Do I dare say it? There is something good that comes out of having an incredibly bad bout with a stomach bug. Yep, really there is...
It is gratitude. Right now I am extremely thankful and cognizant of my health, strength and energy. After almost a week in bed I am happy to have my good health back. While on the fritz I also had gratitude... towards those that helped me get through the day (Ellen Degeneres and Nate Burkhas- my TV pals), take care of my boys (Donna... and of course Michael) and listen to my pity party (the nurses, doctor, poor phlebotomist - who really got an earful... and once again Michael). Mehandis and Abera were as patient as their age allowed. Loved when Mehandis told me, "You need to get dressed Mama!".
Michael, you really deserve extra kudos. You cleaned, cooked, calmed and cared. As I lay in bed I would watch and listen with awe - both at your seemingly boundless energy (especially in comparison with mine) and your kind ways with the boys. Remind me of this the next time I nag you about where your shoes landed.
And I need to remind myself to appreciate all that my body can do for me and all that others continue to contribute to our family.
In celebration of the wonderful weekend and fantastic weather we hit the trails for a hike at Kettle Morraine. Abera seemed to take to the hiking back pack right away! Don't think the camera caught his smile here but he was loving it.
Mehandis's trail run was a bit impeded by the fact that he needed to hold his pants up for them to stay on. Never knew that they were too big before. Oops.
Over half of the conversation consisted of mosquito questions and commentary. I do believe that I have brainwashed the poor boy into fearing these pests as much as I do.
Shocked that this photo turned out as I swear Mehandis's hand covered up the lens during our photo session. Guess that is his finger in the bottom left corner though...
The boys are having fun together on the days that Mehandis is "off" from preschool too. We have had some fun play dates with friends, gone to the park, walked to the library (love my Craig's List purchased sit & stand... glad Mehandis likes it too) and just chilled at home.
Mehandis gets excited to read Abera his old "baby" books... especially since he knows most of the words by heart.
Brothers chilling on the couch... I swear Abera is content as long as he can watch whatever Mehandis is up to. Seems that Mehandis's very active nature comes in handy now!
Oh yes, have to share a funny little aside story. Michael is larger than life now in Mehandis's eyes. You see, he came home from this past weekend's Sailing Awards Dinner as a winner. I never before felt too enthused about my husband winning 1st place in sailing as the following trophy would then follow him home... and then would need to be prominently displayed on our mantle.
But this Sunday, when Mehandis happened upon the trophy on the kitchen counter, he exclaimed, "Look Mom! It's the Piston Cup!!!". A little reference to our son's favorite movie, "Cars", for those of you not in-the-know.
Michael and I then told him that his father had indeed won the "Sailing Piston Cup" and that I would love for Mehandis to keep it in his bedroom. We are winners all the around now!
The following is Michael's second journal entry... encomapssing the next 24 hours of our trip...
Sunday - August 29th
With going to bed around midnight and having been up for like 36 hours, the morning came quickly. We had to leave the care center by 6AM for our trip to Hosanna. We planned to get up around 5:30 and quickly get ready to leave. However that plan was thwarted by others in the center getting up at 5AM and with the sounds in the hallways, we were woken up. We stumbled out of bed and began to get ready for along long day ahead of us. The shower was a tub with no curtain and a hand-held sprayer. So I took a quick shower and Michele passed on the opportunity. There is no heat or air conditioning in the building since it is very temperate in Addis Ababa, and it was a cool morning, so the shower was not a relaxing way to start the day.
To show you what our room looks like, here is a video from the night that we arrived.
While waiting for Michele to get ready, I stepped out on our balcony and heard the call to prayer. It is neat to hear in the dark calm of the morning. We went downstairs to the dining room to eat and we were then able to meet the rest of the travel group. Patrick, Danielle and us were the last ones to arrive, so most had already met and we were the newbies. In addition, most of the group had all traveled together back in July, so they knew each other already. It took us a bit to learn this fact, which made more sense because we kept wondering how they seem to know each other so well so quickly.
Waiting to board the bus pre-dawn
Soon we piled into the van and started on our long trip to Hosanna. It was nice to see that our driver was the same driver that we had back in 07, always nice to see familiar faces when you are so far away from home. We picked up the social workers at the office who served as translators for the parent meetings and started down south to Hosanna.
Our very skilled driver!
A Social Worker/Translator who accompanied us for the trip
The reason we traveled to Hosanna was to meet with the birth families. We did this trip when we traveled to bring home Mehandis and I loved this part of the trip for two reasons. First, the capitol city Ethiopia is a great city to see but getting outside to the countryside provides a whole new perspective of Ethiopia. Second, the chance to meet our son's birth family is a rare thing in international adoptions and we feel lucky to have this opportunity.
