Conscious Mom

In the year I've been keeping this blog I've come to think of all my readers as my friends, even you lurkers (who are welcome to say hello any time, or just keep reading quietly). And even though I know many of you have never met, not even in the blog sphere, I've come to think of you all as one anothers' friends, too. So it seems natural, fitting, that we all celebrate together when two of us have monumental, life-changing events. After years of preparation and over a year of "official" waiting, Katy has just become the mother of delightful twin girls, and Anna has just become the mother ...

Sometimes I wonder if my heart will ever be big enough to embrace the extremes of human experience. Some friends are very close to becoming parents. (If you think I am talking about you, yes, I am!). The pace of referrals of children in our agency's Ethiopia program seems to have picked up and my friends are now much closer to beginning or enlarging their families. I am so excited for them I could jump out of my socks. Literally. When they announce their referrals, you will see some medium-sized women's socks floating down from northern New England- those will be mine. That's the one extreme. On the other is this: Ethiopia: WFP Cuts Assistance to Malnourished Children, Mothers. Apparently the ...

A few weeks ago I saw Living on the Fault Line: Where Race and Family Meet, a documentary about interracial adoptive families in racially homogeneous (white) Vermont. I promised a review, but I was VERY TIRED the night I saw this documentary, so tired my poor little neurons were misfiring, ceasefiring, and backfiring, and as a result the details are very fuzzy in my mind. So rather than give the details, I'm just going to encourage you to see it, whether or not you have children, whether or not your children are adopted, whether or not they are same race as you, because it is a frank, accessible, thoughtful look at race in American society. Despite my exhaustion, ...

OK. So yesterday's post was a little harsh. I was still reeling from a particularly insensitive comment made in front of my daughter. Perhaps venting into a blog isn't the best way of dealing with my anger, however! I think much of the reason why I get angry is that I can never come up with a good response in the moment. When it comes to figuring out the perfect thing to say 48 hours later, I'm the queen, but at the precise moment I need the right words I just stand there frustrated and flabbergasted. I've been reflecting recently on the enormity of raising a child outside her birth culture. This is nothing new, there are certain aspects of parenting ...

A few months ago I had a series of posts about what not to say to people who are adopting a child. I'm adding this to the list: Don't say anything to me about how lucky my daughter is that I rescued her from the dire conditions of her homeland. Yes, she needed a family, yes there's poverty in her country. But there's also beauty, kindness, spirituality, depth, joy, art, literature, intelligence, creativity, innovation. But speaking of 'rescuing' people, can someone rescue me from the arrogance, condescension, and rampant consumerism of my birth country? OK, something set off this rant, but I'm not going to say what it was. The details don't matter; suffice to say it unnerved me more than I've been ...

As other posts on this blog attest, Maia has been growing and thriving over the past year. We keep in touch with her birth family, sending them letters and photos letting them know how she is doing. We also sponsor her cousin to attend school. Adoption is an event of extremes: our joy was predicated on someone else's loss. I try never to forget that, never to forget her birth family and how had conditions been different, they would have been able to provide a loving home for her. So that fewer families ever have to experience the pain of loss and separation, there are many non-profits and NGO's working to improve conditions in Ethiopia and other countries so more ...

The coffee ceremony On Friday afternoon children from the big kids' house came over to the Guest House to say good bye to all the children who were leaving that weekend. A coffee ceremony is the traditional way of marking passages, honoring guests, or simply enjoy being together. During these ceremonies, someone roasts the coffee beans, then passes them around for everyone to enjoy their aroma; the the beans are ground and brewed into delicious coffee (actually, it was more like espresso, which is even better in my mind). I've hesitated to post pictures of other people here, but will make an exception to show the roasting and brewing of the coffee. While all this ...

On our last full day in Ethiopia we left Maia in the loving care of her nanny Frehiwot and took a day trip north of Addis. (I'm a little out of order, but I didn't want another day to go by without posting something about the trip and don't have time to write a long post.) Typical houses we saw The Blue Nile Gorge A Gelada Baboon Stained glass window in a church

Once we took custody of Maia our day began at about 5 AM. No one else's day started that early, so we hung around trying to be quiet until Sinidu, the cook, brought us coffee. Breakfast would be either oatmeal or scrambled eggs, with fruit and bread available, too. Sinidu or Eskedar, the house manager, would hold our kids while we ate. Sinidu was especially skilled at holding several babies at once with a combination of wraps and slings. Other families would then go play in the courtyard, but Maia seemed so small and fragile I hesitated taking her into the bright sunlight for too long. So we hung around inside, played on the bed, ...

I remember absolutely nothing about this day. I can say for sure that the distinction between night and day continued to be lost on Maia. Her schedule was much more like a newborn's than a 4 month old's. She did sleep a lot, but it was at random times throughout the day, and definitely not all night long. And I slept some, too. Some. Bodhi and I had talked about sightseeing when we were in Addis; in the weeks before we traveled we looked through our Lonely Planet guide, picking out things we wanted to see. But we ended up spending almost all of our time at Horizon House. Trying to take a day ...