Life Lesson #2: Finding our Common Humanity and Your Children Can Surprise You

What my dad looks like most of the time

Seeing my dad for the first time in six years was startling. His ALS had progressed to where he spends most of his day lying flat on a medical bed with a breathing machine attached to a full-face mask. The machine makes noise. His voice is now inaudible. He has very little muscle control left. His mind is clear and sharp. I did not know how my boys would react. I think my little guy was terrified at first. He would not even look at my dad for about a week. It was not until the final two days that he was able to hug my dad and say hello to him without turning his face away.

My oldest child, on the other hand, made me so proud on this trip. When he met my dad, I could tell he was a little thrown back and nervous. But he looked my father in the eye from day one. He greeted him with a wave and a smile the first couple of days, but then on his own he began greeting him with a hug. "Oi, vovo!" he would say every day. He was so sweet to him. The two developed a special bond, one that I was able to capture in the photo below. Since being back, he has said many times, in a sad voice, "I miss my vovo." Yes, son, I miss vovo, too.

If someone sits him up, dad can go without the mask for a few minutes at a time.  Here we were taking photos before our big goodbye.

The Little Things

There are so many small things that I miss about Brazil. Some seem insignificant, some I can't even name. But together they add up to more than their parts. It is a full-body experience that I cannot reproduce here in my little corner of America.

• The big sky: I miss how big and blue the sky is in Brasilia. I am not making this up. Ask Bill, ask my boys. The sky seems bigger and bluer in Brasilia. The clouds are whiter and puffier. The air feels clearer.
• Kissing on the cheek: Brazilians greet each other with two kisses, one on each cheek - unless two men are greeting, in which case they use a handshake and some back slapping.
• I miss the smallness: Smaller homes, small coffees and drinks, smaller packaging, smaller cars. With this comes more a more innovative use of space. Hidden and organized spaces to tuck things away.  I think it also brings with it a certain appreciation of the thing itself, without it having to be venti-sized.
• Hearing Portuguese. Language is tied to culture. There is no substitute to hearing Portuguese all around. The language has more ways of expressing emotion and of expressing care. The diminutive lets you know just how cute a little bitty baby is, and the augmentative lets you know just how big a hug you want to send someone.
• The enthusiasm. Bill, the boys, some friends and I were returning from getting ice cream around the corner when the entire city block exploded in cheers, screams and fireworks.  People hung out their windows, waving flags.   Even our friends started screaming in solidarity. A favorite team had scored a goal on TV.  It was so funny to see my boys stop and look absolutely confused by all of the commotion.
• Bem-ti-vi. I love that little bird. I don't even know what it looks like, but I love it's little song first thing in the morning. Bem ti vi, bem ti vi. Roughly translated, it means "I saw you well." A nice way to start the day.
• The food. Enough said. I swoon, I drool, I sigh from the wonderfulness of the food. And the smells! At lunch-time, no matter where you are, you can smell good meals being cooked, as people take their two hour lunch breaks, often at home and eat the main meal of the day.
• Breakfast. Fresh baked breads from the corner bakery, cheeses, jams, fresh tropical fruit, yogurts and of course, some delicious cafe con leite.
• Down time. Brazilians know how to take down time. With at least a month of vacation yearly, my friends travel regularly, whether it be to Europe, another South American country or the vacations spot a couple of hours away, they do get away. And they are able to leave work behind.
• Laughter. I think Brazilians are quick to laugh. It makes life feel lighter.
• Thumbs up. That is the universal sign for "hey, I might be cutting you off in traffic, but I don't mean any harm. We do what we have to do, right?" Thumbs up.
• The smells. We Brazilians love nice smelling soaps and lotions and we take lots of showers. Of course you run into a person here or there who just has not mastered the art of smelling nice, going overboard with some awful perfume. But generally, people use light and refreshing products that keep them smelling yummy and fresh like they just emerged from bathing in a spring infused with Amazon fruits and flowers.
  
  

There are lots of things that I don't miss. I don't miss the ridiculous amounts of hoops there are to jump through for every little thing ... from getting a temporary pre-paid cell phone to letting my children use the pool in the condo we stayed in. Living that bureaucracy daily would drive me mad. I also don't miss the stark inequalities among people or the government that can't seem to rid itself of corruption. But I love Brazil with a fierce love and I miss it tremendously when I am gone. I cannot go six years without going back again. It is too long, too much time spent without breathing all of this in.

Life Lesson #1: Love and Goodbye

 
I wanted to write down one of the many life lessons my boys learned from our trip to Brazil.  The boys really bonded with my younger brother, Marcos. He just graduated as a medical doctor and is doing one year of mandatory military service.  Even though he is working, he would come home early and make a lot of effort to spend time with my boys. I did not expect him to show them so much love, but he would go downstairs to play soccer with them, would to hang out with us every free minute he had, went with us to the zoo on his only day off after being on-call, etc. 