For privacy reasons, I will not say much about meeting Abera's family but just that it was a good meeting and we felt more prepared for this meeting than we did for meeting Mehandis' family. The family meetings are always arranged to happen on Sunday's and with our arrival on Saturday night, I was actually not able to meet Abera yet before meeting the family. With the two trip process, our agency figured that we had met our child with the first trip, therefore it was OK to arrive on Saturday and meet the family on Sunday. Since I did not come with Michele on the first trip, I had not yet Abera. I wished I could have met him before meeting the family but it worked out just fine.
Waiting to meet with Abera's birth mother
Our agency does a good job of facilitating the meetings and we were able to get a couple of pictures. After meeting the family we had an entrustment ceremony. The entrustment ceremony is where the families pray for each other and the birth family lights a candle and hands it over to the adoptive family. It is a surreal event.
A Traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony followed the Entrustment Ceremony
The meetings with the birth families is in Hosanna because it is a town that is near where many of the kids our agency adopts are born and that is where the satellite orphanage is located before the adoptive kids are brought to Addis Ababa. So Abera at one month old made the same car ride as we did today. The birth families are brought to Hosanna for the day to meet with us.
The trip takes around 3-4 hours each way (it was a bit longer on the way home because Addis Ababa is in the mountains and our bus went much faster down on the way there than up on the way home. We like to say that the countryside reminds us of Ireland, it is really green and hilly. It really is a beautiful country. Driving along the roads you can look into the distance and see numerous thatched roof houses dotting the landscape. You can image people living in these homes for hundreds of years and their way of life really not changed over those years. To really take the landscape in, I would really love to walk this road in the future for an hour or two. Then we really could see the people and landscape at a pace that would be easier to take in.
Our van is an older vehicle and it fitted with about eight rows of benches that can fit two people on one side with a single seat on the other side of the aisle. Then all of the rows have a fold out seat, so you can sit four across. Our bus driver is the same driver that we had three years ago, it was nice to see a familiar face. The group was pretty quiet for the ride, there were two kids, one 2 and the other 5, who were pretty well behaved for such a long trip.
Here is a short video that I took on the trip.
Looking out the window is an amazing scene because you see things you never see driving in the US. There are a ton of people walking along the road, almost no one has cars outside the city. When going city to city, most people travel by bus, so on the road, you do not see many other vehicles at all and when you do, it is either a bus, mini-bus taxi or a mini-taxi. The road is paved all the way to Hosanna and mostly it is countryside with about 10-15 small towns along the way. Nothing is paved off the road, it is all packed down dirt. All the towns have storefronts that face the road that look to be made from sheets of aluminum.
The people walking along the roads include young and old, many of them walking with donkeys who are carrying water. In addition, donkeys are pulling carts with wood and supplies or with people in them. The bus driver cruises past the animals on the roads and the bus horn gets a really good workout. You can see kids as young as six by themselves pushing donkeys down the road. There are people sitting by the side of the road and others working in the fields. Then you see women carrying huge stacks of wood on their backs and young women and kids carrying babies on their backs. Many of the kids do not have shoes and many toddlers do not have pants. Since there are not many cars that pass by, many of the kids that we drive past stop what they are doing and wave at our bus. The apparel that adults are wearing is all over the board, but for how dirty everything is (there is dirt everywhere and seems impossible to get away from), the clothes are really clean with white scarves worn by women. I do not know how they do it! In the towns we saw a number of Foosball tables, ping pong tables and kids who shine shoes.
On the ride home just outside of a town we saw a lot of people walking to a central location and then saw a large crown standing in a large rectangle. We soon realized that they were standing around a soccer game and the crowd was 2-3 people deep around the entire field, right up to the goal posts on both sides. It was really neat to see.
Glimpse of the soccer game and spectators
We got back to the care center sore from sitting and hot from the sun beating down on us the last couple of hours of the trip. It was around 4:30 and Michele and I wanted to take a short walk. We had not moved much in the last couple of days, so we quickly headed out. We left and quickly found Metro Pizza, a place we had gone three years ago for St. George beers with our then travel group. I had some money, so we stopped in and enjoyed a relaxing beer. My memory of Metro Pizza was a lot nicer than it looked now, the outside patio was really run down, garbage on the ground and the furniture not comfortable. I did not think it was anything great last time but certainly I thought it was better than it looked now. This is one constant that you see in this country, the details are not tidy as we are used to. This would be considered a dump in the US but it seems to be common upkeep, it looks OK at first glance, but when you look hard, you see things that you just do not see in most offices and establishments in the US. In any case, we saw a couple of other Caucasians pick up pizza at the restaurant, so the cleanliness might not be great, but the food and beer is savory.
