The Better Thing

Alan and I have always been interested in how to alleviate the suffering of children in the world. Before adopting, our main way to exercise this concern had been to sponsor children overseas. I always thought this was pathetically inadequate and typically American - for the cost of one dinner out a month, I could supply one child with a month's tuition for school, a couple of good meals a day, basic medical care, and hope for a better future for that child, the child's family and the child's community. Small sacrifice on our part, guilt assuaged, and the world a better place.

Adopting a child, on the other hand - making that child a member of our family and committing to that child for the rest of his or her life - requires lots and lots of sacrifice, financially, emotionally and physically. Despite that, many people who adopt from Ethiopia see the great need there, and find themselves compelled to make room in their family for more and more, until the next thing they know, their family car is a 16-seater van. This sacrifice is recognized by others and rewarded with kudos and encouragement, along of course with the occasional "Are you crazy?"

So which of these things - adopting or sponsoring - is the better thing? And, now that we've been to Ethiopia and seen the need, is there a mini-bus in our future? Well, two experiences in Ethiopia have really shaped my thinking on this.

The first was meeting a really great guy named Yosef, who was a driver for Biruk's orphanage in Addis Ababa. I spent the morning with Yosef on a whirl-wind souvenir shopping expedition. While driving through the crowded Addis streets - which apparently have traffic rules of some sort, but not the kind that you or I would recognize - Yosef looked straight into my eyes...via the rear-view mirror...and told me about his childhood as a street kid in a family that was falling apart, and how he had been saved and given a future by being sponsored by an American family through some organization. He had a message that he really, really wanted me, and also any of you who sponsor children, to hear: THANK YOU.

Yosef and his wife have a ministry working with street kids in Addis to get them off the street - particularly girls, who are so vulnerable in obvious ways. So whoever sponsored Yosef in the first place not only blessed that one child, but now that child has become a blessing to others. Is that awesome or what?

The second experience was hearing first-hand about the meeting between the father who had relinquished his rights to his two lovely daughters, ages 5 and 7, and the adoptive parents who were bringing them home the same week as us. This man clearly loved his children, and had not made his decision easily or selfishly. Most of us have seen poverty to one degree or another, but it's hard to imagine a life that requires you to work so hard it's killing you, and yet your efforts are still not enough to keep alive the people you love. The grief of the father and his daughters in saying goodbye to each other, and the grief of the adoptive parents knowing that they are providing a good solution to a terrible problem that no parent should ever have to face, will stay with me a long time.

So, no - I don't think we'll adopt more children. I think that's a noble calling, but the Brockett family now feels complete. The idea that has grabbed me is that those sponsorships that I previously thought so little of are, in fact, so meaningful! The trick is to not just sponsor one child or three and think I'm done - that was the part that was inadequate.

Rather, Alan and I should put the same level of commitment and sacrifice that adoption requires into sponsoring children and helping families through a trustworthy and effective organization like Compassion International. (Well, ok - maybe a little less. I'm not sure we could keep this pace up.) But seriously, for just the cost of our airfare to Ethiopia and back, we could sponsor 15 children for a year, or one 3-year old child all the way through high school. And you know us - we love efficiency! (Whether we could keep up a letter correspondence with 15 children is a completely different matter. Based on our past performance, the answer is definitely no.)

This post, of course, sets up a simplistic choice. There are so many ways to slice and dice the issues of poverty and child welfare. Suffice it to say, we're so glad to have Biruk in our family, and we're also so glad to have a clearer vision of how we personally want to focus on these issues going forward.

The picture above is of Biruk's uncle the day he left Biruk at an orphanage.

Da-DEE vs. Da-DAY

The first thing you should know about Biruk is that shoes are very important to him. I brought little soft-soled leather slippers to Ethiopia for him, because I didn't know if he had been wearing shoes up to that point. As it turns out, he was wearing these baby flip-flops with a strap around the back of the ankle when we picked him up at the orphanage, and it was very important to him to keep those shoes on all day. However, when I gave him the new slippers that night at our guest house, he then insisted on wearing only those shoes plus socks from then on. I didn't think too much of this at the time, because it was the rainy season in Addis Ababa and somewhat chilly, so I wanted socks and shoes on all the time, too.

