Littles at the Hospital

In my last post, I talked about some of the hardest parts of working on the hospital project, for me.  But as I mentioned, my kids were there too.  What about them?

I brought my kids with me the first day with the assumption that we would leave if it was too dangerous or too scary, and I watched. Very. Carefully.  We stayed.

Throughout it all, Little Miss spent most of the time either on my back, or sleeping/ coloring/ watching Her beloved Baby Movie in the car seat.  She is small.  So small, that I’m not sure She noticed too much- other than that She got to have her favorite snacks and do some of Her favorite activities from the comfort of Her favorite spots- the car seat and the carrier. 

 

She didn’t like too much attention from strange adults.  But She spent the great majority of Her time in the rooms being decorated, where no one could bother Her.  She did enjoy playing peek-a-boo and making faces with people on the other side of the glass windows.

And She did enjoy getting to see so very many babies- it was a baby extravaganza!
Babies everywhere! "Baby! Baby! Otha' baby! Aaaaallll the babies!"  
She slept a lot of the time.  She enjoyed the spectacle of the project.  Because She is smaller, I limited Her exposure quite a bit, but because She is shy, this suited Her just fine.  With Her sunny disposition, She was fun for the team to have around. 

Missy helping with stickers for the wall

Then there was Little One. 
Watching Little One’s reaction to the time we spent at this hospital is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life so far.  When we first walked into that place, the adults among us had to muster up our internal strength, the self-control we have developed over our years of growing up, not to react with expletives or grimaces or running away.  I’ve described why.  When we walked in, we saw a disgusting, filthy place that seemed overwhelming at first.  Little One. She saw an art project. 

 As soon as She walked in the door, Little One became at home in that hospital.  She helped paint.  She excitedly brainstormed ideas for future rooms- “Butterflies! Rainbows! Flowers!  Zoo animals!”  I cringed at first, holding Her over a paint can to pee.  She giggled. "This is so funny and silly!  It's a paint-can potty hee-hee!"
Us grown-ups saw these children whose bodies and faces had been burned and disfigured, we saw wounds and pain that wrenched our hearts. Do you know what Little One saw?   

Friends.    

She did not say “Dear God what happened to that kid?!” 
She said to me, “Look! Those children are about mine age.  Can I play with them?” 

Little One with some friends

And despite the fact that they had never met, despite the complete language barrier, despite having nothing at all to play with- that is just what they did.   She colored pictures for Her new friends and bounded into rooms, all smiles, to hand them out and shyly wave and smile at the parents who clapped and cheered and thanked Her in various languages.  She played with the children She was allowed to, holding hands and skipping, dancing, giggling.  She shared Her crayons and coloring books and play dough.  She demonstrated games on the ipad and encouraged everyone to take a turn.  At times She had entire rooms laughing; She was like a ball of sunshine streaming down the halls.  
The last day we were there She paraded through the wing, bestowing all Her stickers on everyone She could find.  

Stickering the masses

Looking around it seemed the patients had been struck with an epidemic outbreak of flowers, stars, and zoo animals.
And smiles.

When we left She emptied Her backpack, leaving all of Her crayons and books and stickers for the children at the hospital to share.   “Mommy we should give them everything.  Just everything, because they want to have fun”.  
I’m proud that She wanted to share.  I’m proud that She wanted to help.  But I’m inspired by the way She interpreted what She saw. 

She understood that the children were sad, that they were sick and hurt.  But She wasn’t afraid of those things.  She didn’t see the dirty bandages and the scar tissue, She saw the person underneath.    

In the same moment She saw the rooms we went into, She saw the possibilities- rainbows, butterflies.  In the same moment She saw the children, She saw the possibilities- hide and seek, trading stickers. 
Far from being frightened, on the days we were otherwise occupied Little One begged to go back.   

She is still missing Her “Hospibal friends”.  When we talk about it, She is proud that She got to make the rooms nice for Her friends, proud that She made pictures that they hugged and kissed and hung up in the slats of their beds.  If you ask what it was like at the hospital we visited, She will tell you it was fun. 

Part of that is because She is naïve and doesn’t know better.  She doesn’t understand that some of those children will never go home.  It’s hard for me to wrap my own mind around.  She doesn’t understand, really, how people suffer.  But it’s not all blissful ignorance.  It’s also the amazing ability a four year old has to see past the things we become conditioned to fear, and see the heart of things, the human side.  She doesn’t see a child that needs surgery, so much as a child that needs a friend. 

That power to see potential in everything, to see the human in every person, to see a friend in a stranger, and see what can be given instead of seeing only need- that is something I think any adult can learn from.   
And I think it was infectious. Little One wasn't the only one who got caught up in the bright side of this project.  But that's another story.  

Sad Stories and Soap Boxes

My last day working in the hospital, I was watching Little One paint a flower as Missy napped in Her car seat.  Suddenly there was a flurry of footsteps and shawls. Strangers speaking urgent words I couldn’t understand ushered me into a room down the hall.  There was a bed like the others, with two men in white coats bent over it intensely.  Behind them was a woman.  A mother, holding the end of her scarf over her mouth.  Her eyes were wide and terrified, slowly leaking tears.  The people who had brought me gesticulated wildly towards the child on the bed, the exact same age as my youngest daughter. 

Sometimes.  There is this stereotype of a Foreigner.  This concept that, coming from one of these nations where you have everything and can do anything, that you are everything-  a doctor, a scientist, an expert.  A miracle worker? 

They were begging me to save her. 

Of course, I couldn’t.  I couldn’t do anything more than they could- hold their hands and say I was sorry… and watch her die. 

I have seen people die. But not a child.  It isn’t the same.   

