The Spirit of Christmas

I've mentioned that Noemi is quite spirited, no?

I really didn't expect anything less from her.

Merry Christmas, baby. Mamma loves your passion.

Peace and Jolly

I thought I'd share photos of our mantle decorated for Christmas. We’ve had to forego all other decorations including a tree due to the furnace snafu, so our mantle feels a bit extra special this year. We are cleaning up oil soot again around the house after we had a second (yes—believe it or not) episode of our furnace poofing subtle yet invasive oily dust all over the house (hence my lack of posts in the last few weeks). Every square inch of the house was professionally cleaned by a team of folks through our home-owners policy, but now they’ll have to re-do much of what was already done. Many items can’t be saved, like window treatments, rugs, food and things that Sosi routinely puts in her mouth. Uh—that’s just about everything. We’ve finally figured out the problem with the furnace pump, but not after a few weeks of us pulling out our hair. Ahhh—trying to keep things in perspective…

Our mantle includes a Bolivian nativity that Donovan gave to me the first Christmas we were married. I just adore the round plumpness of Mary, Joseph and the Kings. Baby Jesus is nestled between them in a bed of evergreens. We also have a silver cross that we brought back from Ethiopia along with a painting from Ethiopia depicting a new Jesus surrounded by his family, shepards, animals and an angel. The best part for me is the holy top of the mantle combined with the sweet sentimentality of the lower half. My dear Aunt Kay, who is more like a grandmother to me, has knit stockings for all of the family members since before time. Her trademark is the angora that she uses for Santa Claus'’ beard—the older the stocking, the fluffier his beard. So, I have mine from 1976, Donovan’s from the year we married (1998) and this year Aunt Kay sent us a package with Noemi’s stocking. This was the first year I ever hung stockings; and I love them. And if Jesus gets wiggly up there on the mantel and looses his balance, Santa’s soft beard will cushion his fall.

Wherever you are, however dirty and disrupted your house, however anxious you are for your someday-coming baby, may you be filled with a sense of peace this Christmas…and maybe even a little jolly.

Back In the Saddle

I return to work tomorrow. If you had asked me about this a few weeks ago I would have teared up (ummm, and really I did); but I now believe the change is gonna do me some good. I love my job. I just feel a sense of disbelief that three months have passed. I do feel that the time was spent wisely—doing exactly what I was home to do—care for Noemi. I guess I just feel like the time slipped by without us getting to do as many of the casual “enjoyable” things as I had hoped. When I look back this has been an extraordinarily stressful, though magical, three months. Sure, the adjustment of just becoming a parent is nuts; but the extra junk heaped on felt like almost too much at times. I know in my heart that my time with Noemi was wisely spent. Getting her healthy (still working on some mystery rashes/sickness and ear infections) and teaching her that she is loved were my priorities. And that is precisely what I did. I suppose the little fantasies that I had in my head of spending more time with friends and family doing parent-like things like play dates, trolling around our farmers' market or going to pumpkin patches were just that—little unicorn and rainbow fairy tale fantasies. We did some of that, just not as much as I had hoped.

I have a feeling that I am going to look back on this period of life and realize that I was living an out-of-body experience. I suppose most new parents would say the same. But I have so many happy moments to hold on to; moments that I will always cherish as "the beginning" for our rookie family. I've learned that Noemi is strong, resilient, funny, eager, bossy, curious, joyful, engaging and persistent. Above all else, I've learned that she is just like her momma in many ways. When I was in Kindergarten my teacher told my mother that I would never be found at the back of the line in life. It is safe to say that Noemi takes after her momma in this respect. And so, my time at work will likely do both of these strong-willed girls some good. Noemi is ready to have her loving grandmothers care for her and I am ready to put on high heels and lipstick again. At least for 2 and a half days a week.

Last night as I was fixing Noemi’s bottle before bed I poured myself a glass of wine. She pointed to it sitting on the counter next to her bottle and said, “mmmmmmmm.” “Yes, baby,” I said “that is Noemi’s milk and that is Mommy’s milk—mmmmmmmm.” We have a mutual understanding of the good things in life--this girl cracks me up. I think we’ll be alight.