He was going away for the weekend two days before we left Brazil, so we had to say goodbye to him early. As soon as we shut the door after the goodbye, Agegnu's face crumpled in the elevator. I caught his eye and he became embarrassed and defensive because he was about to cry. I realized then that he had never had the opportunity to understand such a goodbye. Before, he was taken/left by loved ones without knowing what was going on. This time he knew he was saying goodbye to someone he loved and would not see for a long time. I told him that it was a natural reaction, that I cried when I had to say goodbye to people I loved. He completely dropped his defenses and cried and cried on me.  Bill and I were really touched to see him form a bond, feel the pain of goodbye and be able to express it.

Wordless Wednesday - Once Upon A Genna

Friday Flick - Archive Valentine Message

I just ran into this video this morning. He had been home for just a couple of months! I wish I had more videos of my Amharic/Sidamic/English mixing boy. How do you feel when you see videos of your kids when they were younger? I have aches in my heart and in my stomach. I yearn for a re-do. I wish I could know then what I know now. But life is not like that. Life is now.

Adjusted Expectations

Scootle busy working on this year's valentines in 2012

Last year, I had big plans for homemade Valentine cards.  I had been a mom for a little over two years then (what a novice, pffft!) and still didn't have a good handle on what projects were doable with two kids, 2.5 years apart.  I have blocked out the details, but lets just say that I did what I NEVER thought I'd do, I sent the kids to school with BOUGHT cards (gasp!).  Little did I know that I was actually doing a VERY DOABLE project, it's just that my timeline was off.  We embarked on a very doable, two year valentine card making project.

 This year, it was a piece of cake.  I pulled out my handy-dandy box full of cut pink and red card-stock and random cute valentine cut-outs the boys and I worked so hard on last year.  I sat the boys down for an assembly line a lovely afternoon of crafting, with threats against taking away their play time romantic music playing.  I barked out gently showed them how to glue!  stamp!  write names!  It was actually kind of fun, but crazy.  Rather than some idyllic craft time with my kids, they were moving so fast so they could go play that I could hardly keep up with them.  It's a wonder they didn't glue the whole house down just so they could hurry up and play.

Speed stamping

Speed name writing

After gluing these last ones down, he ran out of the room!

I am not as crafty with my kids as I thought I would be.  I thought I'd be more like my mom.  I have so many memories of being crafty with my mom.  She is really creative and was able to make a lot with little while I was growing up.  I would love to involve my kids in crafts, but I have also learned (now that I am a wise mother of three years) to adjust my expectations.  I have already started brainstorming next year's valentine's project and it is a little less involved.   I am also trying to be more realistic, realizing my childhood memories are mostly snapshots of highlights.  It's not as if we were crafting every day (right mom?).  There were a whole lot of just plain, average days in between.  And even though they will remember the snapshots, I think it is the every day routines and structure that will nurture them most into who they are going to be.

A sample of the two year cards

* The sample above is so misleading!  Unfortunately, the Valentine cards are already being delivered at school, so I can't go take a picture of some of my favorites.  They have cut-outs of things like a boy in cool shoes, a popsicle, leaves, birth announcement advertisements, etc. 

Your Name

I knew the day would come.  In fact, it has come before in other forms.  It still stinks.  The day when you, my beautiful child, with a beautiful, unique, Ethiopian, biological-parent-given-name say you wished you had a name like James.  Yes, James just happens to be my grandfather's name (also my cousin's).  It is a fine name.  A family name at that.  But it is not YOUR name, my dear child.  Your name seems like a liability to you now.  It is a way you stand out from your friends.  No one can read it and pronounce it correctly without help the first time.  It harkens to a place few people around you know or understand.  Not even you, yet.  But YOUR name, how can I even put into words your name?  It holds so much that you have lost.  So much that you will likely struggle to get back piece by piece.  It is something your father and I will treasure for you in these early years.  And hopefully something you will learn to treasure, too.  It has such an interesting meaning.  A sometimes comical one.  It means I got it.  It makes me smile to think of your Ethiopian family looking at you and saying, I got it!  For you, my son, are a sight to behold, a wonder to be had.  I don't know what exactly they meant when they looked at you and thought I got it.  There are so many ways to interpret that phrase.  But for whatever reason, now, I have you.  I have got it.  I've got it!  A treasure to hold and ponder.  I will keep that treasure safe and close until you are ready to hold it, to own it, to have it, to be proud of its many layers, to be proud of how it makes you uniquely you.

