So today is Orphan Sunday (the whole month of November is actually National Adoption Month). I, of course, think about the plight of orphans all the time. Truly, if anything can keep me up at night, it’s this. What can I be doing, how can I be doing more? To say God has stamped it on my heart would be an understatement. It is, for many reasons, probably the single reason I’m so flippin passionate about water.

Today, I thought all day about my orphans. I’m not sure you can make “orphan” past tense, but I suppose you never have to. It will always be part of the my boys’ story, right? This thing that led them to our home and our hearts. They were orphans. They were orphaned. They lived, for some time, in an orphanage.

Think about that.

My boys, my beautiful, hilarious, ridiculously intelligent, ridiculously strong boys…they were orphans. They were without a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters for some time in their lives.

They were without.

Today we went shopping with my family for Christmas gifting. We were in a store and Tomas literally grabbed my hand and pulled me to face him. He looked me straight in the eye and whispered, “Mommy, thank you for giving your love to me.” My heart absolutely shattered.

I had never thought about that. That Zach gives his love to me, or my parents, or my siblings. I hadn’t thought about how blessed I am to have people give their love to me. But certainly once you’ve been orphaned love, in itself, this motherly love I ooze would probably feel like a gift.

The implications of that little phrase don’t escape me.

Lately Tomas has been whispering in my ear, “Thank you for bringing me here. I love my family, I love my home. I’m so happy here.” I think he’s starting to want to just put it out there. It seems he’s started to really love it here, and he’s clearly scared it will all go away just as soon as he’s started to really like it.

As his mom I’m desperate to make him understand that he gets this for the rest of his life, even when he doesn’t like it so much. But I know the mind of the orphan is different, it just is.

I suppose now would be a good time to tell you that I hate the word “orphan”. Hate it. I’m sure there are many reasons why I hate it, but for whatever reason I think people hear this word and give an immediate look of pity. Orphans don’t freakin need pity, can I just say that? People can take their pity and eat it. Pity does no one any good.

I’m a big believer in adoption (obviously) and foster care, and keeping families together and supporting mothers and, and, and.

I think Christians sometimes get stuck on the adoption/foster care narrative. And boy that is so sad. Because it’s a teeny tiny piece of the “Orphan care” complete narrative. Adoption is not for everyone. Said another way, please don’t adopt, please don’t even consider adopting if you’re not ready for more kids. If you don’t really want more kids but think God wants you to adopt, you’re deadly wrong. I don’t typically like to insert myself in God and the people’s business but I’m serious about that one.

I feel like sometimes I might give an all roses and flowers view of adoption. Because, truly, for the most part that’s what it’s been like for us. I’m not sure how, but we’ve been very blessed to have had pretty seamless transitions with our adopted babes. If you are considering adoption because of something I’ve written and think I’m the norm I want you to read her blog. Like she says, she falls under the “normal” of what to expect. Just get real before you take that step. Just get educated before you take the leap, right?

But everyone, everyone can do something. Have I mentioned water? Mmmk. Water is one of the things that orphaned my Tariku for sure. It’s also one of the things that could’ve killed my Binyam. I’m not wanting to go into details but believe me when I tell you that. Or Heifer. You guys know about Heifer, right? This can go a long way in keeping families together. There’s Doctors Without Borders, there are so many things.

But now is not the time to sit idly by. I want people to not only support the kids who have already been orphaned but support the families so they will never have to make that decision.

This is not just about families internationally, this is about families in our own US of A. Lest you think I’m all about you sending your resources overseas, I’m not. I’m all for combining the local and global movements. I assure you, you have resources enough to do both.

So that’s it. Those are my thoughts on Orphan Sunday. Can I tell you that it’s a complicated thing this “orphan” stuff? Zach and I never started on this path to “save” a little kid. We never did. I assure you some of my prayers are begging for forgiveness for being so thankful for these little boys. My gain was someone’s tremendous loss. You have no idea how heavily this weighs on my persons.

But it’s because of that. Because of this dichotomy that I live so passionately in the in between.

I have no idea where I’m going with this. But there you have it.

Why Love Orphans? from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

He’s doing it. All on his own. After doing lots of strength exercises and stretching and the like, yesterday it just clicked. But he still wanted to hold onto hands.

Then today he did it. He just let go and went for it. It was beautiful.