The Millennium Hotel, which had just opened last time we were there, is right next Metro Pizza. It is now closed to everyone except for Chinese workers who are in Ethiopia working on construction projects. So there were a number of Chinese having a beer on the patio with us. One has to think what happens around the hotel full of men, mostly young, in a foreign country.
After our beer we walked back to the house and dinner was being served, so we sat down and enjoyed a nice dinner with the group. After dinner I rounded up a group of six people and we walked back to Metro Pizza for more beers. Michele was just getting logged on to the computer when the group was ready to leave, so I said our family can wait to find out if we are OK, we have some people waiting to go drinking!
We sat inside the restaurant, got to know each other a bit better, and compared our adoption experiences. We enjoyed two beers each and the staff was nice enough to give us some pita bread. We wandered back to the house around 8:30 and with the electricity out, we went to sleep.
After being home for 2 and a half weeks, it seems I have spent 1 and a half of those weeks sick. Yuck. Not sure where the germs came from... but glad they for the most part primarily landed on me versus our newborn, toddler or sole breadwinner (for now). Thus far I have popped a variety of pills, finished off a box of kleenex and treated myself to my favorite comfort food (T-Bell Drive Thru!!!) as I attempt to get closer to that happy healthy spot again. Although I am still in my pajamas well into the afternoon, I at least feel motivated enough to turn the computer on and blog some. There is a lot of happiness to share.
What brings happiness to your heart like a sleeping baby boy? Ooh, I know the answer... Two boys sleeping at the same time!!! The sound of "quiet" is magnified when both Mehandis and Abera are both asleep during naptime and at night. Good job boys!
I have included two pics of Abera's room. It is a comfy and unique space. Mehandis wishes that the rocking chair fit 3 people more comfortably... but we still make it work during early morning bottle feedings! I am glad to have the company.
I "dig" these happy Abera poses!
My mom and dad came this past weekend to visit and also offered their babysitting services for Michael and I to enjoy a previously planned night out. We all enjoyed some outdoor time, donuts, train play and company.
Courtney gets credit for the Froggy Hat creation!!!
Yes, I do know what handsome looks like ;0
Last Saturday, Michael and I were honored to be recipients of a "Welcome Home" shower from our friends at church. It was wonderful!!! We had enjoyed delicious chili(s), cake, conversation and extremely thoughtful gifts.
Mehandis was quite excited to be included in the gift getting!
Although I admit that I had to use some extra parenting psychology to get him to wear the shirt the next day... so that he and Abera would be a little matched set. It was worth it, but didn't get the camera out fast enough to get photo documentation.
Something else that I didn't get photo documentation of was our visit with my newest niece. Erin had a little girl this past Friday!!! She is absolutely precious as you can see from her "announcement" photo.
Thanks to Michael who served the role as journal writer and videographer (once again!) during our travels. Here are his journal entries for the first two days of our trip... encompassing leaving Milwaukee to putting our head onto the pillow some 30 hours later. The videos will come soon!!!
Friday
We got up early, around 6AM and I went to work because we were so busy that I wanted to get some invoicing done. I stayed until 8 and went home to help Michele pack and finish getting ready for our trip. Mehandis played with Ella, Young and Tom outside while we packed. We planned to get out by 10 but were running a bit behind. After a quick family picture, we were on our way by 10:20.
We drove to McDonald's in Kenosha and meet Erin and my parents. We met my parents because they were taking Mehandis the first part of the week that we were gone. Erin is now full term with her pregnancy and looks great. We ate a quick meal and drove next door to the Brat Shop where Michele and I were taking the bus down to O'Hare. We said our goodbyes as the bus drove up and soon we were off on our own, starting our trip to bring home Abera. The bus ride worked out great, going straight down to O'Hare and we got to the international terminal by 1PM.
We checked in for our flights and found a food court with food and drink. We both had bloody mary's and enjoyed simple sandwiches. I remembered the last time we were in this terminal we were flying to Ireland with my family and was at the same bar (I watched Marquette play Louisville in the conference tournament waiting for our flight, MU won... I remember this stuff but not what Michele said to me five minutes ago). After our rest stop, we went through security and we still had plenty of time, so we walked the entire length of the terminal, from the Italians on the north end to the French on the south side (maybe a smart idea to keep them on different ends).
Below is a video of Michael and Michele waiting to leave Chicago at the bar.
We started to board around 3:30 and got out on time at 4:20. As we walked up to our seats we realized that we had bulk head seats, so good leg room. But while Michele was saying how great this was, she did not see the toddler that we would be sitting next to. However the kid was a good traveler and was pretty quiet during the flight. All the seats had their own televisions, so we tried to coordinate watching movies and TV shows together. The flight went smoothly but we both barely slept, maybe getting 30 minutes at the most.