And while I wasn't there to witness the moment it claimed them, having seen enough of death I surely recognized its telltale signs on the bodies of other children there.  It was haunting to know that I could do nothing to chase it away.   
There was a lot during our time at the hospital that was hard to work through. 
Coming from a public health background, it was excruciating to see so many things, some big and some simple, that fly in the face of what I have been taught is the “best practice” for hospital care.  The bathrooms were intolerable.  The first time one my kids had to pee, a nurse took us down three flights of stairs, across a courtyard and down a long hallway to a small clean-ish room, where they used a fresh stainless-steel bowl and washed hands from water streaming out of a leaking pipe.  After that they just peed in an empty paint can.  My kids are troupers, people.  It was far better than what the patients are stuck with.  It was hard to know that.
It was hard to see children suffering, sometimes without access to pain medicines.  It was hard to see the exhaustion and desperation of the parents and families.  One grandmother cried out to us from beneath a crib. Enclosed in the prison-like bars of a broken bed railing, She begged us to take care of her granddaughter.  I’m sick myself, I’m dying too, she sobbed.  Who will take care of her?  What will we do? 

I think I could drown in the sadness of some of the things I witnessed in that hospital.   

But it would be selfish to allow myself to drown on other people’s tears.   It wouldn’t help them, it wouldn’t change a thing.  So instead, I kept painting. 

And now, I want to retell those hard things because they are real, and they happened, and they are happening right now.  Maybe someone will read and decide to help.  Or to keep doing what they do now- as a doctor, a nurse, a janitor, a taxpayer- to keep that kind of hell from creeping into places where it has been largely weeded out.  

Or to realize how much we have here, and maybe squander it less.  Most of us are surrounded by clean, nutritious, FDA-inspected food we can afford to buy.  Yet we choose to feed our children products, junk that will just kill them later.  We have unlimited, purified water gushing from multiple taps in our homes.  We waste it without a thought; we fill the landfills with plastic bottles. We have access to these miraculous, lifesaving medicines and we forgo them because we heard somewhere there might be side effects.  To each his own (really), but listen, any parent who chooses not to vaccinate their child has never seen one dying of pertussis or tetanus.  

Indeed one of the only reasons I could even consider bringing my children into an environment like that was knowing that they carried invisible shields with them.  It was amazing to see these sick, sick little ones just on the other side of the glass, and know that for the price of a few needle pricks my own Littles will never have to carry those burdens.  Never.  

Of course there aren't magic-shield shots for everything, and so the Littles, especially Missy, were only allowed to play with many of the patients through the windows in the walls between rooms.  But some of the children were not contagiously ill, and so the Littles were able to make some friends.  Which they surely did.  But that's another story.  

Let Me Paint a Picture

At this public hospital in Addis Ababa, you can smell the suffering. 

It smells like excrement and stale food and unwashed bodies and infected rot.   

In the children’s wing, the rooms are small and house four, five, six or more patients each, along with their caregivers, who sleep on the filthy floor beneath the cribs because there is nowhere else to sleep. They stay with their children without respite, because there are not enough nurses for such trivial matters as bathing and feeding and changing.  When those things are possible.

There is no such thing as sterile.  The rooms are dirty and things are broken.  There are no electronic monitors, no adjustable beds, no hospital gowns. No sheets.  A baby with a compromised immune system due to severe malnutrition occupies a bed next to a child with TB.  The rooms labeled “surgery ward” or  “burn unit” are just rooms like the others; doors open to the hall where the breath of the ill wanders and slinks and finds new victims to seep into. 

Imagine you are a child in this place. Surrounded by a sea of dingy white, punctuated by faded spurts of God-knows-what and the dark fingerprints of those who lay before you on the bare vinyl mattress, foam swelling out of the cracks. In the rusting, peeling white of the iron crib you are confined to.  There are no TV’s.  There are no books or crayons or comforts.  There is nothing to do but look at the dirty walls and ceiling, the jagged points of the broken-out windows, the others crowded into the room with you.  To listen to the howls echoing down the hallways, the whimpering of the kid in the next bed, the tired murmurs of the mothers.  Whatever you need to feel better, there is not enough. You may wear the same bandage for days.  Weeks. This is your bathroom.

When you become soiled, you mother disconnects you from your IV, straps you to her back, and hauls you through the hallways, down the stairs, past the others laying fevered on the floors, across the courtyard dust to a water pump.  Where she scrubs your clothes with her hands, finds a place to hang them, and waits for them to dry. 

A nurse confides, “Each time a patient is admitted to the hospital and I put them in a bed, I beg God to forgive me”.  
There are no resources.  There is so much need.

The organization I volunteer with is small and is not a medical charity.  It is Artists For Charity; we can’t fix the hospital, we can’t treat the patients, we can’t bring the medicines.  We don’t do nursing.  

But we do art.  We do hope. 
That's worth something.

So, at the inspiration of the AFC children (who have seen their share of hospitals and clinics), AFC’s founder began a new project.  With the permission of an unusually open-minded and compassionate hospital director, AFC began the attempt to make a nightmare child-friendly.  Using something AFC knows- paint.   

I stayed back the first day as the first rooms were emptied and scrubbed down.  The next day, I packed some food and coloring books for the Littles, and we went too.  
We walked into this.

We painted it blue.  

Little One examined the room from a child’s perspective, pointing out spots we had missed.  

We created waves. 

We added sea animals, brightly colored and smiling.

Some of the young patients helped us by lending a hand.

Little One left Her mark too…

…and we created schools of smiling fish.

The rooms are connected by long windows, through which parents and patients watched with great interest.  The mothers hailed us in the hallways to ask questions and introduce us to their children.  The Littles and the AFC workers played peekaboo and coaxed smiles from recumbent babies through the glass. 

It was a long day, but we did a lot of art, and we were encouraged by the connection we made to those babies in the next room. 

AFC team members with the hospital director

By the time we arrived to resume work the next day, one of those babies had died. 

