Musings of a Mama

Three Years Home, August 29

2011-08-11T19:12:00.000-08:00

On Children
by Kahlil Gibran (early 20th c. Lebanese poet)

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Sinking Roots.

2011-07-25T20:08:00.000-08:00

TK's questions, as we garden together, are as much sun and good sustenance to me as I am trying to give our plants.

TK: "Mama? Why are there no mommy-long-legs?"

TK: "Mama? If God put the baby Jesus in Mary, then does God have a penis?" Pause. "I think God has a penis AND a vagina."

TK: "Mama? Are there bad bugs, or are they just making bad choices?"

TK: "Mama? Are the carrots ready to pick NOW?"

Where Home Is

2011-06-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

Will all else pale in comparison?

2011-05-29T23:02:00.001-08:00

Early June may be the cruelest time to have to leave Alaska. The trees have burst into joyful green, the waterfalls cascade down the mountainsides with thundering announcement, the wetlands are alive with green and sandpiper and the call of Canadian geese, the mossy forest whispers a thousand names for spring. This is the time of year when Alaskans develop amnesia about the long winter. This is the time of year when light lingers in the sky so long we forget to put children to bed; we linger on our sidewalks talking to neighbors in an 11 p.m. dusk. This is the time of year when all the world -- even the unmovable mountains themselves -- affirms life, life, life! It seems the sky was never dark with rain or grief.

But it is nearly June, and I have sent most of our belongings south on a great wide barge. At night, I lie awake and think of the way the Pacific Ocean's waves must make TK's plastic pastel-colored kitchen and our boxes sway, shift. In TK's room, duffle bags hold our clothing, waiting for June 4, when an Alaska Airlines airplane will carry us away from Alaska, along the coast of British Columbia to Seattle. We'll board another plane to Denver, Colorado.

It's time to go. Our family waits, their arms open, ready to love us daily instead of just on our long visits from the north. Waiting, too, is sunshine, and warmth, and a saner kind of life.

I've lived here ten years -- first in Anchorage, then in Juneau - and I never did become an Alaskan, really. I never loved the manic-depressive quality of living here, the way people are held hostage by sunny days because they are so infrequent, the way people hibernate in the winter and then run themselves ragged in the long days of summer. I never loved wearing mittens and long underwear for most of the year. I never loved the danger lurking in the wilderness: the brown bear that could be in the willows at the bend of the trail, the sudden white caps that could overturn a kayak, the crumbling cliffs that awaited an unwise hiker. A friend who lives in Fairbanks (actually a childhood friend of mine from Iowa) mused the other day as we hiked up a valley in Juneau, "Living in Alaska is hard. It's not for everyone."

I wanted it to be for me, I think -- and for TK. Maybe it could have been, if I hadn't had this increasing ache in my heart that told me I needed to move closer to our family, that this joyful child needs to be raised in the midst of a larger support system than just me, that my own soul maybe requires a steadier and more predictable kind of life. So I'm leaving. I know that in Colorado, we'll find some of what I love about Alaska: mountains, the enormity of landscape that humbles the observant human being, a belief in an outdoor lifestyle. Add that we'll gain thunderstorms, roads that stretch to other communities instead of to dead-ends, an aunt and uncle, grandparents, cousins. But it will not be Alaska.

What will TK remember of this far-north place, in which she spent the first three years of her life in the United States? I imagine her in preschool in Colorado, surprised that her peers do not see glaciers every day, or that they do not go watch bears pull enormous salmon from a creek for entertainment with their parents. I know she will be surprised immediately that the sun goes to sleep earlier in Colorado this time of year; I know she will be surprised to be so hot; I know she will be overwhelmed by all the people and cars and options. Or maybe that will just be her mama being overwhelmed.

I originally titled this blog "Musings of an Alaskan Mama". What has been Alaskan about my parenting of TK? Mostly, my willingness (and hers) to go outside no matter the weather: to bundle up in raincoat, rainpants, rainboots; to fiercely love the outdoors no matter the temperature or the precipitation. Also, my grudging acceptance of the rhythm of life here: we spent many of our winter days in our pajamas, creating art in lamps lit against the darkness outside; now, in spring, we fling open the door and refuse to come inside until our eyes are bleary with exhaustion. Alaska teaches one to live in constant connection with the natural world. It will not be ignored. So says the bear who snoops in our trash most evenings.

I'm not changing the title to "Musings of a Colorado Mama," though -- I'm just a mama, now. I'm really an Iowan farmgirl, trying to transplant herself in some place in which her heart and soul will thrive. I've tried England, New Mexico, D.C., Alaska -- and now Colorado. My little daughter, meanwhile, transplanted all the way from Ethiopia, looks up at me with her wide brown eyes -- and trusts me entirely.

Am I right to go? The dear friend with whom I traveled to Alaska in the first place quotes John Muir: "One should not come up to Alaska too early in life, as all else pales by comparison." Will it be true? Will everything beyond here seem too tame? Alaska. It is grander and wilder and scarier than I ever imagined it would be. . . and it exhausts me. I love it fiercely, and I am tired. Give me sunshine, a garden, roads that go somewhere, a gentler place to raise my child, my family nearby again. I want to rest.

But I love you, Alaska. You humbled me. I couldn't conquer peaks here; I was infinitely small, swept forward in a rushing river with Denali and her attendant peaks gazing impassively forward. Here, I had to submit to the rules of extreme latitude, to the whims of extreme climate. I did not matter here, no more than the bear or the unfurling fiddlehead fern or the incessant rain matters. And so I understood for the first time how much I mattered.

I am just a mama. But I whisper Alaska, Alaska, Alaska in my daughter's ear. Be humbled, be in love with the enormity and unpredictability of the natural world, be bold enough to explore it all -- even if the adventure requires mittens and Xtratuff boots and potential danger in the willows.

But I will also whisper this to my child: after awhile, return. Return to those outstretched arms of family, return to rest.

That's where I'm heading in a week. Alaska will continue her manic summer, and I hope to be cultivating kale and tomatoes in Fort Collins, Colorado. . . my little daughter playing in the sunshine nearby.

Easter Girl

2011-04-27T22:38:00.004-08:00

Easter. Ancient religions -- pre-Christianity -- celebrated the triumph of new life over death at this time of year. Every tradition still whispering in store aisles -- painted eggs, the Easter bunny, chicks, bunches of tulips -- pays homage to joyful pagan rituals that life returns. That's why the Christians chose to celebrate the resurrection at this time of year, but that's for a different blog. This is TK's blog, and so I must say this: I have never met any person who celebrates Easter so fully, in her whole soul. Some glimpses:

1. It is snowing. In April. I am walking grumpily behind TK, who is pedaling her pink and purple bike down the sidewalk. I long for sunshine, blue sky, warmth. Suddenly, I look up and notice that a man walking in the other direction is grinning at TK. A group of teenagers at a bus stop are smiling at her. I throw my grumpiness aside enough to listen. My daughter is singing "Jingle Bells" as she pedals! "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Oh what fun it is to ride to bi-i-ike today!" My grumpiness melts like the snowflakes do as they land softly on the sidewalk.

2. It is a rare sunny day in Juneau, and the annual Alaska Folk Fest is on. TK and I are sprawled on the greening brown grass beside other children and parents, listening to musicians jam in small circles, watching as a woman hula-hoops in the center. The sky is blue, and the clouds are luminescent. Along the edges of this music-filled space, purple and yellow crocuses are blooming. TK spreads her arms and legs wide on the grass. "Ah, Mommy," she exclaims, "yay for spring!"

3. Every day that TK's at preschool, I receive a little written report from her teachers. As a harried teacher myself, I'm always amazed that the preschool teachers manage to write these half-page narratives about every child, every day. As a parent, I treasure them. Almost every one of TK's says some version of this: "TK had a blast today," "TK was so joyful today," "TK laughed most of the day today". I work to learn from such a daily decision to live in life's joy.

4. A teenager at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship jokes to TK, “Easter’s the day we all celebrate when the Easter Bunny rose from the dead!” TK refuses to believe him. She informs him instead that the Easter Bunny didn't die, and if he did, he's coming back, because that's what he DOES. On Easter morning, when she runs out of her room to find a pastel-colored basket, a note from "Osterhar" (the Easter Bunny's German name!) and eggs hidden all over the living room, she nods confidently: "I just KNEW the Easter Bunny would come back. He always does."

5. We wander through the woods, collecting treasures and listening carefully for fairies. "Listen, Mommy!" TK whispers, cupping her small hand around her ear. "I hear the swush-swush of their wings!" We listen together, and then we creep forward along the trail, until we spot a small niche in a hemlock tree -- obviously a fairy house. "We need to leave them craisins," TK pronounces solemnly, and with her mittened hand, she leaves a handful of craisins, an offering, a gift. I believe beside her. The very trees seem to thank her.

6. On Facebook, my mom posts the photos of our March trip to Sitka -- a week from which I'm drawing strength like those crocuses must be drawing strength from the bulbs beneath the ground. In every photo, I look exhausted and worried. I suppose I'm still underground. But not TK. In every photo, TK is grinning -- beside the impressive circumference of a fallen tree in the rainforest, with raspberries on all her fingers, with my mom's glasses on, with her special "water backpack" (a Camelback) on her back. I'm clearly this child's parent, but she reminds me how to taste the world and love it, daily, moment by moment.

7. After a snuggly evening watching a Care Bears movie (remember those little pastel-colored bears with the symbols on their tummies and the moral messages in their stories?), I idly ask TK what kind of Care Bear she thought SHE would be. She doesn't even hesitate. "I'd be Morning Sunshine Bear," she says. I think of the mornings in my life I've woken to sunshine -- the warmth of it, the good grace of it, the hope of it. And I'm sure that's exactly the kind of bear my child already is.

