Since we've been back in the US, life has been challenging in many ways. In terms of bonding, attachment, becoming a family, we've been doing pretty well, 1. b/c of God's grace ('cause goodness knows we are far from perfect parents) and 2. b/c we've been working very hard on those things in positive, age-appropriate ways and in keeping B's world as close and Mama/Ababa centric as possible. He's still figuring out what a family is and how to be part of one and we are still trying to figure out how to be his parents:-) He may look quiet and shy and like we're one big happy family and everything is ok when we are out and about. He's not, we're not, it's not, and we are all working very hard and processing a lot. Please remember this and be sensitive.
Coming home from Ethiopia was hard for me. We lived there for 3 months. I went from 24/7 with B to back at work at a crazy job and on a good day only getting to see him for 30-60 minutes in the morning and about 1-1.5 hours in the evening. I'm wading through insurance paperwork, readoption paperwork, our finances, post-placement report scheduling, figuring out childcare, making decisions about my school schedule and how I am going to finish my MBA (oh yeah, life is going to get even more "fun" in January), and trying to spend every minute I can at home with B b/c I feel like I don't have nearly enough time with him.
Ababa has been a great SAHD and is rocking out in his EMT class and figuring out his classes for January, but we're still navigating all the other aspects that go along with him being the stay at home parent and figuring out how to shift some of this crazy load from my plate onto his.
Last week I had one particularly awful day where I got stuck at work with my boss on one of the craziest tirades ever, waited for a subway for 40 minutes, made Ababa late for class and he missed a quiz, he had burned dinner and not done the laundry (which meant no clean pajamas or diapers for B), and when I met him by his class to hand-off/pick-up B I was near tears. It didn't get better as he told me about dinner and the laundry and I walked home while pushing a cranky B (did I mention that transitions are still pretty tough for B?).
I felt exhausted, overwhelmed, and frustrated. I was fighting back tears and on the verge of just sitting on a stoop and crying. A giant rat ran in front of us which B was convinced was a squirrel and thought was great, me not so much! I ordered a pizza and kept it together enough to feed B, play with him, give him a bath, and put him to bed (in a disposable diaper I found in the closet, a long sleeved tshirt, a pair of babylegs, and an extra blanket).
Then I pretty much zoned out on the couch (literally, like clutch a pillow and stare into space zone out, b/c your brain is to fried to do anything) until Ababa got home and we discussed how to make things better and not have so much of this fall on me right now. We're still figuring that out, but we're working on it.
The thing that is especially weird/hard/poignant/unfathomable...is that while I am stressed about all these things in my life, I am painfully aware of how insignificant these things really are. We saw suffering and poverty that I couldn't even imagine while we were in Ethiopia. We became very aware of the vast number of orphans (147 million is that statistic frequently bandied around, though that number is significantly larger than the number of orphans who need/are legally free to be adopted and significantly smaller than the number of people who live in abject poverty). How do we help them? How do I freak out about not spending enough time with my son and about my insane job and about our $1250 a month health insurance premium (yes, you read that number right!) when I have seen people who don't have enough to eat or drink, who can't walk, who are covered with visible tumors, who have nowhere to sleep and no one to love them or take care of them.
When I learn of orphans like the 6 month old baby in the DRC who was deliberately thrown into a deep cistern and left to die (he was rescued but was infested with maggots and will likely have long-term medical issues from that) or the precious little girl I met while in ET who was given to a witch doctor by her mother and was horrifically mistreated by him, and is now stuck in an orphanage but not able to be adopted (despite there being a family in the US who met her and desperately want to adopt her) or the little girl in fostercare her in NYC who has been returned to her birthmother but continues to be neglected and while the fostermother (who would be overjoyed to adopt her and/or to be part of her life) is still in her life in someways is very limited in how she can help.
How do my problems fit into this much larger web of problems? Our world is sick and broken and in need of redemption! That's really all I know.
Two videos that pretty much sum this week up for me (the first is about first world problems and the second was my anthem in ET. They played it my first week at church in Addis and the tears just rolled down my cheeks for about 1000 reasons).
Coming home from Ethiopia was hard for me. We lived there for 3 months. I went from 24/7 with B to back at work at a crazy job and on a good day only getting to see him for 30-60 minutes in the morning and about 1-1.5 hours in the evening. I'm wading through insurance paperwork, readoption paperwork, our finances, post-placement report scheduling, figuring out childcare, making decisions about my school schedule and how I am going to finish my MBA (oh yeah, life is going to get even more "fun" in January), and trying to spend every minute I can at home with B b/c I feel like I don't have nearly enough time with him.
Ababa has been a great SAHD and is rocking out in his EMT class and figuring out his classes for January, but we're still navigating all the other aspects that go along with him being the stay at home parent and figuring out how to shift some of this crazy load from my plate onto his.
Last week I had one particularly awful day where I got stuck at work with my boss on one of the craziest tirades ever, waited for a subway for 40 minutes, made Ababa late for class and he missed a quiz, he had burned dinner and not done the laundry (which meant no clean pajamas or diapers for B), and when I met him by his class to hand-off/pick-up B I was near tears. It didn't get better as he told me about dinner and the laundry and I walked home while pushing a cranky B (did I mention that transitions are still pretty tough for B?).
I felt exhausted, overwhelmed, and frustrated. I was fighting back tears and on the verge of just sitting on a stoop and crying. A giant rat ran in front of us which B was convinced was a squirrel and thought was great, me not so much! I ordered a pizza and kept it together enough to feed B, play with him, give him a bath, and put him to bed (in a disposable diaper I found in the closet, a long sleeved tshirt, a pair of babylegs, and an extra blanket).
Then I pretty much zoned out on the couch (literally, like clutch a pillow and stare into space zone out, b/c your brain is to fried to do anything) until Ababa got home and we discussed how to make things better and not have so much of this fall on me right now. We're still figuring that out, but we're working on it.
The thing that is especially weird/hard/poignant/unfathomable...is that while I am stressed about all these things in my life, I am painfully aware of how insignificant these things really are. We saw suffering and poverty that I couldn't even imagine while we were in Ethiopia. We became very aware of the vast number of orphans (147 million is that statistic frequently bandied around, though that number is significantly larger than the number of orphans who need/are legally free to be adopted and significantly smaller than the number of people who live in abject poverty). How do we help them? How do I freak out about not spending enough time with my son and about my insane job and about our $1250 a month health insurance premium (yes, you read that number right!) when I have seen people who don't have enough to eat or drink, who can't walk, who are covered with visible tumors, who have nowhere to sleep and no one to love them or take care of them.
When I learn of orphans like the 6 month old baby in the DRC who was deliberately thrown into a deep cistern and left to die (he was rescued but was infested with maggots and will likely have long-term medical issues from that) or the precious little girl I met while in ET who was given to a witch doctor by her mother and was horrifically mistreated by him, and is now stuck in an orphanage but not able to be adopted (despite there being a family in the US who met her and desperately want to adopt her) or the little girl in fostercare her in NYC who has been returned to her birthmother but continues to be neglected and while the fostermother (who would be overjoyed to adopt her and/or to be part of her life) is still in her life in someways is very limited in how she can help.
How do my problems fit into this much larger web of problems? Our world is sick and broken and in need of redemption! That's really all I know.
Two videos that pretty much sum this week up for me (the first is about first world problems and the second was my anthem in ET. They played it my first week at church in Addis and the tears just rolled down my cheeks for about 1000 reasons).
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