The Hard Truth

Ok. So.  I have been wondering about how to talk about our time in Ethiopia. I wrote you all an epic, in-depth post about this and somehow erased the whole thing when I tried to publish it.  Then I just threw my hands up, Peanuts! Agh! And said- Forget it! Forget the whole thing!
But I do want to share some stories.  And to move on with things here, since there happens to be a lot going on.  So here is the gist of it.
I firmly believe in diversity in parenting styles.  We all do the best we can, I hope, to do what works for us as particular parents, for our particular children and families.  I'm not sure my own philosophy is "right", and I get tired and impatient and don't always live up to my own ideas of what's best, either.  But I do know what I strive for, what I believe in, for me.  For my family.
One of those things- one of the biggest, one that you will have to keep in mind when I write about our time in Ethiopia- is honesty with my children.
I mean avoiding lies. Like, "Sure you can have a pony... some other day."   Or "This?  This red stuff in my glass is uh... juice."
I mean gritting my teeth and giving my best attempt at a real answer for every single "why" and silly question.  Even if "why is it raining?" involves attempting to describe the water cycle to a 3 year old and just ends up spawning a dozen more questions.
It means admitting when I don't know the answer.
Sometimes ("why does people has to die?") it means admitting that no one really knows the answer.
And, I believe, it means allowing them access to reality.  Even though reality isn't always what we wish it were, for them.
I've had plenty of raised eyebrows and concerned questions when I encourage my kids to chat with the bum on the corner, or listen to the news, or when I give real answers to questions like "Why isn't your mommy and your daddy married to each others?" "Why is that animal laying in the road?"  "What is a shelter?"
When Little One was two I scandalized the relatives by taking Her to my grandmother's funeral and letting Her look inside the casket, touch the corpse and feel how it was so still, so cold.  Not sleeping at all.
But I used to volunteer leading support groups for children who had lost their parents, and during training it was stressed how important it is to do just that. Research has shown that children who are "sheltered" from death have a far harder time dealing with their grief.  The same is true for other hard things like divorce or serious illness.  In the absence of answers, children tend to fill in the blanks by imagining something even worse than the truth.
And those children have been shown to have a harder time handling adversity later on in life, when they inevitably encounter such things again.  Because death is a part of life.  It just is.
I think "protecting" my children from Hard Truths in life- like the fact that people suffer, that they can be unkind, that they die- is a selfish thing.  It isn't really that my kids can't handle those things, it's that I don't want to deal with it; it's too hard for me.
After all I am part of a culture that is morbidly uncomfortable with discomfort. 
But I have to realize that so much of what alarms us is because we have been taught to fear things, not because they are actually dangerous.  I mean, what can a dead body really do to you?  It just lies there!
What about exposing them to the veteran who's lost his arms and legs?  The elderly in hospice care?  The kids in the children's home? The view of people struggling on the streets of an impoverished city? Should I cover their eyes and keep our distance?
I think teaching my children to fear these Hard Truths in life is the opposite of making the world a more just, safe, and pretty place for them.  I mean, how can we ever hope to take better care of our elderly, impoverished, sick, and disabled, if we specifically teach our children to look away?
I also think it does my children a disservice in preparing them for a real world that, whether I like it or not, is out there.  I can't fix it for them.  I can't shelter them forever.
Maybe that's part of the problem.  It's hard, as a parent, to admit to our children who think we are heroes, that we are scared too.  That we don't understand a lot of things, that we don't like a lot of things, and that we can't fix it.
But...those things are Truths, too.
Really, I don't need my children to think I am omnipotent, or that they and those they love are immortal, or exempt from pain and danger and hard times.  I need to raise them to live in the world.
To live without fear of the unknown; to live with purpose, making things around them better in their own ways.
I hope that by exposing them to such things early, from the safety of my reach, they will take from these experiences what I want them to. While my lap is still a safe haven if they do get scared.  While my explanations and answers still have credit.   
I hope they will learn that Hard Truths don't always feel as hard as they look, especially when we focus on touching the parts we can change. 
And I hope they can find what I have in the time I've spent walking through shadows- that it makes the things glittering in the sunlight seem all the more vibrant.  And that, even in the dark, there are beautiful things to hold on to. 

Littles in Flight

The first question people ask me about our trip to Africa is- how was the plane ride?!?
I will be honest.
The flight(s) to Addis Ababa were.....awesome.
Seriously.  Believe it or not, the trip across the world with two Littles was not just fine, it was fun.
I used all the tricks I've saved up from dozens of domestic flights with kids, my memory of flying with four on the same route long ago, and some great tips from a friend who is like, BFF's with international travel and children.  Would you like to know the trade secrets?

1) Trunki.

Missy Rocking Her Trunki

 We could do an ad for Trunki with happy hearts.  This little rolling suitcase is not only super cute, but super handy on long flights,

Little One toting Miss (these pics are from another trip)

especially if there is a lot of walking through terminals or long layovers.
It's easy for even small kids to pull by themselves, doubles as an entertaining ride-on toy, and can be hooked together with other Trunkis so that multiple tired children can be pulled through the airport with one hand. Hollering "Choo-choo!" to amuse fellow travelers.
I only allow Trunki to be used for travel, so the novelty value is huge and keeps even worn out Littles giggling between flights.  Plus, getting to be "in charge" of one's own luggage feels very grown-up and responsible, and helps Littles behave accordingly.

Also a good place to sit. And wait. 

2) Surprise bags.

Each Little has their own special Trunki as their personal carry-on.  Inside are a change of clothes, jammies and disposable toothbrush if it's an overnight flight, and their "surprise bags".
The surprise bag is a backpack full o' fun.  They contain one very special, familiar toy, and a bunch of brand new, never seen before activities.  Ours had color wonder markers and pages, crayons and new activity books, story books, stampers, stickers, a bag with pony beads and pipecleaners to make bracelets, little jars of play doh, magnet boards, wind up toys, puzzles, and those little pills that magically turn into dinosaurs in water.  Oooohhhh.  Aaaaahhhhh.   Little One's bag also had Her "homework" from preschool.
I allow one activity at a time, and always exhaust the resources of the surprise bag before resorting to anything electronic.  I have found that I usually don't need to, and that these kinds of activities not only keep them from getting stir-crazy, but they morph an uncomfortable ride into quality time with my kids.  Oooohhhh.  Aaaahhhhh. The magical Surprise Bags.  My mom did this for us when we were small, and they are almost as fun on the other side.  Thanks mom!

3)Snacks

It's like a kid-size pacifier. With vitamins.

