Travel

Our little family loves to travel. We are not good homebodies. On the weekend we are either outside doing work in the yard (not enough of this most of the year) or out and about. Ben and I have never liked to be at home and we've obviously instilled this in our son.

Our income affords us the privilege to be able to take mini vacations throughout the year. We could probably be saving the money or spending it on fixing up our home but getting away really recharges us and we love to explore new areas. It may be a brief trip to the coast (loving Long Beach, WA these days) or a long weekend to Oakland. Most recently we flew to Puerto Vallarta and stayed for a short time at an all-inclusive.

We hope our traveling continues to encourage our son's curiosity about the world around him. Being able to meet people outside of the US, hearing different languages, experiencing different cultures is one of the best gifts we are able to give him. It's the way towards acceptance and tolerance. We also hope that he realizes what a privilege and luxury it is to be able to travel. He was told more than once while in Mexico that most others in the world aren't able to spend time the way we were. I look forward to being able to expand on these conversations.

We learned we are not all-inclusive people. Portland has turned us into food snobs, again, lucky to live in a city with such brilliant restaurants. The food was not to our liking. The Mexican food served at the resort was great but anything else we found lacking. Additionally, the resort was further away from downtown than we would have liked. Before being parents, vacations meant a lot of walking for Ben and me. Taking a taxi to downtown was great (Mr. Littles even got to turn around in his seat and look out the back window!) but it would have been nice to be right in the thick of things.

Anyway, very little complaints about our dreamy Mexican vacation where it was 80s-90s and sunny every day. So much nicer than what we have going on in Portland. Looking forward to summer when we can hit the pool and the river as often as possible.

On the plane flying to Mexico

First restaurant at the resort

Hitting up the beach which was pretty murky. 

For some reason no one was swimming in the ocean.

Mr. Littles got to feed an iguana, peacock and some koi. 

He was so excited about all the animals at the resort.

Four.

He's been four for 2 months. Four is so much better than three, like exponentially better.

At four we are discovering who Mr. Littles really is. And what he is not.

He is not a sit-at-the-table-and-do-art-work kind of boy.

He loves movement and busy-ness and interaction.

He loves to laugh and make others laugh. The picture above was taken at Pier 39. He had just gotten the bubble maker and was delightedly spraying bubbles all over on our way back to the Ferry Building. The response from people we passed along the way was so fantastic. Two elderly couples on a bench laughed and clapped! It was very sweet.

He is not shy nor quiet.

He talks to people incessantly. We repeatedly remind him he doesn't need to say hi to everyone which he does not understand.

On the ferry he was yelling into the wind, making friends with the other kids and grownups.

He's inquisitive.

Not about everything. But currently he's asking about dinosaurs and spiders. He enjoys making his letters, writing his name and reading books.

Being four means having more involved conversations about adoption and his first family. I think he's really thinking about what it all means. It's a struggle to be developmentally appropriate in my language while being as honest as possible.

Four is a big.deal.

Mindful Monday

“As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

The Way America Works

I just became inordinately emotional trying to explain menacing and threatening to my son.




I know some day it won't matter how sweet he is, he'll appear that way to someone.





"In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate."
Toni Morrison

Robot Boy

"My name is Nee Nork. I come from miles away."
Someone can't wait for Halloween.

The Police

"Where those police mama?"
"Yes."
"Do police put people in jail?"
"Yes."
"Bad people?"
"Well...sometimes they've done something bad but sometimes the police make a mistake and they put a good guy in jail. And that's a terrible thing."
"Why?"
"Because jail is terrible. You don't get to see your family or friends. You don't get to do anything you want to do."
"Oh."

---------


The worst part of parenting is having to slowly chip away at how fantastic your kid thinks the world is.

What we've been up to...

Despite my belief that not very many people read this blog (and I'm assuming most of them are family members) I still feel slight anxiety when I haven't posted for a long time. I don't necessarily count the photo heavy posts as real posts although I'm sure the few people who read this are much happier with the photos of cute Mr. Littles than my rambling, photo heavy posts feel like cheating somehow.

So...what we've been up to:

Mr. Littles:

He is about to turn 3 in a couple of weeks! THREE! How does that happen? I know how much of a cliche it is to say "It goes by so fast!" but it really goes by SO FAST. I'm sure there's some sort of phenomenon about time speeding up when we age because of the way we interpret and process experiences and events (I think Ben mentioned something he heard on NPR once. Nerd.) but really it just seems that a few months ago he was barely talking and walking and so much more compliant.

Seriously, look at this face!

He's more a bean pole of a little boy these days than a chunky, thick roll of a baby. 

He's also hell on wheels. He's a whirling dervish of a boy who likes to run and jump and throw and yell and sing. Terrible Twos my ass...Two was fantastic! Three is about to be a bumpy ride. 

But underneath all the tears and anguish (mine) is the realization that I have a beautiful, strong willed, developmentally appropriate three year old. And that, as always, is a privilege and a delight. Even on nights like tonight, when I have a cold and am tired from an incredibly busy day at work, I know how lucky I am that I get to experience the hardship of raising a 3 year old toddler.

Me:

I started a new job 2 months ago. I moved from outpatient social work at a clinic to inpatient social work on the stroke floor of a hospital in Vancouver, just across the state line. I hemmed and hawed over the decision for a week before just deciding to take the job. I have been so incredibly happy with it so far. It's demanding, I am busy the moment I get to my floor to the moment (usually late) that I leave. It's put a damper on my running and training for the 1/2 marathon (how do other moms manage to run when they work outside the home?) but I am really enjoying the work. It's a challenge and that's exactly what I wanted.

I was asked to be a participant on a Transracial Adoptee Panel put on by Adoption Mosaic. It is quite an honor but makes me nervous too. I think I'm the only adoptive parent and I hope I'm not off-putting to prospective adoptive parents out there but they may not be thrilled with my take on the concept. It's evolved a lot since we first submitted that application a lifetime ago. Regardless, it is an honor to be asked. I love volunteering with Adoption Mosaic and only wish I had more free time to spare.

I am officially involved with Roots Ethiopia as a board member. (Don't go looking for my bio or photo yet, it hasn't been updated.) This means that a trip back to Ethiopia is planned for late May. I'll be going with some other board members and, hopefully, the director of Roots. It will be a work trip to check in on current projects (school sponsorships and income generating activities/IGAs) and to see what other projects we may be able to tackle. In talking with the director it appears that I will be putting my outreach and volunteer mobilization skills to work.

This really is the icing on the cake for me. It's me putting my ass where my mouth is so to speak. I think that Roots is already doing great work in the region where Little Babes is from and I am so proud to be a part of it in a way that is a partnership and not so much of a charity.

Ben:

We'll leave him out of this. He hates to be in the spotlight anyway. He is fully recovered from back surgery and has a bad ass scar to prove it.

Oh yeah...and there was this: