in all weekend, except for daily one-hour walks up to the lighthouse, during which she wore her big girl panties; we brought our potty along for each outing, and yes, she asked for it every 5 minutes, but it was okay, we had the time.

She still wears diapers at night, and I don't see us getting away from that for another year, truthfully, considering our (my) sleep requirements. But who cares?! There are no more diapers just piling up in our trash. It's almost pretty in there now.

The program doesn't recommend giving tangible rewards but instead proposes a wildly enthusiastic potty dance with every pee or poo. We (I) did that. Really, really enthusiastic -- shame, there's no video. But what really sold her on the potty was getting to choose a fabulous new sticker after each victory. (Thank you, Grandma Alison! Those beautiful stickers are all over the house now!!!!) Every time she looks at her wall, she's reminded of how fun it is to pee.

Yesterday she used the potty during a playdate at a friend's house. I wasn't there, so she had to ask someone else to help her. She did! I think that is the ultimate test and I feel pretty confident now that she will continue on this track. However, for school, at least this week, I've put a diaper on. There are 11 kids and two teachers, and it seems too early to start there; I don't want her to have accidents and then feel sad or start clamoring again for her diapers. (Not that there's anything wrong with accidents. I expected way more of them. Just, to be as gentle with her as possible through this process so that it remains fun. A blast, really!)

Merry Ethiopian Christmas!

2010-01-09T07:07:00.001-08:00

Today is Ethiopian Christmas!!

Wikepedia says the Ethiopian calendar is based on the Alexandrian calendar, which derived from the Egyptian calendar. So the dates are all different, and also there's a seven- to eight-year gap between it and the Gregorian calendar (which we use) because of a difference in calculating the time of the Anunciation (when the angel told Mary she would deliver Jesus), since that's more or less the moment that got the current era underway.

Anyway, Merry Christmas 2002!!!

Here's a picture of Dessi at her French school's Christmas recital.

They had been practicing their songs and making decorations for several weeks, but ... it's a good thing we took the picture when we did; she seemed really uncomfortable and was on stage for less than two minutes before seeing us and crying to . I think she was kinda freaked out by the commotion and the throngs of parents up close, photographing and staring at them all.

After the concert, a very skinny Papa Noel rode up on a donkey cart, bearing gifts

This is Dessi at my parents' house for Christmas Eve

Here with her fabulous Uncle Kevvie (my fabulous brother)

and here during a Christmas Party at the business my family owns

Merry Christmas!!!

People Ask the Darndest Things

2010-01-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

Many Senegalese will unabashedly ask us about Dessi's parentage. If it's just either Eric or me with Dessi, they'll ask, "Is she yours? Is she Senegalese?" And then a slew of inane follow-up questions. If it's all three of us together, I will be asked, "Is she yours?" (I nod.) Well, but who is the father? (I point to Eric.) Yes, but, who is the FATHER? She is black, you are white. Who is the father? Etc.

It sorta goes on and on. They don't notice my discomfort or take the hint about minding their own B-I Business (which, I don't even know what that means, really). Nothing short of a complete explanation will make them leave, although I haven't yet tried, 'It really doesn't concern you.' (I don't know French well enough to be snotty with it.)

It is odd to compare this situation -- where everyone assumes at least one of us is the bio parent -- to the response in Whitefish, Mont., where people see me with a black baby but never consider that I could be married to a black man. So that the first question they ask, when they do ask, is, Where is she from? Or, less appreciated, Where did you get her?

Last week in a Whole Foods (WHOLE FOODS!) in Tampa, Florida, a woman in the bathroom said, 'She has such an unusual face, do you mind if I ask, What is she?' (I looked confused. Stunned, I am sure. I looked away. I looked for the door.) She continued, 'I mean, What is she? Is she mixed?' (I nodded. I have had a mind to start telling people in America, when they ask where I got her from, to say she is my biological child, just to make them feel the same way that they sound. But since that's hardly taking the high road, I haven't done it yet.) Anyway, the woman said, Because I'm mixed and so I was just wondering if she is mixed or ... what is she?'

I said, "She's my daughter." And I picked her up and left while the woman sort of looked stunned and said, "OK. Uh, OK," and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, 'Look, it's no big deal to talk about this.'

One week later, and the question still seems crass to me. I know she must have just worded it wrong, but it suggests Dessi is defined by her biology. It's sad to me that sometimes people seem to note first that Dessi's black versus that she's friggin the sweetest cutest funniest smartest child ever. I guess that wherever we live, and no matter how old Dessi gets, these questions aren't going to stop.

I thought living in Africa would help us bypass all this -- that we'd be less conspicuous. There are tons of blended families and faces from all over the world here. But really, we are only somewhat less conspicuous, and there are far more nosy people here, so it all evens out to Difficulty For Me.

Which brings me to, It's not supposed to be ABOUT me. But here come the I's.

I get mad and I am helpless and I feel inept that someone's putting my child in this position yet again. I am protective and defensive and I feel superior and egoriddled. And I am mad. To be fair, I just want to protect Dessi. But if inside I'm bristling, if I cannot release my aversion to this apparently unavoidable situation, then I'm not protecting Dessi at all, and she will ultimately be the one who takes the hit. She already knows that the questions are about her; my tenseness and terse replies will intimate that she, or at least our varying skin tones, are a distress to me.

That being what it is, I am seeking ways to shut it down while celebrating diversity. Next on the list is to point into the distance while exclaiming, "Hey look, an owl!" Then walking away when they turn their heads.

OK, not really. I don't know the French word for owl.

But should I be making this into something FUN for Dessi and me? If the goal is to protect Dessi, then it's notable that, at least for the moment, she doesn't really seem bothered by it at all. What if she never is? Then all my fretting and contracting will have been for nothing. What if we just right away said, "Yes, she is adopted from Ethiopia. Isn't she a peach?" And then let it go. It is not lost on me that the way Eric and I feel about these random invasions probably will dictate the way Dessi feels about them.

My current approach of avoidance also involves looking somewhat unapproachable when I suspect we're being noticed (I perfected this look during my high school years.) And that's just wrong. That's not where I want to be. My meditation teacher (Tara Brach) spoke once about how tiring it is to avoid someone at a party. You can look like you're having a great time, socializing and laughing, but you're not really free because you've always got one eye on that person and are maneuvering around the room to avoid the 20' circle of space around him or her. Tara used it as a metaphor for the things we repress in our consciousness or the things we don't want to talk about, but ultimately the outcome is the same: We're not free.

Maybe... I mean, probably, I have a right to feel annoyed. (I'm right and they're wrong! Say it with me!) But it's worth asking: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy? And after all, I have said plenty of things in my life. Maybe even some ignorant things. Maybe even some hurtful things. (Don't tell anyone.)

Maybe I don't have to spend 10 minutes with anyone who asks, but if I could shift to compassion and release my feelings of, to be honest, what might amount to some condesention on my part, and if I could deliver a sentence that is kind and that cuts it short ... well, it would be a mighty good day for me.

I will work on this.

Animal Tested?

2010-01-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a list of beauty products that are tested on animals:

http://search.caringconsumer.com.

I did happen to note that Curly Q's products are cruelty free. So, yay on that!

How big can a family be?