By the way, the reason for the scream? We have this little game where we call each other “Pooch” and kind of playfully spank each other’s butts. Well, Bini doesn’t know the difference between a butt and a vagina apparently. Because I was expecting him to hug me in excitement and instead he pooched me in the nether region. He was so happy all I could do was scream (in shock) and laugh (in joy).

Love him.

Love this from here:

“But I am convinced that Christians in America can appreciate their country without worshipping it, be politically engaged without being politically consumed, and hold opinions about healthcare and the economy without insisting that God agrees. We can be civil because we know that people are infinitely more valuable than positions. We can be calm because we know that love will win in the end. We can laugh because we’re neither threatened nor dazzled by power.“

How much do you guys love that? Because it’s so true.

That said, I’ll be voting tomorrow. I hope you will be too. I hope you’ve dug deep and figured out what’s important to you and yours. I hope you vote based on that, not based on how other people are voting or how great one candidate’s mustache is (seriously one of the Iowan Governor candidates has an amazing ‘stache).

In the end, in the end, love wins. Regardless, love wins.

Now vote. 🙂

was an amazeballs kind of day. We had weekend plans that changed quickly so we were actually left with a rare open day. After Zach entertained 20 different ideas of fun things to do in about 20 minutes we decided on a fire in the firepit. It was a beautiful, if not slightly chilly, day but we prepared ourselves and headed out the 200 feet to the firepit.

I had a book that I simply couldn’t put down so that came with, as did 2 blankets for me and many chairs, bikes and bears for the kids.

Have I mentioned I love living out here? I think I have, ok then.

How I roll in the great outdoors.

 A little tree climbing contraption the kids rigged up.

 No idea why I love this picture of my eldest but I do.

 How Zach sits after he made us a fire, set up the kids around it and, in general, took really good care of us.

At one point Zach asked Tomas if he ever helped build fires in Ethiopia. Tomas explained that, yes he had, and showed Zach how he used to fan the flame. There are many perks to adopting an older child, this is certainly one of them. Not all of Tomas’ memories from Ethiopia are good, let me tell you that, but they are all important. And seeing his face when he gets to tell us one of his stories shows me that he is proud of his life there, no matter what it meant for his future.

That said, his future on this particular day meant his first shot at trick-or-treating. On our way to my brother and sister-in-law’s house I asked Tomas if he knew what trick-or-treating meant. After establishing that he didn’t, I went on to explain that all he had to do was say “trick or treat” and strangers would give him candy. At first he thought it couldn’t be true, that there had to be more to the story. I assured him there wasn’t, that was literally all he had to do. Tomas then told me he really liked these crazy American traditions.

The 3 bigs

 My nephew, sweet baby Cash or “Cashula” as I liked to call him.

 Tomas “Batman”. With his accent he actually called himself “Butt-man”. Slightly ashamed to admit I never corrected him, it was just too funny.

 I mean, really, despite there being 400 red power rangers at every corner this one certainly took home “the cutest” prize.

 Ditto about this Tinkerbell. Fuggetaboutit.

 Nephew Oliver, a vampire bat. Don’t let the smile fool you, he had a pretty sweet “scary face” as well.

 The cousins, minus Cashula. Good lookin’ crew if I don’t mind me saying.

 Tinkerbell’s dance to candy.

 Tariku’s spiderman.

 With all of that hair we had to create a receding hairline. Classic.

 Binyam is still not able to walk. His knees were really sore for a few days, his legs are still without much muscle and flexibility and he has to learn a whole new way to walk. I admit to being frustrated from time to time as we work on all of those things but when I stop my pity party I realize I have one amazingly brave, amazingly brilliant little boy on my hands. A little boy who got a stroller ride by an amazingly brilliant, amazingly beautiful daddy last night.

What an awesome, awesome day and night we had. Truly a good time had by all.

I’m an aunt again! Truth be told, she is one of the reasons it’s taken me so long to write this here blog. Any spare chance I get I’m sneaking over to my brother and sister-in-law’s to see if Adley needs a quick auntie squeeze. But alas, it’s time to devote a blog entry to this little girl that’s been the talk of the town around here.

Last Tuesday they induced my sis-in-law because she had signs showing she would probably get pre-eclampsia if the doc had her wait until her due date. So they headed into the hospital and both sides of the family camped out in the waiting room.

Everyone but Zach and the kiddos, it was going to be a long day/night.

