biglifesmalltown

Last year was an unforgettable Mother’s Day for me (we were just bringing home our three kids from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), but this year is special in a whole new way, because I’ve spent a year being called ‘Mommy,’ and I really truly feel like a Mom.

Feeling like a Mom means knowing that for so many things, for so many people, the buck stops with you. No one else is going to clean up the vomit, get the poop stains out of the onesie, remember to bring a diaper, remember everyone’s favorites and dislikes, and carry the hearts of all these little people with you throughout your day, no matter where you are. It means being woken at all hours with all kinds of strange pronouncements (I’m sweaty, I had a bad dream, my tummy hurts, my bed is wet, my nose is bleeding, my feet itch) because THEY know the buck stops with you and they’re smart enough to go straight to the top. To the person who takes care of business. It means fighting for the right teacher, paying attention to what each one is struggling with and excelling at, and trying to pull them along with the right balance of encouragement and discipline. It’s impossible to do it perfectly. And it’s so worth trying your very best.

Today I went to the Mother’s Tea at Alex’s school for the first graders. Alex has been working with his classmates on the songs they sang today and the gifts and cards they presented, for several weeks. He’s told me little bits about it along the way, and has been really proud of his preparations. To see his beautiful face today, the only black one in a sea of white, and to catch his eye and have him shyly smile at me as he sang songs professing his love for his Mom, really affected me. I was watching him and thinking about how last year he didn’t have someone in his life to call Mom. He had had it before, and knew what it meant to some degree, but I wonder if he really hoped to have a Mom again.

A transformative vehicle for healing with our kids has been Momma Love. We have a 12-year-old Vizsla dog, Noah, who has been a snuggler from puppyhood. Sometimes he comes over just to get loved on, and I’ve always called it Momma Love. I told the kids this one day many months ago, “Oh, Noah just needs some Momma Love!” while I was petting him and rubbing his ears and telling him what a good boy he is. It was only a matter of days before my boys, who gave a lot of lip service at that time (and still do) to how they didn’t like love. Didn’t want to hear that we loved them, didn’t want to say it to us or each other, didn’t want to be hugged and certainly not kissed. No love, thanks. But Momma Love? That looks pretty good, Bring it on! So they both started asking for it by name. “Can you Momma Love?” and then we’d sit in the reading corner and I’d snuggle with them one at a time, rub their back and their head and tell them how much Momma loves them. And I remind them that we all need Momma Love sometimes, that’s just the way it is, and no one gives snuggly love like a Momma.

For many years before we even began applying for adoption, and through the two years that we were in the process, I prayed regularly for Abundant Motherhood. Specifically that. God knew what he was doing when he held us back, until our yearning for children broke our hearts and helped us to yield to a plan that was not at all our own. Our faith teaches us that we must have no other Gods before our Almighty God, because He knows that we can only truly be free when we are not enslaved by the other gods we build to take His place (success, money, beauty, the perfect family, our own ideal plan perfectly executed). As a follower of Christ I succumb to the constant struggle to keep God in the forefront; I fail regularly. But oh how one’s faith is strengthened when evidence of His answers are so clear, especially when we see how personal and specific His responses are. I know that God answered that prayer for Abundant Motherhood when he prepared these three for us. I have never felt so clear on a communication with Him before or since. And Oh how I have felt unprepared for this job, ineffective and unworthy. But I truly believes that if He calls you, He will equip you, and I feel like I watch God rise to meet my needs every day; I have only to accept His unequivocal strength and wisdom and lay down my stubborn nature and my stiff neck.

I’ve been so humbled this year by the amazing mothers among my friends and family. I never paid much attention to that role, especially as I sought to distance myself from the role of mother while struggling with the pain of infertility. But this year I’ve paid close attention to all of you (it helps me figure out what to do next!) and I’m just, well, there are not words to describe the strength and commitment of a Mom. It’s an unbelievable blessing and an unbelievable burden. And I’m so honored to have joined your ranks this year for real.