Photo Essay: Orange Tic Tacs (Sitka, Alaska)

2011-03-28T23:10:00.000-08:00

Photo Essay: Green TK (Sitka, Alaska)

2011-03-28T23:08:00.000-08:00

Saving the World

2011-03-21T20:48:00.005-08:00

TK and Nick are superheros today, and I -- merely the mother, after all -- am the office secretary. The game is this: as TK and Nick "work" at play cash registers in their "office" (a Bob-the-Builder tent in the corner of Nick's living room), I am stationed on the couch fielding phone calls from the many imaginary and quite distressed citizens of Juneau who need superheros to save the day.

"Oh! Calling Batman and Super Purple Girl!" I call out. Batman emerges from the Bob-the-Builder tent, his black bat ears askew, his glasses falling down on his nose. Super Purple Girl steps out slowly, concentrating on the sparkly pink lip gloss she is applying to her lips. I clear my throat, ever the good employee. "Downtown Juneau is being attacked by enormous evil butterflies!" I announce. "Will you deal with it?"

Super Purple Girl throws her lip gloss aside, and thrusts her arms into the air. Batman strikes a manly pose with both hands on his hips. "Yes!" they shout together, and they pretend to launch themselves into the air, running pell-mell down the white carpeted hallway toward Nicky's room, where ZAP! and POW! are the sounds of the defeating of evil butterflies.

When they return -- inevitably sporting pretend injuries and exhaustion -- I always breathe out in secretarial amazement: "Oh, wow. You superheros saved the day again!" Nick and TK puff up with pride, and then disappear again into their office until the next phone call. . .

And I perch on the couch, thinking. TK doesn't play superhero with her girl friends. She and her girl friends rock dolls to sleep; they dress up in pink princess crowns; they dance wildly to hiphop music. Actually, TK plays like that with Nick, too. But I'm not just contemplating how special of a friend Nicky is. I'm thinking about superheros, and my daughter's ardent belief in their real ability to save the day.

For about a year, TK has quietly insisted she will grow up to become a teacher or a doctor, and then return to Ethiopia to help people there. Already a girl with a strong sense of justice and empathy, she has recently developed a grown-up look about her when she discusses her birth country: she sets her jaw, and looks out into the distance, announcing that she'll make it better there when she gets older. A few weeks ago, when the two of us were sharing dinner, she brought it up on her own. "Mommy," she said quietly, "in Ethiopia, lots of people don't have enough good water."

I nodded, waiting.

"And lots of people can't get to doctors." Her little brow furrowed. "Like my birth mommy. She couldn't get to a doctor."

I pulled her off her chair and onto my lap and held her close. "Isn't that why you say you want to be a doctor, sweetheart -- and go back there?"

She sat up straight suddenly and lifted her little chin. "Not a doctor, Mommy! I'm going to be a superhero when I grow up, and I'll go to Ethiopia and save the day -- for everyone!" Her deep brown eyes flashed.

I held her closer, wishing superheros were real.

But a week later on another night, the two of us were engaged in a pretend battle between Monster (me) and Super Purple Girl. I tramped into the room, growling and clawing the air, announcing that I wanted to eat little children, when TK leapt off the couch in superhero pose, her hands flipped palm up to me.

"Aaarrrrr!" I growled. "What are your powers, Super Purple Girl? You can NEVER defeat ME!"

"My powers," Super Purple Girl proclaimed in her biggest voice, "are that I LOVE YOU!"

And so the monster melted, and was glad to be defeated and hugged tightly on the couch.

And so TK's dreams of helping Ethiopia are possible, too -- more possible than any mere secretarial mother may be capable of imagining.

I must get back to work, though. The phone is ringing off the hook with distressed citizens, and the superheros will need a snack soon -- and no one can defeat evil butterflies or slime monsters without a little yogurt and some goldfish crackers in their bellies first. . .

Fridays with Nick and TK

2011-02-28T01:02:00.003-09:00

Every Friday, at 10 a.m., TK's good friend Nicky joins us for the day. I suppose it's my "job" on Fridays, though it doesn't feel anything like a job, in that it's pure joy most of the day. In fact, Fridays with these two rambunctious, sweet 4-year-olds are a therapeutic time (thus my loose allusion to the popular title "Tuesdays with Morrie") -- advice about how to live and how to see, a model for how to prioritize my time, a reminder that all one really needs is a great imagination, yummy snacks, and a silly and dependable friend.

I'll let them show you a glimpse of our Fridays themselves.

"While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about."
~Angela Schwindt

It Will Be Okay, It Will Be Okay

2011-01-23T22:59:00.004-09:00

This week, after days of near-zero temperatures and an evil wind, all the heating pipes in our badly built house froze, then thawed, then burst -- then leaked -- then poured. Buckets of urine-colored water poured from the living room ceiling in multiple places; thick rusty sludge dripped from the ceiling of TK's room and my room. We follow the plumbers' advice and cheerfully place buckets everywhere -- until I notice the rusty drips on TK's white bedspread and burst into tears.

Why did I bring my Ethiopian daughter to live in Juneau, Alaska? It's dark here, and cold, and everything either mildews or molds apart into soggy, saturated pieces. The wind howls outside, and the sidewalks are so icy it's safer to drive to the store than to walk. We live indoor lives in this town; venturing outside is a production of hats and gloves and rainboots and raingear that some of my neighbors seem to find endearing, but that I find tedious. Now outside is inside, running in rivulets and waterfalls from cracks in the ceiling. No escape from the water.

While the plumbers tromp mud up and down the stairs, I stand in TK's room and sob in great gasping breaths, the tears streaming down my face. . . until I feel a little hand patting my hip. I look down. TK is patiently mopping up the drips from the ceiling with a dish towel while she pats me reassuringly with her other hand and shakes her head wisely: "Don't worry about it, now. It's going to be okay. It is going to be okay!"

Two days later, when half of the living room ceiling collapses from water saturation in a thunderous boom (while I watch from the couch, where I lie sick with the stomach flu), I chant TK's reassurance like a prayer. It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. Don't worry about it, now!

We move her birthday party to a friend's house -- a sweet, sweet friend who decorates doorways and chairs with purple streamers and balloons, planned party games, and bought prizes just so it will feel festive and warm and DRY. How many times does TK smile at me -- as she dishes up the huckleberry ice cream for everyone, as she plays pin-the-tail-on-the-hamster, as she demonstrates dance moves for everyone -- in that reassuring, wise way?

Aren't I the one who should be reassuring HER?

That sweet little person. Today, we decide to begin a new birthday ritual: to watch the videos the adoption agency (Children's Home Society) gave us when we left Ethiopia two and a half years ago. One is an interview of TK's birth father, including footage of the tukul in which she was born and the land that surrounds it. The other is a video account of her three months at the orphanage -- and our first few days together. For an hour, we watch those videos. I push pause when TK asks me to -- because she wants to know why people aren't wearing shoes in the Ethiopian countryside, because she wants to look at the tukul for awhile, because she wants to hear her birth father pronounce her name again. This is the first time TK has ever seen these videos. We talk, and talk -- and laugh at her toddling self, at the way her laugh looks the same on her baby self as it does on her 4-year-old self. She cuddles on my lap. Above us: the gaping hole in the living room ceiling.

What is calamity, really? Broken pipes and a hole in a ceiling in a rambling three-bedroom house in a good, safe neighborhood in a good, safe town with electricity and free public schooling (and shoes) hardly qualifies. Do I forget sometimes? Do I forget to be grateful for shoes, for shelter, for the safety of my body and the education of my child? Yesterday, I was annoyed the grocery store didn't have kale. Tonight, I was grateful for every bite I ate.

What separates us -- those of us here (even in leaky houses) and there in Ethiopia -- is not the grace of any deity, or a reward for any work, but chance. I celebrate my daughter's birthday with her and feel overwhelmed with gratitude -- and with sorrow, because her birth mother, Amarech, died and did not get to know the wonder that is Mitike, because Mitike is growing up so far from her home country and culture and birth family. And I worry: can I give her the life I so want to give her? The life her birth family hoped she would have?

After lunch, TK snuggles into her warm (and dry) bed with me, ready for a nap. I've just told her a story and sung her a song. She's got one arm around Purple Bear and one arm around me. I gaze at her. I cannot believe how much I love this child. My heart aches with it.

And then I remember to be grateful for that: with love, it WILL be okay, even if the world literally crumbles down all around us.

TK and Baby Jesus

2010-12-31T23:17:00.000-09:00

It's Christmas time, and 3.5-year-old TK -- the daughter of a lapsed-Lutheran, questioning-Unitarian mother; the granddaughter of two Lutheran ministers; the child, by birth, of a country that has embraced Christianity and Islam and animism in neighboring regions -- is trying to understand Jesus.

Jesus. That little baby born in oh little town of Bethlehem, away in the manger, no crib for a bed. Angels-we-have-heard-on-high sang to him, and we-three-kings brought him gold and oil. The cattle were lowing, and Rudolph won't you guide my sleight tonight? Where's Santa?

Jesus. TK scrunches up her face and studies the nativity scene at her nana's house: the tall slender figures carved out of a dark wood; they look African. She's heard the story; her mama's told her many times, from many different angles. But the shepherd with the long staff bothers her. "He's trying to poke the baby Jesus' eye!" she cries, and moves him to the far end of the table. She gathers the others close around Jesus in the manger. They seem to huddle there, as if guarding each other from the cold of the world outside their circle.

Jesus. In a small Lutheran church in a small Iowan town, TK studies a stained-glass window over her aunt's shoulder, and wants to know if that long-haired person in the white robe is Jesus' mommy. Her mama explains that no, it's Jesus; some people think he had long hair. TK whispers back, "That can't be Jesus. He had brown skin. Like ME." She scans the congregation -- all descended from Scandinavia and Germany.

Jesus. TK leaves a plate of lasagna out for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, a mug of orange juice, a plate of cookies, and a drawing. "Do we leave something for Jesus, too?" She's not trying to cover her bases, to make sure she gets enough presents. She wants to take care of everyone, always. The lasagna is because she worried that Santa might eat too much unhealthy food in his travels across the world.