How we wait in the new age: my dad and sister.

We saw the doc go in and knew it was getting close.

After a few more hours we heard the chimes (the nurses play a little tune when a baby’s born) and a nurse friend of mine caught my eye and gave me a thumbs up-we knew the chimes were for us. For my brother and sister-in-law, for their new family. And that’s when we got ridiculously excited waiting for my brother to come out, for the first time, as a new dad.

A staged photo of how we’d surely look once we saw my brother’s face.

The aunties, arguably the most excited.

The grandmas…ok, maybe they were the most excited.

And then it was time, I saw my baby brother coming through the window and alerted the troops. And this was his face. From the quietest person I’ve ever met in my life, happiness was written all over his persons.

After the grandma’s, it was the auntie’s turn. Boy was it pure joy holding her. She was beautiful right from the start.

 Auntie Katie

 Hotflawedmama, one smitten aunt!

 Aunt KK

 Adley’s own Red Tent

And the new proud family.

The next day the SUPER excited cousins got to see Adley for the first time through the nursery windows. It wasn’t as great as if they got to hold her but it did hold them off for a bit.

I’ve mentioned before how much I love being an aunt, and boy do I! I must say it’s slightly different when it comes from someone I’ve known basically my whole life. Watching my baby brother become a daddy has been one of the coolest things I’ve experienced in my short life. Both exhilirating and scary, if I’m to be honest. I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to protect him and now there’s really no point. For the rest of his life he’ll be walking around with his heart on his sleeve, at his most vulnerable. That’s how it is as a parent, right? At our weakest and strongest simultaneously? I’ve enjoyed seeing the strength from my brother, and it’s made me nervous as hell to see him this vulnerable too.

Because I already see it in his eyes, he’d do anything for this tiny little human. I’m pretty sure she’s managed to create quite the little army of people who love her and would do anything to protect her.

One of those people is definitely me. I love her already. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that she has my (and by “my” I mean “my brother’s”) nose. 🙂

this is how Zach and I drink. His whiskey in a wine glass and my wine in a whiskey glass.

Keeping it classy, that’s just how we do.

Today Bini was introduced to his new casts. The whole day we kept celebrating, “Yay! Binyam gets his new casts today! He’ll be able to walk in these!” Etc, Etc.

Binyam before (we had to reinforce the knees last week as he had literally worn holes in them), precious.

After the cast. His foot WITH THE PIN in them. We did not know about the pins. We weren’t able to prepare him for these things that had to come out. It was awful, it was painful.

Better shot of the foot. It looks so good! The doc was happy, “Looks great, not perfect, but great.” I’m a bit partial but I’ve always thought his feet looked perfect.

The actual pins. They seemed to go on forever.

Here’s the thing though, when he was getting the pins taken out I was ugly crying. Can’t believe how much I love this boy, how I would do anything to not see him in so much pain like that. But I wasn’t alone. As soon as Bini started crying Dailah was crying, and then Tomas was wailing, and then Tariku was crying. Trysten said the only reason he didn’t cry was because he saw everyone else crying and didn’t want to make other people cry.

But then it was done. Binyam chose blue and black as his new colors. He’ll be able to walk in these. His beautiful little legs are so atrophied I hardly recognized them.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, this kid is hardcore. I could tell he was in so much pain. Some of it was when they were taking the pins out (obviously) but a lot of it was just anytime we moved the knees. He’s so stiff and sore from being in the same position for 3 weeks. We came right home and put a heating pad on his knees (they told us this would loosen the joints). He was pale, so obviously in lots of pain but anytime I would give him a kiss or kind of rub his legs he would just smile.

I’m assuming, knowing him like I do, you will undoubtedly see pictures of him sprinting at breakneck speeds within the next few days.

I don’t know what I did to deserve this boy and this family but I will spend the rest of forever trying to earn it.

Coming home from my in-laws tonight I took Dailah, Trysten and Tomas with me in one car, Zach took the other 2 with him. Somehow we got on the subject of singing (I think I asked Tomas if he remembered any of the songs he used to sing in Ethiopia.) So Tomas tells me he has an even better song for me (you won’t be able to see anything, it was shot in the back of a dark car).

Then Dailah proceeded to sing maybe the cutest rendition of her preschool song called, “Good morning”.

When I asked Trysten if he had a song he wanted to sing he commenced to singing, “All my single ladies”.

Well, I tried.