Bleh

Eeew. We have the stomach flu. I don't like it one bit. I am convinced it is our penance for living in the freezing never land that we do. So far, only Aesa has had the upchucking variety, the rest of us just queasy and achy. So, good news is, we are on the upswing.

Not much to say today.

Arlo had perhaps the comment of the year today. It went like this. Randomly, casually uttered: "What DO you know about being a good Mom anyway?" Huh? Because I asked him not to pour too much paint on his paper plate pallet...crap...I am sooo in for it with this boy. I am voting for either maniacal maniac or unbelievable visionary. He just comes up with stuff. He is only FOUR. I wish I could capture these things on video. You'd get goosebumps I swear. Quick on his feet I tell ya. I am buying stock in rum.

And another tid bit, I rock at Super Mario Bros on the old school original nintendo. We got it out on VTDay and had a gaming session. I laughed so hard I cried. Twice. I never laugh so hard I cry, it felt awesome! Classic gamers unite!

Happy weekend to you all, Peace!

Arlo's Million Dollar Question

This week Arlo asked me a question that really has no decent answer for a child. I don't want to scare him out of his mind.



"Mom? Why do grown-ups have guns?" (He has been thinking a lot about an armored car we saw while shopping one day. He noticed the guy carrying the money had a gun. I think he was under the impression only cops have guns.)



Oh man buddy. Next question.



"Do they ever shoot kids?"



Answer: Absolutely not.



He is not convinced. I figure it is only a matter of time before he has evidence of my lie. Although we don't watch the news, so maybe it will take a little while for him to stumble onto the horrifying truth.



We have chatted about the shape of bullets, and if they are sharp. I didn't sugar coat the reality of guns and how they work, wouldn't want him to be naiive should he ever cross paths with a gun that is not properly stored away at someone's house. He,s wondering if it hurts to get the bullets taken out of you. For now, he's satisfied- but he is still pondering this one- he asks related questions daily (well, does it hurt to get shot by a cannon? but the balls are round! but I'm really strong!).



Can't he ask me some questions about Dora or Handy Manny or something?

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