Advent's Blessing

Noemi was baptized on Sunday morning. We felt it symbolic to have her baptized on the weekend of her birthday and the first Sunday of Advent. Advent has taken on new meaning for me in recent years. As each year passed that I waited for a child I found new ways to appreciate the holy story of a beloved baby coming into the world (or at least tried to). I did not wait with great patience; but this Christmas I get to celebrate Advent from the perspective of the joy at the end of the waiting. We had a dress made for Noemi in royal blue (thanks to Illiakids), the liturgical color of Advent, to symbolize the beauty and blessing that emerges from waiting. Doesn’t she look so snappy with our pastor, Bill? We also bought her a cross while in Ethiopia to give her on her baptism day, but we didn’t put it on her knowing that it and the little shiny beads would end up in her mouth. I could barely contain myself as I watched Bill pour the water over her head and bless her. Of course she cried after the third pour left water rolling off of her curls and down her face—I found it perfect that she waited to wail until being blessed in the name of the holy spirit. What a glorious moment to see our daughter being formally welcomed into Christ’s family. My life-long friend, Carissa, stood as Noemi’s Godmother and the three of us took vows to raise her up to know that she is loved by God. With God’s help, baby, we will.

Carissa, me, Noemi, Donovan and Bill

Noemi stopped crying immediately after going to Donovan--we were all laughing at her drama.

Taking a break with her big cousin, Salena.

Her sparkly new Ethiopian cross

We were fortunate to have family and friends present for the big celebration. What a day filled with happy and fun. My mom made a lamb cake to commemorate the christening which is quite a tradition in our family. This cake, however, was the first brown lamb in our family. How does a brown coconut lamb with raisin eyes and a maraschino cherry nose not make you smile, come on!? Only for you, Noemi!

Sosi posing with Nana and the infamous lamb cake. Thank you, Nana!

Noemi Turns Toddler

How old is Noemi???

Noemi's first birthday was on Saturday. I can’t even believe it. She is like a three-month-old in my mind since we have only known her since August. We had a fun-filled day planned for our new toddler, but it got cut short when we woke up to our oil furnace having gone awry in the night and there was black soot everywhere in our home. Ugh! The kicker is that I had just cleaned the house from top to bottom (I hate cleaning) in preparation for her birthday party the next day and my shoulder had been dislocating like a hiccup, so gimpy me needed to try to clean with my Storm Trooper brace on. Lovely. We spent much of the day trying to get the soot off of the major surfaces so that the house was kid safe and clean enough to have our family descend on our home.

We didn’t let the day pass without taking Sosi to a funky little petting zoo in the heart of Lancaster County farmland—too funny. She got a total kick out of the donkeys, goats, llamas and even the hairy pig. We didn’t anticipate how cold it would be, so we spent some of the time allowing the goats to entertain us from the comfort of our car. It didn’t matter to Noemi—she had a ball either way…and we had a ball watching her ooooh and aaaaah over every oinking, quaking and bleeting thing. Love my girl.

Noemi was baptized at church on Sunday morning—I’ll post more on that later, but it was definitely a special morning for us. Noemi did great at her birthday party later that afternoon. She hung like a champ with all of her cousins, un-phased for the first time by the chaos. It’s been great to watch her become increasingly comfortable running with the big dogs and joining in on the fun of other children. She is growing in so many ways.

She also enjoyed chowing on cake for the first time--thanks to my cousin Alisa for her adorable monkey and heart cake baking talents!

The highlight of the party? The dog piñata that she picked out. I don’t think she understood that her beloved paper mache doggie would be beaten with a bat by her eager cousins. Happy birthday, baby!

Reunited and It Feels So Good

Whew! Where to start with the fun whirlwind that was our past week? Where else but with our visit from Sosi’s very first boyfriend, Mekonen Oren!