Jesus. Her mommy doesn't know, really. He might have just been a man, TK. What does "Immanuel" mean? "God is with us." Singing, "Christ the king was born today," she asks, "He was a king?" But her mommy isn't sure.

In the glowing light of the church on Christmas Eve, Grandpa Gerry, who is also Pastor Gerry, reads from John 1:5, "a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it." TK's eyes sparkle in the flickering candlelight. She has thrown herself into snow angels, she has wrapped her arms around family members, she has jumped and danced and leaped and skipped. She is a light in a too-dark world.

Her mommy tries to be, too.

Jesus. TK wants a story as she falls asleep on Christmas Eve, tired, finally, after listening for reindeer hooves on the roof. "Once, the world was dark. But then a baby was born. . ." The ancient Greeks told the story of Pandora and her box -- and of what remained after sickness and sorrow had screamed into the human world. "Hope -- the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words and never stops -- at all." Light.

Hope.

Whales Singing

2010-11-07T23:08:00.006-09:00

I have been dreading this moment all day -- this moment when I have to tell TK that our 46-year-old friend and neighbor -- and a father figure for TK -- has died suddenly in a running accident. My own sadness weighs me down; waves of horror at the randomness -- the unfairness -- of it all pummel me again and again. I feel nauseated.

I'm distracted as she chatters about her day in the pre-K room at Gold Creek -- who she played with, a silly story about the playground. Always, she asks me about my day. Always, she asks some specific question, like an adult would do: "What did a student do that was funny, Mommy?" She skips beside me, listening as I talk.

I can't bring myself to tell her the awful news I am carrying.

Finally, I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. I get down at her level; I look her in the eyes. "I have something sad to tell you. . ." I begin. And when I have told her, her deep brown eyes widen and then she murmurs, "That IS sad." I watch her, waiting for the cry of grief and anger that gripped me when I heard the news. But instead, Mitike furrows her little brow and straightens her back, and pulls from Greek mythology: "Who will go to the Underworld to get him?"

I love her. I love that she is nearly four and can barely understand the difference between imaginative story and reality. I love that -- if it were possible to trace Orpheus' path -- TK would volunteer the two of us in a moment. I gather her into my arms and murmur something about mythology and how our friend is actually, really gone.

None of us can comprehend that. The grown-ups in TK's life wander blindly through their days, stunned. Someone healthy -- and that GOOD -- can just. . .die? Someone with two young children, someone who was working to conserve forests, someone who was a good and kind neighbor and friend and father to everyone he met? Gone?

On the second day after we hear the news, TK's questions turn to the literal: Where is his body? Who will bury his body? What will happen to his body? I find these questions painful to answer, and I don't understand why. I grieve.

On the third day, TK calls from her perch on the potty in a restaurant bathroom stall, "Mommy, is he with Jesus?" I have no idea where she's heard that idea, though she claims she heard it from Nana.

"Some people believe that," I say, nodding.

"Do YOU believe that?" she asks, wrapping toilet paper around and around her little hand.

"I'm not sure," I answer.

"Is Jesus in the Underworld?" she asks.

On the fourth day, we discover our pet hamster has died. Normally, Katie and TK would be devastated; in context, the hamster seems even to them like a mere small animal -- and an old one, at that. I break the news to TK as we walk home from school, and she raises her arms to be lifted up. She's silent for a moment, gazing up at the mountains and the spruce and hemlock forests. "Mommy," she murmurs, "EVERYTHING dies." I hold her close, the tears rising in my eyes. "EVERYTHING. Even the trees."

Our friend worked to conserve trees. I've just written a poem about him in which I compared him to a rare yellow cedar tree. Tears begin to roll down my cheeks.

"Even the trees die, Mommy," TK murmurs again.

She doesn't ask more questions after that. She takes action, as only a nearly-four-year-old can take action. When our friend's 2-year-old son arrives in our house, TK wraps him in her small arms and good-naturedly vrooms his truck back and forth across the carpet with him, though she does not normally play with construction equipment. She works hard to make her little friend laugh, and when he announces -- out of nowhere -- his dad's name, Mitike nods encouragingly. She knows, somehow, how to listen -- and how to be gentle -- and how to love.

The morning after the memorial service, I am sitting alone on the couch in our living room, sipping coffee and remembering -- especially the moment I chose to share at the memorial, the moment about our friend's family and our family camping on Eagle Beach and listening to the humpback whales singing beneath the water's surface. I close my eyes. Often, I repeat to myself, "GONE." I still can't understand the word.

Mitike emerges from her bedroom, Purple Bear clutched close to her chest with one hand, and Horton the Elephant swinging from the other. She climbs onto the couch and cuddles close to me.

"What did you dream about, sweet girl?" I ask her.

"Whales," she says sleepily. "They were singing, remember, Mommy?"

No one is ever gone completely. That's why we hold our memories so tightly; that's why we tell stories, again and again. I do not know where our friend is -- but I believe in the human soul existing beyond our human bodies. Whales singing.

I know that we are not the only ones to have lost someone. I know he will not be the only one we lose. Already, in Mitike's little life, our friend is one among many who have died, including her birth mother -- he is just the first in her memory.

I am afraid of such a random, raw world. I am afraid of the finality of death. I am terrified to lose what I love.

TK cuddles closer, and I wrap my arms around her. "We just have to love each other and LOVE each other," she announces.

And so we do. Oh, we do.

Glimpses of Mitike, Aug.-Oct. 2010

2010-10-12T21:41:00.002-08:00

Longings in a Fist-Sized Heart

2010-09-29T10:16:00.002-08:00

On a sunny, perfect blue-sky day, Mitike and I are perched on the top of Gold Ridge, eating apple slices and “talking each other”, as TK would phrase it. We lean back on the pillows of our coats and stretch our feet toward a heather-covered precipice that would make TK’s nana nervous. The wind is warm on our faces, and we are both contentedly tired from the arduous hike up here (Mommy may be the most weary, since TK only walked about a third of the way).

And then, suddenly: “Mommy, I wish I grew in your tummy!” and she is sobbing. Great, heaving sobs – tears running down her face. I reach for her and pull her close, my own tears welling in my eyes.

“Oh, but TK, you grew in my heart!”

That used to work. Now, TK just cries harder and holds up her little fist: “But a heart is only THIS big! That’s not enough ROOM!” I immediately regret the science lesson of days ago.

Soon, I distract her with a lollipop I’d hidden in a pocket of my backpack, and she is on my lap, cuddled close. A juvenile eagle banks close to us, his broad brown wings spread in the wind, and TK points, laughing with joy. But my own fist-sized heart still hurts.

Days before, on the two-year anniversary of TK’s arrival home from Ethiopia, I swept her up in my arms and said, “Remember last year we had a party to celebrate your coming-home day? Everyone brought African food. Want to do it again?” And she burst into tears, sobbing, “I’ve ALWAYS been home! I’ve ALWAYS been here!”

We decided together not to have the party. It’s not about Ethiopia. TK’s proud to have been born in Ethiopia – she tells her friends about it often, and she loves to proclaim that Obama’s daddy was born “in the Kenya country next to Ethiopia”. She loves to read about Ethiopia, to practice the Amharic words we learned at Ethiopian Heritage Camp last summer in Wisconsin, to listen to Ethiopian music. But she wants simultaneously to have been with me every second of her life and to be from Ethiopia.

And I can’t give that to her (or to myself).

Know that, normally, my sweet child is the happiest, most spirited little girl imaginable. She is inquisitive and silly, serious and playful, empathetic and loving. She picks a blue and yellow “forgive-me-not” and runs to me, grinning, in love with a world that makes such perfect little flowers. She claps her hands with joy when “hand-sizer” (hand sanitizer) comes out in foam on her little hands. “Swing me higher!” she yells on the playground. “Mommy, Mommy, isn’t it GOOD to work time-part?” she asks me as we walk together in the woods on one of our new “stay-at-home” days. She laughs when her friend Nicky shows her a slimy stick on the beach. She swings her hips and claps her hands in time to her older sister Katie’s hiphop music.

She’s a happy girl – and a girl who carries sadness and longing deep in her little heart. What can I do, other than hold her close and remind her we’re together now? What can I do, other than stand with her on the mountaintop and be glad we’ve reached THIS place, hand in hand?

The Baby Duck and the Cat -- and Other Moments

2010-08-09T23:15:00.004-08:00

Summer Glimpses of Mitike:

1. On a trip to Miss Effie's Flower Farm near my mom's Dewitt, Iowa, home, Mitike falls in love with a sweet little baby duck, which the flower farm owner is keeping as a sort of pet. Miss Effie has carefully extracted the baby duck -- whose name is Waldo -- from its cage and has let TK and I hold it, now she has carefully put the duck back where it will be safe from the farm's cats. My mom and I then happily wander into the flower gardens to begin filling our plastic milk jugs. Suddenly, we hear a panicked "MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!" I drop my milk jug and shears and run -- I've never heard panic like that in my child's voice. When I round the corner of the shed, I behold my child, gripping her curls with her hands, her brown eyes wide and following the chaos at her feet: a sleek black farm cat chasing Waldo (the baby duck) with obviously evil intentions. Somehow, I catch the cat with one hand and the duck with the other, and then return the duck gently to its cage. I feel a small hand in mine. "Oh, Mommy," Mitike says solemnly. "That cat opened the cage! The cat opened the cage and the duck got out." Her eyes well with tears. I nod, understanding she already feels bad enough. "That is an amazing cat," I say. TK sighs, "Yes."

2. Ali and I are talking in the front seat of the parked car, sharing a quiet moment before we get out to unload the groceries. From the car seat in the back: "Mommy? Aye-Ay?" One of us holds up a hand to tell her we'll be with her in just a moment. Our conversation is the intimate, beloved talk of two people who have been away from each other too long. Again, from the car seat in the back: "Mommy and Aye-Ay? Are you talking?" We aren't anymore. My hand's on her arm; she leans toward me to kiss me. From the car seat in the back: "Mommy and Aye-Ay? Are you loving?"

