bodhi tree swaying

Father’s Day greetings from Maia and Malkias

The kids and I spent the day up at Lake Winnipesaukee today, celebrating a neighbor’s birthday. The birthday girl is standing on the left, and front. We had a great time. We took a boat trip to Meredith. Malkias saw a train and got very excited. Maia went swimming in the lake in her party dress. So it goes.

Malkias is now 21 23 months two year old, and adding new words to his vocabulary every day. Until his second birthday I tried to keep a running list of the words he used spontaneously and in context, but it got so hard to remember which words he’d used that I decided to give up on tracking his vocabulary development — or at least to stop trying to write it down. I’m sure in fact that I haven’t managed to catch every word he’s used, and that he knew and used at least 500 words by his second birthday. This list, by the way, excludes many words that he’s only used immediately after he’s heard someone else say them, and words he’s said but it’s been hard to know whether he understands them (for example if they’re words he’s repeating as part of a rhyme or a song)….

This is a list of the words that Malkias spontaneously uses in an appropriate context. There are many more words he says but only in repeating them soon after he’s heard us use them:

Words up to November 19, 2009.

1. ball
2. bath
3. beep
4. beh-bee (belly button)
5. bye
6. cheese (when having photographs taken)
7. daddy
8. down
9. eye
10. here
11. hi
12. help me
13. honey (as a term of endearment)
14. hot
15. light
16. me
17. miaow
18. mine
19. muh-muh (milk) – but this and mommy are almost interchangeable
20. mommy

…

Just a couple of days ago Malkias (who just turned one) started saying “daddy.” He totally skipped the “da” and “dada” stages and went straight for the full word. He pronounces it with a very long first A, so it’s “daaaady.” I find this utterly adorable, and I’m experiencing a new surge of love for the wee fellow. (In other news, Maia was today heard calling him “Little baby fella.”)

I recorded a brief snippet of us having a “conversation.” Here it is.

Do you think it’s as cute as I do?

(Apologies for the loud crackle a few seconds in. Malkias goes wild when he sees m iPhone and I was having to maneuver it rapidly to keep it out of his line of sight.)

This is from last week: July 23, 2009. This was the first time we’d ever seen Malkias crawling, or at least using his feet to push himself forwards. Up until this point we’d only ever seen him rolling to get where he wanted. My iPhone was the bribe that we used to get him to move forwards. (The strangulation hazard isn’t always there, by the way.  My wife had been vacuuming and hadn’t got around to putting the machine away).

He’s making good progress. When we took charge of him (May 30, 2009) his legs were very floppy and dangly. He’s now developing sturdier legs and although he’s not ready to bear his weight he’s moving in that direction.

I’m using the Wordpress iPhone app, which I’m not too familiar with, but if all has gone well you’ll see a picture here of my son, last week, having his first solid food. Today he crawled for the first time, and we even managed to get it on video.

This is the window of Malkias’ aunt’s house in Aleta Chuko, south of Awassa. She had a lovely, spacious house, with a bamboo floor and a large garden to the rear.

In Oromia province, south of Addis, I saw a lot of men plowing with oxen. It was hard to get pictures because by the time I’d spotted them we’d have zoomed past.

There are loads of these storks at the fish market at Awassa. It’s hard to get decent pictures of them; every time I would point a camera at one, some “helpful” young boy would throw fish at it, hoping for a tip. It’s hard to photograph a stork when it’s running to get a piece of fish….

I’m typing in an internet cafe on Bole Road in Addis on one of the world’s oldest and most rickety keyboards, so please excuse any typogaphical anomalies.

We moved in to Horizon house on Friday and took charge of malkias on Saturday. BY that time he knew us quite well since we’d been visiting him every day for two weeks, and we’ve had no problems with him accepting us. in fact he’s very calm and happy with us. By the time we moved in he was smiling broadly when he saw us.

He’s well, but is cutting a tooth (top left) and the excess salivation is causing him to cough, especially at night. This has caused some lack of sleep, but we’re all doing fine.

Maia’s showing some signs of jealousy, but she also loves him. She’s learning which way his body doesn’t bend.

We had our trip to the US Embassy yesterday (monday) …

We’re at the end of the stay at our funky guest-house, which means we’re moving to a lovely suite at the orphanage guest-house and won’t have to schlepp across town anymore. Hurray!