To Moms!!! Hope you all have a very special weekend.

Imagine having to explain every American Holiday to an alien. Just walk through the customs and traditions for a moment…explain the characters, the colors, what people do to celebrate that day and why. In many cases it is absurd!

Well this is one of the things you have to look forward to if you are adopting an older child from a foreign country. It’s something I never really thought about, but every month or two throughout our first year home I’ve found myself back in that seat again, with two bright-eyed boys hanging on my every word (and asking for definitions when it’s new vocabulary), explaining turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie and pilgrims, or little men in green hats that hold secrets. It is so funny to explain things from scratch. They are right to think we are crazy.

Last weekend I completely forgot about St. Patrick’s day until the morning of. We had plans to enjoy Vietnamese food at a friend’s house that night, so corned beef was not on my mind. My sweet husband was on a flight home from a business trip and the kids and I were having a leisurely Saturday morning, the first one in some time without a basketball game for Alex. I made pancakes and let the boys watch cartoons. It wasn’t until later in the morning when we were getting ready to go to the store together that I thought about it. I said, “Hey guys! I forgot to tell you today is St. Patrick’s day,” and that they’d see lots of green things at the store and that they have to wear green in order to not get pinched. Their eyes widened and crinkled up at the same time. They were completely offended at the idea of being pinched, but then of course began chasing around and pinching each other. I tried to reassure them that strangers in the store would not start pinching them…

A pair of Eliana’s socks from her birthday gift from Nana had shamrocks on them and a little Leprechaun on the label. “Oh here!” I said, “This is a Leprechaun! They are from a country called Ireland. They are very small and if you can find one he will show you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” Alex looked at me like I was insane. I watched him trying to process this weird list of information I’d just shared. And I had a moment like the time I was trying to explain Halloween for the first time, where I realized how insane we all really are. Dressing up in costumes and knocking on the doors of strangers who are then obliged to give you candy. What?

Anyway, We are almost through the year. I’ve explained every American holiday now except the approaching Easter. And this one is special. We will celebrate Palm Sunday and recognize Good Friday and the Passover and then Easter, as a remembrance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our kids are well aware of our Savior’s work on the cross, so a couple of days ago I was talking to my five-year-old about this coming holiday and why we celebrate it. But of course if we have to go to Wal Mart for any reason over the next two weeks they will see the explosion of pastel colors and plastic eggs and rabbits, lambs and chicks. The American public version of Easter. How did we get there?

Charles and I used to hold elaborate Easter parties back when we lived in Washington DC. One year I decided to serve rabbit along with our typical salmon and lamb. I thought it was ironic and that my fellow Christ followers would enjoy the irony of eating rabbit on Easter…a display of irreverence to the secular worship of giant pink bunnies. Alas the rabbit, although deliciously roasted and quite tasty, was largely left untouched. I guess there is still an appreciation of the Easter Bunny, bearer of grassy baskets and layer of chocolate eggs, even among the devout. Or perhaps I was just faced yet again with un-adventurous eaters. We Americans tend to like our food wrapped in plastic with a tidy label on it rather than recognizable as the animal it once was. Rabbit is a little too wild for the comfort of some.

But I digress. I will say that guiding our kids through their first tour of America is an enormous privilege, including the chance to reflect on many, many aspects of our culture. It helps our trust process when Mommy or Daddy explains something that sounds like a made-up story, and then it comes true. The kids have a great sense of adventure and wonder that makes it really fun to draw them into the fold and see them participate in our cultural rituals.

And how about the privilege of creating our family’s own version of each holiday? Rituals for our children to remember years down the road, that draw us together and mark our common history, starting just last year. It’s beautiful.

So I have to confess I can’t WAIT to make Easter baskets! My Mom made the best Easter baskets for my sister and I growing up and I have waited many years to do the same for my own kids. Little baskets of treasures that they will not be told are from the Easter Bunny, but rather from Mommy and Daddy to celebrate this special day where we remember together the hope-filled gift of a risen Lord. I know it’s a stretch, but I’m still trying to figure all of this out.