I don't usually do hand out snacks, but some of the best advice I received from my wise friend was:  "Bend your rules a little.  Or a lot."
I put two snack bags in each Surprise Bag, a "salty" (pretzels, pita chips, soy nuts, turky-jerky, freeze dried peas and edamame), and a "sweet" (dried and freeze-dried fruit, cheerios, millet, coconut chips, maybe a few mini-graham crackers).  The novelty of deciding between salty and sweet is a great distraction somehow, and mixing all those little snacks into one bag becomes an activity in itself.  They might spend fifteen minutes rooting around for the last coconut chip or pretzel, or counting how many raisins they can find.
I also keep a bag of snacks in my own carry-on to hand out as needed.  Because of unexpected delays and food allergies, I usually bring enough for us to all survive on if our plane crashed on a deserted island.  One big treat I like on planes is the pureed fruit packets with the spout for toddlers to suck the fruit out.  For one, it's a big treat and so it has entertainment value.  But they are also good for take off/landings to keep ears clear.  I do bring the straw-type sip cups for that as well, and to keep drinks from spilling.

4) Electronic back-up
Since it was such a long flight, I brought an ipad loaded with apps and episodes of permissible shows (and of course Miss's beloved Baby Movie), and an ipod with some of the same. Noise-regulating earphones in each surprise bag.  Between those devices and the nature channel episodes provided by the airplane, I had plenty of back up in case the surprise bags got tiresome or an emergency arose.... as it did on the return flight (but that's another story).

5) Sleep
I'd never done this before but my friend swore by it, so on this long journey I brought Little One's car seat.  Now I swear by it too. She didn't have to wiggle and wriggle, toss and turn, mess with the metal seatbelt jabbing Her side, and end up making me a prisoner by falling asleep with Her head in my lap.  She was in a comfortable, familiar chair in which She knows from experience just how to lean to sleep comfortably.  Leaving me free to tend to the other Little or make bathroom breaks or whatever.  (Also, it was nice to know that if I had needed to buckle one of them in so they couldnt go anywhere, I could have.)
Another trick for a night flight (again suggested by my friend) was to bring them on the plane in their regular clothes, but once we were in the air and had settled in, change them into PJs- giving them a mental hint that it was time to sleep- and do as much bedtime routine as possible.  We washed faces, brushed teeth and hair, read a story, and got tucked into blankets.

Since Miss was a lap child, I got to the airport at the exact time they opened up for check in- four hours before boarding- to make sure we got an infant bassinet.  She slept like, well, a baby in that thing and I had my hands and lap free. 

Between all that, the little colored pencils and such Lufthansa provides, and the excitement of the plane (funny meals in little trays, being allowed apple juice from the drink cart, being allowed to push the buttons on the armrest radio as much as their little hearts desired), the plane was a breeze.

The girls slept all the way to Germany and for the most part so did I.  The second flight miss napped a bit but mostly we were all busy with the surprise bags.  When we got off, I was a little sad the fun was over.

I know all that may sound like over-preparation, and I did have to haul two children, three carry-ons, and a car seat through Frankfurt to switch planes. (Frankfurt of all places). But it paid off.
After 19 hours of traveling we all had fun, no one cried, over a dozen people came up to compliment us on the Littles behavior, and when we finally arrived in Addis -I kid you not- we received a standing ovation from our surrounding passengers and flight crew.

Of course the flight home was a little more of an adventure.  But that's another story. 

Two Years Old

--> Before I get into the details of our travels, I have to take a minute to reflect on another adventure, one I started two years ago today.  Little Miss.
Two years ago today, Miss came into the world in what turned out to be exactly Her style. 
One day before Her due date. She had hung back and waited, and waited, until She was good and ready.  Then, once She had made up Her mind, She went forth decisively and undeteribly; storming through labor in a third the time I had expected, and caring nothing for the fact that She was beginning Her headlong entrance to the world in the hospital hallway, rather than the delivery room. (When Miss's internal clock says it's time for something, it's time, and the rest of the universe better fall in line.) But, despite the fact that She had charged into life so quickly that we made it to the delivery room just in time for Her to be caught by whomever happened to be there at the moment, our little March baby came out like a lamb.  Quiet as can be and curled into Herself, Her wide eyes searching.
Last weekend we had a little party for Her, themed in flowers because She is our spring girl and also because I feel that, in the last couple of months, She has bloomed into this two year old that we know to be so unique.  Her personality is so in keeping with the way She joined us two years ago.
Among Missy's plethora of nicknames is "honeybee".  She is a shy, delicate, but sunny and sweet little thing.  Who packs a sting if crossed.  Missy has a few carefully selected friends to whom She is devoted and loyal, the first of which is always Her sister.  After that, everyone is suspicious.
She likes attention from Her Selected Few, but detests the advances of perfect strangers and squirms like an ant under a magnifying glass if made the center of attention.  She is a safety-first kind of girl, needing to observe a long time before entering a new situation, and sensitive to any activity that is too loud, too bright, too fast.  Already She wars with Her sister over the radio volume.  "Too loud!" She exclaims as Little One rocks out to old-school punk in the living room.  Like a school marm, Miss marches to the radio with pursed lips and turns the dial.  Hands on hips, She nods at Her eye-rolling sister.  "That betta."
She likes a peaceful, serene, and predictable universe.  Her internal clock is as reliable as the digital.  10am sharp- "I huuungry.  Snack time!" 1pm sharp- She better be in Her bed or The Wrath is coming for us all.
She has recently acquired powers of negotiation.  "No! My band-aids come off!" She squeals at bathtime, sheltering the colorful strips over Her skinned knees. "No take baf! Um...um...yeah, yeah, tomorrow.  Tomorrow take a baf, take mine band-aids off.  Today no take me a baf....uh, go straight bed.  Strait bed, a'stead take a baf."  And off She marches, straight to bed.  For Miss is a being who knows what She wants and goes for it.  If it is too high, too stuck, too forbidden?  No problem.  A sweet overture will generally coax Her sister into obtaining it for Her.  If She's told no?  Look out.  Either a parent or Her own sweet self will probably end up deciding it's time for a Time Out.
But Missy does love a good Time Out.  Sometimes, I am convinced She finds something to hurl across my line of sight just so She can get a nice, quiet, Time Out.  Plenty often, She takes Herself there. "Miss grumpy. Take a time out. No bother me." 
She has earned Herself a reputation for grumpy.  But don't be fooled.  It's almost always a sham for overwhelmed, and the famed Missy Grin is lurking just beneath the frowny face, waiting for a brave enough moment to pop out and light the room.  Which it does. 
At home, where She is safe and sound, Miss is the family comedian.  Especially since Her verbal skills have skyrocketed in the last few weeks, She is constantly cracking us all up with Her silliness and age-inappropriate sense of irony, with Her affinity for puns, and Her charming Amelia Bedelia style literality.  "No like mine friend Maddy, no way!  Why She's so mad? Mad mad mad.  This scary me!"  But at least Her new conversationalism helps us to sort these things out, and She's become the most fun and adorable sidekick I could ask for.
Still independent, She wants me to play too these days.  She has also become the ultimate, ultimate snugglebug.  She continues to be obsessed with all things baby, to eat anything I hand Her, and to love counting even more than reading.  She loves art of all kinds, and is newly and deeply into playing pretend. She hates to be cold. She hates to wear shoes. But loves to try them on.  ALL of them. She worries about Her hair.  Refuses to wear a tutu.  Can NOT STAND to have Her hands dirty.  But has to be reminded to use a fork. She wants to do whatever Her sister is doing, with Her own flair.
She comforts anyone who seems hurt or sad with gentle pats, hugs, and a crooning "Ok! Feel you betta!"  And Her heart will break if you reject Her care.  She likes to compliment. "Mmmm.  This onions really good! So yummy mamma!"  "Thank you Daddy, fix mine puppy wif batt-a-ees. You nice Dada."  "You earrings! So nice! Look like a prin-sis 'a-day!"  "Oooh, look-a-you picture sissy! God job! So nice!"
She has Zero problem with telling me, or J, or the Queen of England "NO" if She means no.  Or if She doesn't mean it, but just feels like saying it.  She crosses Her arms as I sit Her in Time Out and glowers, "I mad a you mom! NO happy, me. MAD. You big trouble!" 
But more often She's begging for cuddles or snuggles, or squishing my cheeks between Her little hands, kissing my nose and smiling, "I wuv you! I wuv you mommy so so so so so SO MUCH."  Since the moment I saw Her old-soul eyes look right up at me, two fabulous years ago, I have been thinking exactly the same thing. 

