Karen's Journey

Taken the morning after our 18" spring snowstorm.

Thought it might be fun to share some things I've posted on facebook about our daily life with T. In no particular order: Teshale, last night when I made him blow his nose: I don't like you. Me: It's not my job to be liked. T: It's not my job to like you. Teshale is mad at me, and now he says he's going to marry someone ELSE when he grows up. Why is it never "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"? That's what I need to do on every long run; take the little Ethiopian with me on the second loop -- so I can listen to "You run slow." "I walking faster than you running," "I want to run fast," "Can I run fast now Mommy?" the whole way. I usually kiss Teshale on the ear to wake him up in the mornings. It usually makes him laugh. Yesterday he whined, "Stop it! You're getting my ear all germy!"   Teshale has officially been inducted into America's organized sports culture. Lacrosse started tonight. "Wh

I'm getting better at handling the squabbling that goes on between T and his older sisters -- ages 13 and almost 17. We've really been struggling with the tattling that goes on between them. "R threw a ball at me and hit me in the back." "T pinched my foot." "T has his shoes on the couch." "S won't move her foot off my train track." I've reformulated the rules of telling vs. tattling. We've always had as legitimate reasons to "tell": Bones (as in broken) Breathing (as in not) Burning Bleeding Essentially, if someone has hurt himself or is imminent danger of hurting himself or someone else, it is okay --and even advisable--to tell an adult. But telling for the purpose of getting someone else in trouble is tattling. For instance "T is riding his bike without a helmet," is legitimate. "T left his bike outside" is tattling. To that a fifth 'B' has been added: Bullying. A child should

Watch: One Day Without Shoes VIDEO I'm a little slow writing this post, but even if you can't participate in this year's "One Day Without Shoes" event, you can join in the effort to make sure no one in the world goes without shoes. It's a cause near and dear to my heart, because little T had no shoes until we bought him a pair in Addis Ababa, after figuring out what his shoe size was. When he lived at home, he was barefoot. When he lived in the orphanage, he wore communal crocs, ususally on the wrong feet. He's a long way from that now, so sometimes it's easy to forget. But we just got photos of his family, and there stands his oldest brother, in bare feet. My son's brother has no shoes, and there's nothing we can do about it ourselves; we can send nothing of value to his family in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety in the adoption process. Can your child attend school without shoes? Neither can children in Ethiopia. So a fami

"I happy you my Mommy and Daddy." Teshale has often shared that he misses his house and his family in "'topia." He seemed to really like his new home until his English expressive language developed to the point he could talk about his feelings, and likes and dislikes. "I no like this house," he would say as we would return home after school. "I want MY house." "MY house" means his house in Ethiopia. "I no like this house!" he would say at bedtime. "I want MY house." For quite a while, he expressed his desire to go back to his family in Ethiopia. He seemed to like us ok, but let's face it; he knows he has a "real" family in Ethiopia -- "real" in the sense of the one he was born into. He remembers his siblings and his Gashe -- his uncle, and the woman he called 'Ama' -- mother -- quite clearly. And he misses them terribly. If someone plucked me up from my home in the northeas