Adoption

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Binyam is 6!!

Our favorite “baby” of the family had his birthday August 31st. Because his is the last birthday of all the kids I will admit it often feels a little like an afterthought. I’m pretty sure on the 30th I turned to Zach and said, “Did you realize it’s Bean’s birthday tomorrow? What should we do about that?” And after 4 other birthday parties for the year I’m basically too tired to even feel guilty. Thankfully Bean is, bar none, the most easy going with those kinds of things so he didn’t hold a grudge.

School had started so by the time I picked up donuts and Zach and I started descending the stairs singing “Happy birthday” the kids were in full hurry-get-ready-for-school mode. Except Bean. That precious boy knew it was his birthday and knew we would “wake”him up. So in his bed he stayed, for probably 10 minutes, while his siblings rushed around to get ready for school. Love him for that.

Donuts. Of course he wanted donuts. Binyam doesn’t eat much of anything throughout the day unless it involves sugar and/or chocolate and, preferably, both sugar AND chocolate.

Binyam wanted cupcakes for his school snack. There’s an awesome local cupcake shop a mile from his school that I knew would do it up right for this special guy. When we got to school I was thrilled to hear he had asked his teacher and classmates to call him “Bean”. It’s what we call him and he definitely sees it as a term of endearment. Made my heart smile knowing he already felt loved enough in Kindergarten to deem that nickname appropriate. Pictured here with his “crown” chair.

His teacher came up to us at Kindergarten round up and said, “I am crossing my fingers I get Binyam in my class. He is so amazing.” It was then that I decided I’d cross mine too. Anyone who sees the goodness in this boy immediately is someone that I can trust with his precious heart. Here Bean’s teacher gives him 6 birthday high fives.

Binyam is so like me in that we know love when it shows up. All he wanted, always, for his birthday was a sleepover. And he was very specific about who he wanted. His cousins Oliver and Eli. His best friend, Maddox, and Maddox’s big brother, Charlie. Because I love all of those boys with all that I am and I knew it’d be fun to get special time with them for me too, I was ridiculously excited for the sleepover. Zach and I made our homemade pizza, poured ourselves a glass of wine and then celebrated with abandon this life we are so blessed to come alongside.

Annnnd I’m already crying. I don’t know what it is about Bean that makes me so overly emotional. I don’t know if it’s because he’s my “baby” that makes me feel so fiercely protective of every part of his being or if it’s because I’ve had the flu for the better part of this week (which explains the lack of punctuation and edited photos). Anyone who knows him will attest to the fact that they feel for him in exactly the same way.

Because he had a miserable start to life. If you can imagine the worst start to life, he had it. His birth member described Bean’s pregnancy as “worst possible scenario”. And then he came out with club feet and the world crumbled around him. But knowing him now I can tell you that he’s made conscious decisions to not let any of that define him. I know that because he is light and love. Because he’ll laugh, loudly, just because everyone around him is regardless of whether or not he knows why they’re laughing. I know it because he rocks a bright red brace on his leg every day. He wears it so proudly and boldly no one has teased him about it. How could you tease something someone is so proud of?

I know it because I know him. I know him as the little boy who shuts down the minute he thinks someone is upset or frustrated with him. His big, precious lips form a pout and the only thing that will shake him from it, the only proven method is getting him to smile. You get him to smile? And he breaks. After that you can talk rationally about what’s going on. He and I are good at this dance. We are down to just a few minutes of it. Because I get it, I get him.

And I freakin’ love him like crazy. I wasn’t there for his birth, I wasn’t there for his first breath but darn it if I don’t feel his life with every beat of my heart. I’m so thankful for that scary, wild day 6-years-ago. I’m so thankful I get to call him my son. I’m just so, so thankful for him.

Happy birthday my precious Bean.

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Is anybody alive out there?

can anyone hear me?

10 points to who knows what movie that’s from.

Anyway, hello again. It’s me. I feel a little bit like I should reintroduce myself to you all.