Happy two years in the World, Little Miss.  You really are blooming before our eyes.  If I had to call you a flower, it might be an orchid; something that needs such gentle, specific care.  But grows to be so unique and lovely.  What a joy it is to be one of the gardeners who gets to tend to you, and watch you grow.  Just like a flower, for all the work and worry involved, the beauty you bring to our garden is more than worth it all.  We love you so. 

Stateside

Well, Peanuts.  We are home. 
Safe and sound, after many adventures.
I'm struggling a little with what to say about our journey.  I'm not even close to processing it through, really. This was the hardest trip for me, for my heart.  Not because the children were along; in fact in some ways it seems like maybe fate arranged for my Littles to be with me so that I would be able to get through the hard parts.  It's just that some of the new programs we have at AFC bring us nose to nose with a reality that is hard to accept.  I'm both happy to be home in my fortunate world, and struggling with having left behind so much work, as well as the lovely things we will miss.  And we do.
Little One in particular melted into Ethiopia the moment She stepped into it.  She immersed Herself in every aspect- I could write a whole long post about this- and spent most of Her first morning home shedding fat tears and trying unsuccessfully to forgive me for taking Her away from Ethiopia when She had told me so many times that She didn't want to leave.
Miss is trying to get through the shock of a barrage of time zones and yet another transition; and for Her the trip was more complex than Her sister's instant love.  But I can say definitively that the experience as a whole was hugely character building, growth inducing, and full of learning and fun for them both.  I'm very proud of them.  I'm very happy that I was able to give this gift to them.
And also very, very thankful that at the end of our scheduled time I had this unbelievable ability to, as if by magic, ferry them to a land where the water is clean and flows without end, where food piles up on the pantry shelves, where miracles are possible inside sparkling hospitals, and the air is crisp and fresh.  I think of the mothers I have met who can never even dream that for their children.
I'm washing the laundry in a machine, I'm planning a party for a few days from now, and I'm feeling a little numb.  Emotionally, I feel as if Ive been dunked in hot then icy water and I haven't shaken off the feeling of disorientation yet.
But the house mothers packed me a suitcase full of injera and spices, and I made a (pretty darn good if I do say so myself) Ethiopian dinner for us and the family we have visiting us, and I have ArifZen radio and that eases the sting a little.  And to help me get through the strangeness of this country and culture, I have what got me through the one I visited- my two amazing little daughters, who keep me busy and grounded by so constantly and unfailingly reminding me of what matters, what is important, and what I'm here for.
It's possible that I'm suffering from culture shock complicated by a severe overdose of gratitude. For what we have here at home in the US, and for the wonderful (and even the hard) things we found in Ethiopia.   When I begin to recover I'll be back with stories.  Right now, I'm going to go to the tap, pour a glass of water, and drink it.  I'm going to enjoy it very much.  One of the side effects of this shock/overdose I'm afflicted with is that the water in my kitchen, at the moment, tastes extremely sweet.  

Off We Go!

Well, Peanuts!
Valentines have been handed out and celebrated, bags have been packed, children are giddy with excitement and parents are alternating between thrilled and terrified.  Must be time to travel!
Wish us luck.  I probably won't be able to post from Ethiopia, but hopefully I will have lots of good stories and pictures to share when we return.  Love to all of you in the meantime.  See you in spring!

