Brown

So one of our latest things is  spending a lot of time on the potty, reading books. We have a special collection of “potty party” books. They help make the inevitable more pleasant (and help it land in the correct location.) S’s favorite book of these is “Brown Bear.”

Yesterday she noticed younger kitty going into the litter box. “What Do?” “T is going caca.”

She went and got brown bear for him and set it right outside the litter box.

 

my 3 year old

is wandering around the apartment drinking from a baby bottle and breaking into the baby-proofed cabinets.

We are having

poptarts for breakfast.

Yeah, I’m THAT mom.

Actually the doctor suggested them–they are Fiber One brand.

I think you know why.

Up and Down

Well, one more poop in the tub last night. Yikes. It was such a tough day anyway—-4 shots at the doctor’s office, then we went out for Ethiopian, which she LOVED but I’ve noticed that anytime people speak to her in Amharic she is a bit off for the rest of the day. Then daycare for a while (she bawled at drop off but was cajoled with cake.) She missed nap, and was cranky at dinner. We went to bath (pooped in the tub almost immediately, after me trying to get her to go on the potty and offering to read her her favorite book while she sat there), and then while we were reading books she fell asleep. She slept for 4 hours, then up for 4 (very painful for me hours) and then finally slept for 4 more. What a night.

So that’s the down.

The up is that the clinic called today and when they retook her CD4 counts, she has bounced way back up–to 30. She was at 22. So she won’t have to start meds right away after all. WAHOO!

Oh crap

I mean seriously.

Here’s the deal–on Tuesday (a week ago), S poops in the bathtub.Many discussions about no caca in the tub ensue.

On Saturday morning, S does it again.

Tonight she pooped her pants.

In all three cases, we’re talking copious amounts of poop–like she’d been saving up for a while.

What on earth am I doing wrong and how to get it better?  It seems like she’s afraid of the potty. …at least to poop. She doesn’t have pee accidents. She still wears a night diaper, but never poops it. I wonder if it has anything to do with day care?

What is going on in her little head?

Any chance it’s related to that heinous medication?

Auntie Alex

So, I traveled with Alex. Alex the awesome.S’s Auntie Alex.

S actually calls her Aunta Alex.

I was very nervous about traveling with someone that I didn’t know all that well. It turned out fine, though. We got along well. We didn’t run out of things to say to each other–at least that was my perspective.

We confused a lot of people. Almost everyone thought we were sisters–though she is tall, slender and fair, and I am short, fat and dark-haired. But, you know, other than that, we look alike .

It was fascinating to watch people struggle with the “your….sister?” thing. I told the guest house folks several times that we were just friends.  I don’t think there was a concept in their world-view of a “just friend” who would leave behind her own babies and husband and travel thousands of miles across the world to keep me sane and watch a family be born.

But that is Alex.

S still talks about Aunta Alex all the time. Sometimes she mixes up Aunta Alex and Aunt J (my sister). “Aunt J on the airoplina with S?” “Aunta Alex is Gramma’s baby?” but in pictures she knows exactly who is who.

When I invited Alex on this trip, I knew that there was no turning back. She was in my life forever. No matter what, Alex saw my baby at the exact same time as I did. No matter what, Alex was the first American, other than me, that S met. She was the face of my world. She was the face of all of the crazy quilt of people that accompany me in this world. Alex adopted S too, in a way. She adopted a niece.

There are no words.

 

 

S-ing the house

Last night S went through all the pictures on the piano. Carefully, she named each of them. She mixes up my nieces, but she knows everyone else. There are no pictures of her on the piano. Now my computer is full of pictures of S. we look at those all the time.  She LOVES looking at her pictures.

But they aren’t in the house.

Weren’t.

I played hooky again today, and part of the S-related projects that I took on was S-ing the house.  I got pictures printed up, and put up an entire collection in her bedroom–S & mommy, S & grandma, S& grandpa, S& bio aunt, S & Auntie Alex.I left space in the collection for a picture of S with each cousin, her uncle and her other special Auntie Penelope.

Then, I put S pictures up in the other places –including the piano.  Last, I finally got around to hanging up the art that we purchased while in Ethiopia.

I regret not doing it sooner, but I’m much happier with my S-ified home.

 

 

Sigh

For the last week or so, S has been crying in her sleep….big sobs but she doesn’t wake up.

And this pretty much breaks my heart.

Free Association on Ethiopia

My strongest memories of Ethiopia are olfactory. There is a scent to the country. It hits you the second you leave the airport, and lingers for a week or more afterward. I can’t describe it precisely. It’s smoke, for sure–much cooking is still done by fire–but also oil fuels, kerosene.  There is smoke and spices and probably meat cooking. It’s musky, pungent, raw, quotidian really.

I expected extreme poverty and I saw it….small children pressed their faces to our passing car, the sign for hungry repeated over and over and over. Men lay belly up on meridians; I don’t know if they were dead, alive, or somewhere in between–I suspect the latter.  Everywhere there was hunger, hunger, hunger. Hungry child, hungry eyes, women who approached our car with hungry eyes–hoping for something, something.