We were thrilled to have the Oren family spend a night with us en route from their home in Indiana to their family’s home in PA for Thanksgiving. It was so much fun to reunite with them after having spent some serious bonding time together in Ethiopia. Mekonen and Sosi were like little hams together again, laughing and chasing each other around the house. I swear those two are like an old married couple--or at least like the two old guys in the balcony on The Muppets. We miss Jon, Rachael and Mekonen already and hope to hang with them again soon! What a great way to kick off Thanksgiving.

Mekonen and Sosi in coordinating pj's at the breakfast table... just like an old married couple.

We love you, Mrs. Rachael!

This one will end up in the slideshow at the wedding, for sure.

A Spoonful of Laughter

Let me tell you about the recent adorableness of Sosi and how she makes me laugh everyday. Like how she barks every time she sees a dog (or any animal that she perceives to be a dog) or how she lunges toward anything sparkly and frantically signs “please” while saying “oooooooooooh.” She is now crawling all over the house after Layla, the cat, and the baby gates are officially up! Sometimes they play like siblings, sometimes they fight like felines… Oh, my feisty girl.

Noemi is gung-ho for sing-alongs, such as The Itsy Bitsy Spider—the toys she gravitates toward are the annoying ones that play garish music. She also wants to be eating anything that we eat, so we are letting her feast on much of our food. Her favorites right now are chick peas, rotisserie chicken, kidney beans and provolone cheese. Throw in some mandarin oranges and Goldfish crackers and this girl is as happy as a clam. She especially likes when I blow on her food first to cool it down—even if it doesn’t need a cooling. Noemi has the tendency to earnestly pack like a chipmunk, so we gotta watch her. She is highly motivated by her little snacks—watch and see. This was the first time I ever found her having pulled herself up to stand...

But some days I feel crazy. Like today. The last week has been a bit rough—back to some of our old antics. We are on a slippery slope with nap time, something Noemi never has jived with (though her nighttime sleep, mind you, is still going very well—whew). We are back to bucking every time I try to hold/rock her before a nap, which is certainly not to the degree it was weeks ago, but never the less its return is discouraging. I feel like a failure when I can’t soothe, comfort or calm my child. I’ve concluded that this girl just really has no idea how to put herself to sleep. It’s been difficult to separate variables. What is her simply becoming a toddler and learning to exert her independence, what is (what appears to be emerging as) her spirited temperament and what could be adjustment/attachment related? This is precisely what is so hard. Depending on the “cause” of her actions, I would react to them differently. Since I don’t know, I am just doing the best I can. Hence the crazies. Hence me not writing as much as I would have liked on this blog—my emotional energy is spent by the time she falls asleep at night and all I can do is think about if I have clean underwear for tomorrow and whether or not I'd rather go into the back of the underwear drawer and fetch the emergency pair or get off my rear end and do some wash.

I think what has made me feel like I am living in a day dream is that Noemi is not like this around other people. It makes sense that she challenges the person that she is most closely connecting with—can I trust her—is she safe? With others, she just goes with the flow. But when she has a day filled with tears and thrashing and then is pleasantly adorable with family that evening, I want to pluck my eyeballs out with a spoon. It’s like I’ve made it all up in my head. So my prayer has been to not have my mood be dependent on her mood, not to doubt myself and to rely on the knowledge that these early days are building blocks for a wonderful relationship with my vibrant, funny daughter—and I am doing a slam-dunk job. I know that to be true because we have lots of laughter despite our challenges—and laughter always helps the medicine go down.

Pics for Your Pleasure

Our good friends Mr. Ryan and Mrs. Janell took some pics of our family o' 3 this afternoon. Donovan, of course, posed Noemi in the leaves. Thought we'd share some. I mean, I know that I am biased, but don't you just want to eat up her cuteness? What a beautiful autumn day.

