Arlo Funnies

Arlo and I had lunch together yesterday. I was sleepy and forgot to plug our parking meter. About half way through our meal I realized that I had forgotten, and looked out the window to see if we were busted, holding my breath, until I saw the lime-green envelope on my windshield. Damn. Oh well. With a pit in my stomache (how much are these things anyways?) and feeling like a nimrod, I told Arlo that we got a ticket. Here is the conversation that followed:

me: Oh, shoot, I forgot to put money in our meter and we got a ticket!

arlo: What kind of ticket?

me: A parking ticket.

arlo: What's a parking ticket?

me: A fine you have to pay when you forget to plug the meter.

arlo: Who put it there?

me: The person who checks meters.

arlo: Like a police officer?

me: Yeah, sort of.

arlo: Are you going to jail?

me: no. (arlo looks dissapointed).

arlo: Do we get to meet them? I have so many questions to ask them about what all their stuff is for.

me: No, honey. She's gone. (we walk out to the car and I hand the ticket to arlo).

arlo: Thanks Mom. I will take good care of it. OH LOOK, she put something inside...there is writing in there!!

me: Yep. It says 'to arlo'.

arlo: How did she know my name?

me: Funny huh. Maybe she is sort of like Santa Clause.

arlo: Yeah. She sure is. Thanks Mom. I will keep this one and put it in my room on my bookshelf right next to my favorite books. It is special to me.

me: OK. (reminding myself not to forget about the damn thing so I don't have to pay the city a gazillion dollars.)

arlo: On the cell phone with his Dad: Hi Dad! Mom forgot to pay the parking meter and she got a ticket and she gave it to me!!!!! It is bright green and has a window with a little note inside. I am going to keep it on my bookshelf and next time Mom forgets to pay the meter she can get one for Aesa.

He turned it into something fun and creative, so he gets props for that. This morning while I was picking up I opened his bookshelf to return a book to it's home and there it was- the bright green ticket that brings arlo so much joy. I promptly moved it to the kitchen counter lest I forget about it again.



Another conversation arlo had recently. This time with my mother-in-law.

arlo: (walking into the bathroom with Grandma and beginning to pee) I have a penis, you know.

gigi (mother in law): Oh, you sure do.

arlo: Yep. And so does Aesa. And Daddy. And Papa. And even my other Papa. But his is probably wrinkley cuz he's a grown up.

gigi: oh.

Seriously. Boys. You gotta love em.

Fun.ny. and Brain

Pictures as promised. Although I was sickened at times by the mere fact that we were paying to lounge around in thousands of gallons of water just for leisure, we did manage to have a fun time. I just had to look at the faces of my kids and let that uneasy feeling fester in my gut.

I figure it is some form of that feeling that will urge me to continually do more, be more aware, and commit to taking action in my life on behalf of those who haven't got the means to do so themselves.

I am not sure what my relationship with the Kalahari will look like in the future, but for now I am trying to enjoy the fact that we had a really wonderful family weekend. The boys are just so damn cute. And they can run and play endlessly. It is fun to see them have an outlet for that in the midst of these most oppressive winter months.

It brings me again to the theme words of my brain lately, nuance and dichotomy. All of life exists somewhere mixed in amongst those two words, rolling around and morphing into different things at different times depending on perspective I guess. I think a lot about the dichotomies in life. In parenting. In relationships. In adoption. In humanity. In love. Just life really, what a trip.

I guess it is the nature of becoming truly aware, on a more intimate level, of the inequities in life. I have heard all about it. But for the first time, in a way that affects me deeper than I have ever been affected by being a woman or doing without certain things (like health insurance...), I am seeing it through the eyes of someone I love profoundly, my daughter, and even more than seeing it through her eyes, i am seeing it through the eyes of her family in Ethiopia. It is hard stuff. And I sit here with the ultimate privilege to mull it over in my noggin, while somewhere, right this very minute as my fingers strike the keyboard, they are living it. I really. really. love them. Heavy stuff for a post about the water park, but it is like I said, nuance and dichotomy.

Enjoy your time this weekend, doing whatever it is that you find yourself doing. Peace.

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam....

We are back from the Kalahari Water Park excursion. It was a blast, Arlo tried out some new slides with Dad and Aesa had fun playing with a watering can and a shovel for hours. I mostly relaxed and tried to position myself in the sunshine when it streamed in through the windows.

Recovery mode has set in. We are buried under laundry baskets full of dirty clothes and I have no ambition to tackle any of it today. I don't care how messy my house is. I figure most people who stop by are so taken with our charming personalities that they don't notice the disarray. It helps me to stop caring. That and the fact that I really don't care. I am sick of running around the house shuffling our crap from one corner to another, never really achieving the goal of "neat and tidy and everything in its place". HMMM, cabin fever?

