Melkam Genna

(above is the nativity scene I purchased in Ethiopia)

Not only did we celebrate the finalization of Joshua's adoption today - but it is Christmas in Ethiopia so we gathered with some special friends we have grown closer to through this adoption journey to have a little party. We tasted some Ethiopian food and some pizza =)! All in all there were 6 Ethiopian children present and only one was home last year at this time! There was also a family that will travel in 13 days for their court date in Ethiopia, so next year we will have (at least) one more! I am so thankful that we have these families nearby!

Here are Joshua and Tesfa decked out in their Ethiopian clothes.

Joshua, Tesfa, Ageze, and Kate (Ageze and Tesfa's big sister) the boys were together the whole time Joshua was at the care center in Ethiopia. I so appreciate that they are friends still.

**I did not get a picture of the whole group. Joshua wanted no part of it!

Here is Joshua showing off his Ethiopia clothes. I was shocked, but he loved them! In Ethiopia outfits like these are worn for special occasions. I am sure he has seen them, but I doubt he has ever had his own before.

When I told him that Krissy and Grandma Donna chose them, he ran to give Krissy a big thank you hug.

Here he is modeling outfit number 2... he liked the first choice best!

I am hoping I can convince him to wear one for baptism, but time will tell! He may be baptized in jeans! (No date set for baptism. But Joshua has finally said we can talk to Pastor Maury about putting "water on Joshua's head." He has been a bit hesitant about it until recently.)

What a BIG day!

Finally FINAL!

"IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED that the said child, from and after the date of this decree (today!), be deemed and taken to be the child of the Petitioners, Chad and Alicia D., husband and wife, and that the child be deemed in all respects to all legal consequences and incidents of the natural relation of parents and child, the child of the Petitioners by adoption, the same as if the said child had been born to them of lawful wedlock; and that the name of the child shall be JOSHUA GEBEYEHU CHAD D."

It is officially official! We have dotted every "i" and crossed every "t"! There are no more hoops - we are without a doubt, the proud parents of a beautiful toddler! What a happy day!

I love the words I typed in bold from the adoption decree. They mirror my heart - it is filled with the same overflowing, overwhelming love and joy for ALL of my kids. I love that the court will never treat our kids as "real (ugh! hate that word!)" or "adopted." In the eyes of the court, they are all the same! What a great example the court sets on this one!

So very soon we will receive an American birth certificate in the mail for our son. After that we will head to the social security office to get his social security card and that is IT! YEAH!!!

The court decided it best to leave Joshua's birthdate as November 27, 2007. (If you remember I wanted to change it to his referral date because I have a difficult time with the date feeling made up and meaningless.) And I am totally OK with that! My heart has slowly been softened to the idea, especially during this Christmas season as I realized that the WHOLE WORLD celebrates the birth of Christ on a MADE UP day! So, I am peaceful! I think having a sort-of made up birthdate is part of Joshua Gebeyehu's Ethiopian heritage. So I rejoice in celebrating that God chose to give my son life - regardless of which day it began. The fact that Joshua is here and happy makes each and every day meaningful!

So as planned we will celebrate Joshua's birthday January 19th this year and Nov. 27 from here on out. I hope to have a play date/party with his friends on January 19 and then a bigger party with family and friends the following weekend.

"I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Samuel 1:27

Or as my beautiful Grandma used to say, "my cup runneth over"

her commonly used paraphrase from Psalm 23:5

7 Months of Snuggles

The picture above was taken the very first day Joshua and I were together (May 29, 2010). (Note to travelers, either turn off the date/time feature on your camera when traveling to Africa or change it. The dates on many of my pictures are not correct because of the huge time change.)

Doesn't he look so little?

This is Joshua and I snuggling earlier today.

Snuggling is one of our very favorite things to do! It has been from day one. But it has evolved. At first Joshua was a love bug, but in a new/scary situation he would sit tall, eyes wide open, body tense. Slowly he has learned to trust me to take care of him and now in a new/scary situation he snuggles deep into my arms. Aaaahhhhh!

