tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82975564684691249342024-03-14T00:55:00.814-07:00Bright Beating HeartsI kind of hate the name of my blog.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-20295459808754836152013-03-30T12:44:00.002-07:002015-10-16T11:56:39.757-07:00Why It Matters The baby dog starts kindergarten in the fall. This makes me want to cry, partly because she is going to love it so and that will be a joy to witness and hear about, but also because it's the natural next step of her venturing out into the world without me. We are zoned to a most impressive, blue ribbon elementary school. The kind of school where students test well and national-teacher-of-the-year awards are given and the second graders make very elegant Japanese Tea Gardens for class projects. The kind of school where on kindergarten round-up day Ava was the only face of color amongst the 100+ kids. We are #2 on a wait list to transfer her out of this school and into a very charming, groovier, still academically rigorous school where the student body happens to be 1/3 black, 1/3 hispanic, and a 1/3 white. These stats at a well-ranked school are astounding for Austin.<br />
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I find myself in a tedious loop of conversation these days in which well-meaning folk ask after where my child will go to school in the fall. We're zoned for this school, I say—immediately people start saying how great it is there, how top notch!—but we're trying to transfer out of it. But why? Because we don't want Ava to be the only black child, or a finger of a handful, at her school. But why? Because we think that matters. But why do you think that matters?, a woman whom I like demanded somewhat aggressively at a party at which Ava was the only black child. The woman explained she just has strong opinions on the issue is all and she hoped I wasn't put off by her questions but she just didn't get it. Of course she hoped she wasn't offending me by saying that.<br />
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And so I tried, willing my eyes not to turn cold or my voice hard, to break down why it mattered. But I felt stupid doing so, and thought her somewhat stupid for asking me to do so, and the conversation itself confused me. Why treat our choice with skepticism? Why do well-meaning friends want to shoo my anxiety off the topic or dismiss it wholesale? I once worried on the matter of diversity to some friends and one lovely woman said "You know what? Your girl is so beautiful, it's not going to matter. She's not going to have a problem." Well hooray for that, y'all, beauty trumps the indignity of race. And of course this normally intelligent, good woman would die if she could hear those words played back for her, but yet they were said. And I said nothing back to her, because I didn't want her to feel bad or stupid, though a part of me thinks what I should have said is "My daughter's not beautiful despite the fact that she's black, she's beautiful because of it you fucking bitch. Now get out of her house."<br />
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I was in a muddy conversation about race with some white friends once during which a woman expressed how deeply embarrassed she'd been when her young son had loudly pointed out the color of a black child in another shopping cart at Costco. She was mortified that her child had singled out his color and that the mother had heard him and it was all so uncomfortable and, she asked me, what should she have done? But I didn't understand what the problem was. Well, another friend said, maybe it'd be like if your child pointed out someone's handicap, you'd just feel uncomfortable? But a) being black isn't a handicap and b) it doesn't sound like the child was speaking with any judgment. Maybe it was my friend who was attaching judgment to the word "black"? My friend could sense my growing impatience with the conversation and she said "You know what, I'm clueless on this. Educate me." I wanted to buy her a drink, I was so grateful for her admission of ignorance and her interest in listening.<br />
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So here's what I wish I would've said to the woman at this recent party, who made me feel defensive for trying to transfer my girl out of a great school just so she wouldn't be "the only" in a room:<br />
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*I don't think it behooves any child to be as conspicuous as mine looked that morning of kindergarten round-up.<br />
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*When my child learns about America's ugly history in its treatment of black people I want there to be other kids in the room, hell, maybe even the the teacher, with skin like hers.<br />
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*I don't want sweet, goofy, careless children always petting on my daughter's kinky hair because they've never seen curls like that before. (Poor mother at the all-white gymnastics spring break camp whose daughter pointed at my daughter and said "Look at how fluffy her hair is!" The mother looked like she was going to have a stroke trying to smooth away her kid's words. "But remember how much you said you loved it?!" she hysterically demanded of her daughter. "I didn't say that," said the girl. "Yes you did, of course you did!" "I said it was fluffy and cute." All the while Ava and I just stood there waiting them out until there was a break in the conversation and we could back away slowly.)<br />
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*I don't want my daughter to ask me if she can straighten her hair because she wants to look like everyone else she sees around her.<br />
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*When people speak of my daughter, they need to be comfortable speaking of her race too. If we're all so evolved and color-blind how come most of my white friends still can't help hushing their voice when they say the word "black"? We are terrified of talking about race, we are desperate not to be thought of as racist that we daily deny our own fear and prejudice. (I include my dumb ass in this as well. I remember back in my 20s I was trying to describe Eriq LaSalle's character on <i>E.R.</i> and I was all "He's the aloof doctor. Pretty serious. Mustache. Um, really tall. Kinda hot but a little too uptight." He was the black guy, you idiot 20 year old self. Say it!)<br />
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*I just assume make some more friends with my daughter's friends' parents who are black. I want her to have lots of black adult role models. That matters because she doesn't get that in her immediate family and that's who she's going to grow up to be. That matters also because I like to keep interesting company. That often adds up to getting to hear new stories. I wrote a book about people living in a small town, and had rituals and traditions and daily lives nothing like mine. Getting to be the ignorant, curious person in the room is a good thing.<br />
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*Some adult adoptees have written really persuasive testaments as to why this matters. It's probably worth listening to them.<br />
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*I have a young black friend who was the only child of color in her high school. When she graduated and moved to the city she admitted that she felt some anxiety, fear even, around large groups of black people. That's tragic to me.<br />
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All of this might not matter to your family. I respect that. But this matters to mine. Please afford that some respect as well. If you don't get it, be cool when trying to have a conversation and don't tease me about these efforts, rolling your eyes at me or joking that I don't count Asians or Indians or Hispanics as diversity. That's insulting. Don't lead with skepticism or dismissiveness. I'm okay being anxious about creating diverse spaces for my daughter and you don't need to talk me out of that sense of urgency. I also don't think we're infecting our child with our concern. Be careful with your words, just as I hope to be with mine, and probably fail at often, when encountering people walking different roads than mine. (Vegetarian? Homeschooler? Christian? Republican?) When all else fails, admit ignorance and we can have a drink and talk.<br />
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<br />Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-85984095567671423342013-01-18T10:02:00.003-08:002013-01-18T16:14:36.588-08:00Charlie & Lila<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I consider it dumb luck that we never really dealt with the more intense attachment issues we were told to expect as adoptive parents. I do remember some very awkward mornings early on at a music class when mothers would sit in a circle with their babies on their laps. Ava would watch the children closely, as if studying their ways, and take cues from them. Sometimes that meant she would sit on this old gal's lap, but usually she trusted her peers' judgment and would elbow her way into some other already chosen mother's lap. That stung a little as I sat there alone badly singing "Hell-ooo everybody, so glad to see you!"—but as long as it didn't provoke a territorial fit in another child and the mother seemed suitably enamored of her unexpected load who was I to demand my baby on my lap. After a couple of months she stopped going to other women and we became her people and never has there been a more loving, affectionate, expressive 4-year-old child. </div>
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To everyone that is except her dolls and stuffed animals. When Ava would get into her crib at night she would look aggressively at her "friends" and start picking them off one by one. "Get outta here!" she'd say like a bouncer in a dock bar as she sent each sailing across the room. "I'm tryin' to sleep." Tough love! We encouraged her to name them—"Truck?" she offered once for a little stuffed elephant in a very bored voice—and to give them a pretend life but nothing took. In May we went to my best friend's wedding in Los Angeles and stayed at a very fancy hotel. Upon check-in the concierge gifted Ava with a stuffed koala bear and she surprised us by naming it ("koala") and every couple of weeks or so would hold it fondly for a few seconds. </div>
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A couple of weeks ago Tim and Ava were getting ready to visit his folks in Florida. Before they left Ava bundled up a little fleece blanket and told me that it was her baby. Wasn't I excited to be a Grandma! </div>
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The baby's name was Charlie Ava told me, which is also her class hamster's name. Charlie too was adopted from Ethiopia when she was 11 months old. She misses her uncle very much but the baby loves Mum Mums and she likes to be sung lullabies as she falls asleep and she needs a bottle and would I promise to feed her and sing to her and change her diaper and tell her how loved she was while Ava was away. I solemnly promised to do all this and weirdly did find myself poking my head into Ava's room each night to make sure the blanket was still happily stuffed on top of her dresser like she had left it. I flirted with the idea of putting a diaper on it as a gag for Ava when she got home but then remembered I was 38.</div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Here's what a Daddy-Daughter trip looks like by the way. Hold on to your face Ava.</span></i></div>
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On their way home Tim called from the airport to say that Ava sobbed for her beloved Grandma all through security. When he put her on the phone she was in a state of grand distress. She was excited to come home to see me she wailed, but she also wanted to stay with her Grandma, and now she didn't know what to doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! </div>
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When they got home later that night Ava unpacked all of her new treasures from her Grandmother. A princess book, number and word flash cards, a new stuffed animal I pictured ripped to shreds by the puppy within days. Her Grandma had won her a pink walrus from Legoland and Ava told me her name was Lila and and that she loved her loved her loved her. That night Ava surprised me by tucking Lila into bed next to her and telling Lila to be quiet during the book in a firm but loving voice.</div>
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The next morning Ava remembered Charlie and told me that I had done well by the blanket. Then she proceeded to tuck Lila in for a nap in the sun. Lucky Lila, Lucky Charlie. </div>