But once we got home, Biruk still insisted on wearing both socks and leather slippers all day every day, even though it was hot outside, nobody else in the family was wearing shoes, and we had the wading pool set up on the back deck. Finally, I got a pair of Crocs and convinced Biruk to make the switch. He will still insist on a pair of socks with the Crocs, if he sees any lying around.

The second thing you should know about Biruk is that he is picking up English pretty fast. And even though he is clearly bonding with me (Christine) the most, he frequently calls for Alan, especially when Alan is gone at work. Biruk walks around saying Da-DAY, Da-DAY, Da-DAY. We thought this was very sweet, as well as significant. My feelings were only ever so slightly twinged as yet, once again, I am the primary caregiver, and still my child's first word is da-da and not ma-ma.

So this weekend, Alan, Celie and Joey were gone on a Father-Kid camping trip, and I was home for 24 hours or so with just myself and Biruk. Biruk was wandering around the house saying Da-DAY, Da-DAY, Da-DAY... and picking up shoes. Suddenly it clicked for me. "Da-day" means "shoe" for Biruk.

How funny! This whole time we thought Biruk was calling for Alan, saying "Daddy", but really he was just talking about shoes. Not only that, but this whole time Biruk is probably wondering why we insist on calling Alan "shoe". What have we been saying to him? Maybe "This guy is the Big Shoe in the family," or "Sorry, the rest of us like to go barefoot, but this guy insists that you wear your shoes every day."

Every now and then I imagine that Biruk gives me a look that says something like "You people are just crazy." Maybe it's not my imagination?

Finding the New Normal

We're in the middle of the second week home, and wonderfully, it feels nothing like the first week home. And, that's a good thing!

A lot of things have sorted themselves out. Biruk is mostly sleeping through the night, and we've over the jet lag. Biruk actually didn't want Alan to leave for work this morning, and kept clinging to him, which was sweet.

We're getting more vocabulary words down. Apparently someone taught him how to count to at least 1 in English, because if I start counting, he'll hold one finger up and clearly say "ONE!". It gets a little fuzzy after that.

Celie and Joey have a sports camp this week, which has given us a very welcome sense of structure and schedule to our days. I'm scrambling to figure out how we can keep this up until school starts!

The relationship between Celie and Biruk is developing nicely, but it seems much harder for Joey. It's not easy losing your place as the baby in the family, no matter how it comes about.

It's the little things that I notice these days about Biruk that reflect the huge journey he has been on. For example, by 22 months, every kid knows that the first thing you do when Mom unbuckles the car seat is you pull your arms in toward your chest and out of the straps. Biruk, on the other hand, will try to fling himself out of the seat with his arms still hooked in the straps, and then squirm around in frustration as neither he nor I can then get him out.

Biruk has also taken to walking around with my car keys. You might think that he associates the keys with me driving the car. But actually, he thinks the fob on the key chain that remotely locks, unlocks, opens and closes the doors of the van is a cell phone. He keeps holding it up to his ear and saying 'allo!, 'allo! He loves nothing more than going for a car ride, but when I put him in the car seat, he gets mad that I want the car keys back from him. I'd show him that it's putting the keys in the car and turning them that makes the car go, but given how smart he is, I don't think I want him to know that just yet.

All in all, the bonding/adoption-related stuff is going well. Now, it's the work of adjusting back to life with an energetic and inquisitive toddler that lies ahead!

Ca-ca

Yes, you read that correctly: "ca-ca". It turns out that of all the words I know, and of all the words Biruk knows, that is the single word where our vocabularies overlap. Fortunately, ca-ca is a very useful word. For us, it can mean garbage, messy, yucky and, um..., ca-ca.

It turns out that not being able to communicate with a person you now live with is very tricky. Fortunately for us, Biruk is a smart boy. So far, he has exhibited more ability to pick up English than we were able to pick up Amharic. (And, fortunately for us, it turned out he didn't speak Amharic, but some other regional language - so we caught a break there and don't look quite the loser adoptive parents who made no effort to learn their child's language.)

After one week in the U.S., and almost two weeks with us total, he can call me "A-ma-ma" and Alan "Daddy". He says "wa-wa" for water and "woo-woo" for the sound of a dog, or any other four-legged creature. And just today he started clearly nodding yes and no in answer to basic questions. The human brain is amazing! But, without going into...details, let's just say that that "ca-ca" word is turning out to be both handy and frequent.