One of my most memorable Easters was spent with new friends (and no one who knew me well) on the island of Santorini in Greece. I walked with all the inhabitants of that island to the Greek Orthodox church up on the hill to celebrate Midnight Service of the Resurrection on Holy Saturday. The Eternal Flame burns at the altar while all other lights are extinguished and the crowd waits in anticipatory darkness. The church was filled to beyond capacity and I stood shoulder to shoulder with Greeks of every age on the cobblestone street outside, each of us holding an unlit white candle. At the stroke of midnight the priest began to light the candles nearest him with the holy flame, each person in turn spreading the light to their neighbors until the church and the streets were filled with light from a thousand twinkling sources. “Christos Anesti” (Christ is Risen) is called out as each flame is passed, and the response “Alithos Anesti” (truly, He is risen). The church bells ring, the people smile and celebrate and kiss each other. And then everyone wanders joyously home to enjoy the feast of lamb prepared that morning and spit-roasted whole to barbequed perfection. That’s one of my favorite Easter memories. Now that’s a culture who knows how to celebrate Easter!

Maybe we will be able to incorporate some of these experiences into our family Easter. What are YOUR favorite Easter traditions and memories?

And now here’s an unrelated video: Eliana opening a birthday gift from her aunt, uncle and cousins. Cause y’all want some media:

On the brink of our tenth month home with our three kids from Ethiopia, we stepped out into the world.

I would describe our time together since May 15th of last year as a season of hibernation. And although I didn’t exactly plan it that way, there have been so many benefits of bringing home foreign adopted children to a small, quiet, slow town. We’ve been able to ease our kids into American culture, and into our family life, in a beautifully gentle way. Everyone has gotten comfortable with each other, with expectations, with roles. No long commutes to interfere with family life. The kids have had time to invest in friendships, to work on their language skills, to find their place. So when my husband planned to attend the annual GDC conference in San Francisco, and his parents offered to bring the rest of the family down to visit with them and aunt Kelly during that week, we jumped at the chance. And I have to say the timing was perfect!

We’d hit a comfortable place in our family routines…I think everyone was feeling safe and familiar. And when I began to plan for packing and taking our three kids on our first flight since Ethiopia last May, and for their first time out in the world really since coming home, I became overwhelmed with pride. I really am smitten with my kids. I think they are so brave and funny and smart and they’ve worked so hard to find their way and to learn how to communicate. I enjoy them, and I realized I couldn’t wait to share them with the world.

By the way, that was a great moment. Kind of like the first time I missed them. I spent so much time being overwhelmed by the kids in our first few months home that when I finally got a chance to be away from them for a half a day, I was delighted to find myself looking forward to seeing them again. I mean I could have just as easily felt like fleeing and never looking back, right? The fact that I felt the opposite was a good sign.  So it was when I realized I was excited to share my family with the outside world…a nice moment that revealed a heart truth.

I wouldn’t trade that trip for the world, but here’s the truth. My role on the trip to San Francisco? Sweaty Mom. Seriously, toting three young children around a city as busy as San Francisco is an incredible workout. Watching the boys do the splits at the top of the escalator while commuters mobbed up behind them in frustration. Sitting in tight quarters on a cable car with my toddler in my lap and the folded-up umbrella stroller between my knees…the wheels of which were within reach for her to LICK. which she did. after they’d been all over the public streets of San Francisco. I can barely stand to think of it. (But I do feel better having now confessed it.) Or how about when I got my loaded-for-all-kid-emergencies backpack, the umbrella stroller and three kids off the bus many blocks too early (oops) for the Academy of Sciences and then as we walked through a neighborhood trying to figure out how to resolve the problem, Melkam decided he needed to go to the bathroom NOW. Residential neighborhood. not even a cafe in sight. Guess who took pity on us and let him into her apartment to use the loo? Another mom of similar-aged kids just returning from the park who overheard him begging me to find him a toilet. Thank God for other moms. I’d be lost.