We landed in Amsterdam around 6:45 local time and found a nice cafe for breakfast. I like landing in Europe in the morning, especially being one of the early flights to get in. The airport has so much energy because there are so many international flights getting in around the same time. I had a fun Dutch pancake for breakfast that was really good. I had a headache, so instead of coffee, to hydrate, I had Diet Coke, and it really did the trick to make me feel better.
Click on the picture below for a video of us in Amsterdam.
After breakfast we ran into Patrick and Danielle, a couple that Michele had traveled with back in July that we were looking forward to seeing. We knew we would be on the same flight to Ethiopia together, so we were looking for them. They were just finishing up at the same cafe that we were at and we found some couches to go relax at and wait for our next flight.
Soon enough it was time to board our flight and we took off around 10:30AM. We were more towards the back of the plane and Danielle and Patrick were further up, so we did not see them much during the flight. The flight went smoothly but was long with the stop-over in Khartoum, Sudan. I like landing in Khartoum because before then all you see in sand for so long it is amazing. Then all of a sudden small villages start sprouting up and then a huge city is beneath you. The Nile flows through the city and after seeing such desolate landscape, it was amazing to see that the city looked like it was actually flooded.
Khartoum, Sudan aerial view
The couple that was sitting behind us was from Denver (same as Patrick and Danielle) and were adopting as well (their second adoption from Ethiopia as well!). We had a good conversation with them while waiting for the plane to be cleaned and fueled. The guy across from me was from Ethiopia (looked like a Bob Marley type) but lived and went to school in Norway. He was coming home to see family for a month. I played him some Bole to Harlem on my ipod and he really liked and appreciated it. Michele did point out to me that he did suck his finger like Mehandis when he was sleeping, deepening my worry that our son will never get over this.
We made the final 1:20 leg to Ethiopia and we hardly slept a wink the entire way there. I did fall asleep on this leg for maybe ten minutes, but we really just could not sleep. I got to read a lot of my David Plouffe book on running the Obama presidential run. I remembered that last time we were in Ethiopia I talked with our driver to Hosanna about Obama running and him saying that it was too early and he would not win. So it was neat to reflect on that conversation and how much has changed since last time we were there.
We went throughout the normal slow customs and visa approval process, exchanged some money, found our luggage (!) and walked through the exit of the airport into Ethiopia. Both times we have arrived in Ethiopia a huge crowd is waiting for people to come off the planes, which is neat to see. Luckily this time our contact from CHSFS was there waiting for us.
You won't see anyone you know in this picture, as it is a stock photo... but shows the Arrival Area at the Airport
We walked outside, got our breath of fresh air and the smells of the city. It has just rained and was in the 60's.
Bole International Airport in Addis... night view from parking lot
Addis Ababa at dusk/dawn
We got to the CHSFS bus and drove to the guest house. The city looked the same at night as I remembered. The drive was about 20 minutes to the guest house, which was the orphanage when we were last here. We stayed one floor above where Mehandis stayed in the house and got settled in. We unpacked and then packed for our trip to Hosanna in the morning (6AM leave time and it was now around 11PM!). We found that a bottle of sanitizer has broken in transport and sanitized everything in the bag. Luckily nothing too important was in there, including no clothes. So we washed it out and took care of it (not what we wanted to be doing after our long travels but could be worse). My shaver did break as well but amazingly I was able to put it back together. Around midnight we finally settled in for some sleep.
Michael, Abera and I landed in Chicago on Friday the 3rd... and spent the remainder of Friday and morning of Saturday at Michael's parents' lake home... as a family of 4!
Although fatigue quickly caught up with Michael and I (we slept for 1 hour at most during our 26 hours of travel), we soaked in the love that Mehandis gave us and his little brother... along with the enthusiasm and excitement that the rest of our family had at our homecoming.
Abera "gave" Mehandis a Lightning McQueen (Radiator Springs model... can't believe I know so much about this movie) and Mehandis gave Abera lots of cuddles and kisses.
Abera continues downing his formula from a bottle, which is an accomplishment given that he was used to taking it from his nannies in little metal cups.
We are learning more of Abera's likes/dislikes. He likes being patted on his belly, rubbed on his back, sleeping on his tummy, playing on his back and watching his brother rough house with his daddy.
Too bad you don't get the view of Michael's feet in the pic... quite the fashionable footwear being donned here. This photo was taking right before we left the lake house, headed north to our home. We have all since caught up on more sleep, shaved, unpacked and started settling into our new routines :)
