Ohmlayand Seecooritee

Our former neighbor told us once how he hates the name "Department of Homeland Security." It's nearly impossible for a French-speaking person to say properly and requires quite a lot of lip effort. Ohmlayand Seecooritee. To me it sounds gratuitously American. Like they might as well go ahead and add "With Corn!" to the end to underline the point. The Department of Homeland Security With Corn!

Anyway, we received notice that The Department of Homeland Security (With Corn!) has started to process our kids' green cards. Finally. It came with the following extremely helpful notice:

At the top of this form you will see a very important number. This number is very important to you.

I'm glad they took the time to inform me that this number is not just generally important. Rather, it is specifically important to me.

If my previous experiences with Homeland Security are any indicator, I imagine our kids' green cards will show up about two weeks after they expire.

And Dinke's First Word Is...

Luna! Our cat. Or as Dinke says, "Oona." And with less consistency, "Uh ka."

We waited a few days to be sure she was really associating "oona" with Luna. But today Dinke came over, touched the cat, looked right at me and said, "Oona!" So there you have it.

Alex says, "Dinke's decided the black ladies in the house gotta stick together."

Catching Up: Random Fabertid Photos From Ethiopia and Beyond

From Ethiopia:











First birthday/first ice cream/Dinkee Couture:

Overheard...

On the Changing Table:

No, keep your hand out of your butt while I'm changing your diaper. Oh, go ahead. Whine about it to the kids at school, "My dad won't let me touch my butt!" You know what you'll hear? Crickets! That's right. And you won't have any friends and you'll have to sit with the white kids at lunch.

What She Said

I loved this post over at Rage Against the Minivan. I feel like, when people comment or ask questions about our adoption, I never respond the way I want to respond. The words never come fast enough or clear enough. And sometimes, to be honest, my courage fails me.

Mount Wenchi

While staying in Addis, we also took a day trip to Mount Wenchi via Ambo. The districts of Wenchi and Cheliya--where Ambo is situated and where the twins are from--are also farming districts. Various crops are grown here, and it surprised us to learn that flowers are one of them. Apparently Ethiopia grows a large portion of the flowers sold in--get this--Holland. That's right. Those famous Dutch flowers you bought on your last European vacation may very well have been grown in Ethiopia. In the midst of all this farmland sits Wenchi, an extinct volcano now home to a gorgeous lake and an island monastery. If I were going to recommend one day trip to people visiting Addis, this would be it. Just a warning, though, that the hike up from the lake is a bit strenuous given the high elevation. If you're not in reasonable shape, perhaps don't plan to hike all the way down or arrange to hire a mule or horse from one of the locals to carry you. After your hike, you might want to enjoy a Coke with your guide. You'll feel like you've stepped right into one of those 1970s "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" commercials.

Notes, 16 June 2010

To sum up our life for the last six weeks, we:

-packed up most of our apartment
-traveled to Ethiopia
-got custody of twins
-attempted to figure out how to parent said twins
-packed up the rest of our apartment
-moved to another country, and the far end of it at that

We're still unpacking, which is difficult to do with both twins in that lovely separation anxiety phase. OHMAGAWWWWWWWD! You're six inches away from me! OHMAGAWWWWWWWD! I might DIE! And where would you be? Six inches away, that's where! THE HORROR!!!! Weirdly, the twins seem completely confused about which parent to have the anxiety about, so it's both of us. Which means that if I'm holding Dinka and Xander walks into the room, Dinka is immediately in tears and screaming because--oh no!--Dada is not connected to him, too! In a perfect Dinkee world, we'd walk around linked together as a blob of a foursome, limbs sticking out every which way. If I had time, I'd draw you a picture.

It gets worse when we have people over. It's like any progress we've made is immediately thrown out the window with guests. Oddly enough, this does not apply if we meet people out somewhere. So for the next couple of months, I guess we'll keep any meetings with friends and family at destinations outside the home. I know. It sounds crazy. But trust us, we've learned our lesson. After three days of no guests, I'm only just starting to recognize my kids again. Three days.