3. ME: TK, I'm so glad you're my child.
TK: Mommy, I'm so glad you're my mommy.
ME: Almost two years ago, I traveled all the way to Ethiopia to bring you home.
TK: I'm hungry. Could I please have a go-gurt?

4. Mitike examines her belly-button. "What is this for?" she asks. I explain about babies that grow in wombs, about cords that connect those babies to their mothers, about how once Mitike was connected to her birthmother -- to Amarech. "But not to you?" Mitike wants to know. I shake my head, and then wait. "Mommy, you never had a baby grow in you." "No," I tell her, "I knew I wanted to be YOUR mommy, and you were in Ethiopia." "Okay, Mommy. Want to see me bounce on this ball?"

5. We're suddenly far from Iowa, after visiting for almost three weeks. We're far from Colorado, after visiting there for two weeks. Now -- today -- TK and I sit on the edge of a glacial river, gazing up at Herbert Glacier. The rest of our family is exploring the edges of the forest here at the end of the Herbert Glacier bike trail. The two of us are eating almonds and resting. "Mommy," TK says suddenly, "Nana and Gerry could be here. And Aunt Katie and Adam. And everyone!" What does she mean? That we could share huckleberry ice cream right here, that we could cuddle close and listen to Nana's reading voice right here, that we could hear Aunt Katie's laugh and watch Uncle Adam walk barefoot through this glacial mud right here, that we could ask Gram to identify the purple flower growing here, that Grandfather could name the bird that just flew over our heads? I feel full and empty, all at once. I glance down at my child. "Mommy, glaciers are blue," she says.

"Where are you from, anyway?"

2010-07-23T20:15:00.006-08:00

TK and I are in Iowa. Every summer, we travel to Colorado and then to Iowa to visit family. Every summer, our travel gets me thinking about home -- about where I'm from and where TK is from. Tonight, I sit on the stairs of my mom's deck in Iowa's hot humidity after everyone has gone to bed, watching the blackened sky flash with lightning, and I write to understand.

I am from this place. Iowa. I am from purple coneflowers, black-eyed susans, queen anne's lace, tiger lilies. I am from acres of undulating green corn and neatly rowed soybeans. I am from red barns and grazing cows, from green tractors with their enormous black rubber wheels. I am from brown-water rivers, toads in the mud, climb-able oak trees. I am from "Come in for supper!" and basketball games. I am from thunderstorms, billowing clouds, tornado winds.

No matter where I live in my life, no matter what experiences I add to this self, I am from Iowa. I grew here, from this dark brown soil, from these expanses of sky.

But what will my daughter say when someone asks, "Where are YOU from?" She was born in south-central Ethiopia, in the state of the SNNPR -- in a tukul shadowed by tall green false banana plants (enset). In her conscious memory, she is a southeast Alaskan girl from the temperate rainforest -- she dons her Xtra-Tuff rainboots and tromps through the forest searching for blueberries. In the summers, she is part Rocky Mountain girl, striding out up a rocky trail, collecting rose quartz, squatting to admire a paintbrush flower. She is also part Iowa girl, paddling at the front of a canoe on the Upper Iowa with a tiny paddle, munching on an immature ear of field corn, clapping at the "BOOM!" of thunder in a storm.

What other places will shape her? We may not always live in Juneau. Ali and I plan to teach abroad someday. In TK's heart, where will "home" be for her?

Last week, I stood in Gram's kitchen -- in Iowa -- stir-frying pork for dinner while TK perched on the counter beside me, concentrating hard on an avocado she was trying to chop with a butter knife. Mom and Gram sat in the next room in the rocking chairs, talking about the various homes in which they had lived when Mom was growing up. Suddenly my mom asked, "Sarah? What's your first response when you hear the question, 'Where is home for you?'" My emotions got tangled in my throat. I've been struggling to answer that question recently. All I could do -- in a true first response -- was gesture to Gram's kitchen. Here. Here is home.

But I didn't really mean that. If Gram sold her house today, it would be Gram who would still be "home" for me, just as it was my other grandmother -- not the farmhouse she traded for a condo -- who was "home" for me. My mother is "home", no matter what house -- or what city -- I need to go to find her. I'm from people, mostly -- more than places. I'm from Gram's full hugs, I'm from Grandma's sense of humor, I'm from Dad's observant eyes, I'm from Mom's listening ears.

I return from a walk along the cornfields' edge with my mom tonight, and TK (who had been playing with her grandpa Gerry) throws her arms around me in a sweet, full hug, "Mommy! You're home!" More than anything, I hope that is one way she answers when someone asks her adult self, "TK, where are you from, anyway?"

And maybe she will also say, "Ethiopia." Probably, she will also say, "Alaska." And maybe -- just maybe -- she will inhale and catch a whiff of Colorado sage; she will stretch her arms and sense the open promise of an Iowa sky.

Ethics 3.5

2010-06-15T00:12:00.005-08:00

Mitike and I have come to the Juneau Arts and Humanities Center to watch her friend Carmen dance in the JDU dance recital. We settle ourselves excitedly into our seats, and we wait for the lights to dim and the show to begin. TK and Carmen are good friends in preschool; in her little hand, TK clutches a special toy she picked out to give Carmen after the show. But when it's time for Carmen's dance -- when all the little 4- and 5-year-old girls come twirling out in their black leotards and their blue clouds of tutus, my child begins to glower in the seat next to me. Anger rises from her like heat.

I lean over. "Are you okay?"

She mutters through clenched teeth: "Those blue dresses are UGLY!"

I'm so shocked I can't respond for a moment. My child never speaks this way. She's so empathetic, so kind, so loving. And the blue dresses are quite beautiful. I frown to myself, and then react with a stern whisper: "That is NOT okay, TK! That's your friend!"

TK tries to squirm out of her chair and begins to wail. I'm embarrassed. Why is she acting this way? I pull her firmly onto my lap, and prepare to mutter another stern whisper in her ear, when my Mama sense finally kicks in. On the stage, Carmen and the other little girls flutter around like blue butterflies.

"Sweet girl," I whisper to my daughter, "do you wish YOU had a blue dress like that? Do you wish YOU were on stage?"

And then she begins to sob -- great big tears rolling down her round little cheeks. "I want a beautiful blue dress!" she cries. "It's not FAIR that Carmen is four and I'm not!"

I hold her close, and we watch the show, and we even manage to congratulate Carmen at the end and hand her the toy. Carmen's mom and I quietly equalize everything by handing the girls identical frosted cupcakes, too, which fixes most problems. But I keep thinking about fairness -- about justice -- about ethics as my three-and-a-half-year-old struggles to understand them. . .

Like most preschoolers I know (and I know quite a few), TK believes everything in the world should be "fair". Out hiking in the woods, she wonders, "Mommy, wolves only eat bad rabbits, right?" On Memorial Day, when I try to explain all the U.S. flags on the veterans' graves in the cemetery, TK asks solemnly, "But they were all good guys, right?" When Easter rolls into our lives and TK wants to know why, I tell her the story of Jesus' death. "But that's not FAIR that they killed him!" she exclaims. "He was so GOOD!" (She is very satisfied by the justice of Jesus' resurrection). And one night at dinner, after listening as we discuss the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, TK asks, "Were the people who spilled the oil bad? Who did it? Will Obama put them in jail?"

Don't we all want glowing, absolute answers to those questions? Don't we all long for fairness -- for wars to be fought for just causes, for martyrs to die at the ends of truly evil people, for environmental disasters to happen because identifiable people committed identifiably heinous acts for which they can be punished?

Everyone above a certain age (possible three-and-a-half) knows: the world is not fair. Sometimes, you do have to wait until you're four so you can be in the dance class. Sometimes, deep-water oil rigs do break and millions of barrels of oil do spill out into the ocean.

But some of us believe the world IS capable of a little more fairness -- a little more justice. We fight for it, determined. I want to nurture that struggle within TK. I refuse to be the parent who merely shrugs and says, "Well, life isn't fair."

Last week, as Ali and I led a preschool storytelling class at Juneau's Fine Arts Camp, I attempted to narrate the story of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Ali played the ostracized reindeer with the weird nose; the ten preschool-age girls were supposed to be playing the other reindeer. But while their peers happily turned their backs on poor Rudolph and refused to let him join in any reindeer games, TK and another little girl refused. They cheerfully sabotaged my story's plot, extended their little hands to Ali, and pulled her into the circle.

Now THAT'S fair.

I just hope my child would have included an ostracized reindeer wearing a blue-cloud tutu, too.

Empathy Girl

2010-05-15T15:50:00.000-08:00

Mitike loves the Winnie the Pooh stories. She loves Piglet's timidity, she loves Tigger's unbridled energy, she loves Eyeore's wry humor, she loves Pooh's eternal optimism -- and she loves the way Kanga nurtures everyone. For all these reasons -- and because she loves to go to plays -- TK was excited to attend the high school's production of "Winnie the Pooh" last night. But as we watched, my daughter's brow became more and more furrowed. The high school actors had chosen to portray Pooh as depressed, Eyeore as bitter and -- worst of all -- Kanga as an aggressive, tough-love kind of mama who yelled to get others' attention. At one point in the play, Kanga actually hit Pooh over the head multiple times.

"Oh, Mommy," TK whispered in my ear, "that Kanga is so MEAN. The real Kanga doesn't do THAT!" She couldn't stop talking about it. On the walk home from the play, as her brother imitated Tigger's bounce and her sister talked excitedly about hugging the actress who played Piglet, TK kept asking why "the pretend Kanga" had been so mean. Finally, I scooped her up and hugged her close. "I love you, my sweet empathetic little girl," I whispered.

I think I used to think empathy could be taught. I think I imagined a parent -- or a teacher, or a pastor -- could model empathy for others and then guide children to emulate the model. But I did not teach my child to have this large of a heart. Even when she was barely talking -- just home from Ethiopia -- she sensed when others needed comfort. At a friend's house when TK was barely 2, the friend's voice caught as she told a difficult story, and TK climbed down from my lap onto hers. She knew.

