What Is The Secret?

The secret is...we're adopting a child from Ethiopia. I'm guessing the holiday letter (for those of you unfortunate enough to have the 3-pager included in your card) was a dead giveaway. Or at least it should have been!

Christmas 2007 Times 3

Rob and I had three Christmas celebrations this year--first with my side of the family, then with Crystal, Rob, and I (and the dog), then with his side of the family. Originally we had thought we might have our baby by now, but that wasn't the case. We're still, per usual, waiting.

My sister-in-law Renee gave us our first baby gift--ever! It was really special and I'll never forget it. Leave it to a fellow Mom to understand the significance of this wait. Thanks Renee!

Interesting Article on US Adoption Ethiopian Children

Please, please, please read this article! You'll see the link on the right...It will give you a feel for the growing tide of US adoptions of Ethiopian Children.

Positive Adoption Language

Check out the document about positive adoption language. Instead of e-mailing it to all my friends and family, it occurred to me that posting it was a good idea (duh, that's what a blog is for).

Too Serious

Okay, last post was too serious. If you're reading these, please don't take it too seriously.

By the way, at the start of each yoga class, our instructor reminds us to dedicate our practice to someone. Naturally 9/10 dedications are for our child-to-be (and yes, I do go to yoga often enough to determine this ratio!). The other dedications are for people I feel bad about--usually people I've accidentally offended at work...that happens on a pretty regular basis for me (sigh).

Watching YouTube

So tonight I spent at least a good hour watching YouTube videos on the topic of Ethiopia. Hmm, quite interesting, but not totally the cultural experience I had been looking for. What I learned was there are Ethiopian women looking for husbands in other countries (I quite doubt these women are looking for the husband....maybe someone in their family is looking for them to find a husband, but I'm pretty sure they'd rather just stay at home and be independent). I learned there were about a kajillion videos made on September 11, 2007--the Ethiopian Millenium. I learned there's a bunch of people who have adopted children from Ethiopia. I learned there's an Ethiopian supermodel--whose name I already forget, and I learned there's a song artist from Texas named 'Lil Nate, who has Ethiopian roots and went to Ethiopia went his friends to order McDonalds (wouldn't you want to know, too? I mean seriously, does a Big Mac taste the same in Ethiopia as in Dallas, TX?).

What I really learned, though, wasn't new information, but rather, it was what I felt. That old familiar feeling of "what the hell are we doing?" came surging through my brain and the fear that we are totally ignorant on the ways of true Ethiopian culture was reinforced once again. Some would say it's not too late to back out, but I would say it is. We made the commitment and we're keeping it, but it's scary still the same. My best hope is that at the very least we can be super cool parents to a super forgiving child, and that Ethiopia will be more than just where he/she/they came from but a culture we know well--as well as we know that tamales can be served at Christmas and kuchen is served for breakfast.

I also felt, again, that we will never be able to reproduce a true Ethiopian experience in this really American, albeit well-travelled, home. And while I feel bad for that, I also understand that we, along with a handful of other parents here in Minneapolis, are making up the rules as we go along. The fact of the matter is that there are children, who happen to live in Ethiopia, who don't have parents. And there are parents, who happen to live in America, who don't have children. And it's perfectly logical, although far from ideal, for these two parties to unite. And in the end, the culture we create will be neither truly Ethiopian or truly typical American, but instead, hopefully, a blend. That's our job--to create a new culture that is respectful of all parties and honors all backgrounds, and for that, there is no cookie-cutter template. And that's just what makes this whole thing so damn hard.

Pass the tissue....

The Teaser

Today we finished (okay...I finished, but Rob was at least aware of the task) creating our holiday card. Each year the holiday card gets more elaborate, and I'm thinking this year is the coup de grace, with eight photos re-sized, re-framed, and converted to black and white in a collage for the front cover. Never mind the effort which will be required to actually write the darn letter--that's for next weekend. In any case, Rob's contribution to the card this year was actually brilliant--that is, let people know we have a blog and better yet, provide them with the address. Then, and this is where it gets really good, tell people we have a secret, and clues to the secret can be located on the blog. Pretty good huh? Yeah, real good. Except how do we do this? How do we plant clues to the secret when we don't actually know when the secret will happen? Perplexing. Must think about it....

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

Waiting, waiting, waiting. Every day we wait. What are we waiting for? The call. What call? The call, you know, the life-altering, show-stopping, pack-your-bags, check-your-bank-account call. The call that lets us know who the new person in our life will be. Boy? Girl? A tiny baby? A toddler? Will it be one child, or two? Will he/she/they be healthy or not-so-healthy? Will they be cute? Doesn't matter. Will they be sweet? Doesn't matter. Will they like us? Hmm, now that's a sensitive topic.

Don't get me wrong. Our life is complete and we don't really need this to happen. I'm not really obsessing about it. But I do wonder. Every day I have tiny thoughts of what the call will bring, and I wonder. Maybe our life isn't complete and I don't know it. Maybe this will be harder than I think, maybe it will be better than I think. Sometimes I just don't know what to think, and so I don't. I push it aside and I don't allow myself the indulgence of thinking about it too much, because I don't want to be disappointed that the phone hasn't rung yet.