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Our little girl—no longer a sociopath to the stuffed community.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-74472178693507470002012-12-26T10:52:00.001-08:002012-12-26T20:18:55.556-08:00Olivia and the Fairy Princess<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
We love Olivia in our house, always have. When Ava was little she used to ride in a green seat attached to the front of my bike on our daily trips to the splash pad. Along the route we would always pass a tagged section of bridge. Whomever spotted the graffiti first would yell "Time Out!" in honor of Oliva getting in trouble for recreating a Jackson Pollock on the wall after visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oh precocious Olivia, pig of a thousand outfit changes, whatever will you get up to next?</div>
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So wasn't I tickled when I spotted a new Olivia down at the bookstore. </div>
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Poor, smug Olivia finds it so incredibly boring that all the girls, and some of the boys, want to dress up as princesses. She's the badass who instead scares everyone at Halloween in her gnarly warthog costume. And why does everyone insist on being pink princesses in crinoline and jeweled crowns instead of an Indian or African or Chinese princess? Where's the vote of confidence and validation for a pig like Olivia who wants to be a little different? Ha ha ha, I thought to myself, what a clever way for me to stretch Ava out of her tedious princess idealization without being the bad cop.<br />
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(Ava on Christmas morning in a ridiculous $5.99 set of Princess Kate-inspired jewels. New York, represent.) </div>
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This was shaping up to be the best good night reading ever! And then we got to the end of the book when Olivia started flirting with other possible future identities for herself. She could be a nurse and devote herself to caring for the sick and elderly? Go Olivia! Or maybe she could adopt all the orphans in the world? <span style="font-size: xx-small;">meep</span> Or she could become a reporter and expose corporate malfeasance.<br />
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"What's an orphan?" asked Ava. An orphan is somebody without a Mommy or Daddy. "Was I an orphan?" Yes you were, and then we became a family. There was a pause. "What's corporate malfeasance?"<br />
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Olivia! You know how tired I am at the end of the day and how badly I tend to muddle emotional conversations like these and then how I ache like a darted animal at the idea of my child in confusion or pain. I'm an inept woman in many areas, none more so than when allowing those I love the space to flounder or grieve.<br />
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Ava of course knows she is adopted. We talk about Ethiopia often. She delights in the long version of the story of our first meeting, how Daddy stopped breathing before she was brought into the room and how I felt drunk on helium, and how her new parents badly got our limbs tangled up trying to change her diaper and ended up dribbled in her pee, and how she slurped down that first bottle in my arms while the three of us gaped at each other like fish and then she wailed for hours until she fell asleep with a mum mum in one hand and toy keys in the other. We tell her about meeting her uncle, who I got such an extraordinary first impression of, and who held Ava in his lap during our two hours together and wrapped the side of his blazer over the side of her head after she fell asleep so she wouldn't catch a chill. He told us that he wanted Ava to get a good education, and maybe grow up to be a famous doctor, and God willing return to Ethiopia one day to reunite with her three sisters and brother.<br />
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About a year and a half ago we clumsily introduced the idea of her siblings who God willing still live with her uncle and aunt. What information for a young child to try to incorporate into her own story. She regularly informs children she's just met at the park of their existence, looking over to me for confirmation of their ages. When her Daddy takes food off her plate without asking or throws a napkin at her head she gets very prissy and tells him "My sisters and brother would never use such bad manners at the table. They always keep their napkins on the lap and take their dishes to the sink and they always get dessert."<br />
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It took me too long probably to exhale the words birth mother and birth father to my child. I don't know why exactly, though I imagine it has something to do with my own stunted grieving around the death of my mother and the projected anxiety that Ava would then worry we would die and good God I hope not too much of it revolved around any toxic sense of envy or survivor's guilt or fear of being replaced. But then came the first time we dropped casually into the conversation the fact that Ava had an Ethiopian mother and father and that they had died and that that was sad. And she took it in but did not pursue. And we did it again a couple of times, in equally non casual casual conversations. But she never seemed able or willing to process just what that might mean until last night at the end of <i>Olivia and the Fairy Princess</i>.<br />
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We'd returned home from a long day of celebrating Christmas with fine friends. I'd had wine. We weren't sure which of us had farted. It was her turn to pick the book. Olivia! After I read that same dreaded page Ava happily announced "I'm an orphan!" the way a child might identify as having brown eyes or being a certain age. "Well I used to be an orphan until you and Dad got there. When did you get there?" Lucky Tim in the kitchen doing the dishes! "We got there a few weeks before your 1st birthday, which really mattered to me for some reason. Do you remember your party at Vivian's house?" <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">I'm pathetic</span> "But I don't understand what I did when I was 0 to 1."<br />
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Were we doing this? We were doing this. And so began in earnest what will be most important ongoing conversation of our lives.<br />
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Ava, you lived with your mother and father—we can call them your birth mother and father, your Ethiopian mother and father, or just your Mom and Dad, whatever feels right as we go along—until you were four months old. They got very sick and died. I do not know how to answer the question of whether or not you saw them die and I'm sorry for that blank and a thousand other blanks. Your sisters and brother live with your uncle and aunt. From four months until—...<br />
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My four-and-a-half year old little girl then said she was feeling very sad and that her eyes felt like crying. I agreed it was very sad and I felt like crying too, and I didn't know what she was feeling but I know how sad and confused I felt when my mother died. This all was sad but if nothing else she could always trust the safety of being sad with us.<br />
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"I am sad that my birth mother and birth father died and I'm sad that your mother died too," she cried. (For the rest of my life I will be humbled by her generosity of spirit in that moment that made room for me.) "And Yellow!" (The cat). "I am so sad that they died but you and Daddy, not my birth mother and not my birth father, but you Mom and Dad Dad, are not dead." We are not dead, I agreed, and we are not going anywhere* and isn't it lucky that we all have so many people in our lives who love us and love us well.<br />
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We lay there for a bit and then Ava told me to go on and finish the story. And then she asked for <i>Green Eggs and Ham</i> (not a good book) and then we had a good laugh about one day tricking Daddy into eating green eggs for breakfast. Then she fell asleep on my chest and I kissed her dear face a few dozen times. Then I found Tim in our bedroom watching a show about zombies and I gasped "Did you hear any of that?" and he said "No, what?" and then I wanted to dump the laundry basket on his head.<br />
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Ava, be a princess if you want to be one. Be a doctor if you want to be one. Be sad when you're sad. Be a goofball when you feel goofy. Be you, all of it. And never, ever wonder if you are alone in this world.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*I may have whiffed it at this point and been unable to stop the words "And I'm never going to die!" from rushing out of my pathetic mouth. </span><br />
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<br />Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-54110275503497018552011-08-29T12:50:00.001-07:002011-10-09T16:20:08.394-07:00An Argument for NatureSunday marked the end of summer here in Austin. Which is odd, as it is 111 degrees out today. But our much beloved public pool down the street is now officially closed and that means we are without our go-to afternoon activity until next June. Lots of other people love the pool apparently as there seemed to be an entire cafeteria's worth of junior high kids dumped into the deep end yesterday. My word, there is nothing more awkward than a 12-year-old boy. Trust that you will grow into those limbs and noses young men! And I am completely perplexed by this generation of tweenagers' embrace of the bikini. When I was a kid—oh God, not one of these stories—we wore big old Hanes t-shirts in the pool over our unflattering one pieces. We crossed our arms over our goofy chests and worried if our thighs rubbed together. I'm not sure girls today strike me as any more confident or self-possessed but they do like to lead with their midriffs.<br /><br />When one of Ava's gymnastic camp counselors showed up she proceeded to love on Ava for a bit. After one last hug she moved on to her own crowd where girlfriends engaged in a shrill chorus of Oh-my-God-your-shirt-is-so-cute-I-love-your-hair-I-missed-you-so-much catching up. Ava looked after the big kids longingly and finally asked if she could walk over to the benches by the deep end to say hi to Marie one last time. We said sure, but come back when Marie looks busy (read: over it) or gets in the water. So Ava strutted over to a group of about 30 high-pitched 8th graders and half awkwardly/half arrogantly assumed the middle. Papa Dog and I wondered aloud what was making her more nervous: The proximity of the deep end or the manic energy of an unfamiliar group. We should probably go get her, I said. But when we looked over again she'd appeared to have just finished a hilarious story and was giving everyone double high-fives.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jfmV5in217M/Tlvy_oCeqkI/AAAAAAAAAco/5ymDOnIgwJQ/s1600/IMG_0998.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jfmV5in217M/Tlvy_oCeqkI/AAAAAAAAAco/5ymDOnIgwJQ/s320/IMG_0998.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646373732732545602" /></a><br /><br />Eventually Marie brought Ava back to us in the shallow end, where we'd been studiously trying to avoid getting roped into conversations with anyone our own age, especially the chatty Norwegian fellow and his gropey daughter. Poor Ava, already cool at 3 years old*, was once again marooned with her dud parents. Have mercy on your dear Dad in his riding-up bathing suit and a Mommy who thinks it's amusing to arrange a cape of wet hair over my face and put my sunglasses on over it and then ask the family about our goals for the year ahead.<br /><br />*As if! You're the one who picked out those new Chubby Checker sunglasses and continues to fight with your father that it is now safe to look directly into the Texas sun. Also, remind me when you're 11 that every time you left the house as a child you insisted that we all put our hands in the middle and cheer "Sunglasses power activate!" ("Form of a nerd!" says Dad.)Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-11434503582289958492011-08-22T14:40:00.000-07:002011-08-22T14:43:45.887-07:00An Argument for Nurture<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VjU0OJb1UgY/TlLNb7o5rHI/AAAAAAAAAcg/v04ICmpGhNo/s1600/IMG_3275.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VjU0OJb1UgY/TlLNb7o5rHI/AAAAAAAAAcg/v04ICmpGhNo/s320/IMG_3275.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643799162798058610" /></a>
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<br />What a happy and relaxed family of three, delighting in the butterfly exhibit. Nerds to the core, y'all.