7 months together! The biggest change I have noticed is a feeling that we have made it to the top of the hill. Things have really begun to level off. Sleep is good! He is doing so much better in large groups! He is talking more and more comfortably about his past. We have figured out some solutions to make my working from home easier. (That has taken a lot of mental pressure off of me! I no longer feel any rush to push him into day care in order for me to do my job better. I do plan to send him to preschool 2 mornings a week next fall, but until then I will be officing from home quite happily!) Routine is important, but some deviations do not send him for a loop.

So while we are still careful and value/protect the close relationship we have formed with our son, it no longer feels like constant effort.

Some things we are working on include further bonding with Daddy. Joshua loves to play with Daddy but struggles to let Daddy snuggle too much, take him to the potty, or put him to bed. At the same time, he is much more apt to hug on a "strange" man than a strange woman. So guarding daddy time so daddy is the one to fill that need.

Mommy is working on leaving more. I like to be home, but I need to leave so that I give Daddy room to be the go-to parent. So I am trying to get out of here a couple times a week.

We still require Joshua to check-in at certain times. For example, he is supposed to ask us before he goes downstairs. He also needs to check-in before he goes outside with a sibling or leaves the room in a public place with anyone other than a parent.

This month he has started asking for "safe" people to hold him - like Grandma, Grammy, Aunties, Uncles, and close friends. That was a first. We had seriously not allowed anyone to hold him before that. And in all honesty, he had not asked if anyone appropriate could hold him earlier. Because he had asked me if inappropriate people could hold him, we waited for him to take the lead and ask for appropriate people to hold him. I was both excited and worried when he started asking to be held. Excited because I was pretty sure he "got it." Worried because I did not want to move even a half step backwards. But all has been smooth.

TOMORROW is a big day - we go to court to finalize Joshua Gebeyehu Chad D's adoption AND we celebrate Ethiopian Christmas with friends we have made throughout this adoption journey. What an amazing gift we will receive on our first Ethiopian Christmas with our son.

***Just in case you wondered why I call today 7 months when I picked Joshua up on May 29, June 6 was the day we arrived in the US and became a family united. While the time in Ethiopia was totally important, to me coming HOME signified the start of our journey in becoming a fully functioning family of 7.

Parenting Backwards

I was blog surfing the other day and I ran into this article. It is titles Parenting Backwards. I love the title and the incite this momma provides.

Adoptive parenting IS absolutely like parenting backwards - at least for a time. With my four belly babies, I was constantly encouraging them to be independent. I looked forward to each and every next step... drinking from a cup, feeding themselves, leaving them with a trusted sitter, sleeping in a big kid bed, etc... And with them it was totally appropriate! They had been born dependent. I had been there to meet their needs. They had never experienced great loss. They were "putty in my hands" totally attached, deeply loved and also deeply in-love. They were secure and confident in their place in the world - so encouraging them to be independent was wonderful. They had a safe place to turn if they were scared, hurt, experienced failure or disappointments. They knew I would be there to pick them up, hold them, kiss their boo-boos, and encourage them to try again. Mommy was someone special, trusted, and always nearby.

That is NOT how Joshua's life started. From the sweet fuzzy memories he has of breastfeeding, I have no doubt he was held and loved and snuggled as a babe. But that circle of trust and love was broken. Not by any fault of his Ethiopian momma, but by circumstances she could not control. However, in a infant/toddler brain ALL that matters is that momma is gone and not coming back. Even a babe can become hardened by grief and very self-supporting.

There in lies the reason to parent backwards. Instead of starting by encouraging independence - like would seem appropriate with a toddler, we needed to start with dependence. We needed to saturate Joshua's world with mommy and daddy. We needed to prove over and over again that we would take care of him. We had to insist on it at times. We have held him "way too much" for a child his age. When he cries, we go running. Not to coddle him, but to prove and reprove, and then prove again that when our baby cries we will meet his needs.

