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.