<br />Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-39575022594259173432011-06-26T11:20:00.000-07:002011-06-26T18:14:10.913-07:00A Hair StoryYesterday I took my girl to the hair salon. It was our first trip together, and the man who ran the shop came recommended by another local adoptive mom. Ava is fairly tender-headed—though she's developed some real endurance over the last two years—and I wasn't sure how she'd hold up with a stranger taking hold of her tresses. So I really talked up our visit to Mr. Greg and how fun it was going to be and what a big girl she was and that I would pack not one but two lollipops in my shorts pocket.<br /><br />Neither of us really knew what to expect. I think Ava imagined a delightful afternoon of lollipops and simply another person in her life cooing over her beauty. I assumed I'd act a little awkward and high-pitched while trying to gracefully turn down any and all suggestions of relaxing treatments. An hour would pass; we'd emerge back into the sunlight with Ava's hair perhaps done in a far better set of box braids than I could've managed in three times the amount of time. Hooray! Rite of passage, check.<br /><br />Mr. Greg was awfully nice, a big booming type of a guy prone to loud claps. I liked him immediately. He got Ava up on a cushioned plank placed on the arms of a stylist chair and started feeling her hair. Her scalp looked great, he determined. Her hair was terrifically healthy. Well wasn't I feeling like the cock of the walk. Then he pronounced that her coil pattern is simply too tight to justify the length of her hair. Her hair would always be prone to matting and tangling and eventual dreading and we really should cut it. Cut it? But her magnificent puffs! <br /><br />Cut it. It wasn't fair to me or to her, Mr. Greg said, not to choose a hairstyle that worked with her hair. She was not meant to have long hair. But, I stammered, you said her hair was healthy and my understanding is that in his (our?) culture black girls with short hair are frowned upon and wasn't this what I signed up for when I became Ava's mother? Her hair might be high maintenance but that was part of the deal. It was my job to spend time each morning detangling and conditioning. It's my job to spend a few hours on Sunday attempting a new style that will hold nicely for a few days. He told me to get a new job.<br /><br />At this point I was really flummoxed and I could tell Mr. Greg was starting to tire of my hand-wringing. I hate it when people think I'm nuts. (And yet it happens so often!) He had me look at a bunch of pictures of black women with short hair (and I mean to the scalp short). Did I not think they were beautiful? Well of course I do, I said, but they're grown women who've made a style choice for themselves, not because their nervous white mama made them go short, and they've also chosen to pair their look with makeup and big jewelry. Well pierce her ears, said Mr. Greg. Pierced ears would cut down on people calling her a boy or teasing her or questioning her sexuality. At this point in the afternoon I may have been quivering as I watched Mr. Greg put two little marker dots on Ava's ears and take out his hydrogen peroxide and piercing kit. I stupidly telegraphed my discomfort by telling Ava that this was going to pinch. Well that really made Greg shake his head in disapproval. So now Greg was growing weary, Ava scared and I'm ashamed to admit that I was on the brink of tears. <br /><br />"I really think I should talk to Ava's Dad about all this before I do anything," I said. He handed me the phone. I left poor Tim a message and sent him a text, hoping that he'd get a break on set in time to see my SOS. Just as Mr. Greg was about to shoot the gun into Ava's ear/my heart I managed to catch my breath and call cut. <br /><br />Mr. Greg allowed himself a little groan of exasperation. It's just that I expected my job that day to be advocating for kind treatment of her beautiful, natural hair, I tried to explain. But somehow I found myself arguing the other position, while this black man was encouraging me to broaden my concept of beauty, culture be damned. Poor Mr. Greg, trying to do the right thing. I'm so grateful to him for disavowing relaxers and banning them from his salon. I'm so impressed by his determination to run a shop whose mission is to reteach a culture how to love and respect their natural beauty. He was tired of black women thinking of their hair as the enemy. When he stopped relaxing hair at his salon he said most of his clients were not just mad, they came to think of him as the AntiChrist. Now he specializes in Sisterlocks. Yes to all of this! <br /><br />And yet what to do with my three year old girl? Girls have long hair. Black girls especially, or so was my impression. Shouldn't Ava have braids or twists or rows, no matter the cost or, I don't mean this, do I?, the demands put on her patience and pain threshold. And if I'm being brutally honest with myself, is my hesitation really just because I think A) she won't look as pretty with short hair and I get an inordinate amount of pleasure at the number of people who remark on her adorableness and B) black women will look disapprovingly at me for cutting her hair. Hmm, A and B aren't really about Ava at all, are they? I'm such a dick.<br /><br />I paid my $25 consultation fee and promised Mr. Greg we'd be in touch again. I'm at such a loss of what to do.<br /><br />Tim was so happy he didn't come home to his little girl with gold posts in her ears.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_3OAsxF_FRM/TgeA-opn16I/AAAAAAAAAVY/l7Ez42-bDCw/s1600/IMG_1308.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_3OAsxF_FRM/TgeA-opn16I/AAAAAAAAAVY/l7Ez42-bDCw/s320/IMG_1308.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622604473347594146" /></a><br />How I do love that puff.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-75350082877833428072011-06-05T18:48:00.000-07:002011-06-08T05:34:04.034-07:00First trip to the emergency roomLast night Tim and Ava took Tulip for a walk after dinner. I decided to stay back at home so I could stumble around the internet in peace. One friend's status update bemoaned her child's vomiting; another her boy's broken arm. And literally just as I was thinking how we'd been spared any real scares I heard a siren-like wail crash up into the house. Tim was yelling for me, saying that Ava had taken a header on the street and that it was very bad. My body went dark and I shut my eyes very tight. No, no, no. But there she was in Tim's arms, sobbing for me, a golf ball sized lump already shiny on her forehead. "I want to go to the doctor," I remember groaning, my voice like a cat about to fight. "I want to go to the doctor, I want to go to the doctor." <br /><br />Tim grabbed a pack of frozen peas, I put a popsicle in Ava's little hand ("open it for her," Tim had to remind me). The emergency room is just a two minute drive and during that time Ava became rather pleased with her popsicle and intrigued about our adventure. There was no line in the waiting room and we were sitting on a hospital bed within five minutes of arrival.* The nurses were lovely; the doctor a reassuring mix of stoic and good-humored as he checked for neurological damage and gave her a full body scan. Ava, magnificent child, was alert and focussed and curious. Doc pronounced her in good shape, though warned her lump would appear worse over the next 48 hours and her dinged up eye would most likely look like that of a fighter's in the morning. As we left she spelled out the bright red letters of EMERGENCY which made my eyes sting.<br /><br />She slept in our bed so we could rouse her every 2-4 hours. I, a terrible sleeper on good nights, didn't sleep at all.<br /><br />Somebody shoot me up nice with a horse tranquilizer because my heart just can't bear it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EjrlVLvRPvY/Tew0VCponCI/AAAAAAAAAVI/Sfrtz72V1pU/s1600/IMG_7475.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EjrlVLvRPvY/Tew0VCponCI/AAAAAAAAAVI/Sfrtz72V1pU/s320/IMG_7475.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614920371517561890" /></a><br />The Morning After. (Lump is happily all but gone!)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DPXW9W9wg5I/Tew1ValsyXI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/A6fLpQKu19s/s1600/IMG_7477.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DPXW9W9wg5I/Tew1ValsyXI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/A6fLpQKu19s/s320/IMG_7477.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614921477455137138" /></a><br />A Day of Leisure and Rest.<br /><br />*Only once did I seriously come close to losing it--when the lock-jawed, idiot-face receptionist who typed with one finger wouldn't tell my child her name. "What's your name?" Ava asked her. "What's yours?" she said. "Ava, what's yours?" my baby whispered. "What's yours?" the woman said a few more times. Lady, tell her your god damned name or this clipboard goes down your throat.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-86785193120881914522011-05-28T10:11:00.000-07:002011-05-29T10:04:20.202-07:00Purple NurpleAva Bekelech knows her letters now, or at least most of them. This means that we go nowhere without her stopping to cry out hello to the letter A! or the Big, Big B! etched into the sidewalk, an R! or an H! up on a road sign, or a P! and an E! on the computer keyboard. Every time she hollers out a letter my heart swells. To me, they are the answer to and purpose of everything. Letters add up to words which add up to ideas and stories. And now I have the pleasure of watching my young person see letters all around her, which means her world is getting ready to crack open wide. W!