With Joshua, we have encouraged dependence. That is not how I reared the older kids. I value independence. I was not a mommy to hover. When potty training, my kids wiped themselves. They learned to dress themselves early and I did not care what they wore. I cheered for their every move toward independence. Not because I dislike caring for them, but because I knew they could do it and I wanted to enable them to "be all they could be."

The work God has done in my heart to make Joshua's needs so crystal clear to me is amazing. The way I have naturally parented Joshua is totally unnatural for me, only God could have made it so natural. When Joshua came home I could feel his insecure independence and it broke my heart. He was emotionally independent because he had learned that it was the safest path. He was very content to take care of himself as much as possible. His biggest way to do that was to make sure he was friends with many the tall people around. While he liked me from the start, I could feel the difference between secure love, and survival love. I was nice. I was "good with kids." I was the one his precious Mitin handed him to. I was the safest one around, but it was not a secure love. He did cry (sometimes) when I was out of reach - but because he was scared of being left. Not because he was attached to me. We needed to teach him that dependence was safe before we encouraged him to be independent. Talk about an unnatural way for this momma to parent.

I am sure at times people watch me with my son and think he is totally spoiled and babied. He is held and carried A LOT. He has a huge need for touch. Just like a 7 mo. old that can not stand to be away from mommy's arms for a whole shopping trip, my boy needs to be snuggled and held midway through the grocery trip sometimes. Yesterday as we drove around running errands he told me, "Joshua need you mommy! Need snuggle!" And I carried him chest to chest all through the next store and complimented him for using his words to tell me what he needs. Crazy, for a kid his age? Not based on his life story.

Through all this nurturing, I see so much healing happening. He is able to do more and more on his own - while staying "dependent". (In other words without putting up an invisible wall that tells me he is closing me out.) Just like cuddling and mommy time helped my belly babies become independent, and know they have a safe place to land; reenacting that is refueling my toddler.

Some books call this fuel "mommy (or parent) juice." Kids need to be full of mommy juice (love, support, affection) in order to thrive. Once their tank is full and refilled often (before the low fuel light comes on) they begin to get better gas mileage and can do more and more on their own while still feeling filled up and loved. Joshua's tank was on "E" for quite some time - so it has taken a LONG time to fill. I think it is full now, but he does get less "miles per gallon" than his siblings did at his age. So we take lots of breaks to refill. Those breaks come in the form of hugs, eye contact, rocking, playing silly games, laughing, tickling... basically anything that causes him to feel commected, important, and adored.

Parenting backwards... it is in my opinion the best way to help a wounded child heal. Besides prayer, of course) It is not easy - and sometimes looks crazy and over-controlling from the outside looking in - but I see and feel its benefits on a daily basis.

Monday, Joshua and I were at Walmart. He did a super job. He stayed in the cart the whole long trip, although needed a lot of eye contact and hugs. Anyway I was entertaining him with silly stories nose to nose as we waited at the checkout. When we got to the cashier she commented with a smile, "I can see you have a momma's boy in your cart!" And I could happily and confidently reply, "YEP! He is mommy's baby!" To which Joshua grunted, "UMMM hmmm (aka yes!)" around his deeply inserted thumb.

That moment was music to my heart!

He makes me laugh!

Joshua is so very funny! I have learned how much I tend to forget as my kids grow up, so I have worked at recording many of the funny things Joshua says and does.

A few days ago I was telling Joshua he did a wonderful job at something. I said, "Holy Cow! You did a super job!"

He looked at me very puzzled and said, "Holy moooo?!"


I blogged a few days ago about how challenging church was this past week. Well, on Monday Joshua found the glasses above which reminded him of our Pastor's glasses. He put on the glasses and began to preach. I noticed him talking very loud and with A LOT of animation, so I asked him what he was doing. He said, "No Joshua! (points to chest) Pastor Maury!"