At Gram's last year, TK's uncle Adam needed a nap after the 12-hour drive from Colorado, so he laid down in his room. He said he heard the pitter-patter of little feet, and opened his eyes just enough to see that TK had come into the room and settled in a chair next to his bed. She wasn't waiting for him to play (though she adores him); she just wanted to "keep him safe", she told me later.

Who is this child, who looks at me so lovingly sometimes that my heart catches in my throat? When we receive a wedding shower invitation for Aunt Katie and Uncle Adam in the mail, TK asks if she can take it into the kitchen. I follow her, wondering, and find that she is hard at work with her purple-handled scissors, cutting out the photo of Katie and Adam. She taped it to her wall in her room, "so they won't be lonely". When I show TK the photo of my mom's friend Lori, next to the news story of Lori helping build a playground for kids who didn't have one, TK rests her chin on her hands and gazes at Lori's picture for several minutes. "I'm so glad she's here, Mommy," she says finally.

At bedtime every night, TK pretends that her "friends" -- the stuffed animals with whom she sleeps -- are crying. Each night, she asks me to make up little stories about why the friends are sad, and then we work to help the friends resolve those problems. This is TK's favorite part of our bedtime ritual: she teaches Purple Bear that he has to share his toys with Dumbo; she explains gently to Monkey that it's okay that Sally's small, and that it's not okay to make fun of her; she asks Soft Bear to please let Purple have a turn sitting on her lap. Always, TK ends the little talk with each "friend" with a hug and a reminder that she loves them. I know I've modeled that for her, but I'm still amazed: how lucky are those stuffed animals!

She has an innate sense of justice, I think. I wondered why she was taking a different stuffed animal to preschool each day, curious about whether she felt a strong attachment to any of them. "Oh," she said seriously, "I want them to feel special, so I'm giving them turns."

Her empathy extends -- possibly most importantly, in these days of enormous discovery about herself -- to herself. TK has struggled lately as she's begun to realize that her skin color and hair are not like mine. She's especially begun to struggle with the dawning realization that she did not, in fact, grow in my womb, but in the womb of her birthmother in Ethiopia. We talk about it often, trying to understand. One night, TK sighed an enormous sigh and then said, "Mommy, I understand. But. . . I think I'm going to tell myself a stretcher and say I grew in your tummy."

Denial? Maybe. But I think the real Kanga would agree that everyone needs a little comfort sometimes -- especially those special people who spend so much energy comforting everyone else.

TK the BICYCLIST!

2010-05-15T15:40:00.002-08:00

TK got her first "big girl" bike today. . . She biked all the way from home to library and back -- exactly one mile!

In the Grumpy TK's Brain

2010-04-20T21:27:00.002-08:00

TK: "Mommy, I missed you when I was being grumpy."

ME: "I missed you! Where WAS the nice TK?"

TK: "Oh, she was hiding in Grumpy TK's brain."

ME: "Why?"

TK: "She was kind of tired. But -- she's back now!"

Sillinesses

2010-03-27T22:49:00.000-08:00

Who is this beautiful, wonderful child? How did I stumble upon a life in which this amazing little person slips her hand into mine and yells "Yay! It's a beautiful day!" She's weird and silly, serious and attentive, observant and absolutely given to the world of imagination.

She is a poet. She tells her her hands are kissing each other in her sweatshirt pocket. She gazes up at the kite we are flying and tells me the birds will be happier now. She cups my face in her two hands and gazes lovingly into my eyes -- with a grown-up kind of wisdom -- and says, "I love you, my mommy. I DO."

Her imagination is a whole world. I bask in the innocence of it, the intensity of it. She tests out ideas: "Maybe, when we catch the leprechaun," (her older brother and sister were making a leprechaun trap the night before St. Patrick's Day), "we can cut him up and eat him?" She consoles herself: when Ali shows up at the dentist, where TK is trembling in the chair because the dentist holds a drill and is talking about getting rid of the brown spot on TK's teeth, TK lets herself fall entirely into Ali's story that this dentist appointment is actually for Purple (TK's beloved little stuffed creature, who has just two prominent and very yellow teeth). In an attempt to make Purple feel better, TK agrees to let the dentist drill. Ali dutifully pretends to drill Purple's tooth.

For a sensible, rule-following little girl, TK's imagination knows few boundaries. She asks sometimes, "But is it REAL?", but she whole-heartedly believes in fairies, in gods and goddesses, in monsters, in the ability of her stuffed animals to talk and feel and listen, in magic. I revel in her widened eyes. I love to tell her stories at night -- I love the way she follows the narrative (better than many of my middle schoolers, better than some adults), the way she wants to talk about it afterwards. One night, I told her a story about a magic door that let us into my grandma's house, where TK got to meet my grandma (who died several years ago). The next morning, TK asked, "When the magic door opens again, we could have a cookie, right?"

Each morning, we talk to the "friends" -- the crowd of stuffed animals TK gathers close to her at night, carries out with her when she wakes in the morning, puts to bed at night. Each night, a different friend has a sorrow -- we are doctor and assistant, interviewing the small stuffed animal, delving into his/her issues (I do all the voices). When we go out during the day -- to school, or for a walk, or to the store -- TK tells me what the friends are doing -- why they can't come, too. Today, they were watching a movie; sometimes they are at the pool.

I'm not capturing her essence in these words. My words fail me. She laughs, and I think I have never heard a sweeter sound. She tells rambling, random stories -- attempting the narrative structure of her older siblings and of her two mothers -- and I love every silly word. "We are full of sillinesses!" she proclaims, and I want to just hug her close and love her and be amazed forever. She reminds me to imagine more, to laugh more, to spread my arms more to the world and proclaim its beauty.

Learning to Love the Skin We're In

2010-02-10T23:50:00.007-09:00

My daughter is beautiful. Her black hair sproings and curls from her head, wildly chaotic beneath her purple headband. Her chocolate-brown skin makes any color she wears look lovely. Her round dark brown eyes are twin pools, sparkling with her inner light of playfulness and empathy with every part of the world. When she laughs, she crinkles her nose and throws open her mouth and lets the laugh shake her whole body. Her tiny fingers shape "I love you" for me when I leave for work; she squints her eyes in that loving look I love. I am amazed at her beauty.

So why were Ali and I holding our sobbing three-year-old close one night after story-time, listening to her cry, "I'm not beautiful! I'm not beautiful!" over and over? We glanced at each other with fear. Isn't this too early? Ali's seven-year-old, Katie, has begun to compare herself to other girls, to try to define what is beautiful and what is not about her sweet little body -- but at THREE? We held Mitike closer, murmuring into the perfect whorls of her ears, "You're beautiful, we love you."

Moments before, we had finished reading the last book -- a book about bunnies -- and TK had snuggled close to us, happy. She held her hand against Ali's arm. "Aye-Ay," she pronounced, "you have light brown skin." Ali nodded. Then TK turned to me and held her little arm alongside mine. "And we both have dark brown skin, right, Mommy?"

I wanted to lie. This was the moment of her discovery, and I wanted to lie and prolong her blindness a little more. The research I've read says children begin to notice skin color differences far later than they notice differences such as body size or hair length -- at about the age of 4. My friend John, who spent his early childhood in Africa, recalls that his first memory of difference was not that he was the only pale-skinned child among his playmates, but that some of his playmates had outie bellybuttons. It was only later that he began to realize his uniqueness of skin color; he'd felt like he fit in with his innie.

So I wanted to lie, but I didn't. Mitike is smart, and I saw in her beautiful eyes that she already understood, that she knew -- and feared -- what I was about to say. "No, sweetie, I have light brown skin," I murmured. "You have dark brown skin."

"But Mommy," she frowned, her brow furrowing, "I want light brown skin like you."

"TK, your skin is beautiful!" I exclaimed, kissing her little hands. She wrenched them away and buried her face in them.

"I'm NOT beautiful! I don't LIKE my dark brown skin!"

My heart lurched. Both Ali and I wrapped our arms around our beautiful little fragile child. I murmured a litany of all the many similarities TK and I have: two eyes (both brown!), a nose, two ears, two hands, ten fingers!, two feet. She sobbed, inconsolable. We both need to control everything, I reminded her, we both love to dance in the kitchen, we both love to read books, we -- I paused. Ali jumped in to describe a Sesame Street conversation she saw once between Elmo and Whoopie Goldberg about loving the skin you're in. TK quieted and listened. She loves Elmo. I worried that she'd start crying that she doesn't have red fur, but she didn't. She calmed down and let Ali kiss her goodnight; she cuddled close to me in the darkness.

I told her a bedtime story about Purple Bear (one of her beloved stuffed friends) and his mommy, Green Bear -- about how sad Purple Bear felt to realize he was not green like his mommy, but how he began to realize how beautiful he was as a purple bear. TK only half-listened; she began to cry again when I ended the story. Her last words before she fell asleep: "I'm not beautiful." I responded fiercely: "You are beautiful, you are. I love you, little TK. I love you, love you."

This morning, she seemed sad -- she needed to take more special toys to school than usual. Already, I hate taking her to daycare -- I want to be a stay-at-home mom -- but this morning's drop-off felt unbearable. What if some child at preschool is telling her she's not beautiful because of her skin color? I keyed her teachers into my concerns and then drove to work feeling nauseated. All day, I watched my students of color -- especially the ones with healthy self identities. Do they like themselves because they look like their mothers, or because their parents have guided them to love themselves? What am I supposed to DO?

I rushed into preschool prepared to scoop up a sobbing, melancholy child -- and found my happy, beautiful TK sticking glitter and purple hearts onto contact paper. "Look, Mommy!" She held up her creation, grinning. We played all afternoon and all evening, and then we snuggled into bed again -- tonight, to read "The Colors of Us," "I'm Unique" and "Amazing Grace," all three familiar books shouting the theme that every person should love who she is, no matter her skin color. In the middle of "Amazing Grace," TK looked up at me and grinned, "Mommy, I LOVE myself. Do you want to hold Froggie?"