2009-12-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

On the one hand, I'm pretty blissed out nowadays. I've been practicing mindfulness, trying to be present to the beauty that surrounds us, the kindness and joy of our daughter, and the love of our families and friends and even of the people with whom I walk down the street. Just, so much love coming to you, it breaks your heart open sometimes. Which makes it that you have more love to give.

And then here we are, waiting for even MORE love to come to our family. It's been about two months now. Waiting, for a child still unknown to us, but probably she is somewhere in Ethiopia, maybe struggling or suffering or maybe doing okay -- maybe in an orphanage already, or with a relative, or maybe still with her mamma. This time in the adoption process is charged and strange to me: to see that nothing, really, differentiates this unknown child, who deserves the world, whom we will love unquestionably, unfathomably -- nothing really distinguishes her, at this moment, from any other child in the world. She could be ANYone. And so I realize my responsibilities to the children of the world are greater than I had previously allowed. And that is heavy and hard, especially in these heart-broken-open sort of days, when so much love is coming to you.

The fact is, if I went to Ethiopia today, I might walk right by my child on the street. If she were begging, I might offer her a banana or a boiled egg. I might not realize that she is the child I am to love as my own. And if the next day, walking down the street, they said, "This is your child!" and they chose her from the throng of children, what if I asked, 'Well, why not the one next to her?' And if they said, "Sure! That one, then!" I mean ... doesn't there seem to be just something false about the entire construct of it? That we will love one and not the other?

For me, the question is raised: How do I draw the line? Should I draw the line? I could be the mother of any of them. Or, if time shifted just a little bit, 20 or 30 or 40 years, I could be mother to any of the men and women I pass by on the street each day. Where does my responsibility end? To my child, to the things I take responsibility for. What is the difference between "my" child and any of the children of the world?

The randomness and arbitrariness of it and maybe even the falseness of it -- that I love and care for this child but not that one -- breaks my heart. Because the immensity of the responsibility and of the potential for love and for, dare I say, the peace of the world is all in this one seed of realization: That the divisions between us are all but imagined. And that we must love and care for each other. But, like, seriously do it. Maybe we can't undertake parenting all the people of the world, but surely we can at least act like we're all friends.

Is what I'm thinking.

Kreativ Blog Award

2009-12-13T06:43:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago my friend Zoe (chasingsaints.wordpress.com) was kind enough to name me as one of her seven favorite bloggers. Which is great! I'm glowing!

There are rules, of course.

1. Thank the person who awarded it to me (thank you thank you thank you Zoe!) and link the person’s blog on mine.
2. Identify seven things about myself.
3. Award seven bloggers with the “Kreativ Blogger Award,” post links to their blogs, and leave a comment on each of their blogs, to let them know of the honor. To quote Zoe, "I"m not sure what a Kreativ blogger is… and why can’t it just be spelled right? Or is that just me not being very “Kreative,” thereby proving I don’t deserve this award?" Ha ha ha. I do like that Zoe.

But I can't choose favorites! I will just say that I follow all the blogs to the lower right of my screen, with the addition of oneworldnotthree.blogspot.com. I love them ALL. Really. And I will just say that even though samsamuelsammy.blogspot.com almost never blogs, when she does it is wonderful. And that Quest for Bearable Lightness of Being (lazyhighhock.blogspot.com/) forges into the darkest saddest parts of our collective heart and then bravely documents it all. And that itsasmallspot.blogspot.com/ had not written for five months but now she has again just yesterday AND she is promising to write again soon (which she has said before but maybe this time she means it? Ah hem?) and she her writing is so worth watching for.

The regulations stipulate that I now write seven things about myself, but in fact, I'm not going to. Too boring. A Kreativ way of following the rules, no? Ha!

Bored of Spain posts?

2009-12-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

Me, too! This is the last one.

This is Montassir de Montserrat, a sad place whose former glory has been sold out to shopping centers, eateries and tour buses. We walked along some of the paths leading to the hermitages up above. Perhaps we should have just taken the furnicular??!

We didn't take it. It just seemed too unnatural.

And then this. Is this funny?

Here we are in Madrid outside the CaixaForum, where every exhibit was closed except for one on Palladio; he's the architect who invented Palladian windows. Which, I don't even like those.

However they did have this -- the whole exterior wall is thick with plants. I want one.

Here we were just walking downtown on our last day looking to buy Spanish ham for a friend in Dakar and we came across ... a parade! With horses! It looks pretty chaotic behind us in this pic, but it was a fairly organized mile-long parade of horses prancing by. I just love Dessi's face in this one.

Walking along a wall in the Prado. I could have stayed here all day, several days...

... but Dessi was not into it and making a lot of noise. She was in fact sort of on the cusp of bad behavior this whole day.

And here we are, eating lunch outside the Guggenheim (I think). Aren't these two just stupid cute? They sure do love each other.

And that is all. No more Spain!!

All in a Day's Work

2009-12-10T07:48:00.000-08:00

I would like to just point out that all of these pictures were taken within 75 seconds of each other. AND that nothing really happened, good or bad, one way or another. Something in her world just shifted for her. We've been having a bit of that lately.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-12-08T06:50:00.000-08:00

We went to The Gambia, walked, played frisbee and collected shells along the endless beaches, swam in the pool, walked along the curbs (this is her new favorite thing -- to try to balance as she makes her way along these 4" blocks of concrete), and counted our blessings. This being the main one:

Doesn't she look kinda like Kim Jong-il? Li'l bit. Right? Li'l bit.

We swam a lot, and in the pool we played a game where Dessi stands on my hands and I lift her up out of the water, kind of balancing her on my palms. I don't know why it was so funny to her, but you would not believe the laughing. On and on, over and over.

There's a zen koan that asks, How many more times in your life will you watch the full moon rise? The parenthood equivalent: How much longer will your child be small enough to bathe in a sink? Either way, we must not waste a moment.

Can't help but to sing

2009-12-07T07:39:00.001-08:00

Here we are on a VERY grumpy day this past summer. I just love this video, though, because it shows how she can't NOT sing. Even when she reallyreallyreallyreallydoesn'twanttomamma. The whole day was like this, though -- just her whining and me pulling us along. Barely. I think you can hear me sigh loudly at the end of this.

Great hair videos!

2009-11-30T05:17:00.001-08:00

This is a link to some very informative and helpful videos on haircare. Someone from the CHI listserv posted them, and they are just what I've been looking for.

http://www.shuruba.com/basics.htm

More from us later!

Spain, the middle section

2009-11-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

Bilbao, at the Guggenheim museum

Which is a better picture?

On the rooftop, with Bilbao in the background

and here with some rooftop art

Here's a Gaudi building. I THINK this was in Bilbao -- it might be Milan.

Also in Bilbao, we celebrated Dessi's Second Birthday!! Having rather bizarre priorities, we did not take any photos of the actual party except for this fairly unfabulous one.

Really, the day itself was really fun but the party was unimpressive -- we were hungry, my feet hurt, and Dessi's birthday dress had gotten poo on it. So we kicked her new ball around, played with her new choking hazards, and called it a night. Onward!