<br /><br />This girl doesn't miss or forget a thing. Funny as all get out. Not funny like she says paghetti instead of spaghetti. Funny as in sophisticated imitations of people and spot-on comedic timing. She sees all, remembers all, questions all. So I keep waiting for her to point to her skin and point to mine and ask, without judgment, "What the heck?" I do ooh over her curls so much that she once assured me that perhaps when I am bigger and older I could have curly hair like her too. <br /><br />Maybe the fact that we look so different doesn't seem worth mentioning because she sees families like hers fairly often. One of her Grandmas is black. Her best friend next door is a pale brown, with a white mom and an Indian father. But all the kids in her little pre-school class were white. (There was one other black boy, a foster child, who abruptly disappeared from her class one week. Seven months later Ava laid between Tim and I in a hotel bed, murmuring to herself before she fell asleep. "Darren went to a new school. That's okay. Darren went to a new school." Fucking A, life is hard.) <br /><br />If we are on the precipice of words and reading, we are also edging up to the bigger and knottier conversations of our adoptive family. We talk about Ethiopia all the time, and she loves hearing about the morning we first met, and she seems to take in stride when I say that one day we hope to all go see her uncle again and her brothers and sisters too. I get lots wrong though. I mean shamefully wrong. I'm so clumsy in my attempts to talk about her birth parents. I remember reading recently about Angelina Jolie's comments about birth parents at a press conference for <span style="font-style:italic;">Kung Fu Panda 2</span>. And yes, I acknowledge that everything about that sentence is ridiculous. Birth parents are happy words in her household, she said. Ooooooh-kay, as Ava would say, imitating my go-to response for her more outlandish pronouncements. <br /><br />I'm still heartbroken that her first parents are dead. And conflicted about my joy at lucking into being her mother. I guess I blame that pain on not talking more about her first Mommy and Daddy. I know Angelina, I'm gross. The other day her little friend was over, lying on the coffee table, moaning that she needed a doctor because she was pregnant. Ava seemed happy enough to play along but I kept wondering, oh God, is this the time she will ask me about what it means to be pregnant? The more questions I ask the more I realize that while I am a lover of letters and words, I'm terrified of the day my daughter puts these big concepts together. Terrified more that I'm letting her down with my nervous hand-wringing about what to say, when, and how.<br /><br />Last night I was struck by the light on Ava's skin and marveled aloud "My Gosh Ava, you have the most beautiful brown skin in the world." She said thank you. And then I just plundered in like an ox. "And Mommy has peachy, freckly skin." She gave me a no duh look. I tried some more—I'm sorry child that your mother is such a dork—until I said "Isn't that funny?" She didn't seem to particularly think so and finally Tim, who was cooking dinner in the same room, worried that maybe I was leading this conversation in a way that wasn't useful for an almost 3-year-old. To which I gave him a no duh look. <br /><br />At dinner Ava announced that it was her turn to talk so I asked her what she wanted to talk about. She looked at me and said, in kind of a lame, sing song voice, which is apparently how I sound when trying to talk about adoption, "The color of skin." Oh! Alright, let's do this. I can totally handle this and be a grown up about it too. Psych! "Let's talk about purple nurples," she said. And she promptly gave one to the both of us. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cxJDFhZWdcU/TeE1NKUfyZI/AAAAAAAAAU0/NwOTCDdEVwA/s1600/IMG_0551.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cxJDFhZWdcU/TeE1NKUfyZI/AAAAAAAAAU0/NwOTCDdEVwA/s320/IMG_0551.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5611825110905244050" /></a><br />My first try at twists. (This also marked the first time in two years I felt darn near cocky after doing Ava's hair.) They're real, and they're spectacular.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q0Vp_cyttsQ/TeE1nS0rmmI/AAAAAAAAAU8/fKv8xD7HqdQ/s1600/IMG_7452.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q0Vp_cyttsQ/TeE1nS0rmmI/AAAAAAAAAU8/fKv8xD7HqdQ/s320/IMG_7452.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5611825559864318562" /></a><br />She's spectacular.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-81411189827588673102011-02-07T19:01:00.000-08:002011-02-07T19:30:01.139-08:00My legs, they be creakyI've got old hamstrings in a young hamstrings game. But I do <a href="http://brightbeatinghearts.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-experience.html">love</a> training for a marathon. And I'm <a href="http://brightbeatinghearts.blogspot.com/2010/02/its-all-marathon.html">crazy</a> for a finish line. <br /><br />This year Papa Dog, training through an IT Band injury, poor thing, and I are going to try to raise some dollars and cents as we gear up for the Austin Marathon on February 20th. We were inspired, as in all things, by the <a href="http://theeyesofmyeyesareopened.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraiser-you-are-invited.html">Lion Heart</a> over at The Eyes of my Eyes. Any money raised on behalf of our run will go to Ethiopia Reads, the blanket nonprofit supporting the Tesfa school.<br /><br />If you can, please consider <a href="http://mycharityrace.com/races/708/">contributing</a> whatever feels right and comfortable. (Oh hell, even if it hurts a little.)Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-82867355276789658972011-02-04T18:04:00.000-08:002011-02-07T19:28:43.899-08:00Somebody come over and brush my teeth for meThe child is asleep, the old man is walking the dog, the snow has melted in Texas. There is so much I should be doing right now--I should be transcribing interviews, I should be braving the underside of the bath mat, I should be drinking water. Tim has <span style="font-style:italic;">the Social Network</span> queued up but I think I won't join him on the sofa. Great movie, and yet I felt queasy with tension throughout the first viewing. (Harvard Girls, you get your asses down from that table and go back to your dorm rooms right now. Or at least go out to a gay club where the men know how to dance nice with a lady.) Instead perhaps I'll jigger up my Kindle and get back to <span style="font-style:italic;">the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</span>, in which the author repeatedly tells me that 46% of the women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man. <br /><br />Ava Bekelech is over two and a half years old. How did that happen? How do I suddenly have a child old enough to yell "No ma'am!" when she finds the dog eating cat food? Oh Ava, do stay a tough cookie your whole life.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/TUyxouKao7I/AAAAAAAAAUY/fELJInapISE/s1600/IMG_1100.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/TUyxouKao7I/AAAAAAAAAUY/fELJInapISE/s320/IMG_1100.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570022152295064498" /></a>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-79267623140081167922010-11-17T12:15:00.000-08:002010-11-17T13:09:36.297-08:00Good for you, good for us.When we first started the adoption process, I felt isolated and alone. Then I started reading blogs, and more blogs, and more blogs. It's kind of like walking into a room full of new people. In this sea of personality, somebody appeals especially to you. Their look, their humor, their voice, a magical blend of the ephemera of self. Maybe you dare to reach out. You hope for chemistry. You hope not to blow it with a crass joke or by spitting appetizer in their face. And if you're very, very lucky your instincts were on-point and you may have stumbled into the luckiest of surprises: a new friend, just like that. <br /><br /><a href="http://ourownrooney.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-it-went-down-finally.html">Our Own Rooney</a> was the first blog I started returning to again and again. I love this family, every one, despite the fact that we've never met. Several months ago I was on a work trip to New York and was having lunch with a nice woman from Time magazine. I mentioned that my daughter was Ethiopian. She said she had a good friend from Portland, a nicer guy you'll never meet, who'd adopted from Ethiopia. I was kidding really when I said "Not The Ted Rooney?" "The Ted Rooney." "Not THE Ted Rooney." "The Ted Rooney." And on and on we went until I realized that Ted Rooney's identity had been properly established and good lord, we were talking about the Rooneys over steak frites and isn't life funny. A few weeks later <a href="http://brightbeatinghearts.blogspot.com/2008/12/dulcy.html">one of my good friends from New York </a> mentioned that she'd run into a nice guy and his Ethiopian son on the bus. Ha ha, let me guess, The Ted Rooney? I joked. THE Ted Rooney! The Rooney family were spending a month in New York and because Dulcy holds the center of all people and places they of course ran into Dulcy on the street and Dulcy of course invited them over so the kids could play and of course Dulcy made snacks. How can anyone in this world ever feel isolated and alone when there are Ted Rooneys and Dulcys out there reminding us that we are at all times connected.<br /><br />Ted and Lori and Abe are adopting another child. A five year old Ethiopian girl, at a time when the adoption process has grown suddenly more confounding and more costly. Adoptive parents must now travel twice to Ethiopia--once for court (and then, cruel whims of bureaucracy, they must leave without bringing the precious child they have since met home with them), and once for the actual care-passing of the child. I can say from experience that the plane trip alone for two adults costs over $5,000. Lori very gracefully, very smartly, has found a way to raise funds for their travel expenses. I contributed because I love the Rooneys, and I love five year old girls. I felt enormously happy making my donation, especially because I might now win a super cool custom-made doll from Lori's friend and a fellow adoptive mom. <br /><br />Please consider giving a little, <a href="http://ourownrooney.blogspot.com/2010/11/ode-to-my-friend-and-chance-for-you-to.html">any little bit counts!</a>, to the enormously generous Rooney family. Lori has made it an effortless process. Five dollars, 10, 20. You'll feel so good afterwards, I promise.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-50366970613154696572010-08-15T10:31:00.000-07:002011-06-26T18:26:55.079-07:00BROWN!Last night we went to our first meeting of the Brown Babies, Pink Parents support group. Papa Dog found the group online, on one of his many marathon surfs through adoption-related issues blogs. We've been slow at building a local adoption community for ourselves down here. But this network sounded promising: Founded by a lesbian couple with three black daughters, focussed on matters emotional, practical, and political. They meet once a month at a black church in East Austin (a world away from our white ass hood) and score!, pot luck. <br /><br />When we first arrived Ava was uncharacteristically shy for roughly 10 seconds, an eternity for her social self. Somehow it ended up that she and I were separated by a little girl during dinner and something about Ava's sweet still-baby chin hovering parallel with the table, whispering "apple" to herself before eating a grape, made me want to cry. After dinner she scooted down over to me and propped her elbows on my leg for a bit before I asked if she wanted to run around with the older boys. See ya! The kids chased each other in circles for about 15 minutes, Ava laughing the loudest and helicoptering her little arms as she tried to keep up. Something about seeing my child play with a roomful of other black children made me want to cry. The kids were then gracefully ushered off to the nursery, Ava looking only moderately confused, and the adults got to talking. <br /><br />As the Pops and I were the only new folks, everyone first introduced themselves and gave a brief skeleton of their family origins. We were the only international adoptive family in the house; everyone else had worked within the domestic foster care system. My God, the stories. When a woman from one lesbian couple said 'Well, we have 11,' I figured she meant they had an 11-year-old. No, see, they have eleven children. As in 10 +1. ELEVEN children from the foster care system, many of whom were brought home in their early teens after languishing in the system for the bulk of their lives. It struck me that some people with kids are useless. Some people are parents. Some, advocates. And some are warriors. These women were warriors. Arkansas, my ass.