Girl with the Yellow Gown

In an effort to bid adieu to ear infections for good and ward off potential hearing difficulties in the future, our little Noemi had tubes put in her ears this morning. We decided to go ahead with the procedure after finding out that she had substantial fluid built up behind her eardrums. Yuck.

Our girlie did great and was in and out in less than two hours total. It was an early morning, but we were home in time for breakfast and a long nap. The procedure went as smooth as pie and we were especially relieved when we found out that she had a cyst in her left ear that was removed during the surgery. Hmmm...explains the fingers in the ears for as long as we have known her. What a champ. Despite being instantly freaked out at this point by people in scrubs or white coats coming at her with shiny things, Noemi tolerated the poking and prodding well. And how cute was she in her little yellow gown and ankle ID band? A special thank you to our friend, Monkey, for providing love and comfort when the going gets rough.

Feeling Free

We are on an up here in the Witmer household. Noemi’s sleeping has definitely improved; and we are now up to 3-4 good days for every one bad (awwwww yeaaaaaah). She wakes throughout the night much less than before and those wakings are due to cutting teeth or needing a back rub to fall back asleep rather than the screaming and thrashing of a few weeks ago. Sure, she still has her moments of being over-stimulated but they are much less severe. We hunkered down and tried to create a simple routine free of a ton of stimulation and this seems to have worked wonders. That being said, Noemi has turned a corner and has been tolerating more excitement in the last few weeks, gracefully surviving a birthday party, a trip to my office to meet my adoring co-workers and get-togethers with friends (finally!!!). I’m trying to break her in a bit more so that I don't pluck my eyeballs out from the insanity that is a result of only being with a baby all day.

What’s the most exciting aspect of the last few weeks, you ask? Welp…my resilient Noemi started to show her affectionate side. She now puts her head on my shoulder when I comfort her or pick her up out of her crib. She doesn’t sink in for more than a few seconds but her body is starting to relax into mine in a way that she didn’t do before. Oh, I just want to eat her up when she does this. It’s funny how I didn’t realize the little affectionate things that had been missing until they started to happen. The little oh yeah—she trusts me now and knows I am her mamma things. Like how she is starting to allow me gently rock her when she is still drowsy after pre-maturely waking from a nap or how she now giggles when I kiss her face or play "This Little Piggy" on her adorable Barney Rubble toes.

This is the beauty of being an adoptive parent. I know that we have worked very hard for our relationship to be at this place. It’s difficult to take for granted the simple things—like a quick moment of her nuzzling her nose into my neck while recovering from a bonk on the head. I can see that she is starting to feel safe with Donovan and me and know that we are her favorite people. The mini-moments of knowing that our daughter loves us back are truly freeing. Best yet, I feel a depth of love for her that I didn’t experience the first 6 weeks or so. Not that I didn’t feel immense love for her; but it's safe to say that I was in pure survival mode. What my heart feels now is something of much greater and earned affection. Our positive interactions now far out number our negative ones and my connection to her has deepened in a way I didn’t realize was possible. My prayers have begun to consist of me tearfully thanking God for her more than asking God for grace and strength. This is a sign that the blessing has truly come: to be authentically overcome with thankfulness while simultaneously being freed from fear. God is near.

Trick or Treat!

It's been too long since I have posted anything...not because life with Noemi hasn't been eventful. She is definitely turning a corner and she seems increasingly comfortable with us everyday. Oh, the fun that has ensued!

I thought you might enjoy seeing Noemi sporting her skeleton costume for Trick-or-Treat night in our neighborhood. She started out wearing her little skull cap, but closed the eventful evening sporting Daddy's wig. Our first Halloween with our little ham.

Our Flourishing Girl

Here is a quick video of Donovan and Noemi singing the Lem Lem song that I talked about in my earlier post. It's hilarious to test her--we can start singing it anywhere/anytime and her eyes alert to us and her little hands automatically start clapping. It's like her brain is hardwired to respond this way. The caregivers at Layla House would sing "lem lem" (which means flourish in Amharic) then clap twice and repeat...over and over...it's that simple. And it makes her (and us) smile every time.