Things were put together higgledy piggeldy.  Funny little stores cropped up in tucked away corners.  Additions to buildings came out in crooked lean-tos.  Everywhere, it seemed, poverty, middle-class, and wealth co-mingled.  In some ways this was shocking–the most opulent hotel overlooks a shanty-town.  We don’t do it that way in America, do we?  Money buys you the opportunity to not have to see the have-nots–but not in Addis Ababa.Outside the gates of that hotel, three men, a woman and a posse of children dozed on the grass.

I loved the neighborhood where we stayed. It was mostly a middle class neighborhood, though there was poverty, too, and some wealth–a pricey English language school was across the street from our guest house.  Next door to it, a woman sold coca-cola out of a telephone booth sized shack in her backyard.Her endless supply of children look on as the Americans and school children buy bottles of cold pop–the refrigerator is connected by long extension cord to her house.

I think about how well S slept while we were in ET, and how poorly she sleeps here. I imagine that the sounds at night are jarring to her. In ET, all night long, there is life. There are amorous cats, barking dogs, confused roosters, lowing cattle. A rare car goes by. The Muslims and the Orthodox pray from different directions, the amplified chants match breath. Outside the yellow bedroom windows, she hears cars, college boys partying, fire trucks, ambulances, dogs barking, arguments.There is no dark here. The Walgreens lights stay on all night, and the emergency lights for my building blare in my window.  In ET, dark is dark. Electricity is too precious to waste it at night.

Remember those math sets where you have all the circles that intersect at some places but not others? That was our social experience. Alex and I were sort of a culture unto ourselves—we were definitely the most liberal Christians to be found amongst the Americans. There were lots of other Americans floating in and out of the building. We were there for about 3 sets of prospective parents. That was sort of one culture–with a few notable exceptions, they were mostly conservative Christian families.  We made some friends —people who I wonder about now–but largely spent time together.  Then there were the staff–for the most part the staff were incredibly wonderful Ethiopians. Many were college educated, and working jobs at the desk in order to improve their English for other adventures. They were generous and gracious and fascinating. Religiously, they were largely conservative, but easy to talk to.  Then there were the Ethiopians who interact less often with Americans–storekeepers and such.  I still wonder what they thought of us. People were kind, but we did create a bit of a splash by walking into some places.

Did I love Ethiopia? In a way, I did. I loved it because it was S’s world. I loved seeing characteristics in her that I could trace to her culture—her easy open smile for one, and the sort of graceful way she uses her fingers.  I loved the deeply religious nature of people, even though I didn’t share their beliefs always, I loved that faither matters there.  I loved seeing Muslim and Orthodox interact–I don’t know that this would happen in the US in the same way. I loved the way religion was public, not private–I sometimes wonder if our privatized religion creates more intolerance than a more public presentation would.  The way that children are treated was endearing (and at times frustrating).  Children belong to everyone. People kept picking S up and giving her kisses and hugs (frustrating when you’re trying to ignore a tantrum, but endearing otherwise).

Did I love Ethiopia? At times, the poverty made me physically ill. I sort of had to block it out or I couldn’t survive.

Did I love Ethiopia?  I loved the people. Oh that sounds so trite, but I found that cab drivers and translators and staff at the orphanage and clerks at the guest house all had stories and shared them. I loved that.

I found myself staring at the women. For one thing, it seemed like they only hired gorgeous women to work at the guest house. But I kept watching them and thinking of S, and wondering what she’ll look like as an adult. I also wondered what I was taking her away from. Will she resent losing the musical language of her heritage? Will she visit Ethiopia and wish she could lead the coffee ceremony, dance in the traditional dress, weave silk into cloth?

Or would she have been one of the fuel wood carriers? Working outrageous hours in outrageous conditions to earn 50 cents for flour for her family? I don’t know. She doesn’t know. We’ll never know.

The mystery in my life sits at the other edge of the sofa right now. She’s watching “clues cues” where an insipid young white man is teaching her about circles and squares. Her hair is in ringlets; her skin is luminous; her eyes are stunning. She is all Ethiopian, and all mine.

 

Kleptomaniac

My younger kitty is a notorious klepto. Earrings and quarters are his specialty.

S is a klepto, too. Or maybe that’s not the right word. She doesn’t steal–she relocates. Every time you open a drawer, you just have to accept that there will be things there that you don’t expect. Normally these are not edible things, which is a good thing. Edible things don’t do well in drawers.

Tonight, my mom mailed me two DVDs that I haven’t been able to find but that I know she loves–the jump-arounds. I took them in from the car when I brought her home from day care. I set them on the counter and then made dinner. She played around while I did that. After dinner, I told her that I had a surprise. But I didn’t. Gone.

An hour later: one was located in a kitchen drawer, and one shoved behind the cat food.

Older kitty is the only soul that I can count on in this house.