In other Dinkee news, the twins turned one this week! We decided to wait to celebrate until this weekend, since our place is still filled with boxes. But we did take them out to the farmers market, and I was reminded what a tomato should taste like. Tomatoes are grown best in hot places, I tell you, so those Quebec tomatoes never quite did it for me. There's no shortage of hot weather here, though. I thought the Fabertids were going to melt yesterday, but we all survived. And they slept through the night! If this were a science experiment, which it kind of is, I'd say that heat exhaustion is a great way to get your baby to sleep.

More Ethiopia Photos: Blue Nile Gorge and Debre Libanos

The first trip we took outside of Addis was actually to Lalibela and points north. But that post will take forever to write up, so we'll start with something simpler. We visited the Blue Nile Gorge north of Addis and from there headed to Debre Libanos.

The Blue Nile Gorge is where you'll find the Blue Nile River, which is one of the rivers that feeds The Nile. The gorge is probably not as deep as the Grand Canyon, but parts of it are certainly wider. You can't even see across the whole thing. It's pretty amazing, and also rather unexpected since the landscape leading up to it is mostly flat with only a few hills here and there. It's dairy country, in fact, so most of the land south of the gorge is farmed and dotted with cattle. We learned that although the people in the area produce most of Ethiopia's milk, they cannot afford to drink it.

Debre Libanos was gearing up for a big festival--St. Michael, I think--and was crawling with visitors. People come up to a week in advance and camp out prior to the event. There are street vendors set up, and the vibe is not unlike one of the numerous street fairs that take place in New York City in the summer.

Bathtime. Bedtime. With Special Nod to Aunt Liz.

Bathtime. Only Dinke likes it so far, but we're working on the Dinkmeister.


Xander chills out with the kids for the half hour prior to bedtime while watching an episode of Ren & Stimpy, which (ahem, Aunt Liz) Dinke really likes.

Who's More "American," Canada or the United States?

If we're going based on that "family values" stuff politicians are always harping on back home, I'd have to vote Canada on this question. One of the things we have noticed most about living in Quebec is how much more important family seems to be here. Life isn't about what you do for a living, but how you spend your free time. And most people spend their free time with friends and family. In the summer, there are backyard gatherings every single day. Weekends are meant for visiting parents or grandparents. Children are a priority. It's just...different here.

Anyway, I don't have time right now to write all I would like to on this subject--children being a priority for me right now--but I don't have to. You can read a pretty fair summary of my thoughts over at dooce.com. (Guilty pleasure. What can I say?) Once we get this US health care nonsense straightened out, I'd like to see someone do something about family leave. Because what the US offers right now is a fucking joke.

Notes, 7 June 2010

-This parenting biz is, generally speaking, waaaay less stressful than we expected. This is probably because so many people seemed to take so much pleasure in attempting to freak us out prior to bringing the kids home. "Just you wait. You'll never sleep again!" "Your life is really going to change." (We sure as hell hoped so. Otherwise spending two years going through an international adoption was going to seem really wasteful.) "Enjoy doing such-and-such thing now, because you'll never be able to go anywhere again!" And we heard from numerous people that seemed to take a lot of twisted enjoyment out of complaining about their children. Either for that reason or because it's just the I roll, I went into this gig with pretty low expectations. I told people, "I'm expecting the worst, and anything better than that will be a pleasant surprise." It turns out it's really not so bad. A few frustrating moments here and there, but mostly no big deal. And I still feel mostly like myself, only a little more forgetful.

-Dinke has learned that dropping things on the floor is fun. The cool part is that when we don't pick the thing up and don't hand her anything else, she's okay with that, so we aren't struggling with that need to placate. We think she knows she gets one chance, and she's decided it's worth spending it on dropping stuff on the floor. Hey, gravity is cool.

-Dinka has his first fever. There's nothing more pitiful than a baby with a fever.

-Along the lines of unsolicited advice, before we had kids it just annoyed me. Now that the children are here, I cannot tell you how much I don't give a shit what other people have to say. When we have questions, we ask someone whose parenting style doesn't strike us as obnoxious. And sure, we enjoy people's funny stories about the time they got puked on or the time their child pulled the baby food display down at the grocery store or whatever. But other than that, we really don't care what anyone else has to say. I'm still hesitant to tell opinionated people to buzz off--something I need to work on--but luckily Xander is not.

-I love it when one of the twins reaches out to hold my hand. For some reason, this melts my heart quicker than hugs and snuggles. It's such a deliberate, affectionate gesture. Plus baby fingers are cute.