Today we are trying to schedule an appointment for Aesa with a mythical beast. I don't know where I got the idea that Doctors were comprehensive, knowledgeable, and gave a rats hiney about their patient's health. I am so sick of waiting on hold only to be transferred to another nurse who wants to give their two cents as well. I want to leave a message for my doctor. Don't even need to talk to him. Seriously, I don't want to go in for them to tell me I need to go see someone else. I don't want to pay them to tell me something that we could have handled over the phone. Maybe I can find him on facebook. I want our doctor to want to know what is going on with our health. I want some freaking follow up, that is all. Am I way too demanding? What the heck. It makes me want to run around in circles and scream. But I won't. I'll just stay on hold and listen to the inane piano music until another nurse says hello. Seriously, what a way to waste a perfectly good day. It would make sense if at the end of the ordeal you felt like your time was well spent and you had the satisfaction of knowing you were headed in the right direction and not just being fished through the slots of your clinics network of providers. Can someone just tell me I am not alone? Oh well.

We have tons of really fun pictures from our weekend. I will post them later when I unpack far enough to find the camera.

Cheers (and sorry about the ranting :)

Best Friends and Worst Enemies

Spurred by the dirty look I got from the lady working at the gap today, I thought I would hash this out a bit. She was watching the boys play with some toys that they have on annoyingly low displays and questioned to me:

'They are close in age, aren't they?'

My reply, 'Yep, 16 months apart.'

She said with a smile and a nod, 'are they best buddies?'

And my reply was totally honest and nothing shameful when I said, 'and worst enemies.'

But she gave me this oh-what-a-shame-you-must-be-an-unfit-mother look (OK, maybe it was just a quick flash in her eyes, but it was there, I am certain).

Anyways it got me thinking about their relationship. They love each other tremendously and tell one another at random times when they are playing. If one of them gets hurt, the other runs to the freezer for an ice pack. If they are apart, Aesa must ask where Arlo is every 3 minutes until they are reunited. They count on each other to spur creativity and fight imaginary monsters. They enjoy the same games. They look out for each other, like the time Aesa told me to 'be nice to Arlo' when he was getting reprimanded for something I can't remember. A couple of days ago, Arlo said to me, 'I sure am lucky to have a little brother like Aesa.' They hug and kiss before bed at night. They have a very unique and intense bond that I am privileged to witness as they grow up together.

AND... they are brothers who are 16 months apart. They compete all day every day without even intending to. Lately, they can't keep their hands off each other whenever I walk out of the room for more than 3 seconds. They smash into each other, pinch, poke, pull hair. It is totally reciprocal, each dishes and each is served. They constantly want the toy the other one is playing with, and rarely does a minute pass in my house when someone isn't waiting for someone else's toy. We dole out turns in minutes, which leads to some pretty hefty flailing by the child who has to wait 3 minutes for their turn with the magnet that the other child pulled off the fridge and is using to push marbles across the floor, 'a whole three minutes?! That will take like an hour (arms flailing, body crumbling, tears flowing)'. It seems intense, and it is, but it totally makes sense if you look at it through their eyes. To them it is just life, normalcy, nothing less nothing more. They ebb and flow between best friends and worst enemies about 22 trillion times a day. I think it will enable them to deal with life in a healthier way, to negotiate relationships in a complex and developed manner. It is hard for them sometimes, but they are learning golden nuggets of information from each other, and what they learn now in a healthy and safe way, they will be spared from learning later in life when it is much much harder.

Maybe instead of saying best friends and worst enemies next time, I should say best friends and best enemies.

Utter Randomness

(Laser light show in the tub with blinking ice cubes.)

Oh my goodness, seriously, I didn't know that I loved this little box of chips, bits, and wires so much, but take it away from me for two and a half weeks and I will admit it! I am attached to my computer! Whew, I feel like I can finally breathe again. It feels good and bad at the same time. I am happy to have my confidant back, to check into things at a whim, to read up on adoption related sites, to check in on people's blogs, and spend time perusing amazons bookshelves, but it feels gross to realize how my life has changed since we got internet at our house. My brain chemistry is forever altered. Immediate satisfaction demanded, immediate gratification achieved. Eeeew. I can't believe it is my brain. The brain that loves to relish in quiet woods looking at fungi, the brain that struggles with so many aspects of daily life and society, the brain that lives life in reverse always remembering the big picture. So it is and so it shall be.

(No chapped lips for this guy. Or his dinosaur.)

I have so many funny stories to share from my brief hiatus, we've had so many wonderful experiences, so many revalations that have made us wonder what we have done to deserve the good people that surround us in our lives. I don't know how many will filter to the page, but I will try in the next week or two to take the time to type out my thoughts and our experiences, it's just that it is so hard to put into words the enormity of our lessons, it is like seeing and experiencing the most beautiful sunset from a pristine mountainside with all of your loved ones and then trying to explain it to a friend who wasn't there to see it first hand. Even though I know that many of you 'get it' I still can't find the words to express it. I want to take a creative writing class so that I can find my voice, maybe with some coaching I could get it all out, and funnel my thoughts and experiences to the page, maybe. I am blessed in ways that make me dizzy. Maybe I should take a pottery class and funnel my feelings into my art (but can another glazed ashtray convey my emotion?). I just find myself wanting to wallow in it, like laying in the grass on a warm sunny day. I just want to feel it all, I want to soak it up, be permiated by the depth and breadth of this human experience. I don't want to give it words, it is different depending on the aspect I am trying to explain, complicated, multifaceted, the web of adoption, the web of life. Profound. Profound. Profound. And I'm not only talking about the joyful parts, profound in pain and sorrow. Profound in inequity and unfairness. Profound in its humanity. Otherworldly really. Awesome. And again, not just in the happy happy ways, although it is joyful and there is celebration and love. ooooo girlie, i am wallowing in the warm yellow rays today.