<br /><br />At one point in the evening the term "color blind" came up. This same lesbian couple was talking about their youngest kids' very earnestly hippie school, run by people who are so progressive that the subject of race deeply unsettles them. "They fancy themselves color blind," one of the mothers said. The founder of the group leaned over to me explaining she didn't know where I stood on the term but their group didn't have much use for it. And that went double for "All you need is love." Oh hallelujah. When we introduced ourselves, everyone listened. They didn't try to reinterpret our situation, or lolly lolly, happy happy our family. They just listened. The founder asked me what we'd found the most challenging since coming home. The truth is that what's been hardest are just the daily rigors of parenting. (That and nine months of the squirts.) The hardcore emotional stuff is still just ahead. But yes we've been in too many classrooms and playdates and pool parties where Ava is the only person of color. That's exhausting. And that's when I got my real welcome to a support group. This woman had an in with one of the best preschools in town that happens to be in East Austin and happens to have a majority black population with majority black teachers. This one worked in the school system for years and she wanted to make sure we knew about this program with these initials. Then someone else threw some initials at me. Then more initials. We were initialiated! Then someone handed me a 15% off coupon for curly hair care products. Then someone said there was pie and something about the promise of coconut custard always makes me want to cry.<br /><br />The conversation moved on to the coming school year and what lessons the parents of older kids might impart to the parents of younger kids about how to help their children prepare for questions about their adoption and their skin and the fact that their mama is a honky. Then we all had a good laugh at a well-meaning person's expense. ("I'm looking for my brown kids," the woman said she announced at a party. Her friend looked at her and frowned and motioned her head to her own kids. "I don't like to use those kind of words around my kids," she told the woman. "The word 'brown?'" Everyone laughed.) Brown Babies, Pink Parents*—folks with a sense of urgency and humor. Where have you been all my life?<br /><br />After an hour of visiting it was time to scoop up the kids. When I saw Ava she jumped laughing into my arms. Then I think she was so overwhelmed with emotion at seeing Papa and I that she burst into hot tears for about a minute and held on constrictor-like to my neck. When I asked if she wanted to say goodbye to all of her new friends she got down and did her pony run in figure 8s with all the other kids. On the drive home she kept saying "Mommy. Daddy. Hi!" with a tone of almost rapturous relief in her voice. We came back Ava.<br /><br />Tomorrow is a week of mornings at gymnastics camp. She did a week there early in the summer. The mere mention of the word trampoline makes her quivery with joy. She loves it. She loves the counselors. She loves the kids. She will most likely be the only black child in the gym, besides an old poster of Dominique Dawes hanging on the wall. <br /><br />Ava is two years and one month old. Often I'll look down at her right hand and she'll have her fingers crossed. It's just a quirk but sometimes I like to imagine it a gesture of her innate sense of optimism and hope. Whenever we catch her with her fingers crossed one of us will cross our fingers too and we'll give her what's become our family's lucky fingers version of dap. <br /><br />Luck Ava. Luck and community. And Love Love Love.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/TGg_apxtb1I/AAAAAAAAATE/_hN76D3fqQI/s1600/IMG_6327.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/TGg_apxtb1I/AAAAAAAAATE/_hN76D3fqQI/s320/IMG_6327.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505720271583932242" /></a><br />Ava with her Grandma and Taylor <br /><br />*Group founder Amy Ford has written a book called Brown Babies, Pink Parents that is going on sale next week. She's divine. And tough and practical too. <br />http://www.brownbabiespinkparents.com/Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-9593291226208445702010-06-09T06:46:00.000-07:002010-06-09T07:24:56.719-07:00Welcome to Utopia, Greetings from Bozo TownMy life got very happy and very messy and very full in the last year. The day before we left for Ethiopia to meet our daughter my book editor sent me back the edit of my first book. Excellent timing Obi Wan! When we returned I would scrabble away at the manuscript while darling Ava went down for her little cat naps. It was a long summer, but the work was rich. Ava has been home for a year and she jumps higher and twirls harder and laughs bigger and kisses softer than anyone I know. <br /><br />My book WELCOME TO UTOPIA: NOTES FROM A SMALL TOWN is now available in bookstores and on Amazon. On the off chance that anyone out there has time for reading this summer (ha!) here is a trailer for the book, shot by the one true Papa Dog. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7TUmS1jY43Q&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7TUmS1jY43Q&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Annnnnnnd.... here is the unfortunate blooper reel from said trailer. Oh lord, I'm hopeless.<br /><br /><object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11882574&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11882574&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/11882574">Utopia Video Blooper Reel</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2150694">tim</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-25956600254407337862010-04-24T17:19:00.000-07:002010-04-25T18:40:17.420-07:00Babies, DummiesRecently my magazine editor called and told me she wanted me to write a story about the new documentary <span style="font-style:italic;">Babies</span>.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VVYszQrKo9g&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VVYszQrKo9g&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />I wondered aloud to her if I was the right emotional fit for the job. I missed the first 11 months of my own child's life. I, probably like some psychologists say adult adoptees themselves tend to do, admit to having my largely manufactured vision of Ava Bekelech's mother up high on a pedestal. Way down below is me, tripping into the boot of said pedestal, cursing my clumsiness and offering up my apologies for my many large and small failings. <br /><br />Anyways, I was going to be a mess at the movies. My editor pooh poohed my hand-wringing. The movie is fascinating and provocative and dear, she told me. And it is all those things! Go see it when it comes out on Mother's Day. Marvel at what goofs we Western parents are with our rigid schedules and sing songy psychobabble and need to overstimulate. (Check, check, and check!) But I was right. It was poignant and beautifully painful for me to watch the mothers give birth and nurse and be with their little chicken wing-like bundles from day one. The funny thing is I never regret not giving birth to Ava, or any other child for that matter. I wouldn't alter a thing about my path to my kid because there she was at the end. But I'd wish a different path for her. As desperately hungry as I was for a child, as many organs as I'd claw from my own body if my daughter was ever in need of them, it's enormously hard for me to accept her losses. I like to think I'm not neurotic in this regret, or let it spoil any of the lightness and fun that seems to spill out of our little home these days. But Ava had a mother, and I know not what she was like or like with Ava. (Although I do know that she was beautiful, according to Ava's uncle. And that Ava's Ethiopian father was funny!) And I don't know what Ava's first year looked like, though I imagine it was punctuated by dizzying, devastating transitions to increasingly unfamiliar places. When you watch <span style="font-style:italic;">Babies</span>, and you see the intimacy shared by mother and child in that first important year, it's hard not to spill a wagon's worth of tears picturing your own child ever lacking or separated from such love. <br /><br />Some days I go check out sites like Harlow's Monkey, a blog by an adult adoptee who is often disgusted by the language and behavior of adoptive parents (particularly when it comes to international or transracial adoption). I got to say, sometimes that woman really raises my hackles. At her worst, she gets a sneering tone that is so dismissive and so deeply ungenerous. But there are other times, probably when I'm able to set some of my own junk aside before clicking onto her page, that I'm glad she's doing her work and grateful for the "snap out of your comas of privilege, white people!" reminder. <br /><br />I try to remember that good people are often careless and awful without meaning any harm. There are times to laugh, and there are times to try and educate or even gracefully shame. There was the otherwise lovely friend who when she met Ava, marveling over her beauty and joy, turned to me and said "Oh my, don't you just think it was such a blessing that her parents died?" No I do not. It was not a blessing that this child lost her parents in rapid succession of each other and that she now lives a half a world away from her four older siblings. Or the sassy colleague who, upon listening to me gush about my child's magnificence, joked "I guess you're not returning her then!" Or the very kind and good-natured woman I was out with just last night who said that her neighbors adopted a darling little boy from South Africa and the crazy thing is they're not even sure of his real birthday! But he's from Ethiopia or something just like Ava. "So he's not from South Africa?" Well, I know he's from Africa. I'm almost positive. "So your neighbors adopted a black child." And he is so athletic!<br /><br />Good grief, all of us. Harlow's Monkey, you chap my hide something fierce. Do your thing.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S9OS6sxwnYI/AAAAAAAAAS0/-RIFnwHp08M/s1600/IMG_0141.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S9OS6sxwnYI/AAAAAAAAAS0/-RIFnwHp08M/s320/IMG_0141.