-Dude, our kids have most definitely attended the School for Kids Who Want to Develop Most Annoying Cries Possible. You should hear the Dinkees' vocal abilities. Let's just say we're really happy our next rental is a house and not an apartment. We're starting to worry the neighbors think we're burning baby toes over here. Which we might have to do if the high-pitched wailing doesn't shift into something more manageable soon.*

-Yet another comment on opinionated people. We've noticed some parents have a highly inflated view of their roles. They'll take credit for every good thing about their child. "My child is very smart. It's because we did such-and-such thing with her when she was two." That kind of thing. Or they'll go on sentimental rants about how they just "knew" their child needed whatever thing or how they always "knew" their child would grow up to be something-or-other. Drives us both nuts, because it's not like you get to try out your life multiple ways, so any results can be purely coincidental. It's all hindsight, really, and it seems wise not to attach too much value to any decisions we make as parents. Maybe it's just because we have twins, but a large part of our day is spent figuring out how to get the diaper off and in the bin before any of the poop ends up on someone's clothes or in someone's hair. It's hard to feel too romantic about that. However, if my children grow up to be successful, I'm definitely going to tell people it's because I never let them wipe poop in their hair.

*Really? Is it necessary to say I'm kidding here? Ugh. Fine. I'm kidding.

Further Dispatches From the Land of Cute

I swear soon I'll write a post about something other than babies, but for now...


The shoes I made for them fit!

How We Get Shit Done 'round Here

One Last Ice Cream

Dear cousin Anna threw us a baby shower before we left New York for Ethiopia. It was a beautiful, beautiful day in Brooklyn. We had brunch, we opened presents, we ate ice cream. Later we went to the park with the family. Lovely.

Some Views From Addis

Addis Ababa, more often called just "Addis," is the capital of Ethiopia and where we spent the majority of our nights in Ethiopia. It's a city unlike any other, and aside from the unbelievably poor air quality, we really enjoyed it. It's gritty and busy, like New York, which may account for why it grew on us so heavily by the end of our two weeks in Ethiopia. We stayed at Mr. Martin's Cozy Place, which is soon to undergo renovations that will combine improved quarters with the staff's genuine hospitality. We look forward to going back there in a couple of years.

Anyway, Addis. It's got some issues. The number one problem being the aforementioned pollution. And most of the roads are either not paved or contain enormous potholes that have been known to eat both cars and pedestrians.* In addition, Addis suffers from somewhat frequent power outages. But it's also thriving in many ways. Numerous buildings are under construction**, and there are new businesses opening daily. It has all of the stuff you'd expect to find in a city: a variety of cuisine, fancy hotels, internet cafes, shoe shine boys on the corner, people selling newspapers and illegal DVDs, etc. Though it's not racially diverse, it is culturally and economically diverse. There are rich folks living in fancy condos and large compounds as well as homeless people living under blankets on the sidewalk. Churches dot the city, but the Islamic call to prayer woke me in the wee hours every morning. Taken for what it is, it is beautiful.

In spite of the availability of creature comforts and the stereotypical friendliness of most Ethiopians, I've heard numerous reports from people who were deeply disturbed by their trips to Addis. We're not really sure why, but our best guess is that it is probably a pretty big shock to residents of Western suburbia who may be expecting a more regular-type city. The culture shock can be intense. My first day was rough, because we really were the only white people around. However, after several days of being out and about in the city on your own, you get used to it. And the constant shouts of "ferenj! ferenj!" sound less offensive and more friendly to your ears as time goes on. You let your guard down and find yourself waving back and smiling instead of trying to duck out of sight into the next cafe. It helps to try to let go of any expectations you might have in advance and get to know Ethiopia on its own terms. I really recommend that people who visit Addis spend some time exploring on their own--no guide--and attempt to push past that initial culture shock, because it's well worth it. We were feeling downright comfortable in our neighborhood by the time we left, and I feel like we developed a real appreciation for our children's first home.














*You DO NOT want to attempt to drive in Addis Ababa. Seriously. Don't do it.

**Building construction in Ethiopia is fascinating to watch, because so much of it is accomplished using ancient methods. Scaffolding is built using logs, stones are chiseled by hand, and building materials are transported by using stretchers made from wood, animal hide, and rope. You'll see all this right alongside concrete mixers and bulldozers.