On another day, here we are, "hiking" on the Camino de Santiago. (Hiking with the Bob. It's a very established trail system.) It was my idea. Yes, yes, my idea for us to drive hours out of our way (it looked like such a short distance on the map!) on a slow and winding road only to hike for approximately 35 minutes on a windy and freezing day!!! After which, we drove back the way we came. Pilgrims, we are not.

But it was a sweet little village.

Some Big News

2009-11-19T06:20:00.000-08:00

I think there comes a point. You are so happy, and so you have so much love to give, and then more love comes to you, and so you are so happy BECAUSE you have so much love to give. Etc.

Not that it's all been like that. Beds of roses and garlands of gratitude. Etc. But, almost. Too much, sometimes. Heart-broken-open-and-still-not-big-enough-to-contain-all-this-joy sort of days, of an amazing family and blessings all over the place.

We are adopting another child.

We don't know her face yet. We are waiting. We are ready.

I will write more soon. Details. Etc.

Still on Spain ...

2009-11-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

Off to a new campground -- this is about Day 4 (don't worry, I take fewer photos as the trip wears on ...)

Taking a break from our drive

Dessi found this feather

Bundled up in PJs at our next campsite,

Where we wore away the evening climbing up and down this stump

and looking for tiny purple mountain irises. ("Dessi! Let's go find purple!" She was soooo excited.)

The view from outside our camper van

And the view from inside . . . the temperature dropped quickly!

The True Cross, etc.

2009-11-05T05:13:00.000-08:00

So, this was our outfit for three weeks in Spain.

It was a pretty tight ship, but not that much of a stretch for a family that up until 18 months ago lived in a 550-square-foot one-bedroom in Montana. I would say that campervaning rocked 30% of the time, it was okay 30% of the time, and the remainder was a challenge. We thought we'd be light on our feet, but this van was big, so parking was difficult in almost any city or town we wanted to visit. But we had fun! Oh, don't get me wrong! We laughed (we had a contest of who was funnier, Eric or me. It turns out, we are not terribly funny people) and ate and laughed and packed and unpacked and slept like leaden logs.

We ate these things every morning.

I don't know what they are. Spanish cookie wafers. They were so fun, and kept Dessi busy while we washed the dishes.

Here is Santo Toribio de Liébana, the Franciscan monastery near Potes in Cantabria, which houses what is possibly the largest surviving piece of the True Cross -- the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. The piece at Liebana is said to have a hole where a nail went through, and some blood. We journeyed all the way there but somehow we -- wait for it -- we weren't able to find the actual relic. We were within 400 feet of it, I am sure. We were on the site. We found the church and monastery

and the hermitages

(you had to walk to them -- here we are en route to one)

and then just a lot of other tourists

But no cross fragment. (We know it was there. Other people seemed definitely to look satisfied and like they'd seen something. Sigh. It's hard not speaking Spanish.)

We did see in one room a large gold cross that is thought to have been an ornament for the top of the cross. The room was dark, though, and they had the cross locked behind some iron gates so we were at least 25 feet away.

It does seem unlikely that all the pieces of wood scattered around the world that are said to be from Jesus' cross are all legit. I had an idea on this trip to do DNA testing on all of them and see if even any two of them matched. But, you see, this is probably why we weren't able to find the relic. This kind of attitude.

Picos de Europa

2009-11-01T06:58:00.000-08:00

Here's our first and finest camping adventure -- Picos de Europa. As we pulled up to this beautiful place, Eric said, "Welcome to car camping in Europe." Truly a beautiful site, and since we were there off season (early October), it was quiet and lovely.

We planned to take a telefereke trip to the top of Mount X (I can't remember -- Fuente Dey?) but the wait was almost 2 hours. So we took a little walk around while we waited.

Dessi liked this hiking backpack for about 20 minutes. Eric liked it for about 10. After which, she rode on my back in the Beco carrier. Here they are in happier moments:

The view (and this is the view from the BOTTOM, mind you):

Team Young:

By the time it was our turn to ride to the top, the rain was light but persistent, the mountains were fully socked in, and Dessi was due for a nap. But, being Slow Learners, we went up anyway.

She fell asleep on the ride back down.

Spanish Adventures -- first few days

2009-10-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

Is anyone even with me on this blog anymore? I think even The Grandmas have lost interest. I couldn't blame you -- what a blogging slackerhead I've been. But as it turns out, we're going to print this blog up and turn it into our photoalbum for the Dakar Years, so, on I go.

Here are some photos from out fabulous three-week campervaning adventures in Spain. (We just returned to Dakar a few days ago.)

The road ahead:

Eric and Dessi rockin' the campervan:

She was a pretty good sport all around. We tried to not drive for more than 2-4 hours on any given day (which, as it turns out, doesn't really get you very far), and we always began our drive at 1 pm -- nap time. Overall, very little fussing.

One of the things we loved about Spain was that, basically anywhere you pulled over or any town you drove through, there was some fabulous thing to see or do. Here's our first day, making our way north to Picos de Europa, stopping for lunch and, voila! Random Town Footbridge, Random Town Beautiful Stream and Skipping Stones.

Beautiful husband, beautiful kid.

And this face. I just cannot get enough of this face.

Dessi's new bike!

2009-09-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

new footage

2009-09-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

hanging out

2009-08-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

Dessi on her reading chair, in her reading room, waiting for me to stop all my foolishness and read her a story! To our chagrin, she is just kooky for Elmo's Duckie Day. I have read it at least 90 times so far. We also have listened to "Elmo's Song" about as much -- la la lala, la la lala, Elmo's song ... (have you had the pleasure?)

Whatever. Who can argue with this face?

Choteau, Montana

2009-08-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

Eric's mom, Alison, treated the family to a fabulous weekend retreat at a Nature Conservancy ranch in eastern Montana. It rained, it was cold, it was stupidly beautiful, and the wine was free.

Dessi LOVES her Grandma Alison. Can you see it?

And here's Eric, telling Dessi to keep her voice down so she doesn't scare the bears away.

We also had a good time at the backyard creek, where Eric and I had many stone-skipping competitions (ultimately, it was a tie)

along with many, many group hugs. Dessi loves those.

We also took lots of hikes and one night walk to the top of a cliff in hopes of a grizzly bear sighting down below. Someone did spot a far-away buck elk through their binoculars, but no grizzlies (or I would have lead with that!)

Here's a photo of grandma with Dessi and our fabulous new neice, Neva, and nephew Aksel (whom Dessi calls 'Akel' and whom she's still asking about).

Glacier National Park

2009-08-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

Eric's family visited us in Whitefish last week. We drove to Logan Pass at the top of Glacier National Park. I never make the drive myself (it's about 2 hours from our house to the top), but it's really so beautiful. For example:

Here we are on the Highline Trail

And here we are at our lunchspot, off the trail a bit by a pretty little creek:

To our delight, Dessi loves to hike. She would walk for miles if we had the time, and we try to make time and to foster a love of the mountains as much as possible. On this particular day, the trail got kind of exposed after half a mile -- too narrow for a toddler. So the others walked on while Dessi and I stayed behind and hiked back and forth along the trail, taking our time but also she can be pretty task-oriented at times. For example:

There were also two mountain goats and a goatlet on the trail with us.

Here she is taking a well-deserved break:

Good stuff.