Yesterday we went to visit a shop that sells goods made by former women wood-carriers, who have very hard lives lugging wood from the countryside into the city to make pitifully small amounts of money. We also visited Entoto market. So we’re now well stocked on souvenirs. We took Maia to the Ghion hotel, where there was a fairground. And then we walked over to Horizon House to spend some time with Malkias.

Maia’s getting very good at football.

She loves holding her little brother.

So do I….

Here’s a picture of me, Maia, and Malkias.

We had a great trip down to Awassa (actually Boracha, just outside the city) to see Maia’s aunt Manjitu, and then down to Aleta Chuko, another hour south, to see Malkias’s aunt, Yeshi. Here’s Maia and Manjitu.

We found out that Malkias is probably only 9 1/2 months old, and not 13 1/2 months old, as we’d been led to believe. That makes a lot of sense when you take his cognitive development into account.

The days after the visits we went to the fish market (much more interesting than it sounds and fed the monkeys. We got some really great pictures. Here’s a colobus monkey.

We’re going to start spending more time with Malkias this week. We’ll probably …

So tomorrow we’re off to Boracha, which is just outside Awassa, and to Aletachuko, which is about 90 minutes further south, to see Maia’s and Milkias’s birth families. We’ll be back sunday.

The stay here is going well. We’ve been doing a lot of walking around town, and everyone comes up to talk to Maia, who is “konjo” (beautiful).

There are rolling power blackouts that seem to come about every three days and last for just under a day. We dine by candle-light. I love Addis and could easily live here. For a while at least.

It’s nice to have some simplicity, and I’m finding that being offline is very good for my writing. I’ve finally tightened up the thesis of my book on the six elements, which is a relief. I think I needed to get away from the distraction of daily life in order for new ideas to percolate through.

Maia’s …

Yesterday (Tuesday) I spent the morning catching up on emails and then managed to get some writing done. In the afternoon we walked the four kilometers from our guest-house to Horizon house. Given that I was carrying Maia in a front-carrier it was a fairly long walk, but much more interesting than taking the car. We were able to notice things like boys beside the road, roasting corn on hot charcoals, and women selling candy by the roadside. My trouser cuffs were covered in mud by the time we got to HH, because of all the construction sites we passed. We tried to find out the names of the streets we passed, but many of them had no street signs. Maia slept almost all the way.

We spent more time playing with Malkias. Hopefully he’s becoming more familiar with us. Did I mention before that he’s babbling? He often says …

We arrived in Addis two days ago after a relatively comfortable journey. We all managed to get some sleep on the 12 hour flight from JFK to Dubai, and then we got some more solid sleep in the Millennium Hotel there, although we had to be up at 5:30 after getting to sleep at 11:00. The hop from Dubai to Addis is only three hours, and was also pleasant.

A driver from our guest house picked us up. The place we’re in is clean and bigger than I’d expected. The people that run it are very friendly and welcoming, and take good care of us.

Of course our first priority was to go see Malkias. Yonas, a taxi driver who does a lot of business with Horizon House, ran us over there. It’s a little under four miles away. It’s closer as the crow flies, but there’s no very direct route.

Malkias …

Tomorrow we set off on our journey to Ethiopia, during which time we’ll meet our adopted son, Malkias, for the first time. We’ll be there for three weeks, which we hope will be ample time for him to get used to being with us, and to let go of being cared for by the nannies at the orphanage.

It’s been a long process, and I’m glad it’s coming to fruition!

I’m also looking forward to seeing Ethiopia again. It’s a beautiful country full of kind and intelligent people.

I’ve been rather busy with other things and haven’t updated my blog recently. But here’s a great way to break the silence!

We just heard that our adoption cleared the Ethiopian courts and we are now the legal parents of Malkias (his birth name is Milkias but we’re making a slight change to accommodate his name to US pronunciations). We’ll be flying over there, with Maia, who was also born in Ethiopia, in the next few days.

We just heard this morning that we’ve been matched with a baby boy in Ethiopia. His name is Malkias, but because of Ethiopian regulations (very sensible ones) I’m not able to post his photograph. You’re just going to have to take my word for it that he’s very, very cute.

Apart from an sudden onset of paperwork, there’s nothing to do now until we get word of when we’ll be traveling to Ethiopia to meet Malkias and to bring him home. Our best guess at the moment is mid-April but it could be a little sooner or later.

We’re very happy!