Lamoid

I am well aware of my lame bloggerness... Thank you for the emails informing of such. It has actually done much to help pull me out of my funk. My funk is work and health related and I am beginning to put that in perspective.

My girls are doing awesome. They are amazing and make me smile everyday. They really act like sisters now, in all ways. They play together very often, making up games and stories in which only they know the rules or what is going on... They also argue fairly regularly, but the arguments are predictable. D and I can actually predict when they are going to argue and what it will be about. It is always dependent upon one or the others moods. If The Bean is cranky, they will argue. If SweetPea is in her antagonistic mood, they will argue. We make efforts to separate them when these moods are occuring, and as it stands, they usually coincide (not going to speculate on that one now...).

The past two months have been full. We made a trip out to SC to celebrate D's Dad's 70th birthday one weekend. It was fun, but sort of like camping out. D's parents have this amazing all granite house in the middle of nowhere in SC. Seriously, it takes over 30 mins to get to a grocery store from that house. The house picturesque and interesting, but they are still renovating it, so much of the house is pretty decrepid.
While we were there, we all went out to a barbeque place (1 hour away) and I was highly amused. I actually got some great pictures, but ate very little. It was nice celebrating with D's parents, but I have to admit that I am not a person that is meant for living in rural areas, at least rural areas that have no redeeming natural beauty with which to make up for the lack of anything else...
A couple of weeks after that we went to stay with the J family in Nashville. Unfortunately, during the week before that, I had to work many hours due to a spacecraft failure, and ended up working the entire night before we left for Nashville. Due to this, we also had to leave home late and did not arrive in Nashville until well after dinnertime. It was so nice to arrive there and get to see BT and SD again. The Bean and SweetPea were so excited to stay up late and play with the J girls, and they were all so cute. It amazes me how quickly SweetPea and BT are learning English. They are both well past basic comprehension of the words and are really starting to get the nuances and double entendres of words and sentence structure...

Anyway, that night The Bean had some major allergy issues, and needed benedryl. I got up with her and we hung out until everyone else woke up. She was so cute while we watched the sun rise. We had really wonderful conversation, and although I was exhausted from many days with very little sleep, I was actually grateful for this alone time with my sweet girl. She astounds me with her view on life and her perspective on the world around her. I really believe she has the soul of artist.
Once everyone else woke up it was time to get ready for the meet and greet with Tsegay at the Nashville CHI office (this was a week before they shut it down, and I definitely noticed how empty the offices were that day.) I was a little nervous about SweetPea seeing Tsegay again. I had no idea how she was going to react; whether or not the situation would scare her. In fact, the day before we had left for Nashville "THE CONVERSATION" occurred. SweetPea had been speaking about Ethiopia quite a bit in the week before our Nashville trip. Saying things like "In Ethiopia, I have two clothes." or while taking a bath "In Ethiopia, water is cold." Well, that day she came up to me and tilted her head to the side and said "I have two Mommy's?". My heart stopped, but I answered "Yes, you have your Mommy in Ethiopia and you have me, your American Mommy." She smiled. A big smile; heartwarming. So much so that I pushed forward. "I met your Ethiopian Mommy. Do you want to see a picture?" Again she smiled really big, and nodded. So D joined us and we brought SweetPea to the computer to show her the pictures. She said she remembered her and smiled really big. We also showed her pictures of her Ethiopian Grandmother, then she wanted to see more pictures of Ethiopia (the whole time snuggles on my lap with her cheek resting against mine). We showed her all of the pictures that we have of the countryside. And she told us stories of her life there. She got really excited when we showed her this picture:

She told us this was her Ethiopian house. That was unexpected. I realise that it is not likely that it is her exact house, but I guess I had assumed that she lived in one of the concrete little houses from that region. She was really cute about and showed and explained to us how she slept, ate, and bathed while she lived there. It was surreal. We never really expected to ever get this information from her. She was so young (3 1/2) when she was taken to the orphanage, so we really did not expect her to remember much.

When we made it through the pictures, she asked "I go to Ethiopia?" I couldn't tell if it was request... I answered, "Yes, when you're older." She took a deep breath and asked, "Older like [The Bean]?" and I told her, "No, older like [AO]" (D's 15 year-old neice). She snuggled her little head down into my neck and said, "I scared." I let her know that when she did go back to Ethiopia it would be a visit and that she would be with me; that she would leave with me. This made her happy; she gave me a huge smile and hug and then went to play.

I was shaken but relieved. I had assumed that D and I would wait a little longer for that conversation and picture showing, but somehow I knew that it was right to do it that day. So, given that as a precurser, I had no idea how she would respond to Tsegay. I was scared that it would upset her, but she handled it like a pro. She greeted him politely, gave him one of her winning smiles, then went off to play with The Bean, BT, and SD. Sort of like it was totally common place for Tsegay to be there with us. She is so amazing.