I hugged her close and shouted, "YAY!" to make her laugh; we finished reading. Tonight's bedtime story was a silly one, with no rhetorical purpose other than to entertain my sweet child. She fell asleep smiling, Purple Bear, Puppy, and Froggie held tightly as usual in her little arms.

I watched her sleep for awhile, her face peaceful, her mouth slightly open. I'm afraid. This is the beginning of her search for her own identity in a world in which her mother and, for as long as we live in Juneau, the majority of the people around her do not look like her -- and I will be a flawed guide. But I will love that beautiful little girl with all my heart, and with all my strength. I'm going to have faith that that will count for something.

So. . . Sometimes We BREAK Rules?

2010-01-20T21:53:00.007-09:00

When I pick up TK from preschool the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, one of her teachers crosses the room (with TK, who always deserts whatever toy with which she was playing to sprint pell-mell into my open arms) to give me the daily report. Usually, I hear a funny story -- TK pretending to drive a bus for her preschool friends, TK chasing a "dinosaur" across the playground. The teacher, Ms. A___, who is African American and wears her hair (as TK has observed) in the same beautiful "sproings" that TK does, begins to laugh. "I've got to tell you about how TK responded to the Rosa Parks story we read today," she says.

Now that I've heard the story, I can imagine the scene perfectly. I know my daughter. I imagine Ms. N____ perched on the edge of the rocking chair, holding a children's book about the Civil Rights Movement out for the small crowd of preschoolers to see. Ms. N___ reaches the story of Rosa Parks and explains she was a lady who would not get up from her seat on the bus -- and TK stands up, her brow furrowed in serious concern. "That's not okay!" she calls out. Ms. N___ tries to explain that people like Rosa Parks were actually prevented from sitting where they wanted to by an unfair law, but TK is still standing, her little legs apart, her brow still furrowed. "She was SUPPOSED to get up, right Ms. N___?" Ms. N___ sighs, smiling a little, and then continues to read, explaining to the children that Ms. Rosa Parks was then sent to jail. "Oh!" interjects my rule-following child, "That's good."

As Ms. A___ relates all this to me, she's shaking with laughter, and so is Ms. N___, who has joined us. TK looks up at the three of us and decides to laugh, too, though she doesn't know why. I laugh because my child is so good that she can't imagine a time when the rules are supposed to be broken, but I'm also aware of the strangeness of this moment. Ms. A___ and Ms. N___ (who is Hispanic) are both women of color; both hear the Rosa Parks story through far different lenses than I do. More: someday, Mitike will hear the Rosa Parks story through one of those other lenses, too; someday, Mitike will ask me why our nation -- in its recent history -- would have allowed such racism to be inscribed in law; someday, Mitike will realize that, had she and I boarded that bus, I would have gotten to sit wherever I pleased, and she would have had to choose to sit in the back or to break the law as Ms. Parks and her fellow demonstrators did.

Outside the preschool door, TK and I race each other down the long hallway to the door. At the door, I say, "TK, you know that story about Rosa Parks, the lady on the bus?"

She nods sagely and says, "The lady who wouldn't get up!"

"That's right," I tell her. "She was trying to change a rule that wasn't fair. Some people made a rule that she and other people like her could only sit in the back of the bus, but everyone else could sit where they wanted to." I am not brave enough to talk about skin color. TK hasn't started categorizing people like that yet (the researchers say that kicks in around age 4 or 5); I am "light brown" or "coffee with lots of milk" and she is "dark brown" or "chocolate".

But TK gets it. "It was good she wouldn't get up."

"She wanted to change that unfair rule, so all of us can sit wherever we want to on the bus." Someday, I'll talk about bathrooms and restaurants, cafe stools, schools and universities. Someday, I'll tell her about a man who dreamt of people being judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. Someday, I'll tell her about promissory notes and freedom ringing. Today, we'll just talk about bus seats.

"Mommy?"

I look down at her, so small beside me in her purple coat and her purple stocking cap. She holds my hand and gazes down to the stream that flows beneath the bridge we are walking across. I watch her for a moment, and then answer, "Yes, sweetie?"

"Mommy, at the store, can we please buy yogurt and make it purple and pour in maple seri-up?"

I laugh and sweep her up into my arms, just as the city bus trundles by on the road. I glimpse the people lit blue-white inside, some standing, some slumped wearily into their seats. Mitike and I are walking home today, but if we wanted to take that bus, we could both sit in every single seat in the bus if we wanted to. And we can thank Rosa Parks -- and King, and all those other brave activists -- for knowing they had to break rules to create newer, fair ones. I know: teaching a three-year-old that lesson seems akin to the lessons about rebellion and revolution I'm currently teaching my middle school history students: knowing about necessary rule-breaking is not useful to them yet, since acting upon it will only get them in trouble with the grown-ups in their lives. But someday -- someday -- they'll need this knowledge like ammunition, like fuel, like bread, like a candle that shimmers in darkness. And someday, when my daughter sees someone break a rule because it's unfair, I hope she breaks it, too, as her heart beats wildly to the cadence of "That's not okay, that's not okay, that's not okay."

How Purple Came Into the World

2010-01-11T23:15:00.003-09:00

For Christmas, I wrote TK a little story entitled "How Purple Came Into the World". One of my 7th grade students illustrated it, and we gave it to TK together. In the story, the Creator (a feminine deity) saves the color purple for herself. . . until a little girl named Mitike tells her mommy she is sure something is missing from the world. Mitike's observation and her desire to see purple move the Creator to share the color.

TK loves the story. When we finish reading it each time, she sighs a little and then says, "I had to tell her purple was missing, right, Mommy?" She's utterly convinced of the story's truth and -- frankly -- so am I. I didn't notice purple the way I notice it now that Mitike is in my life; I didn't see so many things. For example, I shopped at Fred Meyers and walked right past the sofa arrangements, thinking they were just there to entice buyers. I never realized one could play "Living Room" for an hour and a half on those sofas (TK: "Now, why do all these PEOPLE live in our house?" ME: "I know! And why did we buy all these suitcases?")

I never thought to love tiny boxes of raisins or little cups. I never looked at a large cardboard box and thought, "That is a castle." I never ran out into newly fallen snow, stopped to look at my footprints, and then ate handfuls of the white flakes just because. I never realized stuffed frogs and puppies must be able to see the pictures in a book, too. I never thought about how funny toothpaste is, or about how good it feels to put on shorts on a winter day and run as fast as possible through the kitchen. I never thought to stop mid-run and yell, "DANCE PARTY!" I never stemmed my sadness with a phone call to President Obama on a toy purple phone.

I never thought to notice purple this much. Or maybe I did, once, and then I forgot when I grew up. Maybe being a mom is a second chance to see this way again. I drink in the perspective, thirstily. I'm so thankful for all that TK notices is missing from our world. Price-tagged sofas become a living room; a box of raisins becomes the day's best surprise.

I love my child.

Bedtime Kisses

2009-12-16T21:30:00.004-09:00

Last night, just before she nodded off to sleep, TK cups a hand on my cheek and murmurs, "I love you, sweet Mommy."

And tonight, TK whispered, "I'm so glad you're my mommy." I whispered back, "I'm so glad you're my child." I closed my eyes and felt a little stuffed animal belly against my cheek, then heard TK's lowered "Froggy" voice: "I'm so glad to be with you guys!"

Glimpses of You in Late Fall

2009-12-06T07:44:00.005-09:00

1. I finish telling you your bedtime story -- part of our ritual, now. You like to add your own parts of the narrative: "and then Froggy said, 'Oh no!'" -- and your own plot twists: "But my Mommy was there, too." Always, though, you quiet down and listen while the story reaches its climax and relaxes into resolution. Then, every night, you sigh with a little smile on your face. "Thank you for the story, Mama" -- and it's as if I've just given you the most precious gift you can imagine.

2. It's Halloween night, and you have excitedly donned a dragon costume to join Tim and Katie and the neighborhood kids in the trick-or-treating tradition. I remember you last year at this time, in America for just two months, puzzled by all the new things you needed to learn. Now you seem to have mastered it. You run up to a house with the other kids, your purple trick-or-treating bag in your hands. The house owner plops a piece of candy in your bag. I expect you to run back to me, eager (like the other kids) to go on to the next house. But you look at me sadly. "Mommy, I'm all done," you say. "I want to give people candy from OUR house." So we go home, just the two of us, and make hot chocolate, waiting for the next doorbell ring, when you can offer the trick-or-treaters candy from the wooden bowl, your face shining with happiness.

3. I leave you at preschool early in the morning and watch you make your way to the snack table. You are wearing your green and purple dragon outfit from Halloween -- I think you love the tail and the claw mittens and the purple belly. One of the preschool teachers -- the one who irks me with her too-sharp voice -- slides your hood off your head. You look dismayed for a moment -- you don't look like a dragon without the hood! I ask why the hood has to come off; the teacher shrugs and says you'll be too hot. You nod -- you even look resigned -- and then walk hoodless to the snack table, where you cradle the hot chocolate I bought you from the coffee shop this morning and the kiss I've just blown to you (you always hold my morning kiss in your hand for awhile, before you put it in your pocket for safe-keeping). I walk to the jeep feeling sad -- tearful. I almost run back inside to scoop you up; I could call in sick; I could quit my job today. But then we wouldn't have rent money or groceries money or fly-to-Iowa money. You have to endure the teacher who won't let you fully be a dragon; I have to be a good grown-up and go to work. Neither of us is fully happy until we see each other again at the end of the day.

4. We've been outside coloring with sidewalk chalk at Gram's house in Des Moines. When I open the door for you, you make a beeline for Gram, who is sitting -- exhausted -- in her chair. You haven't connected with her much since we've been here, and I've wondered if her frailty troubles you -- but now you grab her hands and press them to your round checks. "Feel my cheeks, Gram," you tell her, speaking slowly and loudly like you've heard the grown-ups do. "Aren't they cold?" And Gram grins, cradling those soft cheeks in her wisened hands.