Why

The first time I went to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I spent some time in the city by myself exploring or traveling to visit new friends.  I always took the informal public transportation- the minibuses-or sometimes the city bus.  The system isn't marked. You're just supposed to know that if you want to end up in one part of town you go to, say, the corner by the old gas station, or a third of the way down the street after the alley near the post office, or whatever, and wait to hear a driver call it out.  Of course I was brand new in town, didn't speak the language, and have a sense of direction so awful it's comical.  So sometimes I got lost.
You might think that being lost and alone in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language, couldn't even recognize the characters of the alphabet, and stuck out like I had a neon sign on my head flashing "FOREIGNER" would be pretty frightening.  Especially when it started getting dark.
But it wasn't.  Now.  I'm not saying there was no danger around, there may have been.  But I never came across it if there was, and I remember being struck by feeling so much safer than I would have felt if I were lost and alone in some parts of my own city back home. 
What happened to me every time in Addis, was that people saw me.  They saw that I looked lost, and they came over to help.  With broken English, with charades-like gestures, with the hailing of a crowd of strangers until someone could borrow a cell phone to call their uncle who knew English, they found a way to learn what I needed.  And then they went out of their way to find me the guy who sells the best mangoes, or the mini-bus to Arat Kilo.  Once a person dropped whatever it was he had been on the way to do, and walked me 9 blocks to the right bus, rode it with me to make sure it ended up in the right place, shook my hand, and rode that bus back.  It took nearly an hour.  Once a woman my mother's age literally took me under her wing, tucking me into her elbow and escorting me to the shop. She paid my fare and haggled with the shop keeper for me, then invited me to a tea the next day.
One time a driver tried to overcharge me.  But when he did the rest of the passengers were actually on their feet scolding and shaming him, and apologizing to me on his behalf.  Lest I think that Ethiopians were 'like that'.  They collectively paid for my trip, to make it up to me. That incident of almost being cheated out of 20 cents was the worst thing an Ethiopian did to me, that trip or ever.  I always ended up where I'd meant to go, and often arrived there having made a new friend or two.
Six months after my second trip to Addis, I was working as a nanny in DC.  It was a Saturday date night for the child's parents, and so I was taking the late metro home.  It was sometime after eleven.  In the station, I saw a man by the exit.  What do you know?  He was Ethiopian.   He must have been very newly in the United States; he spoke almost no English at all.  Like I said, it was very late.  I have no idea how long he had been there.  But he was alone.  And he looked terrified. 
In DC, if your metro card doesn't have enough money on it, the turnstiles won't let you through.  You can't get out of the subway tunnel until you go to the fare machine and add money to your card.  But this man didn't know that.  He didn't know that he had miscalculated the amount of USD needed for his trip, he couldn't communicate with the metro guard, he couldn't read the signs.  He was bewildered, and he was stuck.  He stood near the exit with his metro card in outstretched hands repeating "Please? Please? Please?"  I saw him from a distance; I was coming up the escalator.
Guys.  I tell you.  I watched dozens of people walk right. by. him.  They didn't even look at him.  He looked so horrified; he may have wondered if he'd gone invisible, or mad.  I do believe he thought he might never be able to get out of that tunnel.  "Please? Please?"  People walked within inches of him.  And no one even looked.
I remember watching this and feeling such a deep, splitting shame.  A shame that was bigger than me, big enough for my whole country.  The shame of knowing that when I was in his country, people with far less than these designer-suited commuters had fallen all over themselves to help me, to make me feel comfortable, to tell me "welcome" to their country, to pay my fare.  Yet when he was in my home and needed the same help...no one would even acknowledge that he was there.  What. It would take too much time? They were afraid he'd beg for change they would never have missed? They might get mugged by a skinny frightened man in front of an armed guard?  Please.  America please.
When I walked up to him smiling, he began to actually cry he was so relieved.  Do you know what he needed?  This huge favor he was asking of the strangers who couldn't be put upon?  Fourteen cents.  Fourteen cents for his freedom and to know that he was not in a place where human beings allow each other to beg for help unheard.  In Amharic, that man thanked me a dozen times and blessed me over and over.  He fairly danced out the door, taking the escalator steps two at a time. 
Maybe I was naive. Maybe he could have sucker-punched me and snatched my purse.  Or maybe, he was just a person. Who could use a little help from another person. Maybe I did something risky... or maybe it was just right.  Like all those Ethiopian strangers had done for me, before.
I won't say I'm not worried about the trip I'm about to take.  I know that the social climate in parts of East Africa has changed since I was last there, I know that there are crazy people everywhere, and I know that people there drive like lunatics.  I know that all dangers are infinitely scarier when my children are along.  I know that I will have to be as careful and cautious as I can be, in the case I ever find us in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But I can't forget what my experience has shown me about the relative safety of Addis Ababa streets versus American metro stations.  And even though I may be able to do very very little to help anyone who needs it in Ethiopia, I've heard that there are people who do need help, and I've been given the opportunity to do something.  Even from across an ocean, I can't let myself be a person who hears "please? please?"  and just walks on by.  I can't raise my kids to be that person.
I am nervous and worried. Because I'm a mom and if I could worry the danger out of the world, we would all be holding hands and singing some kumbaya right now.  But I will be careful, and I will hope.  Maybe taking my children and going to Ethiopia is a risk.  But maybe it's right.