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5463872310080478594" /></a>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-58352686757312585722010-04-05T14:11:00.000-07:002010-04-05T15:01:36.464-07:00We're an enormously clever family...<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw4_rRs1HoGKWp5kCLWVW1Eq-o5ZV5E597kANgaoZfQkt15D-fH-N3v9pNJwf2OLjitNlzVuiBghiaQ_Yjt7g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-77212269457859542882010-02-28T16:44:00.000-08:002010-03-01T13:04:18.680-08:00It's all a MarathonOn Valentine's Day I ran the Austin Marathon. It was a beautiful day and save the last 4 miles where I moaned dramatically and wheezed "this suuuuuuuuuuuuucks" to any good soul on the sidelines, I found the whole experience rather glorious. I'm going to do it again, and again, and again, as long as this old body will let me. I am a person brought easily to tears. I like this about myself. I used to kill time at the office by You Tubing old Academy Award acceptance speeches. Nothing like a little emotional porn on a slow afternoon. (Tom Hanks for <span style="font-style:italic;">Philadelphia</span> is pretty damn moving, and I love the unbridled exuberance of Sophia Loren announcing "Rrrrroberto!" for Best Director.) So it was no surprise when I found myself on the verge of tears at the starting gun, as waves of excited people started bouncing in place before breaking into their slow jog. Such community! And what neighborliness we enjoyed throughout the 26 miles, as throngs of people sang and cheered and offered food and drink and high fives and a young boy banged on his drums in his front yard and a couple of awkward teenagers played their cellos at the top of a hill. It was all so lovely and moving and I want to be as good of a citizen when I find myself in future spectator roles. But what really made me tear up again and again, sometimes to the point of there being a great catch in my throat, was knowing that my little family would be waiting for me at the halfway mark and then again at the finish line. I couldn't help comparing the run to the long slog of the adoption process. I can't barely believe how far we've come in the last year, or two years when we were just recently committed to adoption, let alone three when we hadn't even a clue that adoption was a part of our future. How far we've come! At times, like when I was hoofing up that one fucking hill, and I sighed to that one fucking guy "Dude, this suuuucks" and he said "Now, now, hills are our friends!," I figured it would be a miracle if I ever reached the finish line. There at the finish line a miracle awaited.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sSTdvPTjI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/KbDo65konMg/s1600-h/IMG_5496.JPG"></a><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sSTdvPTjI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/KbDo65konMg/s320/IMG_5496.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443464700216954418" /><br /><br />Enough about finish lines though, as I've quickly realized there's no such concept for a parent. What has struck me dumb about becoming the mother of Ava Bekelech* is the sheer ceaselessness of feeling and work and hopes and dreams and anxieties that goes along with this new world. I want so much for her. I want her to have the life she was meant to live, with her parents and her four older siblings. If she must be stuck with me I want her to have a better, more imaginative, more energetic, more selfless me. I want her to experience the big old emotional range of a fully lived existence and yet I also find myself wanting her only to be happy. (Ha!) I want her to be fearless but man I'd love for her every once in a while to show a little caution. I want her to laugh her head off with joy at her gymnastic classes but if she ever falls on her neck like that again on the trampoline I want someone to shoot me with a horse tranquilizer. (She bounced right back up; I had to fight falling to my knees.) I want everyone to recognize her magnificence and charisma and beauty and I also sometimes want folks to leave her alone. I want her to want to go to an all black college. I want her Grandparents living closer. I want some solid poops for this child. I want to learn another hairstyle besides puffs. I want that kid who intentionally tripped her at Extreme Fun to get pantsed in public. <br /><br />I want to be a more patient mother for my brave and beautiful child. I was talking motherhood with a woman many years ago and she said that she had always been a fiery broad but when her first child was born she felt like some switch of anger or edginess was forever flicked off inside her. I wanted that to be the case for me too. But I found myself hollering at my baby girl one hard day, hollering at her almost as if she was a peer instead of my toddler daughter, and I was horrified to hear the fever pitch of my own mother in my ears. Not okay. I wish something had magically turned off in me but it didn't. So now I like to think that I check my switch daily, maybe cover it up every so often with a little duct tape. Because what you cannot prepare yourself for when you become a mother is how much of your own childhood junk can bubble up and overwhelm you. I work hard at forgiving myself for not being everything I think Ava deserves. I know full well that kicking myself ad nauseum isn't going to help this child practice her somersaults or make play dough balls or accept that the dog does not have a belly button.<br />And yet, and yet.<br /><br />I have done nothing in my life to deserve the honor of parenting this child. And yet there she is, down the hall and under her blanket, sleeping off another hard day of play.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sYISjfHgI/AAAAAAAAARc/B8mDjUcOFBs/s1600-h/IMG_5304.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sYISjfHgI/AAAAAAAAARc/B8mDjUcOFBs/s320/IMG_5304.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443471105306074626" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4saj8ouVEI/AAAAAAAAASE/XOeRcRdJyk0/s1600-h/IMG_5317.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4saj8ouVEI/AAAAAAAAASE/XOeRcRdJyk0/s320/IMG_5317.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443473779482055746" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sXK0ikR4I/AAAAAAAAARE/x3QnNo1j25E/s1600-h/IMG_0043.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sXK0ikR4I/AAAAAAAAARE/x3QnNo1j25E/s320/IMG_0043.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443470049277134722" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sX1ZbhK9I/AAAAAAAAARU/9Abh_R5ElXs/s1600-h/IMG_5292.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 275px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sX1ZbhK9I/AAAAAAAAARU/9Abh_R5ElXs/s320/IMG_5292.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443470780734188498" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sYUJ3fN4I/AAAAAAAAARk/8myQVdaH8Zg/s1600-h/IMG_5432.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sYUJ3fN4I/AAAAAAAAARk/8myQVdaH8Zg/s320/IMG_5432.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443471309132478338" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sZCD1y5uI/AAAAAAAAARs/uE6HyK07mjs/s1600-h/IMG_5472.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sZCD1y5uI/AAAAAAAAARs/uE6HyK07mjs/s320/IMG_5472.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443472097788749538" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sXqOiHxMI/AAAAAAAAARM/zupp8io56ic/s1600-h/IMG_0058.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4sXqOiHxMI/AAAAAAAAARM/zupp8io56ic/s320/IMG_0058.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443470588830532802" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4saTpEW-uI/AAAAAAAAAR8/BENfAvvVzq0/s1600-h/IMG_5535.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4saTpEW-uI/AAAAAAAAAR8/BENfAvvVzq0/s320/IMG_5535.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443473499351349986" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4saHkNEQOI/AAAAAAAAAR0/QUiQQ2MpXSY/s1600-h/IMG_5544.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/S4saHkNEQOI/AAAAAAAAAR0/QUiQQ2MpXSY/s320/IMG_5544.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443473291887263970" /></a><br /><br />*We were going to give Ava her mother's name for her middle name. But when we were in Ethiopia, she was Bekelech. When we spoke with her Special Mother at the Care Center she was Bekelech. And when we spoke with her uncle about her parents and about how we would one day return to Ethiopia so this little girl could see her siblings again (and again, and again), she was Bekelech. And Ava Bekelech she will always be.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-88412808488201913332009-12-27T09:16:00.001-08:002009-12-27T18:39:14.376-08:00Butts Down<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SzeXlEc1ruI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/xH8F8V5Ho_E/s1600-h/cigarette.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 303px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SzeXlEc1ruI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/xH8F8V5Ho_E/s320/cigarette.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5419967339669335778" /></a><br />I haven't smoked a cigarette in 365 days. In said time I have completed a book, arced my way through the adoption process, traveled to Ethiopia, and become a mother. <br /><br />I rule!<br /><br />Also, lest I sound righteous, I admit to eating a rogue pot brownie (my first!) in 2009 and going on a wild space odyssey in a very queer West Hollywood hotel room with my best friend. (Rest assured judgers, skinny went down before Ava came home to our nest.) We tried to watch the wretchedly awful movie <span style="font-style:italic;">Bride Wars</span> on pay-per-view but I had to keep pausing it and asking my friend to explain the story to me. ie., "hold up, hold up, hold up, why does Kate Hudson have those strange bangs?" Halfway through the night my friend turned to me and wondered if we ought to go to the emergency room. Instead we adjourned to the mini-bar. We ate everything in there, with a couple wrappers to boot. It was a truly stupid, utterly ridiculous, hopelessly ill-advised evening. Ain't never laughed so hard in my life.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-24403358411419297892009-12-22T07:10:00.000-08:002009-12-22T10:36:06.140-08:00Stay Awake Baby Girl“We’re almost home, Ava. Five more minutes.” A week before Thanksgiving the family was driving home from the airport. We had survived the plane ride back from Florida! We had a wonderful time at the beach! Ava met her other Grandpa and said meeting was a triumphant success! We were safely back on Austin soil and Tulip's butt was wagging in the back seat, happy to be scooped up from the kennel. Ava was half-asleep. We were stopped in the left-hand turn lane waiting for a break in the traffic. The old man let out a broken gasp and I looked up to see a car in the opposing lane careen the median. <br /><br />The wallop of impact was breath-taking, like someone reached inside my teeth and took a quick saw at the roots. I sat there for a second dumbfounded, staring into what looked like an exploded box of Kleenex. The airbags had released a noxious smell into the air and dandelion puffs of dust danced around our heads. Everything was eerily quiet except for Tim moaning "Oh no, oh no, oh no." I told him I was alright several times, he told me he was alright. At the same time, we turned to Ava. She’d been shocked into muteness but when we smiled at her, our wobbly voices insisting that she was okay and everything was alright, she took a breath and started wailing.