I stripped my children of any innocence they might have retained when I BARTed over to Oakland to visit the zoo. Welcome to African American culture, children. That’s how they would see it since it is thus far their only exposure to any significant crowd of people of color. You know what they will remember about that trip to the zoo? The crazy young black mom with a 2-year-old in her stroller who went ape $*!# on one of her brethren over the broken elevator in the BART station. Her X-rated diatribe went on and on; she left no four-letter stone unturned and even chased the guy around with a carton of milk from her grocery bag threatening to dump it on him since her verbal chastising seemed not, in her opinion, to belittle him enough. Unfortunately after ten or fifteen minutes of that, she left him behind, crossed the street to where we stood waiting for the zoo bus, and proceeded to call a girlfriend and recount the whole story (her slightly biased version) complete with all the profanity yet again. Eventually there was some sort of assault and the police were called. It was a great opportunity to remind the children how NOT to behave. No matter how mad you are.

The best part of this particular story is when Alex, my seven-year-old, who could barely believe what he was seeing (I kept answering their questions with “She’s just having a really bad day.” and “Don’t repeat anything that’s coming out of her mouth, ever.”) said slowly, “I am SO GLAD she is not my mommy.”

Lest you think I’m just a big whiner, I’ll move on from the challenging parts and share that San Francisco has amazing things for kids and I’m so glad we got to experience some of them. The Exploratorium was my favorite. Hands-on science demonstrations with a million buttons to push, moving parts to touch, and miraculous things to see. And if you didn’t know, admission is free the first Wednesday of every month and even though that meant it was packed, my kids never had to wait in line and there was always an exhibit free to play with. It’s an awesome awesome place.

The Academy of Sciences, which we did eventually make it too after a couple of snack and rest breaks and a GREAT DEAL of complaining, is absolutely beautiful. The aquariums, the white crocodile, the tropical rainforest with all the butterflies and birds. It was stunning.

Charles got to take the boys to Alcatraz on our last day there (a long tour which starts and ends with a beautiful boat ride out on the bay to the island). And throughout the week the kids got to spend time and go on shorter outings with their Grammy and Poppy, who introduced them to the cable car, the buses, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Poppy-sized ice cream sundaes while a man with a waxed moustache serenaded them with “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” and other treasures of life in this beautiful city. The kids saw the sea lions at Pier 39, ate clam chowder out of sourdough bread bowls, tasted authentic Chinese food, and got to eat out at Cafe Colucci, the awesome Ethiopian restaurant in Oakland.

It was, as always, a visual feast and an inspiration of energy and ideas. It blew the kids minds in lots of ways. And with Grammy and Poppy willing to keep the kids for the evening, I actually got to go out with Charles a few times. We had amazing sushi one night. Oh how I miss it!

We are so grateful, Grammy and Poppy, for the opportunity to come visit you in such a special place at such a meaningful time for the kids. THANK YOU! And while it was great to break out of hibernation, we were so happy to come home to our beautiful, quiet small town. And we’ll look forward to the next big city visit too.

Alex poses in a concrete hippo outside the Oakland Zoo

Chowing down on clam chowder in classic San Francisco style: sourdough bread bowls!

Eliana trying to convince Alex that she will catch him if he jumps. Golden Gate Park on the way to the Academy of Sciences.

Watching the stinky, weird sea lions at Pier 39

By the way, I brought my Nikon on this trip and didn’t take a single photo. Hands were too full! I only got a few on my iphone…the rest are memories.

I don’t know why we find this so funny, but a few weeks ago My friend K, who was working in Melkam’s Sunday school class, overheard Melkam and another little boy in a long conversation. When it was over, the other little boy came over to K, sighed and said: “I wish he spoke English.”