He then pulled out a chair for me to sit on. He said, "Mommy sit down! No talk! SSSHHHH! Pastor Maury talking!"

He then proceeded to preach and preach while gesturing in a BIG way. When he saw me suppressing my laughter he said, "No funny! Pastor Maury do that!"

I could not help but belly laugh at that. Pretty soon we were both laughing and tickling, but before too long I was reminded to "Sit down! Pastor Maury still talking!"

Toddlers are THE best!

On a totally different note, I am praying about planning a mission trip to Ethiopia - say sometime between January and April 2012 - if you are interested in going with me... check out this blog. I think Caleb from One Child Campaign may be my first choice as guide. His most recent series of posts are all about the latest trip he took a group on. I read it last night and absolutely longed to be there.

This was the first time I have felt that way since retutning with Joshua. I have always known I needed/wanted to return to serve and explore, but I had not really wanted to at the same time. It is HARD to be in Ethiopia and have that much poverty totally in your face. It is a totally helpless feeling. At the same time Ethiopia was also so rich with colors, sights, sounds, and smells that I long to experience it again. And to experience it in a different role. While I was there my ONLY concern was bonding with my boy. I saw almost nothing outside of the cab ride to and from the care center and the Yebsabi. I would not change a minute of that trip. I am thankful to have had my mom and Krissy there to do some exploring and shopping for me though!

Since returning home I have been certain that I would go back. (Kristen &)I dream of going back with a group of people from our church. I am still not sure when, how, and if that will happen - but last night reading the posts about Caleb's trip I became excited. So - if you have the same dream as I do, start praying! Then read about Caleb's organization and see what you think!

If you have planned an Ethiopian mission trip and have other suggestions about organizations or guide services to use, please let me know!

Wrestling with Resolutions

I like to start the year with some type of a plan (shocking, I know!) I like to have some sort of personal goals, aspirations, or resolutions to challenge myself to work toward in the coming year. This year I have struggled to know what those aspirations should be.

Part of the dilemma is due to the fact that last year was so HUGE! I knew January 1, 2010 that it would be a year that would forever change me and my family. I did not know just how hard or how wonderful or how totally God-filled it would be though! God required so much trust and growth from me in 2010, that anything I try to "plan" to challenge myself with in 2011 seems silly.

So with that in mind - my first aspiration is to follow Him with total abandon. After living through last year that statement is not made lightly. I know how hard and scary following can be! I also know the amazing blessings that come with it! Obviously last year we were blessed with our sweet, silly Joshua Gebeyehu - but less obviously I was blessed with seeing and hearing God more than ever before. Choosing to be totally vulnerable, to totally rely on Him to take care of my son half a world away, watching Him knit our family together, seeing His hand in VERY difficult business situations, worshiping when I felt forgotten, feeling His peace, presence and blessing despite ANY other circumstance - those times were the most profound in my life. And those moments when God encouraged me and reassured me, when He alone held me together were intoxicating. I LONG for more of Him. The way to more of Him is to follow Him, to let go of my plan and follow His - and that is my first and most important aspiration.

Next comes the less serious stuff! The stuff that watching my kids over this weekend inspired in my heart!

In 2011, I aspire to RUN with great joy!

I vow to make spending time with my girlfriends a top priority! Coffee or wine, anyone?

I promise to play - and not worry about the mess!

I aspire to rest with joy and appreciation instead of guilt!

I plan to spend many moments snuggling the ones I love, before they are too big to allow me to snuggle them!

I vow to be silly more and serious less! I am much more comfortable with serious than silly. However, God has given me such good teachers in my children, so I plan to seize opportunities to laugh! to play hide and seek! to tickle! to make funny faces! to eat cookie dough! to have squirt gun wars!

Last one - I have set a goal to read through the entire Bible this year. I have never done that. I have read bits and pieces. I have scoured many sections, but I have never followed through a "read your Bible in a year plan." So I have decided this is the year. I was truly shocked at how little you read each day in one of these plans (you can google them). Most days it is only four chapters, some days less. That is like 10 to 15 minutes of reading. So that means it is very doable, as long as I am consistent!