<br /><br />Somehow that night, despite two totaled cars, we all made it home to our own beds. Ava cried for a couple of hours, but she had finally fallen asleep and the next morning she danced and sang songs and the doctor assured us that she was fine. Her parents had a harder recovery ahead. At first we walked around in a daze, like we had just gotten off a roller coaster and were still a little foggy from the rush. Then, maybe as the pain kicked up a notch, and the shock started wearing off, I turned into a puddle. I cried one day from sunup to sundown, streaming tears while reading Go, Dog. Go! or pushing a giggly Ava in a swing, or rubbing her back to sleep. <br /><br />Somehow I’d stumbled upon this sickening idea that I had in some way helped cause the accident. I do picture her first year of life spent in a routine state of transition and grief and occasional chaos. My girl is tough. (I mean it, stubborn as a mule and alarmingly self-possessed.) Since we met—oh glorious day!—there have been a few occasions when I've seen her look truly startled or scared. Her little face froze up in fear during her first big thunderstorm, or when a really loud motorcycle vroomed past our front yard. The sight of her so vulnerable about sucked the life out of me. I’m still astounded by the sharpness and rawness of parental love. And so I said over and over, to anyone who would listen, how I couldn't imagine anything worse than being in a car accident with her. The scene would horrify her and thus unhinge me. <br /><br />And then, as if grasped from my panic-prone imagination, that car came straight at us like a magnet. In my wretched state, I started blaming myself for conjuring up the whole accident. I had voiced aloud my worst nightmare and somehow had brought it to life. Court doom long and hard enough, I cried to my husband, and it will come for you. This accident happened to her on our watch.<br /><br />A few mornings after the accident Ava started whimpering to herself at an ungodly hour so we pulled her into bed with us. The dog stretched and made room for her and we all fell into a comfortable doze. When I opened my eyes I was struck that somehow we had all settled into the same configuration of the night of the accident. And yet there we were, breathing deeply on a queen-size life raft. I had gone to bed the night before in pain and grief and woke up to a soft sun and dew on the grass. <br /><br />As the grief over the accident has worn off, so too has the guilt. I of course don’t think I have the power to will strange and random events that effect not just me but total strangers. And yet what I'm left with is this idea that I don't want to raise my child in an active state of almost masturbatory fear. Awful stuff happens all the time, over and over in a person's life. You’ll never see it coming. Sometimes you'll be really, really lucky and get to walk away with your entire family intact. What happened that terrible night in the car was really scary and really bad. But instead of cursing the randomness of it all, and wringing my hands over life’s fragility, I somehow find myself wanting to celebrate. Everyone that night told us it was a miracle that no one had been killed. I winced every time I heard this, because I didn't want my family involved in such a close call. But once I regained my equilibrium I managed to recast the night. It was a miracle of luck! My life is many miracles of luck! And how lucky if it helps me forever shift something so that I don't now start obsessing over the next awful thing that might happen or could happen or what if it happened and how would I survive if it happened. I don’t know what will happen tonight or tomorrow. But Ava sang in her car seat on our way to the grocery store this morning. I sang along with her!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SzDkkEpwZ2I/AAAAAAAAAQs/aJH8WRwJAFU/s1600-h/IMG_5099.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SzDkkEpwZ2I/AAAAAAAAAQs/aJH8WRwJAFU/s320/IMG_5099.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418081660102010722" /></a>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-20566764445619091412009-11-06T07:11:00.000-08:002009-11-07T04:13:38.415-08:00This Blog Brought to You by SwifferYou want to keep a busy baby entertained? Give 'em a mop.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SvQ84WFlWCI/AAAAAAAAAQI/KpmVCiiwcwA/s1600-h/IMG_4685.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SvQ84WFlWCI/AAAAAAAAAQI/KpmVCiiwcwA/s320/IMG_4685.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401008791823407138" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SvQ9Dexr6cI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/vRydkT24hOc/s1600-h/IMG_4700.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SvQ9Dexr6cI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/vRydkT24hOc/s320/IMG_4700.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401008983134431682" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SvQ9OGJvqWI/AAAAAAAAAQY/DaWqNLnB0i4/s1600-h/IMG_4822.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SvQ9OGJvqWI/AAAAAAAAAQY/DaWqNLnB0i4/s320/IMG_4822.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401009165503015266" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SvQ9YG0gOFI/AAAAAAAAAQg/T-0OE4pmAHE/s1600-h/IMG_4802.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SvQ9YG0gOFI/AAAAAAAAAQg/T-0OE4pmAHE/s320/IMG_4802.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401009337481050194" /></a><br />*Tulip is all "Bish, please, it's 5:30am. Why are we awake?"Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-50170239822010353642009-11-01T19:25:00.000-08:002009-11-01T20:17:08.883-08:00My ExperienceI'm knee deep in a training schedule for the Austin marathon. Running—always with the dog, often with the Pops next to me pushing our Cheerio-gobbler—has proven to be a terrific head-clearer. It's fall now in Texas, which means crisp perfection with just enough of a cozy early morning chill. It's so strange not being hot anymore. Stranger still seeing Ava in hoodies and little pairs of jeans with butterflies on the pockets. I counted up the days since we first met. Five months, six days. I realize that Ava has now been with us longer than she was with her family at home, and then with her patchwork family at the Gladney Care Center. I wonder if somewhere in her subconscious she is able to let out a soft exhale that perhap she will not go on and on and on finding herself in the care of new people.<br /><br />When I run I listen to the same mix of songs. This is the first song. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WWMDfJEkQDs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WWMDfJEkQDs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Every time I hear it I'm brought to tears. For me it captures the build and urgency of our adoption process—from the mournful beginning to the steady summoning of breath and strength to the heart-pounding moment of referral to the cymbal crashing trip to Ethiopia. There's even a little lullaby whistle at the end, when we laid her down for her first sleep in her new home. Sometimes I imagine in hazy fashion what this same time period might have looked and felt like for my little girl and my heart feels clotheslined. There I am with my family, gasping to myself, and wondering how it is we all found ourselves running towards and then finally alongside each other.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-4532214569366453642009-08-14T15:53:00.000-07:002009-08-17T08:49:58.142-07:00The Kid Rules<div>We met 10 weeks ago this Monday. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The first 8 weeks together were pretty hard. I was flabbergasted by her, and she by me. We had good times but no rhythm. She was off, I was off—though everyone kept saying we were doing great, which somehow made it a lonelier experience. Didn't feel great. Didn't feel bad or wrong. Just felt overwhelming and very, very new.</div><div><br /></div><div>Time did its thing. My girl now sleeps from 7 to 6:40. She has started babbling little stories to her stuffed bunny and cat and bear and puppy and pig. She loves shoes—her sandals, Mama's sandals, Daddy's sneakers. She wants all of them on her feet. She loves blueberries! She loves a good pratfall! She loves jumping off the side of the pool into her Daddy's arms! My girl laughs like you wouldn't believe. I dare say she's funny too. She doesn't walk; she scampers. When we are at a friend's house she plays and plays but checks in every 10 minutes or so with me. She does this by scampering over and flouncing down on my legs with a giggle and then—<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">my heart!</span>— gives me a big baby bear hug. </div><div><br /></div><div>I like her, I love her.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85); white-space: pre; font-family:'lucida grande';font-size:11px;"><object width="400" height="224"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://www.facebook.com/v/116481581268"><embed src="http://www.facebook.com/v/116481581268" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="224"></embed></object></span><br /></div><div><br /></div>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-2171864373741725712009-07-09T07:04:00.001-07:002009-07-09T10:41:32.597-07:00A Perfect Mess, A Glorious Hurt<div><div><div><div><div>What a melodramatic title for a blog post. Such are the peaks and valleys of my emotional life now.<div><br /></div><div>Ava Bear. What do you need? Who will you be? Who are you now? </div><div><br /></div><div>Here are a few of the things I know about her. She loves her animals. She is breathtakingly sharp and alert, always absorbing and putting bits of information together and locking it all away. She gets easily bored. She's funny. She's fussy. She loves the water. She loves biscuits and peas and cheese and mangoes. She loves clapping and high-fiving and riding around in the grocery cart. She does not like baby gates or Mommy's laptop.</div><div><br /></div><div>She eats.</div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX5iwAo1iI/AAAAAAAAAOo/3qEpQancw68/s1600-h/IMG_3671.JPG"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX5iwAo1iI/AAAAAAAAAOo/3qEpQancw68/s320/IMG_3671.