Feral Opportunity

I've heard about opportunity knocking.  They say it does that. But in my experience, Opportunity is less a polite salesman and more like a feral cat.  It kind of peeks out at me from the bushes.  I'll just be walking up my front path and I'm like- wait.  Did I hear something? 
Every now and then I catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. Was that? Could that have been.. something?  Hmm.  Then as time goes on, I notice it prowling around, getting bolder.  Leaving prints on my windshield.  I start thinking about it.  Hmm.  I believe there's a feral Opportunity in my yard.
I kind of go on about life but it's at the back of my mind.  What to do about it?  Should I take it in?  Can I handle all the work of an Opportunity right now?  It may need grooming.  It could bite.  But...it might be such a nice addition to life.  I might even love it. 
It's hard to decide, you know, whether I'm an Opportunity-taking-in kind of person, when it comes down to it.  Life is going just fine as it is, after all, and even if I was the type, what if this isn't the exact right Opportunity for me? What if it's the kind that pees on the sofa?!  So I'll think about it.  Off and on.  Maybe try to check it out a bit from a distance.  And then.
One day, coming home after a long day, I'm looking in my bag for the keys.  Where are they? Oh. There they are.  And I look up to open the door and BAM!  There it is.  The feral Opportunity, right on my doorstep. And it's giving me the Stare Down.  I freeze! I stare, it stares back.  I look around like, what do I do?! It stares back.  I take a step. It stares back. 
Opportunity is like, it's getting cold out here, lady.  What's it gonna be?  So. I either have to shoo it off with the porch broom so it will go bother someone else....or just say what the heck.  Scoop the thing up, and bring it inside.  Boom.  Now I have an Opportunity on my hands.
At least, that's how it tends to happen for me. 
Now, I'm really not at all a cat person.  But I do have a soft spot for Opportunities.  And that is why, when the Opportunity to go to Africa and do some work for my favorite organization on earth sat it's furry tail on the porch and stared me down...well.  It just looked so nice, Peanuts.  It sort of looked like this one Opportunity I had in college.  I couldn't say no! 
Of course I'm not in college anymore.  And the thing about taking in Opportunities when you're all grown and married with kids is that when you bring it into the house, the whole family has to live with it. 
This particular one involves being overseas for longer than J can take off of work.  What that means is that he will be staying home for this trip, but the Littles will be coming with me!
There are risks involved of course.  As there are any time you travel anywhere, as there are when you drive to the grocery store, as there are in life.  There are some special concerns I have about this trip, like getting used to surroundings that are different from their norm, and whether I personally will survive the 19 hour trip across the world to get there. 
But as easy as it is to see the potential for fleas and scratched furniture, Opportunities also have the potential to curl up in your lap and purr.  
I'm thrilled to introduce my daughters to a place that I believe is so rich and beautiful, to people that mean so much to me, and to an experience that can show them in a tangible way how diverse and limitless the world is. I know they are small, especially Miss.  But I don't for a moment think that even She won't be impacted and influenced by visiting another country, so different from what they have known. 
I anticipate some rough moments.  There will be jetlag, everything will be different, and we will see some things that are hard to see. We will miss Daddy a lot.  But I hope that Ethiopia will be for them a little bit of what it has been to me before.  I hope that international travel will give them that glimmer, that hint that the wide world is something vast and wonderful to explore.  I'm hoping that by coming with me, they will gain that little something that will make them grow up to be a Crazy Opportunity Lady, like me.

Meet Miss

A major thing that has happened since we last chatted, Peanuts, is Little Miss. 

 