Today - perhaps I lost my mind - but today we ventured out to the Denver Zoo, just me and the three kids. It actually went ok. We had to leave in a bit of a hurry as Biruk got a little too hungry and then cranky, but otherwise it was fun to get out of the house. The above photo was taken on the train at the zoo. Celie and Joey wore their stuffed animals in slings, just as I was mostly wearing Biruk in a pack.

Day by Day

When someone describes a store or restaurant as a "hole in the wall", do you ever wonder what that means exactly? I always took that saying for granted without thinking about its origins. But then in Addis Ababa, we saw so many businesses being run out of - literally - a hole in a wall. My first impulse was to think how different things were there, but then the fact that we have this phrase in our language made me think this way of doing things must be part of our history, too.

Things are going well in the Brockett household. By "well", I mean we're continuing to adjust as a new family in a positive direction. By "well" I don't mean "easy" or even "comfortable". Biruk is accepting Alan as someone he can be with...mostly for having fun, but also sometimes for comfort. This is making life much easier for Christine. Also, Biruk's temper tantrums are getting fewer, and of less duration. Plus, we're getting our strategies down for how to deal with them.

We seem to be moving into a new phase of figuring out how to establish boundaries in the midst of bonding. For example, hitting seemed a pretty regular part of play at the orphanage. How do you explain to a 2 year old, who doesn't speak your language, that suddenly that's not ok anymore?

Every night and every day goes differently for us, so there's few routines to fall back on. But Alan was able to go into his office yesterday for a few hours. Christine and the kids joined some other moms on an outing to Boulder Reservoir for the morning, which went ok. So we're getting a few tastes of "normal" life, which we're happy for.

If I were really clever, I'd make a tie between a hole in a wall and our lives, bringing out some rich metaphorical truth. But as it is, I'm not - I'm just grateful for a quiet minute to get something written!

Two Steps Backwards

I should have known better than to write about the progress we were making in getting ourselves on a schedule. Last night was the worst night!

Biruk woke up at 11:30pm and at 4:30am just screaming and crying and rejecting any comfort from us. Then both times, once he stopped crying, he just wanted to stay up and play - in particular, play with Mommy, who desperately needed sleep. In the morning, Biruk had two massive, stinky bowel movements, which supports the theory that in addition to being jet-lagged, he's having some stomach issues.

It sure would be great if he could tell us what's wrong, or what he wants. But in addition to only being 22 months old, Biruk has had language switched on him two times - the first time when he was moved from his orphanage in the south (where they speak Wolaita) to one in Addis (Amharic), and the second time from Amharic to English. Actually, he was in two different orphanages in Addis -- how's that for a less-than-firm foundation for a little guy's life? It seems likely that we'll be seeing some language delays because of that. Among other things, we resolved last night to get going with the sign language in the meantime!

Photo: a building in Addis Ababa under construction...just like our family!

No Time to Shower

Hi, friends! It was either shower for the first time since Thursday, or update the blog. This bonding stuff is very labor intensive! But Biruk just went down for a nap, and Alan, Celie and Joey are out, so I thought I'd get something up for you.

Now that we're home, things are going very much like we expected from our training classes. Biruk is very mommy-focused. (He calls me 'amama'.) He wants to do everything with me, to sit in my lap and to be held in my arms. That's a good thing! -- but hence the lack of time for a shower so far.

Celie and Joey are mostly enjoying playing with Biruk, but the novelty is wearing off a little, and they are noticing how he dominates my time. So I'm being very intentional about giving them as much attention as I can squeeze in. Celie and I had a fun little mother-daughter outing yesterday for an hour. That was a sweet time (and another reason not to shower.)

It's been fun introducing Biruk to our home. Above are some photos of the last 24 hours: being a goof-ball at dinner, first time in the wading pool, and the traditional pulling-out-of-pots-from-the-cabinets, as all children must do. Alan is out right now getting child-proofing locks for select cabinets so that Biruk's curiosity doesn't get the best of him, or drive us crazy saying "No, no!" all the time.

