For now, I’m going to skip over writing about my second trip to Ethiopia to fetch A. and launch straight into what has happened so far after the plane touched in Boston. As you can imagine, he was tired. Hell, I was tired. We had left Addis Ababa at 10pm, flew 17 hours to Dulles, endured an 8-hour layover, and topped it all off with another 90 minute flight to Boston, to arrive at 6pm Saturday night. Mr. P was waiting for us and we walked to the car, where we strapped A into his car seat and A promptly began crying. When he cries, it is heartbreakingly silent. His large brown eyes fill with tears that roll down his little cheeks and he makes little mournful noises. I tried to comfort him, but he just stared out the window. Can’t blame the kid, really. Overall he handled everything very well for a 2 yo but I’m sure the car seat was the clincher.
Luckily it is a fast 20-minute ride and he was in better spirits when we got home. He was elated to see the matchbox cars Mr.P had bought for him. This kid is obsessed with cars and anything that rolls, really. He began playing with the cars as I started to unpack and Mr. P rushed around to get dinner ready. I had texted Mr. P in Dulles that the only thing A had eaten on the plane was boiled potatoes, so he boiled more potatoes and carrots along with a lambshank stew. A didn’t eat a bite, regarding everything with profound dejection. We decided he was too tired to eat so I gave him a quick shower with a handheld shower (this is how they bathed the kids in the orphanage) and put him to bed. He refused to sleep in his bed. He has never slept alone, so I laid him down in our bed and Mr. P set up camp in the guest room.
We all konked out until 6am, when A woke me up. “Mama, mama,” he calls me, even though he was coached by the nannies at the transition home to call me Mommy and that’s how I refer to myself. I like how he naturally slid into that. He was pointing to the big empty space where Mr. P should have been, wondering where Daddy was. I took him to the bathroom (“shint bet? shint bet?” is the one Amharic phrase I use, aside from “teny”, which means sleep) and then I took him to visit Mr. P, who of course wanted to sleep some more but was excited to see the kid in better spirits than the previous night.
I prepared his breakfast: bread and bananas, which are the only surefire foods in our arsenal thus far. At the transition home, they ate bread every morning with a cup of sweet tea, dunking the bread to make it softer, so I attempted to recreate this with green tea, which he didn’t like. He ate some butter with his bread but wouldn’t touch the pieces spread with nutella. He is very wary of chocolate in general, a sentiment I guess I’ll go with, but the kid does need calories. He ate a banana, ignored the orange juice, and drank a ton of water. After breakfast I dressed him in his new clothes and then he romped around the house with his cars, pausing to explore his surroundings. He is particularly fascinated with technology, and loves the remote controls and DVD player, although he will not watch television. This is another proclivity that I’m sort of happy about, although we were counting on television to help him learn English.
I needed some time to decompress, and we wanted A to spend some time with Mr. P because he was still very attached to me and somewhat scared of his daddy. So we put on his jacket and Mr. P took him to the playground while I went to sweat a little at the gym. I was worried the whole time I was gone but when I returned, Mr. P reported that A had a ball at the playground, especially on the swings, and ate a banana and more bread for a snack. Later we had lunch, reheating the potatoes that he refused the night before and serving it with a fried egg and some sauteed zucchini. Again, A took issue with the potatoes but seemed to like the zucchini and ate some of the egg, although he didn’t like the yolk. All in all, he ate maybe five bites and then a small kiddie yogurt. I began to worry that he would be more malnourished here than he was in Ethiopia.
Nap time. He was resistant to laying down at first, but Mr. P and I flanked him on the bed and fatigue gave way to a deep sleep. I too napped, a rarity, and woke up at 3pm. Even though I’m sure he could have slept much longer, we didn’t want A to get an abnormal sleep pattern, so I roused him gently and we promptly dressed him for another trip to the playground. It is Patriot’s Day weekend in Massachusetts, and our town was holding their annual parade. We thought A would like to see all the cars and trunks, but he just looked stunned. It didn’t help that we put him in a backpack carrier and he was initially crying as we walked down our street. We abandoned the parade and continued onto the playground, where there were many more kids than there were in the morning. He tried the slide for the first time and loved it, laughing and running up the stairs to go again and again. Another kid his same age was also on the slide and A regarded him suspiciously; the kid talked to him briefly and then ran away. I’m hoping that other kids will be an impetus for him to learn English, although he doesn’t seem to interested in making friends. I guess being confined with 20 other kids for many months will make it difficult to acclimate socially; the nannies told me he prefers to play by himself, like most of the orphanage kids do.
We purposely ignored the ice cream truck — all the other kids perked up, but I’ll let him wallow in his ignorance for a little bit — but then we walked to the ice cream shop anyway. This time he wanted to go in his backpack carrier. He loved the banana ice cream, which he shared with Daddy. He laughed hysterically when a car drove by with bikes mounted to the top. He points at every SUV or truck that goes by and says happily “machina!” which means car. He loves them. Welcome to the land of machina, kid.
We walked home and I drove to the store to get a bath sponge and hair conditioner and oils for Black hair. When I returned, I found Mr. P and A watching my yoga DVDs. Again, he doesn’t seem to interested in what is on the TV but constantly wants to open the player to change DVDs, which he calls “cassettes.” He rubs each DVD on his shirt before he puts it in, which I bet the nannies would do at the transition home. He romped around the house some more with his machinas as I fixed dinner: shrimp with rice and swiss chard. He only touched the rice and then half a banana. He seemed extremely tired so I gave him a shower, dressed him in his pajamas, and laid down with him in his bed. He didn’t want to sleep, pointing to his cars illuminated in the nightlight, but soon he fell asleep and I tiptoed out of this room, feeling triumphant.
Love this kid. Love every moment of being with him, and I know it will only get better.
In Addis, blowing bubbles (which he calls “foo-fah”) at the transition home
At Dulles airport, eating a gigantic apple