Nearing 3 Years, One Month and Two and a Half Weeks

I am having a casual conversation with my beautiful eldest son at the table.  He is sitting on my lap.  We talk about nearing the day when he will have been with us longer than he was in Ethiopia (can you believe that day has not yet passed!).  In this very casual conversation, he is barely paying attention to me and at some point mentions that he will go live with another family next and stay with them for a while because we are so boring and he wants to play with more toys.  Whoa.  I don't care about the boring part or the toys.  I think boring is just fine and he has more toys than I did.  But there is something more to his thinking that he can just go and be with another family.  Before I get the oh, it's so normal for kids to have this magical thinking and everyone wished they had another family at some point, let me say that his words seem to perfectly match his reality.  Why wouldn't he get another family?  He has had so much change already.  Unfortunately his words seem to match the level of our attachment, too.  I love my son fiercely and I know he cares about me, but he does not feel he needs me at a primal level.  I am his provider, but I am not irreplaceable.  I want to be, but I am not.  Not all the way, at least. 

I can feel the difference in attachment between my children in a way that hurts.  My youngest (adopted at 8 mo) craves me and needs me in such a marrow-deep way.  His body is relaxed and soothed by proximity to mine.  My presence brings him comfort.  I can de-escalate whatever problem comes his way.  Not the same with my oldest.  Requests for nearness or affection are usually brought on more by competition with the youngest rather than real felt need.  He feels he needs to control or manipulate everything around him and thus take care of himself.  This saddens me so much.

I need to go back to my attachment books (yet again) and try to figure out more ways to connect to my big guy.  He is still so young.  He thinks he can be independent, but he does not have to be.  There is more I can give him, if only he will let me.  I don't know how to convince him that he needs me.  As I've been recuperating from surgery, Boo has come in to check on me several times.  He needs that connection with me.  He misses me when I am not around.  Scootle hasn't done that really.  But I need him.  I have become attached to his smile, his beautiful eyes, his presence.  I miss him when he is not around.

In a few days, Scootle will finally have lived with us longer than he lived in Ethiopia.  Boo has already lived that 4 times.  Isn't that crazy?  Brothers, home at the same time, but living such a different story.  It is incredible, really, to think that we know so little about such a huge period of Scootle's life.  We have come such a long way.  SUCH a long way.  But I still have a lot of hopes for our attachment as a family.  I hope that one day, that soft spot where my shoulder and neck meet can be a spot where he can bury his head, weep and find real comfort, find home and it be here, with us, not with just any family.

Tonsils, Who Needs Them?

So, I had a tonsillectomy Thursday.  It is supposed to be pretty horrid for adults.  Not the eat-ice-cream-after-the-procedure you hear about with kids.  I had been pretty scared of the surgery given all of the horror stories out there.  Add kids to the mixture and the whole thing sounded like a nightmare.  I think I took all of the precautions I could and accepted all of the help offered and so far, it has not been so bad.  Bill worked from home Thurs and Fri.  We had a friend bring dinner (for the guys since I could not eat) Thurs night.  My mom was going to come stay with us for the weekend, but got kidney stones instead (pobrecita)!   But Bill's mom arrived today and a good friend delivered a meal for us.

Except for a very gross and painful throat....I will spare you the details... This really hasn't been that bad.  I did a lot of preparation for the surgery ... bought myself lots of liquids for post-op (I have lost three pounds so far because I can't really eat),  I took homeopathic meds for a week before surgery (arnica montana), and for the first time ever in my life, I was hypnotized to prepare my body for the welcomed invasion.

This post has no point really, but it is a reminder to myself for if ever I am sick or just in over my head.  Accept the help.  Do not feel guilty for lying on the couch and reading all day.  Take the time you need to heal or deal, whatever the case may be.  People depend on you, but can also function without you.  It is okay to take care of yourself.

Cochlear Contest

Are you on Facebook?  If you haven't already seen it, I have a treat for you there.  Search for "Cochlear" on Facebook.  Once you get the Cochlear TM facebook page, click on the box below the banner that says "Celebration 2013 Video Contest."  You will see a few thumbnails for videos.  You should recognize Boo's video ... there is a picture of us nose to nose.  Will you do us a favor and vote today, tomorrow and Thursday for that video?

This is the thumbnail picture

If we win, we get a free plane ticket to San Diego and hotel stay at the Cochlear conference, where we get to learn more about Boo's implants.  I think we may have a chance.  It would be great if you voted!  Especially any of you out there that have been "lurkers" on this blog.  You can remain anonymous, because I can only see the votes of those who are friends with me on FB.

Thanks so much!!!

Evelyn and Boo


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Alas, we did not win the contest, but I am happy we created the video.  It was worth it.  A teenaged girl with implants won.  I think she will get a lot out of the conference.  She deserves it.  Thanks for your support!