Melkam Adis Amet

Happy New Year! May your 2001, the precise New Millennium (in Ethiopia), be joyous! Yes, we are all 7 years younger in the land of 13 Months of Sunshine. In honor, those of us with roots in the Ethiopian gene pool gathered on the prairie; the first such gathering to ever hit the innards of rural Kansas. Thank you thoughtful hosts and kind patrons! A bow to the cooks and your very impressive Ethiopian menu. May your tongue be hardy and the berbere sauce I made for you tantalize your lips and sit well in your stomachs (Kansans are not known for their spice). By the way, in case you read this, to the family with the 2 girls with roots in Tennessee (and not Ethiopia, my mistake!): I absolutely adore your girls! Tell them their three "cousins", as one of them put it, would love to see them again.



September 12th also marked a special day for us as we celebrated the 2nd anniversary of our referral. Well, celebrate is a loose term. We played outside after many hours of beautiful but stifling rain. The stifling part being house bound with nap rebellions and an overly cranky (sleepless) fitful mama (remember when I said I thought we were conquering the crib farewells? Well I take it all back--help!). We thanked Mama Earth for a better mood for mama, a cool end of summer, much rain, and fewest bug bites I ever remember in Kansas; we sat in mud puddles, baked wet dirt, and walked the dog (Louie that is; true to her coon hound blood, Clementine is a dog that runs and searches, never to be walked).











We also marked a stark decline in parenting energy and skills. I hate to say this aloud and can it really be true? Yes, we have turned to videos for parenting moments. Let the TV baby sit as we steal a few moments of house duty, shower, or rest. Yikes, has it really come to this? And I never thought my boys would sit still for TV. Seems Sesame Street: Old School, Volume I possesses magic soothing powers (it works on me too). My favorite parts are the thick grainy videos with soft folksy music playing in background: kids in funny 70s style following each other; cows getting milked; or orangutans yawning in the zoo. Really floats the soul. Ohhh, how I love the big hair in the Old School Sesame St black community. Maybe my kids will finally learn to talk watching Bert and Ernie? Still very little words bellowing forth from three rosebud lips; but plenty else bellowing.

Really, speaking of words, I'm starting to get a little embarrassed as other, younger, 2 year olds tell their moms in clear voices, mom, I lost my shoe, while my trio babble on in baby squawks. We're still in child/infant development and I see general, overall improvements, but it's hard for us sensitive mamas not to worry. Yet there is a sweetness, an utter cuteness, an extra special uniqueness to my boys; star quality. They are hard to take one's eyes off of. And man can they play. They are now at the age where they lose themselves into a crowd of children so naturally, so easily, that one begins to wonder, whose children are these? Those babies are all mine, baby.