Fairy Production Line

Running Behind(s)

Our Thanksgiving morning started with a 5K run. We named our team, "Sweet Takinis." We believe this means, "sweet turkey's" in Amharic. It was a fun morning with my biggies. I ran the whole way. No comment on my running behind - wide load comin' through - thank you very much!

On how cute black boys do grow up and become black men

There is a lot of conversation in our home these days about racism. I'm taking a class called "Racial Healing" and Mr. Silly Pants is on a Tim Wise reading binge. It's been good fodder for conversation. We're trying to do our work - the work of raising our amazing, beautiful, feisty, tender, sweet, busy, and luscious brown boy.

I did a lot of research about raising an internationally adopted child, about transracial and transcultural parenting, and about attachment for adopted children. I read a ton. I read everything I could get my hands on. I talked with everyone who would listen, and everyone who I thought would have some wisdom and perspective. It has been quite a journey. I can say that my experience has only deepened and become more complicated now that Blueberry is our son - he is real, vibrant, beloved and black.

I don't know how I missed this post by a fellow (and oh so favorite) blogger. Heather says it perfectly, "Cute little black boys do grow up to be black men."  Well, I do know how I missed this post - I was in Washington state on vacation. We were on the Olympic Pennisula when THIS happened.  Heather was writing about the very things that made me cry and weep and convulse with fear and indignation.

So I was thinking about the following challenge for majority folks like me - what would you say about a challenge to bring minority culture into our lives 100%? Try it for a month. Do it for a year. Live it. Breath it. Everything you do must reflect minority culture - music, books, movies, TV, news, magazines,  eating out...everything you do must be with the intention of being outside of the majority experience.

I saw this challenge raised on a film clip we watched in our Racial Healing class - and it got me to thinking. People of color are SURROUNDED/BOMBARDED with images of white culture every single day. Think about it. Turn it around.

Are you up for the challenge? I think I'm going to learn a lot from this experience.

Sunday Brunch & Iron Chef Blueberry

The bug has now been loaded into the ear

Last night Mr. Silly Pants and I took our Ethiopian friends to a Badger Basketball game. I arranged for 4 tickets (2 sets of 2) so we each enjoyed hosting our same gender counterpart - me with Assefu and him with Sisay.

We both had great nights with our new friends. Let's just tell it like it is; I like basketball just fine but I sure like talking more. So, Assefu and I talked and talked and yelled over the loud announcer. I'm pretty sure everyone in section 207 knows our son is adopted from Ethiopia, knows my heart aches for the realities of adoption and concern for Blueberry's identity, and knows I hope to return to Ethiopia to live for some time as soon as my son is old enough to have the benefit of such an experience (I'm thinking kindergarten).

Mr Silly Pants reported he and Sisay talked about volunteering for a month or so. And they watched the basketball a bit more than we did. But they got it goin' - and I was so happy to hear that. I've sort of been the catalyst and my man has been a good partner and participant. But, it's always better for me if we're both moving with mutual energy and interest.

Loaded and locked - I know the bug has been loaded into the ear and I expect our conversations will begin to evolve. We now have 2 people with whom we have established a rapport and a professional relationship  (for Mr. Silly Pants as colleague in medicine, in particular).

Yeah, I see us living there. I'm allowing myself to get just a little bit excited by the possibility of this and the vision of my life as changing ....... evolving..........transforming.

That's it. Transforming.

21. 19. 17.

Twinkletoes 19, Songbird 21, Waffles 17

Night

Sushi

Brownies and Ice Cream

Lots and lots of stories and giggles

and then a beer in frosty mug for the 21 year old - because it's her birthday

*baby Blueberry is asleep; no nap and a long busy day with sibs=early to bed

There is a family in Addis and I just don't understand what he means when he says....

I'm trying so hard to figure out what this means - "I am broken by the hundreds of children I see and filled with hope of the difference that could be made by those children coming to know Jesus - the only true hope that Ethiopia has." 

It was written by a father whose daughter was a roommate of my little Blueberry. She was a little bubble of light and clearly the little love-bug to the nannies in Blueberrys' room. Her smile was huge and her giggle was always at the ready. Now she is back in her country of origin, with her mother and father and siblings.  Her family has relocated to Addis to work with the Vineyard Church (is it a church? a movement?). I'm confused.

I get what it means to be a Christian. I am a Christian. But I don't understand this statement. I want to know what that means. It seems so.....full of white man's burden.....so secure in a kind of knowing that already exists in a place where Christian Orthodox pracite and Muslim practice is deep and long and honored.

Still, I am envious of the journey to Ethiopia. Perhaps the little love bugs journey will broaden her world of family, as her own first family could now be known to her. But I still wish I knew what he meant.

I should ask him. I just think I need to ask him.

ETA: so I went to their blog and I asked him what he means by this...I hope he answers.