Moving Forward

It seems as though I was

just here, writing about the wait....
Now, it seems, we are waiting for other things.
Waiting for the family mobile to feel balanced after the addition.
We are making progress among the challenges. So for that, we are blessed.
The new reality looks like this~

Some days, not all of those teeth are showing in that exact fashion, but when the image is close to the above, we call it good. Lots of changes for everyone over the past 18 months. Navigating all of it can be tricky. As we progress through changes and time, trying to remember just how far we've all come, with thanks.

As I look at this photo - the outline is close to a starfish. That story is one that touched my heart when we first began on this path. If you're not familiar - look it up. This is ours.

The Cache of Us

That moment when you have learned to dive under the water - to race toward something ...looking, searching, while twisting this way and that until you spot it in the distortion, reaching it, then swimming swiftly to the surface before your breath runs out.

       That is where we are.

We are nearing the surface - we will rise to release the huge breath we've been collectively holding. We will see ourselves and our surroundings more clearly while tightly embracing our little guy.

************** 

We made it safely to Ethiopia and back.

Twice in the course of 8 weeks. All things considered, once we started moving toward him, we picked up speed. 

The first trip allowed us to meet him ...

We discovered his love of cars...

We enjoyed some amazing Ethiopian food...

We caught a glimpse of how our new family was developing and the language free delight of Fruit Ninja ...

We became parents and sisters to a beautiful almost 5 year.
We finally found each other - different worlds and different cultures melting into the cache of us.

Metamorphosis

Summer is my favorite season. I love the warm sun, the longer days, the smell of freshly cut grass and every second spent near the water and beach. We've had a busier than usual summer -

Miller Crew at La Posada, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Matthew's family hosted a family reunion in Santa Fe, the girls went to camp and we took an extended trip to New Orleans to visit my family. While we were there, we took a few excursions:

Cabirac Crew somewhere near Pensacola, Florida

 a few days in Pensacola

Avery Island

and a day trip to Avery Island. After touring the Island, seeing the amazing bird sanctuary, some cute alligators and the most amazing live oaks ever, we drove to Lafayette to have dinner with my cousin.
Is your head spinning with all of these rousing details? Try to stay with me....
Driving through Lafayette, perusing our local dinner options, my phone rings and I look down to see the long awaited call from area code 206.
I knew.
The time had come - over 2 1/2 years after we began - to be matched with our newest family member.

Soon, we would be the parents of a little boy, a family of 5 and embarking on much more than an informal jaunt.  We received all of the files associated with initial information, including 2 photos.
He looked so sad in the photo taken for the referral. I am quite certain it was due to the hot pink turtleneck with gold embroidered hearts he was sporting.

Skipping forward a week or so, we were advised we would be going to court, much sooner than anticipated! We had 10 days to get to Ethiopia, take an in-country flight up to the Northern region to meet him and then go to court to legalize the adoption.
We scrambled to get visas, immunizations for some of us, reservations for all of us,  and gather donations for the orphanage where he had been for last few months.

On July 30, G. had last minute shots at the Pediatrician, we stopped at Cherry Berry for the promised treat on the heels of the aforementioned immunizations, and headed down the highway for the 90 mile drive to Omaha. We're 20 minutes outside of town, when I looked down noticing chipped toenail polish outlining my flip flops and realized that I had forgotten my shoes by the back door.
Yup, 2 pairs of flip-flops and I was off to 60 degree Africa for a week.

Omaha

OMAHA -> NEWARK-> FRANKFURT-> ADDIS ABABA!

Paperwork packed...check
Seat beat closed...check
Heart open.. check, check
Metamorphosis engaged~

Namasté

Namasté is a composite of Sanskrit words ~

Nama - bow or bend

as - I

te - you

I bow to you.

The divine light in me honors the divine light in you.

A timeless connection between two souls, recognizing equality in all.

Hands meeting over the heart - 10 fingers coming together in unity, closing the eyes, bowing the head to another and knowing in truth that we are all united.

As a general greeting, namasté is a social transaction when greeting another as well as communicating happiness as the sight of the other.  It has been said that by putting the hands together like a knife might allow one to cut through all differences moving straight toward common and shared ground known to all people in all cultures. 

I close my yoga practice using namasté and I always privately add another blessing to each student as my class ends. I guess that is the Christian in me elbowing in to lay on more love.  I have learned so much from the practice. Becoming fully present in the moment is one of the lessons I preach and am very, very good at during practice, and yet have a lot of room left for improvement off the mat. To fully experience the beauty and richness of life, you need to be fully present. Mostly present just won't do. Unfortunately, with the fast paced lives most of us fly through we become overloaded with stimulus. We allow our full attention to focus on more than one thing at a time - sometimes multiple things consume each minute. It can appear that we are slacking. Two timing our e-mail.  Double-crossing the person on the other end of the phone. The cell phone, of course. Why would you stay at home and talk on the phone, when you can be driving somewhere and getting proactively somewhere ELSE. I am reminded of the movie "Sabrina" when the she asks Linus Laraby "What do you do with all of the time you save (by taking the helicopter to the private jet)"? He is so efficient that, although he has made a great effort to "save time", he is unable to really articulate what he accomplishes in aforementioned saved time. Later in the movie she tells him "Sometimes more is just more". It isn't necessarily of higher quality. 