On top of the adjustments to our relationships, and how we spend our time, there's still some jet-lag to deal with. Friday night, Biruk was up from 2:30 to 4:30am. Last night, Saturday, he was up from 3:30 to 5:30am. It would be so great if we could skip getting up at 4:30am tonight, and just make it through the night. Biruk has had a pretty bad cold since we got him, and I've been fighting it off only partially successfully, so those middle of the night wakings are a serious bummer!

When we first got Biruk, if he woke up in the middle of the night, all he wanted was a bottle of water to curl up around. It seems that might be how he was comforted in the orphanage. Now the water holds no attraction, and he only wants to curl up against my chest. The week we were in Addis, Biruk got no naps due to all our scheduled appointments, which made him a maniac. Yesterday, it took an hour and much crying for Biruk to understand that he could lie down in the crib, or sit in the rocking chair with me, but he WAS going to take a nap. Today, it took 10 minutes to get him down for his nap. Woohoo! It's so good to see progress. Now if I can only get that shower in....

Sorry for the uninspired blog-post...there's so much to tell you about our time in Ethiopia, and lots of photos, and of course the gory details of bonding, so stay tuned.

Back in the USA!!!

Just got off the phone with Alan and at the time of this post, they were in the parking garage at DIA! Yeaaaaa! He said it was a lonnnnnng way back, 27 hours in fact. Biruk slept for about 8 of those and was a mix of fussy, confused, board, and tired for the rest. After a cold beverage and a long nap they said they would get busy and update the blog.

Home Stretch...

I think we're gonna make it! This morning (Thursday morning), Christine went out to do a little shopping, and Biruk and I hung out outside, kicking balls around and getting into whatever we could find. We're getting to be buds.

Watching some of the other littler kids, we're beginning to realize that
the meltdowns are "normal" for this stage in the process. There's another little boy a year older, and he reacts just about the same way to "no". Our guess is that while the kids have had a lot of structure to their days, they haven't had much in the way of boundaries. The nanny-to-kid ratio at the orphanage seems like 1 to 20 or so, so the kids haven't heard the N word much, nor have they had an adult intervening when they fight. With Biruk, the meltdowns are already less frequent (at least today) and much lower in intensity.

Yesterday was a final doctor checkup and sweet farewell party at the
orphanage, where the kids sang songs to us, and gave us gifts, and Abdissa (our in-country representative) gave a powerful message about how adoption is bringing life and hope to these kids and this is the "pure religion" that the Bible talks about in the book of James.

The doctor pronounced Biruk just fine overall. He has a common cold
that's been getting worse, and the stuffy nose might make the flight pretty painful. But other than that, and a little bit of scalp fungus, he's in great shape.

Afterward was a fabulous banquet at what must have been one of the nicest restaurants in Addis, with a band and dancers, and the best hot sauce I've had in a long time. It's amazing, I've seen 5-year old kids here eating food that would be pretty spicy even for me.

Today was such a relief! All the other days, we've been shuttled from place to place, and then sat waiting endlessly as each family went through some part of the process. And it always seemed to happen during nap time, so the kids have been on the ragged edge.

In an hour, we have a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, where they literally roast the beans and grind them to make the coffee. I'm sure that will be a highlight for me :) Then we pack up and head for the airport. I'm not thinking it will be the funnest flight ever, but feeling confident that Biruk trusts us enough by now that the trip won't be much more of a nightmare than it would have been with Joey or Celie at that age.

More soon!

We're thinking the honeymoon is over...

We're thinking the honeymoon is over :) Biruk cried most of the morning, and the rest of the day was meltdown after meltdown. The kicking on the floor screaming kind. Might have been some milk we gave him at breakfast, but maybe just being almost 2 years old and maybe that's been his way of coping in his tough life so far.

We did learn kind of a cool good cop bad cop trick. He starts melting down, Christine gives him to me for a couple minutes, he goes berzerk, then I offer him back to Christine and he's only too glad and settles right down in her arms, still crying but not thrashing. That will probably come in handy on the plane ride back!

There is an upside though, and that is he's clearly attached to Christine as mommy, to the exclusion of all others. We're very thankful for the bonding - that will pay dividends down the road.

And if it was too easy, that would be suspicious. Crying or happy, he is still a sweet, wonderful boy and we're crazy in love with him. We can't wait for you all to meet him!

This might be our last entry until we enter the fabulous, broadband-saturated airspace of the USA.

Pictures!