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356461707225519650" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><br /><div>She sleeps. (Putting her to sleep is hard though. Sometimes she wails and wails and what feel like essential pieces of me shrivel as tears shoot at the same time out of both of her big eyes. Papa Dog has taken to wearing his industrial-strength sound engineer headphones when he rocks and coos and eventually soothes her resistant little self to sleep.)</div><div><br /></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX6Gi-iXFI/AAAAAAAAAOw/FW3a5aA4nS0/s1600-h/IMG_3639_1.JPG"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX6Gi-iXFI/AAAAAAAAAOw/FW3a5aA4nS0/s320/IMG_3639_1.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356462322202336338" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><br /><div>She poops (especially during family photos).<br /></div><div><br /></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX6d4aw46I/AAAAAAAAAO4/ZezXnBJIsPw/s1600-h/IMG_3857.JPG"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX6d4aw46I/AAAAAAAAAO4/ZezXnBJIsPw/s320/IMG_3857.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356462723094864802" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><br /><div>She splashes.</div><div><br /></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX7ogo6tYI/AAAAAAAAAPA/vdYc1iXHunM/s1600-h/IMG_3975.JPG"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX7ogo6tYI/AAAAAAAAAPA/vdYc1iXHunM/s320/IMG_3975.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356464005201966466" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><br /><div><div>She walks. (Like a tiny drunken zombie at the end of a bender.)</div><div><br /></div></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX_bby5kiI/AAAAAAAAAPI/jW7DBudLs3Q/s1600-h/IMG_3955.JPG"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX_bby5kiI/AAAAAAAAAPI/jW7DBudLs3Q/s320/IMG_3955.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356468178609869346" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><br /><div><div><div>She grows. On Monday she celebrated her first birthday with her first cupcake.</div><div><br /></div></div></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX_x_QtBwI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/9_8czH682_A/s1600-h/IMG_4015.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SlX_x_QtBwI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/9_8czH682_A/s320/IMG_4015.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356468566087239426" /></a><br /><div><div><div><div>Ava's Mother. What do I need? Who will I be? Who am I now?</div><div><br /></div><div>I am tired. I am suddenly aware of my limited reserves of patience and energy and imagination. I like to think of these as muscles that are being worked for the first time by a merciless trainer—who not only yells, but spits and vomits and craps on me. I'm working on my strength and endurance. I am sometimes struck with moments of great loneliness. I think I am lonely for the life I used to have that allowed for some alone time. I really miss Ethiopia, and the emotional intensity of that week. I am shaky from being hit again and again with overwhelming waves of tenderness and concern for the little person who now sleeps down the hall. I am still mystified by the realization that I have a daughter. I haven't seemed to regain my balance since we've met. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was two weeks and five days after we returned home when I was struck—again with the force of a rogue wave—with the sudden realization that I loved this little girl. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not yet the mother I'd like to be—but I have to think I'll get there one day.</div></div></div></div>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-52601674075328594692009-06-18T13:19:00.000-07:002009-06-18T13:20:49.836-07:00Hello World<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:Verdana;font-size:11px;"><div><br /></div><div><embed src="http://www.onetruemedia.com/share_view_player?p=8f283b2a143ee7c08f237b" quality="high" scale="noscale" width="408" height="382" wmode="transparent" name="FLVPlayer" salign="LT" flashvars="&p=8f283b2a143ee7c08f237b&skin_id=701&host=http://www.onetruemedia.com" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed><div style="margin:0px;font:12px/13px verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;padding-bottom:15px;width:408px;text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.onetruemedia.com/share_player_link?p=8f283b2a143ee7c08f237b&skin_id=701&source=emplay" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.onetruemedia.com/share_player_link_image/8f283b2a143ee7c08f237b/701.gif" style="border:0px;" width="408" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.onetruemedia.com/landing?&utm_source=emplay&utm_medium=txt2" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none;">Photo and video editing at <span style="text-decoration:underline;">www.OneTrueMedia.com</span></a></div></div></span>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-90726672758120108342009-06-17T12:18:00.000-07:002010-04-25T10:52:19.017-07:00Honshe<div>The bunny rabbit is asleep. The Papa is off to the drug store to fetch her giardia prescription. The cats are sunning on the back stoop and Tulip is asleep at the foot of Ava's crib. Grandma Dog is making tortellini soup. (And the night before it was chicken cacciatore, and the night before tilapia, and the night before spaghetti and MEATBALLS. And every meal comes with chilled water and wine and a salad and folded napkins. I sit there and shove food in my mouth and drool and fall asleep in my plate and when I wake up the table is clear. I love this woman.)<div><br /></div><div>Well, we're back but the world is different. That's all I have to say for now. We've seen so much. Meeting our daughter was one thing—overwhelming, happy, scary, heartbreaking, heartmaking, easy, hard. But that was all part of our lucky little life. The bigger part of the trip was meeting Ethiopia, and hearing and seeing and holding and saying goodbye to the children in the government orphanages. That was world-cracking. </div><div><br /></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlFoa2jzWI/AAAAAAAAANw/CqwooK3B74E/s1600-h/IMG_3539.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlFoa2jzWI/AAAAAAAAANw/CqwooK3B74E/s320/IMG_3539.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348382593184419170" /></a><div><div><br /></div><div>Meeting Ava's uncle Honshe. That was a real whammy of beauty and pain. As soon as we pulled up he ran out to her, murmuring her name. He was handsome and elegant and calm. We sat for an hour with the social worker and two translators (from Sidamo to Amharic to English). We found out how her parents met and that she is beautiful like her mother and funny like her Dad. Honshe is a farmer and he spoke a few words about that life. He and his wife have five children, plus Ava's four older siblings. His great wish, if God wills it, is for his niece to be well-educated, to grow up and be a famous doctor. His great wish, if God wills it, is that we will come back to Ethiopia so she can meet her siblings. </div><div><br /></div><div>Tim promised him that the next time we all meet he will be proud of the girl she has grown into. I promised him that we will love her always and infinitely, and that we will love and honor her Ethiopian family. I like to think he seemed relieved to have met us. By the end I dare say we were all relaxed a little and having a laugh here and there. Ava fell asleep in his arms and so we moved into the waiting room so she could finish her nap. Honse pulled a side of his blazer over her head so she would not be cold. My chair broke and I splatted to the floor and we all laughed some more, even the beautiful and sad young girl who was waiting to meet her son's new parents. Oh dammit, I'm always crying now.<br /></div><div><br /></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlFU1JVmWI/AAAAAAAAANo/TS3bBgbDH8w/s1600-h/IMG_3491.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlFU1JVmWI/AAAAAAAAANo/TS3bBgbDH8w/s320/IMG_3491.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348382256645118306" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlFN4hmNAI/AAAAAAAAANg/XkrLejuflqE/s1600-h/IMG_3473.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlFN4hmNAI/AAAAAAAAANg/XkrLejuflqE/s320/IMG_3473.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348382137293091842" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlFFp8HwwI/AAAAAAAAANY/b-dRZAbA6I4/s1600-h/IMG_3458.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlFFp8HwwI/AAAAAAAAANY/b-dRZAbA6I4/s320/IMG_3458.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348381995938857730" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlES5Uq2XI/AAAAAAAAANQ/DGR5rP0a4xI/s1600-h/Family.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pOOWaJrFCcQ/SjlES5Uq2XI/AAAAAAAAANQ/DGR5rP0a4xI/s320/Family.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348381123895023986" /></a><br /><div><br /></div>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8297556468469124934.post-34812938312669568302009-06-05T09:27:00.000-07:002009-06-05T21:46:52.855-07:00BlurblefuzzMe feel goofy-brained.<div><br /></div><div>We leave tomorrow. </div><div><br /></div><div>I just cleaned out the refrigerator. I went atomic on that fridge. Motherfuh sparkles. I should probably be doing actual things on my checklist instead. </div><div><br /></div><div>We took Tulip to Red Bud this morning and she swam farther than she's ever swum (swum? swammed? swimmied?). She's like a little dinghy in the water, with her slow motor hanging low. How I love this little animal. I told Papa Dog—let's stop with that charade already!—I told Tim that I didn't have it in me to ride with them to the dog camp in the morning. Don't worry Tulip! We'll come get you and there will be special fancy ridiculously expensive organic bacon chews for you to slobber over when we get home and we hereby promise that you will always get to go to Red Bud and take long walks at Turkey Creek and that it is as important to us that this baby be nice to you as it is for you to be nice to the baby. Tulip! You're my best friend!</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll meet Ava Lende in about 65 hours, by my calculations. Not to sound like Keanu Reeves here, but all I gots to say about that is "Whoaaaa." Be patient with Mommy and Daddy. Forgive us when we end up covered in powdered rice cereal and poo and inside out onesies and you look over and see Mommy rocking in the corner nubbling a too-small diaper. We know not how it will feel to love so hard so fast so we may only speak in monosyllables the first couple days as we stare googly-eyed at you. Ava! You're my daughter! </div><div><br /></div><div>Filoli. Rooney. Julie. Mama Sweet Potato. Coffee Mom. Odom! Jaynes in the house. Little Ethiopians, pudgy Ethiopians, baby Ethiopians, adoptive Moms to Ethiopians and beyond. People! You're my community!</div><div><br /></div><div>Onwards!</div>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02647964918223241848noreply@blogger.com29