Movements

2009-06-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Dessi, Francie (the cat) and I are leaving Dakar tonight for three months. The flight is at 10:40 -- Paris, Salt Lake, then Whitefish, Montana! My carry-on is stuffed with puzzle cubes, bracelets, sparkly crayons and snack food, all in separate bags for little surprises. I figure this will kill 2.25 hours, all told. Leaving us with ... a 12-hour finger-puppet show. I remember the first time I flew with Dessi -- I brought not one book but two ... for myself! I now laugh out loud at such delusions.

The hardest part will be leaving Eric; he won't be joining us for five weeks! Dessi is so happy when we're all three together; her favorite thing to to point and say, "Mama, Daddy! Mama, Daddy! Daddy, Mama!" Like she just wants to make SURE we appreciate just how fabulous it all is. So, we're bringing lots of daddy pictures and trying to get our Skype video monitor function to work so they can see each other every night. I think it will be okay, at least for her -- it's me who will suffer the most!

The hardest, hardest part will be leaving our great friends Emilia and Vasso. Vasso will have moved to Tel Aviv when I get back in September, and Emilia will probably have moved as well. This is the difficulty of expat life. Everyone moves every two to four years. The good part is that you have friends all over the world, and the fabulous part is the gift of connecting so intensely with such incredible people, even for such a short time.

But now on this last afternoon here, with my bags packed and waiting at the door, and after goodbye lunches and dinners and a late-night party of drinking absinthe and throwing each other into the pool ... I am acutely aware of all we're leaving behind.

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

Here we are on Sunday afternoon in Marrakesh's main square. A nice Spanish couple took the picture for us. There was a snake charmer 20 feet to our right, his cobra coiled and listless beside him. (I've read that they sew their mouths shut, although now that I think about it, how could that be right? Don't they need to eat? Or, I suppose that could explain the listlessness. . . )

ANYway, Happy Father's Day!!! Happy Grandfather's Day!!!

Here we are in a tourist trap horse ride through the city. Normally we never agree to these things, but my dogs were barkin'!

It was actually absolutely an hysterical ride. The driver was a big hulk of a man and we negotiated for him to drop us very close to our riad (bed and breakfast, essentially), which was deep inside the labrynthine walls of Marrakesh. Really narrow streets where mostly cars can't pass or, when they can, they pass very, very slowly. So his horse whip is flying around over our heads and then finally, whack, he nabs a guy on a scooter riding the opposite way. He kind of waves behind him, like, 'oops!' and then casually starts trotting the horses to avoid this guy coming back for him, I'm sure. (I mean, you just can't imagine these streets. Maybe the width of 1.5 parking spaces, but there were at least two people per square yard and dogs, cats, fruit vendors ... really chaos. THEN, because he's trotting now, he really very nearly runs over these two old women who are walking in our same direction (thus their backs are turned). I mean, it was close. So now we're cantering and he's looking behind him for pursuers and people are just literally jumping out of his way. I was in a constant state of cringing and gasping for the last 10 minutes, but also, strangely, laughing.

Also, I was trying to get Dessi to wave to people as we were passing, which she did, but she also had a two-minute long stretch where she leaned over the side and pointed at each person and shouted, "No! No! No!" while jabbing her finger. Nice.

Here is Dessi in a fabulous little cafe on a busy downtown square.

Between bites she would walk around and try on the hats of the hat sellers and wave to everyone. She was scared to death of women in hijabs and she would run away from them. I would say 80 percent of women there were completely covered, each with a scarf tied just below the eyes, and then the headdresses covered their foreheads. It was surprised to find such a big city to still be so conservative, although I thought the people there were absolutely fabulous, the food was delicious, and the trip was overall the best way I could possibly have imagined to celebrate turning 40.

Singing

2009-06-10T03:34:00.000-07:00

Paris, redeux

2009-05-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

A few more shots. On this trip I didn't go into the Louvre, I could tell D wasn't in the mood and kinda, neither was I. So we just walked around outside. Also, Dessi can say "ball" really, really well and I am sure none of you have ever really noticed but around the perimeter of the Louvre courtyard there are approximately 2,840 big round metal ornamental balls. Boy was that fun.

Here she is dancin'

Then not so much

Resting after a wipeout

And then here at Notre Dame, where she at one point had complete command over a circle of 20 people who had gathered round to watch her dance, babble and throw kisses at the crowd. I had to drag her away.

Our Friend Emilia

2009-05-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

I have a great friend in Dakar. Her name is Emilia.

Here she is at her 30th (Surprise!) birthday party

And here she is with Eric and our other great friend Vasso -- the three go-getters swam across the bay and back. (Not me -- too cold and too lazy!)

and here -- look at those guns! I would not want to arm wrestle her.

Here she is trying to read a book to our children, who began to care much less about the story than about lap space. Dessi LOVES her auntie Em.

Good stuff.

More Germany

2009-05-07T07:16:00.001-07:00

This was an enormous slide. Very long with a big turn in it. I went to the top with Dessi, Eric waited at the bottom. And waited. Because I could not let her go!! (I envisioned her shooting off at the turn.) She got as far as an arm's length down the slide when I grabbed her shirt and dragged her back. Eric had to go down with her. (This photo doesn't do it justice. It was BIIGGG!!)

Here we are on the banks of the Nektar river, where we spent our evenings eating Indian take-out and watching the boats go by. You can kinda see a big red castle across the river and behind us a bit. It's beautiful.

This is another one of the great kids parks -- there were three of them within a few minutes' walk all along the river. So fun.

I think this is Brussels, actually. I just wanted to include it because my hair looks fab.

And here in Baden-Baden, eating cheese sandwiches

sniffing flowers

and walking along the river where a bazillion different trees and flowers are in bloom.

A few last things we will remember ...

- Bunnies in the park at night and their little white tails shining as they hopped away from us (they were skittish). Dessi LOVED them.
- Bella! Bella! Bella!
- Free hotel minibar, so, sipping champagne by myself durring D's afternoon naps.
- H&M on every corner. Literally.
- Paying $20 roundtrip in taxi fares (because I couldn't figure out the metro) to get to a laundromat and then not being able to figure out the machines. I left after ten minutes of looking pathetic / watching other people do their laundry, and ended up washing clothes in the hotel sink. (The homebound taxi driver said I should have just stood in the middle of the laundromat and shouted, 'Who can help me!?!" It's true -- I didn't try that.)
- Girlie porn shop next to Frankfurt hotel: Inside (h)er. Gay bar one block from Brussels hotel: Homo Erectus. Realization that I'm getting old: Immediate.
- Eric taking a train to the airport and ending up in a wheatfield. (Really, the German metro is difficult to use.)

Week Two: Brussels and Germany

2009-05-06T12:55:00.001-07:00

Brussels, there's not really much to talk about. The people were kinda rude, but the shopping was fun and there is a beautiful central square that had really unique and cool architecture. Glad we went, glad we only stayed two days.

Then on to Germany, which I wasn't particularly excited about but I have to say, Germany rocks! It is beautiful and green, health-oriented and multicultural. We had five days in Frankfurt, then a few days in Heidelberg and Baden-Baden (ooh, two hours of mineral baths and saunas for me!!!) (Eric babysat/searched fruitlessly for a new kayak paddle.) There were lots of surprises (great Thai food) and things to remember. A few favorites:

Finding the exquisite Chinese gardens on a rainy morning walk through the interlocking greenways of inner Frankfurt

The merry-go-round!! This was really fun for me. Dessi only liked it after we were done. (I dunno, can you tell? I actually have a lot of photos like this. Poor kid.)