Melkam is talking up a storm right now, but not everyone can tell what he is saying! I just recently figured out that when he says, “Yesmember,” which he includes in most of his stories, he means “yesterday.” Melkam tells me stories all day long. And when I’m multi-tasking, which is most of the time, he repeats “Acuse me, Mommy. Acuse me, Mommy.” Until I [reward him with un-interrupted eye contact] (name that movie) which tells him I’m listening with my whole being. And offering appropriate facial expressions to show that I understand which parts of his stories are funny, which are surprising or amazing, and which are disappointing. And when his story is over and I rub shoulders with my sweet husband while clearing the dinner dishes, one of us will often lean over to the other’s ear and say, “I wish he spoke English!” Not because I want to make fun of my amazing little boy who is communicating incredibly well, but because it is exhausting to listen to it all day sometimes, and especially to try to understand what he means so I can give him appropriate feedback and help him feel successful.

Here’s the big plastic rocking horse (which I never would have imagined as resident of my living room), “Liberty” (ironic because this horse isn’t going anywhere), getting a workout.

No lack of energy in our house you see!

And Eliana enjoying a birthday cupcake and ice cream last weekend at our dear friends’ house in celebration of her second year on earth:

This was really her first experience with chocolate frosting and she was quite delighted!

We had the boys watch the first 15 minutes or so of the State of the Union Address last month. In light of the snippets of news they’ve seen recently with scary conflicts in places like Syria, where they ask why people are killing each other, it was pretty interesting to point out the reactions in the House chambers where those congressmen and women who disagree with the president, don’t applaud his comments. They asked about it, by the way…”Mommy why that man no clapping?” It struck me how my answers to both questions were similar: In one case people are killing each other because of political disagreements, in another they are refusing to applaud in a very public forum.

But my favorite thing about my boys’ political interest is that they call our President Rock-O-Bahna. It’s awesome. We aren’t trying to cultivate the mispronunciation, but I’ve stopped trying to correct it because I find it so charming. Is that wrong? Other favorites include: Acobado=Avocado, Algalator=Aligator, and then there’s Eliana, who talks all the time now and is very certain about what she’s saying…it’s just that the rest of us can’t always tell. Yuck=Truck, Yock=Sock, Yay-yays=Cereal (yes, she seems particularly fond of ‘Y’ sounds). This week she inexplicably started saying ‘Star Wars’ for no particular reason. When questioned she confirms that yes, that’s exactly what she’s saying. Don’t know why. I guess she’s just thinking about Star Wars.

I think this may have been my favorite Valentine’s Day in memorable history. Our kids are struggling with LOVE right now. They are very very obviously losing the battle of trying to keep their walls up to keep love out. Loving makes you vulnerable and involves a lot of trust, two things our boys fiercely protect themselves against. But they are SO CAVING! They are giggling while running to hug Daddy, asking for an extra hug before Mommy leaves the house, immensely enjoying cuddly reading time before bed and trying to drag it out as long as possible. Ooh, and guess what! My friend shared with me that when she was reading Where the Wild Things Are to Melkam today and she got to the part where Max decides that he is lonely and “…wants to be where someone loves him best of all.” and she asked what that meant, Melkam immediately said “Mommy!” Oh, be still my heart!

Ok, back to Valentine’s day. Well last weekend I spent a lot of time with the boys making these paper heart flowers to distribute at school. I couldn’t bring myself to buy the grocery store valentines. I confess I kind of hate them. Wonder how long my ‘we will make crafty valentines at home’ phase will last? So anyways, that was fun (I love a good excuse for paper and art crafts!). We talked about Valentine’s day over the two weeks before…not to amp them up about the Hallmark version of the holiday, but to share with them that we celebrate LOVE on that day, the greatest gift God ever gave any of us. The BEST GIFT OF ALL! We prepped them ahead of time that Daddy was going to take Mommy out on a special date, and Charles talked to them about his secret plans to get flowers for Mommy AND for Eliana, because boys celebrate their girls with flowers on this special day. The boys got really into it, which was also really special.