When we make the time that we have with our loved ones essential - we chose to make it superior. We chose to bring our focus to one special point.

By focusing only on them, in the essence of that moment, we validate the beauty of their spirit with our love. We seek the divine spark in them and meet it with our own divine spark and timeless connection is ignited.

Namasté.

Waiting

Well, we've been waiting long enough as to finally garner some attention from our agency. 

It's not what you think. 

It's not what we hoped.

Our dossier is expiring, so we need to renew some paperwork as well as get our fingerprints taken again and then pay up for all of these fun times. We drove to Omaha yesterday to have biometric fingerprints taken. Again. You never know when those circles and waves might change. 

As of April 4, we have been officially waiting 19 months, though from the application to our agency, it is more like 26 months.

We were quoted estimated wait times of 8-10 months to be matched, if I remember correctly.

When the wait would get especially difficult, along the way, "things happened" to encourage us.

Someone shared how their lives had been touched by adoption. Tenfold.

People told us they were praying for us.

I dreamed of a child on many nights.

We moved into connections with people from Ethiopia.

I've learned what Berbere is and I am not afraid to use it!

We were awarded a grant toward our adoption.

Friends and church family donated to that end.

We were awarded another grant toward bringing a child in need of a family into ours. 

We went on mission trips and lived with orphans and held their hands. 

We cried while listening to a 13 year recount what it was like to go to Ethiopia, 4 years after her Ethiopian born brothers came to her family, and love on the children still waiting to move into the arms of a family of their own. 

Our families arms are waiting. 

Where are you?

Laundry & String Theory

I really wanted to graduate from high school in Colorado and find myself strolling toward my first college class at Arizona State. WHY I was in such a rush to leave Denver -  I cannot tell you. I was advised I would not be attending ASU by the folks picking up the tab for that freshman year of classes, books and dorm room. I eventually selected Colorado State University - not because, at 18, I felt called to a particular vocation, but for the far more pivotal fact that my boyfriend was already there. How anyone under 25 truly "knows" what they should be working toward for the rest of their lives has always baffled me, especially because so many young people have not yet tackled the basics - like cooking, laundry and string theory.
I witnessed many young folks consuming copious pizza pies on Saturday night and then Sunday afternoon puzzling over both the washer and their load selections, opting to save some coin and just toss all dirties and unmentionables in the wash together. What was submerged as jeans, a crisp white Polo sweater  and a silky somthin somthin from that "new" store Victoria's Secret emerged as jeans, an indigo matted felt pullover scarcely big enough to cover a toddler and the matching indigo silky diaper cover sized panty. The deconstructed felt sweaterlet still sporting the essential yet ostentatious $75 Polo horse detail on the tiny little chest.
I don't recall these events as the subconscious push that turned my major from Philosophy to Textiles, but what the heck, let's simply call it what is. Kismet.
If I wondered what I was going to do with a Philosophy degree, I should have really become unnerved at the prospect of finding a way to support myself incorporating the "string theory" I learned in textile chemistry. So while you may ponder what string theory is and whether you can ever really grasp this cutting edge new science, you can relax while getting up close and personal with your laundry circumstance. There are coin flips to be studied (before they're sacrificed to the silver sliding coin pusher) and there is counting of the distinguishable and indistinguishable objects. A clear, yet sad example of this being the aforementioned "group wash debacle".  Two major  elements of physics at work in the  laundry room are electricity and magnetism, and I think we all know how those two crazies work together to infuse your fleece with a charge  - ultimately sending a shock down to your heals that just makes you mad. They conspire together in the dryer to abscond with one of your socks.
Trial and some expensive errors can be one of the most effective teachers there are. One time during my college days, I begged my boyfriend to lend me his NEW, super cool, black and white, new, striped sailor sweater - the one he had just bought. Wanting to return it freshly laundered, I trod out to the laundry room, carefully inserting the new, super cool garment into the wash with the appropriate suds mates, I selected the appropriate delicate cycle, some mild Woolite and off I went.  Apparently an errant troublesome red item was hidden in the jumble somehow and bled all over the sweater, lending a distinctive pink tint to the whole of it.
I. Was. Mortified.
WHO could have let this happen - this... heinous occurrence? Well, looking back, the accidental pinking should have been a sign that the relationship was tainted as well. Look and See -  even your laundry is a "sign".

Girls who love to wear pink

I graduated with a flourish and moved ahead with my life. These days  I have two daughters who delight in wearing pink!  I have used my Textiles degree to artfully arrange store front windows in South Beach, merchandise clothing for in-store displays and set up a booth for Reebok at the Miami Superbowl. Today, however, I utilize my degree to maintain all textiles residing in our home -from loads of left socks to bedroom linens. In other words, I'm a Mom who does laundry. The string theory I speak to involves only my families threads and to that end, I will work to keep us fresh and tightly bound.

Wordless Wednesday