The parks! It actually rained a lot, but the kids parks were so great that we just went out and played anyway. Here was a particularly muddy day

The Stroller! After eight days of hauling my pretty little 30-pounder around the cement streets of Europe on my back, my knees and feet and I just couldn't stand it anymore. I thought I would long for my light-on-our-feet parenting approach and feel sad by this cumbersome addition, but it turns out, it's one of the greatest things ever. No WONDER everyone uses strollers!! Dessi picked this one out herself (she climbed in at the store and didn't get out for two miles), and I couldn't have been happier myself.

More Parks! Heidelberg had lots of great and innovate kids' parks, including this really fun waterpark along the river. She doesn't look very happy in this photo, but really she loved it.

Here we are walking along the Nektar river in Heidelberg. This is how Dessi was all week -- babblling and being a goof. We had such a blast with her.

Muesli! She's using utensils pretty well -- reasonably neat and accurate now, which is no surprise really -- look at that concentration!

Here we are, somewhere. These self-portraits never come out well.

and here she is in Paris at the airport, killing time before the flight home. She continues to be the most amazing traveller - very adaptable and good-natured.

Parisian Vaca

2009-05-05T05:55:00.001-07:00

We've been in Europe!

First, Dessi and I flew to Paris for five days with Aunt Jodi. We rented a little apartment in the Marais and spent our days walking around town, drinking tea and eating crepes.

Here we are at my all-time favorite Paris spot, Sacre Coeur.

We had an absolutely perfect afternoon walking around Montmarte before and afterward, including this quiet little children's park.

I should say, Dessi's favorite thing on this trip was sticking out her tongue and then also opening her mouth up really wide. She would do it to people, and they would laugh and do it back to her. So that while she was on my back (in her pack) on the metro or wherever, I wouldn't be able to see her but then I'd look around and there'd be all these people making faces ... It was pretty funny. The other thing is, she often engages people who are old or all alone or sad-looking ... the people that most of us kind of just look away from. She will wave and wave until they look up, until they smile at her, until they stick their tongue out .. whatever. And she really brightens up the world this way. I wish I had the nerve to do it! Then again, I'm not quite as cute as her so the effect probably wouldn't be the same ...

And here we are missing our friend Stephanie, who works at Century 21 in America. We took this picture in the midsts of a sidewalk flea market and it was ridiculous how long it took to get the photo taken and how annoyed the Parisians who were waiting to cross in front of us were about it.

And here, in front of Le lapin agile, an old pub that was frequented by Picasso, Braques, and other artists of the time. I wanted to go in and sit on one of the barstools, but it was closed in the afternoons.

It was all very easy, except for when it wasn't. Like this time: We were late, we couldn't get the metro to work for us (part of it was closed for construction), and then even my favorite New Yorker (Jodi) couldn't hail a cab. But instead of helping, a Parisian came up and took a picture of me taking a picture of Jodi. He must have been an artist.

I'll write more about Brussels and Germany later. :)

Happy Hunting

2009-04-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the big Easter egg hunt. The US Embassy kept calling it the Egg-stravaganza, which was almost enough to make me not want to go. Plus, I thought Dessi was too young. Turns out she was not -- she caught on immediately and had a blast.

Here she is searching ..

... finding the mother lode...

... celebrating (she really was doing a little dance -- so cute!)

and then relaxing afterward.

Happy Easter!!

School!

2009-04-08T04:56:00.000-07:00

Today was Dessi's first day of school. Not actually school, just, like, a preschool. And not even that much of a preschool, just this very nice and energetic woman who has organized a group of five parents and she holds class at a different parent's house each week. They sing and dance and hug each other and play games like red-light/green-light and learn about things like washing their hands and going pee on the potty and how one should not take other people's bananas right out of their hands because maybe those other people wanted to eat their bananas themselves.

Ah hem.

I cried most of the way there. Other parents drop their kids off, but I sat outside the room and listened for trouble, except for the nine times that I opened the door to peek in. There is another little Ethiopian girl in the group who is SO sweet and cute and is Dessi's first Ethiopian friend. Not that those things matter to such little kids, but these two girls, for whatever reason, absolutely loved each other. They hugged and hugged, then hugged again. (Not immediately, but after ten minutes or so.) I cried. The other girl also is adopted, but her forever mom is Ethiopian, too. Dessi is the youngest by six months. The other kids were so nice to each other and especially to "Baby Dessi." So, so sweet. They would have GIVEN her their bananas had she asked, even.

So, here is our little girl now. She stomped her feet and clapped her hands and twirled in a circle with the other kids. She sat on the teacher's lap to hear a story and play with the puzzles, and she rode her little car around in the circle with the other kids. And every time she saw me poke my head in, she would run right over and say "mama!" and show me whatever she was doing. That made me cry, too. She was amazing, and I was really just so proud of her. We left early (after two hours), and she fell asleep within three minutes of getting into the car seat, and is still sleeping now.

I used to think that I might home school. Seriously. I used to think that kids don't need other kids, kids need their parents. But more and more often I have seen her face and her whole body just light up when she sees other kids. In Florida last month, I could see how much she enjoyed being around her two cousins. It was great for her. So, that's the impetus for this. This pre-pre-school.

Eric and I had actually gone to visit a more official pre-school last week, and I felt all mixed up about it but sort of thinking that she really needed more kids and more stimulation than I seem to be giving her ... and so we kind of half-settled on it, but by the next morning we both had changed our minds. Then I heard about this group, and so, voila.

It's hard to know what's best -- when you're being overprotective and when you're just being reasonable and careful. So, anyway, I was crying only happy tears today, and I think it went really, really well.

We go back on Friday.

Good Dancin'

2009-04-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

Random moments

2009-04-04T02:33:00.000-07:00

This is Francie in her newest favorite cuddle spot. It looks hard and uncomfortable to me, but cats are funny.

This is Dessi, clowning

Practicing her kissing ...

And then kissing the ... what is that thing? A groundhog, I think.

My great friend Vasso and her fabulous children, posing with our newly dyed Easter eggs

And us at our little tukul-on-the-lagoon in Saloum Delta last weekend. It was awesome. Quiet, great food, and really fun friends.

This just in: I suck

2009-04-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

My cat, Francie, caught a teeny baby bird yesterday. She brought it in the house with the intention of eating it in a nice safe place, but of course I took it from her and it was still moving around okay but certainly couldn't live on its own. We kept it warm and feed it all day (canned cat food mixed with water, then you eyedropper it into its mouth). It was doing very well, swaying its wide-open mouth back and forth and calling for food all day.

Here it is, taking a little nap in the sunshine.

Last night I just warmed up its cushion (a ricebag) and hoped for the best. It was dead this morning, its little head angled up as if still looking for food. At first I felt just mildly sad -- it was, after all, a very tiny baby bird, and also after all, it's not like I could wake up every night for a month to feed it. It could either live through the night by itself or it couldn't. This is just life, and you can't save everything.