It’s easy to forget how much it helps to just talk about things that we take for granted, because the kids are LEARNING how to be in a functional family. And maybe even their prior family experience before institutional care wasn’t functional. We really don’t know and may never know, but they all do so much better when we can give them some warning, explain what’s going to happen and why, or explain how we do certain things in our family and what that looks like, and then when they see our explanation match the experience.

Wednesday marked 9 months of our family being home together. This is BY FAR the toughest job I’ve ever loved!

And by the way, both of the boys are refusing to have their photo taken lately. I’m hoping this phase will pass and I can show you some recent pics! Here’s a possibly sideways video of Eliana enjoying her Valentine’s flowers.

As I write these words, I fear I shall regret them all too soon: We have not had any vomiting since the kids came home. Not a single incident, projectile or otherwise! Nor have we had much in the way of explosive diarrhea. Our battle with Giardia was over within six weeks of coming home, and the kids have been generally healthy. We’ve been very, very fortunate. I’m doing my best to not take that for granted!

Written Last Week and never published: Alex has a terrible cold this week and spent yesterday dozing on the couch and looking bewildered. He has rarely been sick and he didn’t know what to do with  himself. I’ve been up off and on the past few nights as he’s come in complaining of various aspects of his illness, but this morning was unique in that he woke me up at 5am with bloody nose. A real gusher. While I was sitting with him helping to get it stopped, I told him the story of the worst nosebleed I’ve ever had, which was in Ethiopia in the guest house in May after we’d picked up the kids. Due to scarcity of paper products, I was using a damp washcloth trying to stem the torrent of blood that was splashing all over the sink. All I could think about was how I was letting contaminated water come into contact with my nose and mouth. It took about and hour and a half to get it stopped! I kept trying to yell for my husband, but all that came out was gurgling sounds. It was a nightmare! Alex’s nosebleed was under control after 20 minutes or so and he was able to go back to sleep.

This Week: Alex is all well! He’s enjoying basketball and school. Tonight he thought highly enough of me to share with me his ‘secret knuckles’ handshake that he has with two of his friends at school. I was honored! We have ongoing struggles with Alex’s attitude, which can turn South with the flip of a switch, but we are learning ways to cope and to help him recover when that happens. Therapy is VERY HELPFUL. Seek it BEFORE CRISIS!

Written Last Week: Eliana is teething her big 2-yr molars and also has a cold, although not as severe as Alex’s. She’s generally grumpy and needy. And Melkam spent the day off yesterday telling our nanny how much he “doesn’t like this.” He’s used to having a dynamic older brother lead him in play and he wandered around a lot and said “I don’t know what is fun!” and then turned down every fabulous idea I offered for fun things to do.

This Week: If you need to lighten up, move a toddler into your house. Eliana is hilarious, sweet, impossible, and non-stop work combined with non-stop joy. There are not enough words! And regarding Melkam’s boredom and general malaise, it occurred to me (with the help of a talk last week by Foster Cline of Love and Logic fame…YES he LIVES here!) that I don’t have to sit down and come up with fabulous ideas for Melkam when he’s bored. What a revelation! I can just say, “That’s too bad! What are you going to do about that?” and let him own the problem, thus learning how to entertain himself. I don’t have to rescue him from his perception of boredom. I’m liberated! Try it!

Another milestone recently: The boys are comfortable enough now to share their negative opinions about our home and family. Hooray! A great attachment milestone! Now I get to hear regularly “I like Amhara better than this house!” Alex doesn’t tell us why, but enjoys being able to share this opinion. Melkam is very clear about the reason: “Because in Amhara we watch scary movies every time!” A therapist expanded on it recently and said to Alex, “It sounds like in Amhara you had fewer rules, and here you have to follow rules. Is that why you liked it better there?” Alex wouldn’t speak or make eye contact, but he nodded rather enthusiastically. It’s tough for the boys to adjust to a loving family that also has rules and expectations. They are doing a great job though!