I was extremely exhausted by the time the CHI party was over, so we grabbed some lunch with the J Family and headed back home. I had hoped to stay and hang out with our wonderful hosts for a while longer, but with The Bean's allergy issues and my lack of sleep it just wasn't possible. We are hoping to get together with the J Family again soon.

Since then, the weeks have been filled with crazy work hours & visits to the doctor for me, and soccer practices, choir practices, horseback riding lessons, & school for D & the girls. The weekends are filled with birthday parties, cookouts, & soccer games for all of us.

SweetPea just played her fourth soccer game yesterday and made her first goal. This is such an great accomplishment for her, because her first two games were spent standing still and glaring at the other players. When someone would bump her she would yell at them "Why you hurt me? You're mean!". She went from all of that, to getting right in there with them and going after the ball. I do think, though, that bribery is what really motivated that goal. SweetPea is super girly, and I told her if she made a goal, she could watch Enchanted. So she went after the ball like a mad woman until she made that goal, then she started standing around and glaring at everyone again, so I told her she could have popcorn while she watched the movie if she made another goal. That motivated her again, but she wasn't able to make another goal. I think, though, she is getting the concept, and later during The Bean's game, we discussed how cool it was that The Bean kept trying to get the ball. SweetPea has the potential to be an amazing athelete. She is so fast that she can beat any of the kids on our block (all 17 of them, most of whom are several years older) in a foot race and has more endurance than anyone I have ever seen. I think the only thing holding her back is interest. She would much rather dress up in a really sparkly dress and flit around like a butterfly than play a sport. It's so strange to us. Neither D or I have any girly-girls in our families; so this is definitely something very new. It really makes me question my previous thoughts on nature vs. nuture when applied to girliness...

Our current activities include planning for SweetPea's birthday and helping The Bean prep for a Poetry Recitation contest at her school. Shopping and planning for SweetPea's birthday is really interesting and takes alot of thought. Doing this type of stuff for The Bean has always been easy, if D or I thinks something cool, then usually The Bean does, too. Not that we tell her to think it's cool; it's just that she has alot of the same likes and dislikes that we do, so it's easy to predict. SweetPea, however, is more difficult. I think D and I are figuring it out... if it's insanely girly, sparkly, and pink, then SweetPea will like it. Any suggestions in this department is greatly appreciated, because I am completely out of my element.

The Bean's Poetry Recitation contest annoys me. What's the point of reciting poetry? Wouldn't make more sense to have the children write poetry and then recite it? The Bean is totally in to it, so I am supporting her, but I just don't like it. I feel as if it is just another form of a beauty pageant, only with speaking ability. How do children with speech impediments or accents fair in these type of contests? What education purpose does this contest actually serve? Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much, but it also brings to mind The Bean's art class at school. I really just don't like anyone else influencing her art. The Bean's art is so amazing without the influence, that I resent seeing anyone else's ideas in her work. "My teacher says this is the right way to draw a fish"... seriously? I know, I'm completely psycho, right? Am I just weird or is there someone else out there that feels this way?

So anyway mixed in with all of this, I have become severely disgruntled at work. I actually really love what I do... The main portion of my job is basically just big sudoku problems applied to in-orbit spacecraft... but the politics involved are driving me crazy. I seriously do not care how many millions the company makes off of this customer or that customer, I still don't want to kiss their butt... Can't I just do the satellite-sudoku and go about my business? Believe me, there is more than enough satellite-sudoku that would keep me occupied for the next 40 years, and there also tons of people that enjoy the political side of it... oh well, I'm just whining.

Some good things have happened at work, too. I entered a photography contest and won for one of the categories with this shot:

I had taken the picture when D and I were at my companies facility on The North Shore of Oahu last winter. I had meant to go out and do some more pictures locally, but never really got around to it. I submitted the shot the night before the 4-month long contest ended, so I am happy with my results. I won a really nice digital photo frame, but had I put in more effort and submitted a better shot I could've won an amazing new Nikon SLR... Two days after they awarded the prize, our Nikon broke, so I am still beating myself up about my lack of initiative. D and I are still waiting for our new camera to arrive, and it is nowhere as nice as the one my company awarded as the grand prize for the photo contest. It serves me right...

My health issues are nothing major... just woman's issues, but they are affecting me enough to make me cranky and uncomfortable most of the time. September 9th was our 9th wedding anniversary. We had planned to go to out to dinner that night, but I wasn't feeling well and spent the day on the couch. I was pretty disappointed, but D was really sweet and said we would make up for it next year.

Anyway, I will make a concerted effort to less lame and sporadic in my blogging.