Pictures from Monday and Tuesday

"Christine and Biruk and the flowers [and me... in the second picture] are moments after we met him..."

"...later that day in the interminable wait for paperwork processing."

"A view of the City"

An email from Alan and Christine

Well, Internet access is proving to be as difficult as John and Susan said it would be.  Finally tonight (Tuesday night), we abandoned trying at our guesthouse and went to another one that has a more or less working connection.What follows is a digest of Monday's and Tuesday's events, a little on the short side since other folks are waiting ...

Monday morning we went to the Thomas Center to pick up Biruk.  All our fears that he would be afraid of us or reject us were unfounded.  He took a liking to us almost instantly.  He's a sweet boy, placid and happy except when something doesn't go his way but the meltdowns are infrequent.  And usually explainable by hunger or tiredness. He's already leading us around by the hand and crying when Mommy leaves the room.  He seems healthy and bright, very curious and good with a ball, great sense of humor.

He's an amazing sleeper.   When we say it's time for bed, he lies quietly until he falls asleep, and then sleeps soundly for 11 hours.  Or at least that was the first nite.  Doh!  Now I've probably jinxed it. He's also a fabulous eater, not "choosy" like some other kids I know :)

We're going through the process with 5 other families, and a total of 10or 11 kids.  Most of Monday was spent waiting at Abdissa (the lawyer)'soffice while he walked each family through a bunch of paperwork.  Thankfully, they have Coca-Cola here! Not cold, but no complaints.

Tuesday we played with the kids all morning at the guest house, went back to Abdissa's for lunch, then piled into the mini-buses for a trip to the U.S. Embassy.  This is sort of the final gateway, where U.S. officials review the case folders for each child, ask questions about why they're being adopted, and if all goes well, entry visas to the U.S. are granted. After some heart-stopping moments with one family, whose girls were suspected of having tuberculosis (or at least that was my best understanding), all of us got our kid visas.

Tomorrow supposedly we go shopping and to the national museum, and then there is a big sort of farewell party in the evening.  Thursday we're pretty much on our own until we have to be at the airport at 7pm.

"...so today, we picked up Biruk in the morning"

Hi All:

Alan called me from Ethiopia at about noon today (Monday) but I was unable to take the call so it went to voicemail. The quality is really bad but I was able to get that they "picked up Biruk today ...this morning" !

Now, lets see... its like 9 hours later there... so at the time of the message, it was 9 at night today....so they must have picked him up Monday morning...... which would be our yesterday about midnight .....  ????

Anyway, they don't have internet access so we'll have to do it this way.

I recorded the voice mail, ran it through a sound analysis program to try and clean it up and this is the best I can do...

"Hey there bud... from Ethiopia... its ????? I wanted to give you some updates....because we could not get internet access... so this might be a little ...... so hopefully you will .....

so today we picked up Biruk in the morning..."

The rest is a mess.... but important part is crystal clear!  Wahoooo!  Wish I could understand more of the message.  If you want to try and cypher more, here is a link to the mp3 file....

Let us know if you are able to figure out any more ....

The good news, is that they made it there ok and they have Biruk.... stay tuned!

Jeff

Leaving On An (Ethiopian) Jet Plane ...

We're off!  Boarding in 10 minutes for a  15-hour tour of the Atlantic at 35,000 feet.  Hopefully get a chance to take a picture of Djibouti from the air for bonus points :)

If getting an internet connection in Addis Ababa is anywhere near as hard as getting one in the Washington Dulles airport, we're in for a tough time, but we'll find a way to get the mail through.

Hard Going

It's 9:45am and we're at Denver International Airport waiting for our flight to DC. We've had four weeks - or eighteen months, depending on how you look at it - to get ready for this day, and yet we found ourselves up until 1am last night, still packing. Then up at 6am. Ouch! That's probably the first of many "ouches" to come.

Saying goodbye to Celie and Joey has also been hard the last couple of days. About Thursday they stopped focusing on their excitement of having a week of sleepovers and play dates with friends, and started contemplating life without Mommy and Daddy. It was sad for all of us this morning.

On the plus side, Alan and I will have the next 36 to 40 hours child-free, which will be a record for us. We'll be spending that time - among other things - having uninterrupted conversations, putting our own physical comfort ahead of others, and just chilling out and doing nothing, if that's what we feel like doing. What luxury!