(Headstart on those pesky whiskers.)

Ok, time to help the boys play some games and snuggle before naptime. It's good to be back. Selam

I don't miss summer, I don't miss summer, I don't miss summer...

Since I can't download any new pictures, even though my camera is full of great shots, I thought I would browse through some oldies. They are random, fun, summery. Some are from 2008 some from 2007, doesn't matter. All that matters is that the sunshine in these pictures actually has the ability to make me feel toasty sitting here in the middle of winter.

Cousins. I love how S is fully holding Arlo by the face in the first picture. And I love that he is still smiling. 2008

How cute can he be? Aesa taking a dip in 07.

Summer 07 facepainting at Syttende Mai in Stoughton. Aesa would not sit still for it, he would rather have eaten the brush. Arlo, to this day, loves a good facepainting.

Sprinkler, oh sprinkler, how I love thee. Arlo 07.

Just a little nostalgic, with the freeze your skin in 10 minute air outside and all. But, next week we WILL be out there sliding and shoveling again, only like five more days until we can bare to brave the cold again. These two weeks in the dark days of winter always stink. Oh, well.

Hope you are all warm and cozy in, or out of, your homes. Peace and Blessings.

huh?

Sitting here, waiting for hubby to get home from Tai Chi. Bigger little boy sleeping on the kitchen floor a few feet from me, snuggled on a fleece, in some sort of karate super hero pose. Littler little boy shouting out random phrases from the other side of this wall I am facing, safely behind the fortress walls of his crib. Typing to the gentle serenade of never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never....MOM....MOM....cockadoodle-DOOOOO, COCKAdoodle DOOOOO, COCKADOODLE DOOOOO and rhythmic wall drumming, he definitely has a future as an entertainer. I just hope it is more along the lines of a career in film/theatre/advertising/comedy/writing/music and less along the lines of beer-bonger-at-fraternity-kegger/the kid who picks his nose in school for attention/ or one of those guys with the annoying reality TV shows who does stupid crap and films it because it makes money and other stupid (sorry if you like these shows, I am sure there are exceptions to my assumption, and certainly you have a valid reason for watching, like you are tied to a chair with your eyeballs propped open Tom and Jerry style or something) people watch it. Uttered from beyond the wall whilst I just typed that last sentence, I got him, I got him, I got him, I got him, hmmmm... he can truly entertain himself for hours. That is a gift. Not so much for mister kitchen floor sleeper. A little more engagement makes his brain happy. He needs to be doing something, needs a plan, often asks absently what do you think we should DO today, often utters at the end of a day that included a trip to the YMCA to swim, out for lunch at his fav grill, playing outside in the snow, a movie, a dinner playdate, and some prebed board games this day was boring, we never do anything fun in our family (note dark bags under his eyes and the listless manner of his speech).

Things are good over here. We are enjoying winter this year, for the first time in four winters. Winter with a newborn=recluse. Winter with a one year old=double recluse, snow is deeper than little waist and little guy can't even pick up a toy with his gortex mittens on, let alone right himself should he face plant using his newfangled walking skills. Winter with a Two year old and a nine month old=total joke, is it too early to have a nightcap at noon (kidding!! Hi Social workers :) by the time we get all the necessary crap on to go outside, someone poops their pants or needs to eat or is crying so hard mom feels like giving herself a whitewash to ease the pain. Winter with a three year old and a one and a half year old=better, but nothing to get excited about, trust me, little bro didn't walk he was 17 months old so he was on those new fangled walking legs that winter. Winter with a four year old and a two and a half year old= super dooper fun, I am liking all this snow and the short days seem long compared to the memories of winters gone by. I have been outside almost every day. Nobody face plants too often. If a face plant should happen, said face planter can get back up by themselves. Our yard is big folks, I used to spend my day running between tragedy and accident waiting to happen. But slowly and surely, winter is blowing its chilly way back into my heart. About time.

Ummm. Just checked on little man singing in his crib cuz the hubby got home. The scene is as follows. Boy: naked from the waist down sitting in a pool of milk in his fortress, boy is happily perched on his knees patting the pool and rubbing it all over his hands and arms. Boy looks shocked that we discovered the end of his trusty baba eaten off. Boy needs sheets and pj's replaced. He is totally going to be on that reality TV show. Crap. He needs an intervention.

I would add pictures, but still have the trojan horse virus. Sending the computer to the computer doctor very soon.

Peace and Joy and a belated Melkam Genna to you!!