But this afternoon, going outside to bury it, I realized somehow that if it had been a baby parrot or some exotic red bird or something -- instead of one of the most common of sparrows -- that I would have taken better care of it. I would have woken myself up (probably) and looked after it better. I would have valued it more.

I cannot express how bummed I feel that this is me. That I would more value a life that's prettier or more rare -- that I value some lives more than others. That I let the little bird die because it was common.

So, feeling pretty shitty right now.

I blame the cat.

Car Talk

2009-03-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

Here's my new car!

I love it. They're not sold in the US, but it's a Nissan X-trail. It's a diesel manual, and it gets nearly 48 mpg. I love love love this car. It's the best car I've ever had. It's safe, it's really easy to see all around, and it gets great mileage. No wonder they don't sell it in the US!

I almost got into an accident today. It's the closest I've ever come here (we were within 2" of each other). I was turning left on a two-lane road, with my blinker on, and the truck behind me decided he would try to quickly just pass me. On the left. His front bumper was within 2" of my side door when we both managed to squeal to a stop. People are so so so so so stupid here sometimes. They drive like fools. WHY would he think that was going to have worked? I had Dessi in the car, and also the nanny (we were coming back from French class/ the kiddie park). (BTW, the nanny always "forgets" to put her own seatbelt on. I have to ask her every single time.) I pulled over and cried a little tiny bit, then continued on with my errands. It's just a small, small reminder of how many things are so delicate and so outside of our control. I drive here with my hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel at all times, and I feel like I'm a good driver. I'm always looking around, anticipating things. But sometimes they just come up on you and there's hardly anything you can do. Things like that get me rattled.

Dirt Work

2009-03-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

We had to fire our gardener. He is an alcoholic. It was a very difficult situation. He was also our guard. When you fire someone in Dakar, where unemployment is either 40% or 60% (I'm not sure which. I've heard both), it's probable that they will not find another job, at least for a while. So it feels really awful to fire someone. He is a nice man, but you cannot have a drunk guard. Still, it was difficult. (Eric had to handle it -- FINALLY my bad French worked in my favor!!)

We have a big yard and garden, and we were a little nervous that we wouldn't be able to keep up with it, but in fact our weekends now usually involve just a few happy hours of replanting, composting, tying up the tomatoes, etc. I also work on it a bit during the week. We really like it. I read Gandhi's autobiography a few months ago (Experiments with Truth), and I was moved by his high regard for taking responsibility for your own food and for manual labor in general. So, I don't know if this looks like manual labor or not -- probably no, huh?

Dessi digs in the dirt and babbles and basically just keeps herself occupied. There just needs to be dirt in a child's life, I think. She likes to pick lettuce, cilantro and tomatoes and put it in our basket, and last week she spent about 40 minutes moving rose petals from one pile to another.

She also recently discovered the worms in the compost piles and took a fancy to squeezing them to death, which had to be stopped but otherwise we give her a lot of room to explore. (Also, do I remember from 9th grade Earth Science class that if you cut an earthworm in half, you get two earthworms? I'll have to Google that.)

....

....

I just did. Nope. You get two halves of a dead one, or possibly the head end will live on. The back end is toast, though -- the misconception probably having arisen from the fact that the death spasms of an earthworm outlast the attention spans of most children.

A few things about Dessi

2009-03-23T09:46:00.001-07:00

We had a great time in Florida. Absolutely great. Dessi spent her time kissing her cousin Ellis, learning to throw a ball with her grandpa, and dancing in circles and playing games with her grandma. I loved that she had someone to play with or hug and kiss her just about every second of the day. She loved it too, and once again I could see how she just thrives in those situations and really needs a little more than just her mamma day in and out. We're actually going to go check out a nearby preschool next week (I've been waiting for my knee to get better, and it is improving every day). I know she's young, but I think she will really get a lot out of it. I'll be with her the whole time, anyway, so if it doesn't work it's no big deal. She is so social and easygoing.

I have to say, Dessi really is the most unbelievable child. We think she is just the coolest and most amazing person we've ever met. Neither Eric or I can get over it. We are filled not only with love and joy and gratitude that she is our daughter, but also we feel very strongly a respect for her -- for her fortitude and good-naturedness and for her sense of humor and the love and sweetness that are her very essence. She is an absolute light in the world.

She is always making jokes (hide and seek, peekaboo, the scary-noise game, chase, here-do-you-want-this-oops-no-sorry!) and laughing all the time. She wakes up happy, she goes to sleep happy, she plays well, and she truly seems to be bursting with joy and love. She cries almost never. She has always been a kisser, but now she has this thing where she kisses every single thing she likes. So, this plastic box that makes a nice popping noise when she pushes it? Kiss that. Kiss the cat, kiss the dolly's stroller, kiss the books, the stuffed animals, the flowers in the garden, kiss her mama ALL the time (often while patting my cheek and saying, "Mama. Mammee? Maaaama"). Kiss Daddy (and go running open-armed toward the door when Daddy comes home -- he loves that), kiss Tata (her nanny), and blow kisses to every one and every thing else. I half expect some assembly of Tibetans to be at our door one morning to say that Dessi is some famous rinpoche or the Dalai Lama's former teacher or something and they would like to take her back.

There have been three times, however, when I've taken something away from her (twice a pen) and she has become instantly so frustrated that giant balls of tears stream down her face and her mouth opens and both hands go into it as if she would rip out all of her bottom teeth with them. Like she is in anguish. The first time I was completely blown away and scared that she was hurt. The second and third times, I just started laughing at her and then she laughed and then that was that. It's bizarre, though, absolutely -- and probably a sign of what's to come when she is a little older ... she's 17 months now. Two years is coming!!

I welcome them. Still, look how big she is here! Like a little girl now! (This is her in Florida with our little dog, Spikey.) Sometimes it can break my heart a little to see her asleep in her crib and suddenly realize she is already 2/3 of its length, or when I see some of her old dresses -- so tiny! But every day she becomes more able to process and enjoy the world around her -- to dance using every part of her body (including, now, the Ethiopian head roll!), to make jokes and laugh and run around, and even now to sing a few notes in a very identifiable way (the "round and round" part of the Wheels on the Bus).

Every day, we thank our lucky stars for all of this.

Putting my feet up

2009-03-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

Still here in Florida; we were supposed to be leaving this afternoon but yesterday got my MRI results back and now will stay another week to have . . . knee surgery. (Meniscus. Two tears. Surgery is straightforward; should be walking in two days. Yoga class two years ago. It's painless unless I move wrong, then it hurts a bit.)

My surgeon is the osteopath for Florida's pro baseball team and I think for another pro team (I can't remember the details), and I feel very secure about the whole thing. I also think it is really time to have it done, as it's been bothering me for two years and last week became suddenly much worse. Of course, if I start to think too hard about it my nervous laughter habit kicks up. So I'm drinking tea and playing muppets with Dessi and eating all this great food you can't get in Senegal, and D will just get even more grandparents love. It's good. This afternoon I'm going to buy the most expensive pyjamas I can find, and prepare for my afternoon off!

Flight is delayed for one week exactly. Wish me luck!!!!