I continue to hunger for more memories from Alex in particular, but work hard to not press. It’s his story, and he’ll tell it when and if he’s ready. When the topic comes up organically he’s open with details, but we try to let him bring it up. I try not to let it be important to me, but I’m dying to know everything I can about all that time I wasn’t with my children as they were going through life. I do envision someday being able to connect with their other family members and take the kids back to visit their village in a few years when they are more secure.

I’d say the biggest battles right now are our continuing attachment journey with all three children, our (the parents) work to have the healthiest marriage possible in the aftermath of this enormous transition, and dealing with Eliana’s Sensory Issues. I capitalized that because this is a very common topic with adoptive families and it manifests itself in different ways (and is called by different names). I am a total newbie to the idea, and am learning from our occupational therapist and others as we go along. Ellie doesn’t suffer from the full spectrum of symptoms involved with Sensory Processing Disorder (formerly known as Sensory Integration Dysfunction), but she has some unique areas that we are trying to help her with. We began work with an occupational therapist because Eliana seemed to not have any awareness of her tongue, which was usually hanging forward out of her open mouth (often also referred to as ‘tongue thrusting’).

The tips from the occupational therapist have been easy to integrate and we are already seeing significant improvement. But a month or so ago she started something new: Slamming her head against the end of her crib. Hard. Over and over again. At first I thought she was bouncing her legs against the mattress, as she has done off and on since we first picked her up. But when we were sleeping in her room over Christmas it woke me up. I went over to soothe her and realized with horror what she was doing. She seems to do this ‘head banging’ as we call it, most when she is semi-asleep…in the transition either from wake to sleep or sleep to waking. On her tummy, bum in the air, rhythmically ramming the top of her head against the end of her crib. Often if we move her back to the middle of the mattress and rub her back or her head she doesn’t even wake up.

It’s gotten worse since I first began writing this post last week, and it is a bizarrely maddening problem! How do you convince a not-quite-2-year-old to stop a repetitive behavior like this? We have only a thin bumper on her crib, and would rather curb the behavior than bolster the edges of the crib with more foam, but our tactics so far don’t seem to be working. Over the weekend we tried putting her to sleep in her pack-n-play, which has cloth sides. Nothing to slam against. This is offering US some relief from the disturbing sound and the mental anguish (ours, not hers), but I doubt it’s doing much to stop her from the behavior when she goes back in her crib. Sigh. We were supposed to have a meeting with her OT today, but she is sick and had to reschedule for next week. I’m really hoping we can find a way to help Eliana meet her sensory needs before bed so she can stop taking it out on her poor little head. In the meantime, she may be sleeping in the pack-n-play until further notice.

Last week my eldest son was Star of the Week week in his first grade class. He got to have two big pages of photos he chose to share posted on the classroom wall, and he got to bring show-and-tell every day. He loved it! The finale on Friday was bringing his dog, and introducing Ethiopian food to his friends. That means that Friday was a lot of work for Mommy!

I was happy to do it, don’t get me wrong, but I’m still learning how to juggle three children with any task (sigh…). It takes three days to make injera, so I AM learning little by little to plan ahead so as not to disappoint. I was making a double batch because my three kids plow through a single batch on their own, and I just wasn’t sure how much I’d need. And I had to give myself a few hours to do the final cooking of the injera and shiro before showtime at 1:30. My other two kids are home on Fridays, so that meant I had to plan my injera cooking around my toddler’s nap, and get my sweet husband to come home for lunch so I could make the delivery without waking her up. AND it meant I had a sidekick for the cooking work. Mind you, I had already added walking the dog to school for his 8am performance to my regular morning routine. Do I sound like I’m complaining? I’m really not, just trying to set the stage and give you some sense of my mental state by 12pm on that particular day.