Note the drum we picked up for her while in Ethiopia. This girl luvs to drum.

Enjoy...

Our Trip to Ethiopia: The End (really)

Our first family photo

Our last day. sigh. Donovan and I were anxious to be home and start our new life with Noemi, but we were disappointed to not have more time to get to know Ethiopia better. We know we’ll be back. Tuesday AM we woke up knowing that only so many hours remained before we needed to leave for the airport for our overnight flight, so we planned on spending the balance of the day at Layla house. We visited the nursery one last time with Noemi, loving on those babies and experiencing their routines, including learning a little song that the caregivers sing with the babies. The babies would all begin clapping when they would chant “lem lem” (which means flourish) over and over again. We were delighted to witness this, as now we sing this song with Noemi at home. She begins clapping anytime we start singing it. It’s so sweet to have a little piece of her caregivers with us at home.

Saying "goodbye" to our goat friends who lived outside of Ritmo. I wanted so badly to sit Noemi in the grass and take a photo with goats all around her, but we thought this would be less risky.

Later in the day we helped hand out the sneakers from our sneaker drive given that there were enough for each child to receive a new pair. What a blast. Though it was a bit disorganized trying to measure the feet of 150 + children and then find the corresponding shoe size in the 7 tubs of sneakers, we managed to do it. For every child. Oh happy day. The children were excused from school and lined up one class at time to be measured and handed a “ticket” with their size on it. It was hilarious to see which kids were drawn to which sneakers. There was a pair of skateboard sneakers that we all knew would be coveted in the USA, but no one seemed to like them...until...one little boy came along, saw them on the pile and asked if those were his size. To his delight, they were. You should have seen the mile-wide smile on his face and heard us laughing when this lonely pair of shoes found a home on his happy feet. I wish we could show the faces of glee, but we may not post photos of the children’s faces. Just know that the generous donations of 296 pairs of sneakers and money made it possible for each child to be gifted brand new sneakers and a pair of socks to go with them. The old shoes that were in decent enough shape were going to be donated to another orphanage in Addis. Those old sandals were kicked off so fast…

Donovan and I returned to our room at the Ritmo by late afternoon, finished packing our bags and headed to the airport. The 18-hour direct flight from Addis to Rome to Washington DC went as smoothly as one could have asked for. Thank goodness for bassinet seating. I think the good Lord knew that Donovan and I were weary (on top of everything else, we were both starting with ear and respiratory infections) and sprinkled his magic sleepy dust on our baby. She slept virtually the entire ride home. And when she was awake, she was playful and pleasant. I’ll always remember looking out the window of the plane as we crossed over the Atlantic. It was dawn as I listened to Sara Groves' Going Home on my ipod and had a good, happy cry. Well aware that this song was not written about a parent adopting a baby, I couldn’t help but to be moved by the parallel between Jesus adopting us into his family and the joy of our own new little family. I watched my dear husband and baby sleeping beside me and knew that we had survived this together and that life was changing for the better.

Amen and Amen.

I’ve been feeling kind of restless

I’ve been feeling out of place

I can hear a distant singing

A song that I can’t write

And it echoes of what I’m always trying to say

There’s a feeling I can’t capture

It’s always just a prayer away

I want to know the ending

Things hoped for but not seen

But I guess that’s the point of hoping anyway

Of going home, I’ll meet you at the table

Going home, I’ll meet you in the air

And you are never too young to think about it

Oh, I cannot wait to be home

I’m confined by my senses

To really know what you are like

You are more than I can fathom

And more than I can guess

And more than I can see with you in sight

But I have felt you with my spirit

I have felt you fill this room

And this is just an invitation

Just a sample of the whole

And I cannot wait to be going home

Going home, I’ll meet you at the table

Going home, I’ll meet you in the air

And you are never too young to think about it

Oh, I cannot wait to be going, to be going home

Face to face, how can it be

Face to face, how can it be

Face to face, how can it be

-Sara Groves, Going Home