Saint Louis and a trip to the homeland

2009-02-17T05:03:00.000-08:00

Dessi and I are leaving tonight for Florida! We decided about a week ago and in that time we've been getting more and more excited! (Well, I have been. Dessi is neutral and Eric is mildly sad, but he's also happy that he'll be able to kayak as long as he wants to after work and that he'll get lots of his other work done.)

Before I go, wanted to post these photos of a great trip we and our most awesome friends took to Saint Louis and the Djoud bird park.

Here is Dessi, reading her book and babbling to herself on the drive up. (The book is part of her Little Brown Bear series, it's in French so Eric and the nanny read it to her (and I practice with them.) She loves them!)

Here we are eating dinner. Note the whacky faces Henrik and I are making to try and make our babies smile, and the I'm-not-with-them face that Eric is making.

Here is a pretty crappy photo of us on the boat. Dessi actually had a great time, looking at all the birds and pretty much enjoying herself as usual. Just, we didn't take many photos. I chose this one because of the birds in the background.

This is us on a horsecart ride around the city. Tourists! (So and, yes, there is a horse tied to the front of the cart we're sitting in.) It actually was very windy and I didn't like it at all.

And this is a random photo of a cow on a ferry a few weeks ago when we were going to Isle de Goree for the day. For some reason it struck my fancy.

I'll be back in two weeks!!

Cabo Verde

2009-02-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago we took the 90-minute flight east to the four-island country of Cabo Verde. It was absolutely fabulous. The streets are almost entirely cobblestone -- even when they put a new road in, they put in cobblestone. I love that. And there is essentially no one around -- 400,000 people in the whole country! It is a second-world country, but it's got a lot going for it. Great infrastructure (they actually wheel their garbage cans to the side of the road and a truck actually comes by and picks it up) and the roads are maintained, the people are healthy and the food is pretty good. Oh, and great music!

The highlight, and the thing we were the most excited about, was that there is actually a map with hiking trails all over the main island (Santiago) where we stayed. The trails are so beautiful and pass through little villages en route to the summit, or just meander from village to village.

Here we are all together

and here, taking a lunch break. We walked for about five hours round trip. It was interesting and really beautiful.

The second day we were on our way to another mountain hike when we encountered the black sand beaches of Santiago's northern shore. We pulled over and then just decided to walk along the beach for a few hours. It was pretty amazing.

In this next photo, the water would splash above their heads as it crashed on the rocks behind them. It was pretty dramatic, and I really wanted a photo, but with the stupid delay on my stupid camera, I had to try about 18 times before I got anything!!

This is either a former nunnery or just a memorial. There were some inscribed plaques, but everything's in Portugese, so we were out. It is on a beautiful spot overlooking the sea.

After about 30 minutes of slow walking, we were all alone. The sea was rough and crashing against the black rocks, but there were a few spots where the water had dug deep swimming holes into the black rocks. We disrobed and jumped in! (Or, Eric jumped in. I was a weenie and creeped in, the whole time gasping at how cold it was.)

And then we dried off and Dessi settled herself into a baby-sized hole. She was having such a blast splashing around that we just ate oranges and hung out for a few hours.

We were staying at the capital, Priya, but we could easily access most of the hikes within a 40-minute drive. We also were able to walk to this little jewel from our hotel!

It may not seem like much to you "westerners," but when you're coming from a third-world country, things like this are pure baby bliss. It overlooks the sea on one side and a beautiful mesa on the other.

Here we are in front of an old Portugese fort. (Cabo Verde is a former Portugese colony.) The climate is arid with lots of scrub brush and cacti, but if you could look just immediately down behind where we are standing, you would see a valley green with palm and cultivated gardens and a river that rushes past in the rainy season. (In the dry season, the riverbed forms the road.) It was a really cool spot.

And finally, here is a pretty little church by the sea.

We love Cabo Verde!!!

Happy Birthday Grandma Young!!

2009-02-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

Spinning is her new favorite thing. Sorry about the singing. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Alison!!

Sacked

2009-01-24T11:47:00.000-08:00

This was the day after our birding road trip to Saint Louis. And yes, everyone was tired. But still, I cannot believe this happened. We three were having dinner, Eric and I were talking, and then he was just like, Look. At. This. Maybe this happens with OTHER children. Other children who do not love to eat the way our daughter does.

We were carrying her to bed when she woke up for a few seconds -- just enough time to chew the food she had left in her mouth.

Pushing Bla-Bla

2009-01-22T09:43:00.000-08:00

BlaBla is the tag on the back of this fabulous doll D got for Christmas. The stroller, she got today. (No reason. We were keeping it till after Christmas.) I think she really gets it -- like, that the doll goes in there. She would sort of walk away from it, then look around like, 'hey, where's BlaBla, and then go back and stroll her over.

How to Prepare for Parenthood

2009-01-21T06:51:00.000-08:00

My brother sent me this email a year ago. It's even funnier to me now.

How To Prepare For Parenthood:

Lesson 1: Go to the grocery store. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2: Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their: Methods of discipline. Lack of patience. Appallingly low tolerance levels. Allowing their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it, because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3: To discover how the nights will feel...Walk around the living room from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. At 10 p.m., put the bag down, se t the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at 12 a.m. and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 a.m. Set the alarm for 3 a.m. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2 a.m. and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45 a.m. Get up at 3 a.m. when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4 a.m. Attempt to fall asleep, then finally give up around 6 a.m. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Lesson 4: Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower bed. Then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5: Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this: all morning.

Lesson 6: Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime and stick it in the CD player. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies and mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

Lesson 7: Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8: Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air. You are now ready to feed a nine-month-old baby.

Lesson 9: Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying "mommy" repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each "mommy;" occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 10: Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirtsleeve, or elbow while playing the mommy' tape made from Lesson 9 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Comment?

2009-01-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

The thing about living in Senegal is that everyone speaks French. They all go to fabulous parties and have interesting conversations where they laugh a lot and toss their pretty little heads while shaping their mouths to form exquisite, French sounds. I also attend these parties, but since I can't talk about anything except the weather and where I'm from and whether or not that is an outrageous price for a kilo of potatoes, I usually end up at the snack table eating carrot sticks and drinking red wine.

It is a real trouble, not speaking the language. I was completely and earnestly into learning at first, but what has recently dawned on me is that, even if I get okay at French, I will not be good enough to make a FRIEND in French. To talk about emotions or interesting things, or politics or ... whatever. I'm very, very far from that. Years. Infinity, possibly.

But the worst is that it makes me so dependent on Eric. He has to call the metalworker about making curtain rods. He has to call the phone company because the internet is down, call the pediatrician to make an appointment, type the classified ad for us to sell our car. . .. But wait, no! I can do that!!! Because I've discovered ... BABELFISH!! You type in a sentence, it translates it to French. Type in a paragraph and it does that, too! So, I went ahead and typed the ad out for our car, Babelfished it, and published it online. (Watch me go! Watch me go! Who needs to waste time learning a new language?!) Here is what I wrote:

PRICE REDUCED: Honda CRV 2002, 100,000 km, Runs great and was very well cared for. Imported into the USA in 2005 and has all maintenance records. Gas, new tires, automatic. The car has diplomatic plates (duty free)

You can imagine my disappointment when I found out tonight that my ad is a laughingstock. (I had to translate it back for another purpose. This is how it reads:

THE PRICE REDUCED: Honda 2002 CRV, 100.000 kilometers. Short large and was very well worried about. It was imported in the USA in 2005 and has all the discs D \ ' maintenance. Gases, tires automatic and new, The car has the diplomatic dishes (of frankness)

I think I understand now why the website is called Babelfish. What the hell are the diplomatic dishes of frankess? It sounds like a good name for a jazz band.