In a lot of ways the last months away from the blog (and really a lot of social media in general) has been kind of liberating. I have noticed a difference in the amount of time I’m present with the family when I don’t have internet access at home. It was really nice.

That said, I still don’t have internet and now that the kids are at school during the day it’d be super if we had it. 🙂

Now I’m trying to figure out if it’s best to just start from today or try to tell you all that’s been going on since last we spoke. How about a few pictures from this summer to tide you over?

We got to go to the Mehaber!!! Though we’d been before it had been 4 years so we were due. And there were just too many people going that I wanted to see for me to come up with any valid excuses.

Amanda was so generous in letting my entire family (sans Zach, who can never make it what with a camp full of kids and all) move in.

If there is a girl around, Dailah will hone in on her and stalk her like prey. Sometimes I feel so sad for her that she has no one to make bracelets with. Samry was AMAZING at playing with Dailah and doing whatever she wanted.

We got to stop at Amanda’s parents’ house that happens to be beautiful and lakeside. The kids were in hog heaven there.

Love “catching” them when they aren’t posing.

This was their faces watching Ethiopian musicians perform. Hilarious.

We ate delicious, delicious Ethiopian food! My kids were so incredibly happy.

We got to see people we traveled with too! Agiro and Twedros treated Tariku like their little brother in Ethiopia. It was so fun to see them all together again.

We also learned how to make injera (plug: you NEED that book! It’s essential if you want any hope of successfully making injera. This amazing lady taught me that. I bet you can find out how to order the book there too? But look at Dailah’s injera! It’s in the shape of an Africa! Amazing!

Speaking of her, there she is in the green. And Cathy. I’ve mentioned Cathy before. I’ll mention her later too. Of course I go to the Mehaber to keep the kids in touch with their Ethiopian roots but seeing some of my favorite people is a really big motivator as well. I got to meet Kim too (no idea how no picture was taken, alas…). She is doing a ridiculously great job with those boys of hers. We needed more time!

It was hot. So. so. so. hot.

Those of you in the adoption world would be so jealous of the people I got to travel with when we picked up Tariku. We traveled with these guys too. This family is really just too beautiful.

My Bean

There was a station where women would write your names in Amharic. Fun.

Cathy was able to come over to Amanda’s afterwards and bring her kids. We are soul sisters. Sometimes I feel like that’s all that needs to be said. Also, she should move to the midwest, that should also be said.

When I went to Cathy’s in Colorado I couldn’t get over how much her oldest reminded me of my oldest. Some of my favorite moments in Colorado were when I was talking to Carver about life because I could imagine having the same conversations with Trysten in a few years. They met and, well, Trysten is still talking about him.

Amanda. She took on 5 kids and this hair. Come on, she’s amazing.

We stayed up way too late every night. I think this picture of Dailah was at about 10:00pm. She was delirious and hungry.

The crew. Tariku and Teshome (right next to Tariku) were besties in Ethiopia. Every time I think of their relationship I get tears in my eyes. It is a priceless, priceless thing for him.

This was everyone (but me) for almost the entire 6 hours home. We were exhausted.

This is my favorite picture I’ve taken of my favorite people I took all summer (maybe thus far all year?)

The big 3 went to resident camp again this year. Trysten was in his own cabin away from his brothers for the first time. I can’t tell you how good it was for him to just be Trysten and not be the oldest brother. But ugh, it was rough on me this year.

And these two? Had so much fun. Tariku still struggled with re-entry (more on that later) but otherwise they just can’t wait until next summer.

Their counselors…Nacho, you’ve heard me talk about him (far right) is the best at what he does, there really is no comparison. And this year they got Optimus too who was just as attentive and wonderful.

Trysten was with 2 British guys, which is exactly where a Harry Potter-lovin’ guy like himself wants to be (he’s just like his mom, amiright?) But seriously, they were everything I could want in counselors for my boy.