Last we chatted, Miss was just creeping out of babyness, toddling a few chubby-toed steps into becoming Her own fully-unique character.  Well. In the time since, Peanuts, She has arrived.  Would you like to get to know Her toddler self?  I'll try to introduce you as best I can. 
It will be a very long introduction, I'm afraid, since I missed Her 18 month post and (as I'll explain later) will also be missing Her 2 year Birthday post.  Plus there's such an awful lot to say!  
Little Miss is a lovely little paradoxical creature.
She is a bit shy, rather sensitive.  She peers out from behind me in new situations, She observes cautiously a long time before joining a new friend to play.  She's terribly easy to frighten.  She is just now in the process of overcoming a plethora of little phobias; the vacuum, motorcycles, snakes, worms that look suspiciously like snakes, all sorts of bugs or specks of fuzz that resemble bugs.  She no longer shrieks in terror and cries buckets of tears at the sight of a beetle or the roar of a sports car.  But She makes for me like a homing torpedo with enormous eyes and a trembling lip, "Mama!! Mama this scary me!" 
On encountering a New Thing- a different sort of shopping cart, a petting zoo chicken, an oddly shaped carrot- Miss finds a parent or sister as calmly as She is able, points at New Thing, and in a voice of tenuous self-control says, "This, nice."  It's really a question.  She needs to be reassured; "Yes, Missy, the Roomba is nice." She will still be leery.  But She trusts (from behind your knee) that it won't eat Her.  For now. 
On the other hand, She will bust ahead of Her sister and anyone else for that matter to climb things that are too steep, balance on things that are too teetery, jump from things that are too high.  She is the child that childproofing was created for.  She is the one who could not possibly care less if Mommy says, "Ok, Missy.  I'm leaving then! Bye!"  Missy loves this tactic.  It's just what She wanted.  Permission to run in the opposite direction and do Her own thing. "Bye-bye Mommy!" She grins. Off She goes.
She is very independent.  She's not only happy to play by Herself for long stretches of time, but now that Little One has been in school I've realized She sort of needs a certain amount of alone time.  She loves attention like any child, of course.  But She's perfectly happy to sit quietly with crayons and paper for up to an hour, or have the playroom all to Herself.  Sometimes, no offense meant, She'd rather build Her block tower without any amateur assistance, thank you. 
And whatever there is to be done, She'll almost always prefer to do it Herself.  "MY do it!" is one of Her most common and emphatic phrases. 
While She has bloomed into an avid little snugglebunny (for every "My do it", there is a "snuggle me!", a "cuddle up Missy time!"  or a "Hugs! Hugs kisses me!"), those words are pretty new.  Before (and sometimes still) it hurt Her pride too much to outright ask for affection.  And so She would pretend to be a kitten.  A poor little kitten always needs to be held and cuddled. Not a big strong girl like Missy, no.  But if She dons a pathetic little face, looks up beseechingly and plaintively mews... we will surely be fooled into thinking She is a kitten, scoop Her up and hold Her tight, and never know it was Her.
Alternatively, She might come up to me, looking very sorry for me.
"Mommy sad?"
"No, Missy, don't worry! I'm not sad love."
She stares a moment. "Mommy sad."
"No...no Missy Mommy is happy!"
Her eyes narrow into a forbidding glare.  "Mommy.  SAD."
It takes me a minute to get it.  "Aaaah.   I see.  Oh, yes, I'm so sad.  Boo hoo." 
Miss grins and runs to me with hugs and kisses and pats on the arm.
"Aww, Mommy!" She purrs, "Ok, Mommy.  Missy here.  Hugs. Kisses. Snuggle all up. No cry, Mommy, no cry."  
It wasn't Miss that needed hugging, you see.  It was me.  She just does Her best to help out. 
Her pride, after all, is so easily wounded. She'd rather yell at the doll's high chair, "Aaargh! You! NO WORKING!" throw up Her hands, and walk away, "NO highchair me!" than ask for help closing the tray.  We are working on this.  She doesn't take well to correction, either.  She cannot believe I'd be so cruel as to suggest that Her shoe is on the wrong foot.  Fine then, forget it.  "NO shoes, me!" We are working on this too. 
At the same time, She has a heart-melting sweet spirit.  She can't stand to see anyone have an owie, or to hear anyone cry.  To Miss, all things are to be showered with love.  They will want kisses and cuddles, and probably to be rocked, fed a bottle, and cooed at "awwwww...BAY-beee!"
NOTHING is as wonderful as a baby.  Oh, how Missy loves babies.  Caring for Her baby dolls is currently Her main purpose in life.  Like a real, veteran mama, She has only to see, hear, or imagine a baby of any sort and Her whole body begins to sway as if She were rocking something to sleep.  When we are out in public She is on high alert in case She might see a real baby. 
Anything small is surely a baby crayon, a baby rock, a baby bite of spinach.  Her voice shrinks into a tiny, high-pitched trill.  "Oh! This baby one! Awww, BAY-bee! Kiss. Hug kisses." All things are personified, and all belong in families. Give Her four grapes and before consuming them, She must inspect and allocate them each.  "This, mommy one.  This one, Daddy one.  This sister one gape, this one baby.  Aww! BAY-bee!" 
Aside from Her precious baby dolls, She's very good at sharing. Pretty good at taking turns.  Terribly patient, most times, about being constantly bossed around and dressed up and hustled about by Her sister.  She loves and longs to do anything Her sister does, after all, and pines to be a part of the Big Kid games when Little One's friends are over.  Not that She doesn't have Her very own interests.
She LOVES bath time, She loves to eat "Hot! Soup!" and to pretend to make it. She is, despite being a member of this family, a total cat person.  Not particularly fond of dogs, even Her own.  LOVES kitties of all sorts.  She adores anything art-related. Crayons, markers, paint, stamps, stickers.  She could "color me" all day.  She loves to be outdoors and can hike like a trooper.  She loves the playground as long as you swing Her very gently, and Her sister accompanies Her down the slides. 
She likes books, and gets hooked on favorites that She must read until the rest of us are ready to burn.  For a good six months it was "Mrs. Wow Never Wanted A Cow" every night.  Then it was a sign language book which we have now all memorized entirely.  Currently it is a story about a boy and his drum.  Maybe because it has a cat in it.
Adopting a "usual" for storytime isn't surprising for Her, though. Miss is a fan of habit and routine.  If She is on a schedule, She will never fail you.  If She is in Her bed each day at 1pm, She will nap each day at 1pm.  But heaven help you if you mess Her up.  At 1:15 she is weeping on your pant-leg, "Sleeeeeeeep! Sleeeeeeeepy me!  Nap-time!" 
She's fastidious about all things, really.  As long as it wasn't your idea, She is very good about cleaning up Her toys, and likes everything to be in it's place.  She loves to help clean with a little dustcloth and the toy vacuum, and will not tolerate being dirty for long. She loves to wash Her hands.  She loves to wash everything.  She helpfully reminds me if I have left my shoes out or missed a spot mopping.
Not that She's all work and no play.  She's actually quite the comedian.  Little Miss will very literally go head over heels for a laugh.  She has a sense of humor beyond Her age I think, pointing out ironies and cracking jokes that sometimes really are funny.  She has patented a pouty face that is so pronounced it typically evokes chuckles, and so She employs it for comic relief more than to actually pout.  Not everyone gets it.  But when they do, She is delighted.  A special joke of Missy's developed  around Thanksgiving after Her sister came home from learning about Squanto at school.  Little Miss thought the sound of that name to be pretty funny. She began to sing "twinkle twinkle little SQUANTO!", the absurdity of which made us laugh out loud.  Thereby cementing it into Miss's repertoire, and now when we're all getting a little too serious or boring, She breaks out that song to liven us all up.  It typically works, too. 
Miss is coming into Her own in terms of communicating, and can be pretty creative about it. For example, recently we were getting ready for bed and She began to fuss.  "Piggies no stick-outing! Piggies NO-STICK-OUTING! Piggies! PIGGIES!!!"  crying out quite desperately at the end there.  This was all I could get out of Her.  When I asked Her what She meant, of course She only repeated Herself with a growing frustration that I was the stupidest possible person, until I finally asked Her, "what piggies?!" and She pointed to Her right foot.  Ah.  Those little piggies.  No-stick-out-ing.  As in, Her toes had gotten caught on Her pants, and She couldn't push Her foot through. Her piggies were not sticking out. This sort of Yoda-Jedi syntax is a special distinctiveness of Little Miss's.
"Please clementine me more!" Asking for more of Her favorite treat.
"This car, Missy Miss, turn-time! Yeah, blue one!" If She wants the blue car.
"Banana-ing time!" If She wants a banana.  
"This blocks, build up sky, big tower!" Planning to erect a duplo sky-scraper.
"Jacket-ing me, Mama please!" If She needs help with Her raincoat. 
And of course, the quintessential Little Miss classic when She is crossed in any way (accompanied by the Scowl and folded arms): "NO happy, me!"
Little Miss does love to knit Her eyebrows and give that very intimidating Scowl to, well, just about everyone until they are proven innocent. She also loves to laugh, loves to create laughter, and has an all-out, soulful giggle and grin that could probably light Times Square.  Her incredible stubbornness tests my patience to the extreme sometimes, but those mega-smiles shoot straight through my heart and radiate sunshine out my fingertips and toes on even my gloomiest days.  She is a second sibling but in no one's shadow, managing to be at once our delicate violet and our bolt of lightning.  Somehow Little Miss has been in our family for only just two years.  Think of that.  But none of us, if we try our hardest, can imagine what life was ever like without Her. 
And now that you've been properly introduced, I'll bet you won't be able to, either.