5. You are riding on my back in the baby backpack while we walk home from a hike out Basin Road.
"You know what song's in my head?" I ask you.
"Sing it, Mama!"
And I sing the song you taught me from your preschool: "The leaves are falling down, the leaves are falling down. . ."
"I put that in your head for you, Mommy!"
"Oh, thank you, TK!"
And we sing together all the way home, making up more verses for my head.

6. Your favorite game, lately, is to pretend you are the mommy and I am the baby. "Do you want some food, baby?" you ask me. I play along; you feed me, and then cradle my head in your arms. Then suddenly: "Mommy, how about you be the mommy again? I like that better."

7. At the First Friday gallery walk in downtown Juneau, we see Santa Claus on the sidewalk. This is your first official glimpse, since you were unaware of Santa's existence last year. You gape. Santa approaches and gets down on one knee. "Have you been good?" he asks. You nod wordlessly while he hands you a piece of red and white striped candy. "But, SANTA," you whisper, "I thought you weren't REAL!" Santa grins and gives his beard a good yank. "I'm real," he affirms. "So am I," you say solemnly.

8. How many cups of coffee and milk will we share together in cozy coffee shops, you telling me a long story, me enthralled with the little person you're becoming? I hope for so many that I will lose count.

9. We are climbing the tall, tall slide at the playground in Des Moines, while Aunt Katie snaps photos. I imagine how the photos will look -- me guiding you up the ladder, you looking upward with determination. The metaphor is obvious, but only partly true. So much of the time, you're leading me, showing me how to do this mama thing.

Afraid of Monsters -- Vignettes

2009-10-17T08:05:00.003-08:00

1. TK runs pell-mell through the living room, paraphrasing Maurice Sendak in a loud shout: "I AM A WILD THING!" She bares her teeth and wrinkles her nose; she raises both of her little hands in claws. I pretend to be afraid. Ali always jumps up on the couch and mock-screams. Tim shrieks like he's seen a rat. Katie laughs. The Wild Thing, who never goes without her dinner, giggles and then bares her teeth at us again.

***

2. When I turn out the light at 8:32 p.m., TK, after an entire day of being the sweetest girl imaginable, turns into a monster, yelling "NO!" and thrashing around on her bed and screaming "I will NOT go to bed!". I calmly tell her I'm going to the living room until she becomes my sweet girl again; she proceeds to sob uncontrollably and beat her legs and arms against the bed. This continues for ten minutes (while I'm in the living room, trying in vain to have a half-way normal conversation with Tim about the Greek gods).

Then: "Mommy?"

I move to stand in the doorway. "Yes, TK?"

"I'm all done being a monster."

And I snuggle into bed with her, and she nestles close, and I inhale her non-monster scent of olive oil and almond butter lotion, of crayons and cupcake batter.

***

3. I burst through the door of Gold Creek, TK's preschool/daycare, and sweep TK up in my arms. We smile at each other, in love. Then I read the note her teachers have taped to her locker: "Mitike bit another child today." I read it again; I sense TK watching me read it. I meet her eyes. "You are a little girl. NOT a creature. I'm not happy." That's all I say to her, but she bursts into tears, and we walk in silence the entire way home. Her teachers told me the other child was aggressively trying to pull a toy away from TK, that TK -- who is incredibly articulate for her age -- must have panicked and resorted to biting. But I want to teach my daughter never to resort to violence. The silence is serious; it walks between us; TK keeps her little head down. She knows.

At the corner before our house, I stop and lift her up in my arms. I tilt her chin up so her eyes meet mine. Oh, her poor eyes are brimming with tears. "Mitike, my little monster," I say gently, "I love you, no matter what. Okay?"

She nods, and says seriously, "Mommy, next time I'll use my words. I'm so sorry."

We stand in the rain and hug, and then we walk up the hill singing a silly song we learned from a book about a lizard: "Zoli, zoli, zoli, rock is my home, rock is my home, zoli, zoli, zoli." And my little monster looks so happy, singing in the rain, her little arms wrapped around my neck.

***

4. "Mommy! There are monsters on the walls!" TK clutches the covers and points fearfully at the far wall, where her nightlight casts strange shadows.

"Those are just shadows, sweetheart," I mutter sleepily.

"They're bugs! They're bugs, Mommy!" She begins to cry, covering her head.

I stand up and pretend to shoo away bugs. "Go away!" I shout, and then glance back at TK, who is nodding solemnly. I snuggle back into bed with her.

"Sing me a song, Mommy," she murmurs in the shadowy darkness.

***

5. We attend the high school production of "Little Shop of Horrors," which is -- incidentally -- far more horrible than the movie version. I murmured "it's just a puppet, it's just a puppet" into TK's ear the entire show, but she seems a bit shaken when the lights go up at the end (so does our 9-year-old, Tim). "Mommy," she says, her eyes round saucers, "that plant ATE people. That's not okay."

***

6. "Mommy," TK asks me one day as we drive to her daycare, "when you're at work, who keeps YOU safe?"

***

7. TK and I chase each other back and forth across the kitchen and living room, pretending to be monsters, "rawrring each other", as TK calls it. She stops and looks up at me, sudden resolution shining in her dark brown eyes. "Mommy! We just need to stare into their yellow eyes, Mommy," she explains, quoting Sendak again. She grins and grabs the soccer ball. "No more monsters! Want to play this game now?"

Discussions About HAIR (Etc.)

2009-10-16T06:57:00.004-08:00

"Can I touch her hair?" the white middle-aged woman wearing only a pink towel asks me in the pool locker room. She stares almost hungrily down at my daughter's spiraling, sproingy black curls. I look at Mitike. "Do you want the lady to touch your hair?" I ask my 2-year-old daughter. Mitike shakes her head. NO. The stranger looks abruptly embarrassed and moves away. I lean in close to TK and whisper, "Remember: you never have to let anyone touch your beautiful hair." She nods solemnly, watching with relief as the lady moves away.

I never knew -- before I became the mother of an Ethiopian girl -- how much attitudes about hair can reveal our culture's attitudes about race. As I google new hair products to make TK's tangles easier to comb through and to make her curls bouncier and shinier, I find a raging debate in the African American community: should black hair be left natural or should it be straightened chemically? Which style shows the most pride in being black? Which style shows submission to dominant white culture? A recent Time magazine article (Sept. 7, 2009) recounts the rampant discussion about Michelle Obama's hair -- the black community argues about what style exhibits the most pride; the white community marvels "How does she change its length and its waviness all the time like that?"

I live in an Alaskan community that, while diverse, has few African or African American people. Mitike's hair is rare, and a curiosity. Other children reach out to touch it; adults behave the way the woman at the pool did. Mitike looks at me with her brow furrowed and says, "Mommy, how about you are the only one who touches my hair?"

But my own fingers barely know what to do. Before TK's curls began to grow long (and tangle), I read and read on blogs and websites -- and even in books (proof of my quest to know!) -- about how to care for African hair. I bought organic products that contained olive oil and honey, shea butter and cocoa butter, lemon grass oil and coconut oil. I followed prescriptions from strangers -- spray with water first, then put some olive oil in, then follow with a leave-in conditioner; wash it with shampoo once a week. I was determined not to be like the white mama of a little African American girl in TK's daycare, who was stopped in the Seattle airport by two well-meaning African American women who shook their heads and said, "You do NOT know what to do with that girl's hair."

I've had moments of pride: a woman in Denver stopped us on the sidewalk (my heart caught) and praised TK's "natural" hair; an Ethiopian woman in Seattle nodded at me with approval and then greeted TK with "Look at your beautiful hair!"; a presenter on racism at an August inservice shook her beautiful dreadlocks and told me her pride in her skin color has come partly from the decision she's made to have natural hair -- she complimented the way I nudge TK in that same direction.

Thank you. But what do I do with the way her curls knot and tangle together when she wears her beloved purple stocking cap all day? And should she cry as much as she does when I do the weekly combing of those lovely curls (with half a bottle of the supposedly magic detangler worked into her hair)? And if I let her hair dread, how do we return to curls eventually -- cut it all off? And what will I do if -- like one of my middle school students, who is also adopted from Ethiopia -- she succumbs to the perceived standard of beautiful hair and begs me to let her straighten those beautiful curls chemically? How can I get support for her hair in a community that doesn't even sell shampoo for her (I have to order everything online and pay to have it shipped to Alaska)? How do I counsel her to believe her hair is beautiful? How can I teach her to respond politely to the people who want to touch it -- even if it's out of well-meaning curiosity?

I know it may seem strange to spend so much time thinking about hair. . . but this white mama is beginning to realize that hair discussions are the surface conversations on a vast ocean of discussion about race. In this community -- a community of "white" hair, Native hair, and Filipino hair -- Mitike's sproingy curls are a beautiful curiosity. In other communities, her unstraightened wild locks shout pride in her African heritage. In still other communities, her unruly black hair represents ugliness or -- worse -- inferiority. The presenter on race -- the one with the beautiful dreadlocks -- smiled at me gently and said, "Her hair will be so important." I'm beginning to understand what she meant.

This morning, as I sprayed TK's hair with water, then worked in organic olive oil leave-in conditioner (made by Africa's Best, sold by Amazon.com for $4.99/bottle), then hydrated the back curls -- the ones always submerged under her stocking cap -- with Olive Oil and Honey Balm (made by Quemet, sold by that company for $14/container), then used TK's favorite dark purple sparkly headband to keep her curls back from her face, I whispered -- as I do every morning -- "Look at those beautiful curls!" She smiled at me, and then bared her teeth and yelled in her best imitation of Maurice Sendak's Max (from "Where the Wild Things Are"), "I'M A WILD THING!" and leapt off the stool.

For now, I think, our conversations about hair will be mostly about what color of sparkly band she wants to wear each morning. I'll guard these deeper topics in my heart -- for when my beautiful-haired little girl is ready.