 Those were the pictures I had ready on my computer. Nevermind that they are a few months old.

But I figured out a way to blog more so you’ll hear more from me. I promise. Off to read the blogs I’ve missed since my absence. Love and hugs.

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Mehaber bound

The kids and I (Zach’s too busy during the summer to come with on our many excursions) packed up Thursday morning for the 6 hour drive to Minnesota. Our main reasoning for this trip is the Ethiopian Mehaber that will be later today. But as an added perk we get to stay/hang out with Tariku’s best friend from the orphanage (Teshome) as well as many other awesome people we’ve met throughout this adoption journey. Last night as we were hanging with Cathy’s family, Tony’s family and, of course, Teshome’s family. I was reminded again how blessed I have been by this whole adoption experience. Obviously I’ve gotten 3 amazing babes to pour love into, but I also got so many things I wasn’t expecting. Finding other women/families who love me, encourage me, challenge me and help me has been one of the purest blessings of my life. The house is asleep but for me. I’ve made myself a few cups of coffee (they are not coffee drinkers in this house, the horror!) and am catching up on some social media. I’m thinking about the people I get to meet/see today and the moments we’ll get to celebrate the culture of Ethiopia and I’m positively beside myself with anticipation. My next post, I’m sure, will feature an obscene amount of pictures but until then I’m off to read a bit before the house awakes. Love, T

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New Chapter

So I mentioned in this post that we had a secret to share.

Sarah thought maybe it was my sister getting engaged, which is super exciting and I’ll write on that later, but not it.

The news is that in a few weeks we will officially be licensed foster parents.

Yikes. I almost threw up just typing that.

To back up:

After we first adopted Tariku, Zach and I started talking about how foster care will happen for us one day. We always kind of thought we’d start it when the kids were older and then we’d be able to do some older children fostering.

But after about a year home with Tomas and Binyam we both realized we still had some room in our hearts for more children. So we thought we’d go to a foster care informational meeting and see what they had to say.

We left feeling like it was definitely doable and that now sounded like a good time. They said at the meeting that we’d start the 10 week classes in a few months and then go from there.

The next day we got a phone call, “Hey we saw on your sheet that you’ve adopted before so we were hoping you would start classes tomorrow.”

The classes were every Tuesday for 3 hours each night, for 10 weeks straight. We needed babysitters and I needed a sub for one of my classes. Obviously without hesitation I responded

Sure!

And as is with most things like this, it ended up working itself out. Only one night did we have to leave early because Tariku fell off his skateboard and wanted to see a doctor (he was fine). Everything else fell into place.

The classes were long and sometimes really painfully boring. Because we had done so much education before our adoptions we knew a lot about what they were discussing.

We were disappointed to find they didn’t do any attachment talk and very little education on privacy.

We were pleased to learn more about the birth family relationship and how it pertains to the foster family.

So in the end we will be dually licensed as foster and adoptive parents for a child 0-5yrs old. Any gender. If we are fostering a child who has parental rights terminated and they are a good fit for our family we will choose to proceed with an adoption. If not, we will do our best to love ’em while we got ’em.

If we get a placement and we can see that any of our kids are struggling in the least bit we will take time off from fostering and refocus as a family. With all things, our family is our priority and we are entering this new chapter with that in mind.

Of course I’m nervous and excited and want to throw up a little bit. Undoubtedly the thing I’m most nervous about is falling in love with a child/ren and then having to release them. After the classes, though, my mind has shifted and I feel better about that.

Because the thing of it is I really do believe Zach and I are good parents. I think God gives us all these places where our strengths can meet some of the world’s greatest needs and this happens to be it for us. Parenting. We make mistakes, of course we do, but I think in some respects this is the thing I’m best at.

And so we go forward. Scared, excited, nervous, anxious, all of that. But we have each other, and our kids who are more excited than we are and we have a God who we really do believe is stringing this all together.

So for better or worse.

Onward.