Baby went down without incident, I was on schedule with my batter, heating and seasoning the pan, etc. Lots going on in the kitchen since injera are cooked one by one, and cooled on a rack before being piled up. I was pretty much using every surface and dancing from counter to counter. My five-year-old had been flitting about chattering at me. I had given him a few jobs to help with, but his attention span is short and he got bored. Soon I realized I was stepping over him. He was laying on his stomach in the middle of the kitchen.

“Mommy, something under there!” He said (with great drama and mystery in his voice), while peering under the range. And then under his breath, and to himself, “Can I just get the flashlight….” Off he scampered to find a flashlight. I kept dancing the injera dance, they were sticking to my pan more than last time.

Soon he was back, spread-eagled again on the kitchen floor with me stepping over him. I started to protest a number of times, but the injera, and shiro…it seemed easier to just adjust my movements to step over him than to spend a bunch of time convincing him now was not the best time for this activity.

“There!” he said with satisfaction. “Mommy can you look?”

It happened to be a good moment. I had just poured the batter on and set the lid in place for the steaming. I had at least 30 seconds to spare, so I got down on my kitchen floor next to my little boy and followed the beam of his flashlight under the range to where a large bouncy ball had strayed to the back corner. My heavens, the dust bunnies under there.

So this is where the title of my post comes in. I hadn’t PLANNED to clean under my range that day, or any other day in the near future for that matter. My cleaning standards have, shall we say, been adjusted since the kids arrived. The dust under the range wasn’t even within the scope of my radar of things to worry about. Not even close. (is that normal? Is this where I hear back from all of you that you do this every time you vacuum, or on a once-a-month schedule in some kind of twisted OCD housekeeping calendar like the one Martha Stewart prints at the front of her magazines as a gentle suggestion of what her readers might aspire to?)

But I did realize that I could finish the injera job and let Melkam keep problem solving about how to get this ball out from under the range and chances were I wouldn’t have to listen to this:

“Mommy, what I’m doing now?” Meaning, “I’m bored, what interesting activity have you arranged for me to do next?”

I began a discussion about tools: “You are going to need a tool to help you get that ball out, Melkam. What do you think might be a good thing to try?”

First he tried his construction straws. Good choice. He knew he could use joints to put multiple straws together to cover the distance. He tried that for a good three minutes (two more injera almost done!)…the straws were too soft and inflexible…the ball was heavy and hardly budged.

Next he asked if he could get the broom, or maybe I suggested it…I can’t remember. He got it out of the cleaning closet and laid it on the floor. He tried to wedge it between the banks of cabinets to get the right angle for the ball, no success. He convinced me to get back down on the floor to help. It was then that I realized while the ball wasn’t budging, he was pulling that lint out from under the range which meant I was going to HAVE to deal with it. Lots of hand washing for me, by the way. There was no under-range lint contaminating the above counter items. Should I not be writing about this…are you grossed out?

So in the end, we tried several methods of removing the ball and could hardly get it to move. Melkam kept returning to his post, flashlight in hand, studying the situation. He was very determined. I finally offered the winning solution: The ball’s diameter was larger than that of the vacuum hose, so I thought we might be able to turn down the power and gently SUCK the ball out from under the range without damaging the vacuum. Which led me down the next path in my activities that day…if you find yourself lying on the floor of your kitchen with a vacuum hose under your range, well, then I guess you’ve just decided to clean under the range! You can imagine how satisfying it was to suck all that icky lint out from under there. And to think, I had no idea when I woke up that morning that I was going to be accomplishing such a neglected task!

I can happily report that the ball was retrieved, thoroughly washed, and has been in the toy rotation actively ever since. My son felt a great sense of accomplishment and learned a thing or two about problem solving and perseverance. Also the injera turned out beautifully, leading me to think that having something going on in your kitchen that gives you something to do for 30-60 seconds every few minutes, maybe that’s the ideal conditions in which to cook injera!

Look how pretty it looks on this Ethiopian basket our nanny let us borrow!

The end.