The planner that I am feels much better now!

***Father God, I have NO IDEA what you have planned for me this year! My hearts desire is to follow you wherever you lead. I aspire to willingly abandon my plan for Yours. I confess fear in saying that - because I like to think I am in control. But, I am so thankful that You do have a plan for me. A plan that will prosper me, not harm me. A plan to give me HOPE and an amazing future in You! Please grant me the grace and courage to follow wherever You lead!

(more than) Ready to Return to Routine!

I hate to admit it, but we have had TOO MUCH Christmas! We have had too many late nights, too many "weird" meals at "weird" times, too much noise, too many visitors, and too many visits, too much excitement and NOT enough normal.

Last night I knew we had pushed Joshua and his sisters over the edge! Joshua cried for hours at bedtime - finally falling asleep at 10:15. Shortly after he finally slept, Brenna came to my room in tears. She was not feeling well, so I got her settled on a nest of blankets next to my bed. Then at 3AM, Sierra was standing over my sleepy self. She too was feeling yucky! So I peeled myself out of bed to get her ibuprofen and rub her aching head.

Morning came WAY too soon!

I had committed to doing the Children's Sermon at church and Chad was on as Deacon, so we left the girls at home with Krissy. Jamison and Joshua came along to church. It was not fun! Every time I reminded Joshua to speak softly or stay near me, he burst into noisy tears. This is not normal! He rarely cries because of a minor reprimand, pouts - maybe, but weeping it totally out of character. The second time he began to wail, Jamison looked at me and said, "Again?" (My thoughts exactly!)

We left church ASAP!

I was looking forward to a hot lasagna that Krissy was supposed to have in the oven, but when I walked into our house I quickly noticed that it was still on the counter instead of in the oven. (Poor Krissy felt terrible!) So we punted and quickly threw together some sloppy joes.

Little did I know that sloppy joes were just what Joshua needed. He ate 2 and a half big buns! Normal food must have tasted so good to him! Over Christmas we have eaten at different times than he is used to and have had many new meals. He has hung in there, but he was so totally happy to eat and eat and eat good old sloppy joes!

As I rocked him at naptime, he was totally asleep - like drooling all over my shirt - in 5 minutes flat. He is still sleeping almost 3 hours later!

His sisters slept late, have watched several movies, and are now feeling much better as well!

This afternoon, I have been thinking through the last 2 weeks. We had a fantastic Christmas! I think Chad and I did a super job of helping Joshua get through the very over-stimulating days. When Joshua did so very well! By planning ahead we all had fun!

We did not do as great a job of keeping him rested this (New Year's) weekend. While we did not do nearly do near as much - just a small party at a friend's home on New Year's Eve then early lunch the next day at Grandma's - his reaction spoke LOUD and CLEAR! It was more than he was ready for! He was the most out of sorts I have seen him in months. But as I examine it, his older siblings would have probably reacted in a similar fashion (and did in their own way as both Sierra and Brenna were sick overnight.) So the question for me as a mom is what activities are "worth" some difficult behavior afterwards? And, how could I have supported my kids better to minimize the backlash?

Looking back we should have either skipped the party OR lunch at my mom's. Joshua did not have enough of a break in between to handle both. Especially since Chad and I had both made commitments at church this morning. As it was, Joshua was forced to be in church when what he really needed was a quiet morning at home.

We had forgotten to leave room in our margins!

Did it kill him? No. We all survived. However, I much prefer to thrive!

So my New Year started with a lesson instead of an aspiration or a resolution. As we return to NORMAL and I have more time to process and reflect, this lesson may become part of my aspirations for 2011 though!

How about you? Have a lesson, aspiration, or resolution to share?

Happy New Year! Hoping 2011 is filled with grace, peace, hope, love, and joy!