There really are no shortcuts in life. Are there.

Dinner

2009-01-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

For some reason she thought this was really funny. I was acting like I was going to gobble up her food.

So the story is, a few days ago we were reading where our 14.5-month-old kid should be, milestone-wise (we rarely do this), and it says she should be able to touch one body part. I panicked. How would she know this? (I've never taught her any!!) Eric swiftly stepped in and within a few hours, she knew her nose. (She also sort of knows her ear, too, but that's a little touch-and-go, I think on account of it being on the side of her head like it is.)

The OTHER milestone we hadn't tried was whether she could feed herself with a utensil. (This was only to be tried by ADVANCED children.) So that's what this video is -- we started with a big hunk of bread and a dipping bowl of mashed spinach and potatoes, and she (obviously) caught on fabulously! Afterward, I handed her a spoon and a cup of yogurt. Voila! Mensa child.

Jingle Bells

2009-01-01T03:32:00.001-08:00

Red Rocket

2009-01-01T01:34:00.001-08:00

For Christmas: A new toy from Grandma & Grandpa Woods -- a rocketship that goes to the moon. Who doesn't need that?! I must say, the hand-painted wooden toys Eric and I favor just cannot compete, especially because this plays eight different songs and she loves to dance, dance dance! She is playing with it right now, in fact, as I write. This is her with it on Christmas morning. Thanks, mom and dad!

To look, to see

2008-12-28T03:29:00.000-08:00

We've been spending a lot of time in the garden during these perfect-weather days, and Dessi -- who generally has a pretty short attention span with her toys -- can spend a solid minute inspecting a piece of grass or the inside of a rose. Here she is, on her way outside

and here, pulling on a stem of basil.

Have you ever spent more than four seconds with a rose? There are so many colors in there!! (All those greeting cards speak the truth!)

She loves to smell them, too. She loves to go to one of every type of flower in the garden (and there are a lot), smell each one, and then smile or sometimes clap her hands (although the hand clapping has fallen out of the repertoire lately, I'm not sure why).

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T14:46:00.001-08:00

Here we are at the mall. Ho ho ho!

Spirit

2008-12-24T02:40:00.000-08:00

It's a little weird, living in a Muslim country for Christmas. There are no Yuletide songs or decorations in our little shops --although people are shooting off fire crackers for "the Noel," as they call it. Love that.

For our part, we've decorated our tree and wrapped the presents,

(note the cat, laying in the pot), but the season lacks the hustle-bustle, the stress, the gift giving and the money-spending. It's perfect!

(We did see a street salesman with a ton of gaudy, gold and green metallic tinsel draped around his neck while lugging a 4' fake Christmas tree down a dusty dirt road -- these guys go car-to-car and cater to people stuck in traffic. It was so funny I had to really concentrate to not let him see my face; it was so incongruous, such a hot day, poor Muslim guy, and my God that tinsel was so tacky. He looked generally completely demoralized, but then he saw me laughing and he started laughing back.)

Anyway. It is hard to be away from our families, but otherwise we have everything we need for a great holiday.

Only thing is . . . Christmas dinner. That should probably be special. The OTHER only thing is, for the past two months I have been feeling increasingly that eating meat just does not jive with my values. So I've been serving up a lot of dinners that look basically like a series of side dishes: Dahl and roasted eggplant. Squash and a salad. Risotto. Eric's been a pretty good sport, but nonetheless he hinted that for Christmas maybe we should have a "nice" dinner. (His words.)

So, chicken with tarragon curry, roasted in banana leaves it is! And here is the very beginnings of it, defrosting in my sink this morning. I had set it to defrost on its other side, and when I flipped it over, this.

Do you see that? That there? That chicken head folded over with the BEAK and the EYE? (You have to look for it a little bit. If you're so inclined. The head is about 1/3 of the way up; the beak points to the right, to about 2:30, and is very big!)

So, I will do this. We will have chicken. But I am blogging about it this morning because ... I'm out. I'm out!

Maybe for Christmas I am getting a vegetarian cookbook.

Mamadadadada

2008-12-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a random 30 seconds from today.

Saint Louis

2008-12-19T04:07:00.000-08:00

My adventurer-husband recently discovered that, if one departs an hour before low tide, one can drive peacefully along the beach all the way to Saint Louis (4.5 hours to the north), thereby avoiding the bottleneck that is the town of Rufisque. So, this past weekend, that is what we did.

So. As we were driving along at 50 mph with the ocean to our left, our left front wheel went into some water of underestimated depths -- instead of 1/4 inch, it turned out to (probably) be more like 2". So, that slows your one tire down, and the others continue their momentum and circle the car around and into the ocean. It all happened so fast, but I would say for about 3 seconds we were driving straight into the sea. All you could see was water. All you could hear was water crashing. Then, we turned the car parallel to the beach again and continued on our way. I have a very peculiar habit of laughing when I get nervous. I was laughing.

It was Dessi's first time forward-facing in the carseat, too! I wonder if she was thinking, 'Man, is this what ALWAYS happens up here?'

After two hours, we reached our beach exit and had to drive about 300 feet in deep sand to get back onto a road, and so we got a little stuck doing that. I pushed the car (Eric is a better driver) so that we could return to the hard-packed beach; the second time we went much faster (it felt really, really fast!) and that way you just sort of fly right over the sand without giving the wheels a chance to sink in. I suppose that's the logic, anyway. At any rate, we made it!

After the beach, we bumped along dirt roads, where little children stopped their games to run alongside the car, waving and shouting Bon Jours. As usual, lots of women were out, chatting and walking together with broad loads piled on their heads, and other Muslims returning from prayers (almost everyone is Muslim in Senegal). I don't normally photograph people -- it always feels inappropriate to me -- but these women created a sparkle you could see a mile away! I don't know what's up with everyone having the same outfit, or the glitter. School uniform? (But it was a Sunday.) Got the material wholesale? Don't know.

In Saint Louis, we decided to try Langue de Barbarie, a 600-mile preserve that stretches into Mauritania. This is a good time (winter) to see lots of birds as they migrate through Senegal, and we wanted to kayak around on our own versus using the motor-powered Pirogues that are required to see the better-known Djoudj national bird sanctuary, which is also in northwest Senegal.

We took our leaky little rented boat across a small inlet

walked around,

and were back in Saint Louis in time for lunch. We saw zero birds. Not one. Not even a seagull! As usual in Africa, the adventure was in the journey.

Cat Love

2008-12-16T12:33:00.000-08:00

Dessi and Francie totally love each other. I have never seen a baby be so gentle and sweet with animals, and Francie for her part is either affectionate right back or at the very least she's pretty darned tolerant. She seems to LIKE Dessi's pat-pats, and sometimes she will put her kitty nose right up to Dessi's nose and squint her eyes in the totally affectionate groove usually reserved for her most special person. (Me.)

And also, LOOK!!! It's on video. I took this from my camera -- totally have given up on the camcorder.