Two Versions of Morning Hair in Our Family

2009-10-15T14:33:00.000-08:00

Belated Reflections on My Sweet Little Pain-in-the-Bum

2009-09-11T05:57:00.008-08:00

I've been meaning to sit down and write about August 29, the one-year anniversary of TK's homecoming to Juneau -- but I haven't gotten to it until now. I had planned to write a sentimental, moving reflection on our sweet connection, on her generous and open spirit -- but on August 29, she happened to be a pain-in-the-bum (we don't say "butt" in our house) toddler: tantrums about nothing, screams of "NO!" at every juncture, refusals to apologize, grabbing, etc., etc. I don't even remember now, two weeks later, what we fought our small battles over that day, but at the end of the day, which included a party in which all our friends and their kids came to our house to celebrate Tk with a potluck, I was GLAD when she fell asleep. Most days, I feel a twinge of sadness -- the sense that we don't have enough hours together in the day. Not that day. Monster TK forced Monster Mama to emerge, regardless of the fact that it was the first anniversary of her homecoming from Ethiopia.

It wasn't until a week later, when our family went to Labor Day family camp out in Echo Cove, that I sat down to write after TK had fallen asleep in the cabin. It was evening, and the ocean's gentle rhythm soothed me as I thought about the day. TK had been fully herself, no monster in sight -- it had been a day of her giggling and snuggling with me while we read books on the couch (our Saturday morning ritual), of her traipsing along the path at Twin Lakes and then shouting "THE RED SWING IS STILL HERE!", of her kicking her legs with glee while we ran around the playground chasing Tim and Katie, of her sweet "Find me, Mommy!" in the clothing store, of her absolute joy at the pink milk I made her for naptime. She donned x-Tra Tuffs for our walk out to this cabin -- 2.5 miles -- but rode in the baby carrier most of the way ("Because I need you, Mommy!"). When I handed a grape fruit leather back to her mid-walk, she clapped her hands and exclaimed, "For me? Thank you, Mommy!" That night, at the campfire with the other kids at family camp, she roasted a marshmallow though her eyes looked exhausted, and now she was sweetly asleep, nestled beneath my sleeping bag, dreaming. THIS was my sweet little girl -- the pain-in-the-bum tucked away again.

Does she ever dream of Ethiopia? Of the tukul in which she was born? Of the orphanage? Of the cacophony of sound in the early morning? Of the gentle mist above the rounded green mountains? I dream of our long plane ride to Juneau a year and a week ago, the two of us facing each other in the cramped plane seat, trying to understand each other, inspecting each other. She learned to say "Yay!" first in English because I responded with that word most often when we played together. I learned before the plane landed in Rome that I wanted to hear her laugh again and again and again, my whole life. I never knew a mother-daughter story could be a love story.

What will I tell her about that journey from her birth country to her adoptive country, which my mom (who I cannot thank enough for accompanying me on that journey) and I talk about and talk about, trying to understand it? We stood in line for over an hour at customs in D.C., and I was exhausted -- she clung to me. In a rush before the next line, I knelt on the floor to change her diaper and -- naked -- she peed an impressive arc of liquid straight up into the air and all over my pants. We caught each other's eyes and then laughed until we both cried.

Ali met us just past customs, a purple iris clutched in her hand. TK knew she'd love her other mommy almost immediately -- two or three games of hide-and-seek behind Mommy's shoulder and she was convinced. Later, she'd bang the iris happily on the window until it disintegrated into pieces. She chanted happy syllables that sounded strange to us -- and were probably unintelligible even to an Amharic speaker.

Ali captured TK's actual arrival in Juneau -- August 29, 2008 -- on film: TK in brown pajamas, happily exploring her new house, a Barbie ball (way go go, diversity-sensitive mamas!) clutched in her little hands. What the camera missed was TK's first reaction to the house, the way she scrambled to get down from my arms when we walked through the door (though she'd clung to me for two straight days). Somehow, she knew this was her home.

The truth is, I can't process how much I love this little person, or how lucky I know I am to have her in my life. In a strange way, I appreciated her stinker-face-ness on her homecoming day -- it kept me from dissolving into tears all day, from gathering her close to me and just hugging her, not letting go. How did all of this wonderfulness HAPPEN? How did I receive such a beautiful life? I ask myself that often -- and not just about Mitike.

I had to actually raise my voice at TK on August 29, something that would have horrified the glowing new mommy who held the baby-toddler a year ago on the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Adaba to Rome to D.C. But that glowing mother was still new; she didn't know more than a glimmer about who sat on her lap during that flight. I know her fully now. Every once in awhile, she's a little monster -- a little pain-in-the-bum -- but MOSTLY, she is an amazing little person, full of laughter, silliness, empathy, generosity, intuition, curiosity, and full deep love. This mommy -- a year and two weeks later -- knows what she's in for. . . and I'm so entirely grateful.

A Year Ago Today: Meeting Mitike for the First Time

2009-08-22T05:37:00.005-08:00

August 22, 2008: My mom and I wake at 5 a.m. to the Christian Orthodox call to worship -- the waking sounds of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A half hour later, the muezzin calls the Muslims from the mosque's minaret -- the dogs start barking -- traffic noise begins -- Ethiopian pop music blares from the construction site across from our guesthouse. If I'd been a mere traveler, I'd have soaked all these sounds into my being and reveled in what the rising sun revealed: the gentle roll of distant green mountains, the cacophony of color and shape in the buildings crammed beside ours, the glimpse of a solitary man herding goats down the stone-paved street. But I had come to Ethiopia to be a mother -- to wrap my arms around a little girl whom I would meet for the first time in a few hours. My heart hammered.

August 22, 2009: I wake at 5 a.m. on a rainy morning in Juneau, Alaska, to read and write for awhile before Mitike wakes -- this is my only quiet time, my only time for reflection. I stay up late to plan my lessons and grade papers -- the day in its fullness is entirely Mitike's. I'm jealous of this time. I need it. In just under two hours, a little voice will interrupt my quiet -- "Mommy!" I need this time to reflect right now about this whirlwind year, about the impossibilities that brought me together with the beautiful little person sleeping in the next room right now.

August 22, 2008: The first day, she turned away from me and just cried -- quietly, sadly, desperately. She was 19 months old, clad in a ridiculously frilly dress, white tights and black patent leather shoes -- the orphanage nannies must have felt this was the best presentation. She sat on the carpeted orphanage floor with her legs splayed in a "V", toys gathered protectively in that space. The social worker told me gently that I needed to go slowly -- unlike the other American parents, who had been encouraged to play actively with their children (beside me, one mother tossed her new son in the air; another father pushed a truck back and forth with his new daughter). Mitike observed me from the corner of one eye and began to weep, reaching for the social worker. I sat beside her for hours, making futile efforts at connection: blowing bubbles, building legos, balancing toys on my head. The orphanage was loud -- children crying, screaming, parents over-enthusiastic at their attempts at connection. Mitike just cried -- or tried to move away. The adoption agency videotaped those initial meetings -- I've watched it only once. I look so hopelessly eager! And nothing worked. Mitike refused the connection. Later, in the guesthouse, amid the other parents' excited talk, I cried.

August 22, 2009: She's just woken -- briefly. It's 6 a.m. I rush to her -- she's crying the hiccupy cry of bad dreams, but her sadness is that Bunny has fallen from the bed and the covers have been pulled off. I move her to my bed, where she falls asleep again. Or is it possible that we are so connected now that she feels my re-creation of that first meeting in the Addis Ababa orphanage? She can't remember, but. . . Mitike's brain constantly amazes me. In her 2-year-old way, she's been working through her understanding of adoption lately -- telling the story of how she was crying in her tukul (partially true -- symbolically true) and Mommy and Nana heard her crying and came and got her in the big white airplane. This week, though, she's added a new piece to the story. "One time," she says, "you were little, Mommy, and I was your mommy, and you said, 'I need Mommy!' and I was there." Strange. . . but beautifully accurate in its own way. I didn't grow up until I was Mitike's mommy. I needed her just as much as she needed me.

In that first full day in Addis Ababa, which is a blur of raw emotion to me now (what else did our group do, after we left the orphanage -- our children still there for two more days until the embassy appointments?), I couldn't see past my worry and doubt and sadness to dinner, much less to the future. I couldn't have known that a year later, it would feel like Mitike had always been my daughter, that I had always been her mother. I couldn't have known that she would wake from sleeping to kiss me gently on the cheek and murmur, "You're my friend, Mommy." I couldn't have predicted the absolute joy of parenting her, of how amazing of a little person she is -- pointing out the color purple every time she sees it ("Purple car! Purple sweater! That lady has a purple purse!"), clapping her hands in absolute delight when we blow bubbles outside, writing notes to Nana with great seriousness and concentration, singing the "ABC" song at the top of her lungs or singing "Rain, rain go away, come back another day. If you don't, WE DON'T CARE! We will buy more UNDERWEAR!"

That first day in Addis, I just felt utterly lost. But so did Mitike. And maybe that shared darkness of confusion was the seed for this deep connection we have now. Most mornings, when Mitike wakes up, she declares, "It's LIGHT time!" She and I live in that light time now -- but there's sacredness in remembering what came before. It reminds me to cherish every moment with her now -- even as I savor these last early-morning minutes of quiet. Just a year ago, "Mommy!" never interrupted my mornings. I forget that sometimes. Come, interruption. This is the anniversary of you. . . and I am so utterly grateful.

Clouds: a Poem for Mitike, Iowa and Gram

2009-07-24T14:20:00.002-08:00

Gram, who is 93 and both playful and wise,
says your facial expressions are like the fleeting clouds
in the vast blue Iowa summer sky

-- drift -- change -- drift -- change --

the storm arrives in a clash of thunder, flash
of lightning, rain pummeling earth to drowning
and then soft: white, fluffy shapes float
in cool air to become billowing dragons and houses
and cars my sister and I watched once from our farm's lawn;
and when we looked again the sky was a cultivated field
with cloud rows glowing golden in the late afternoon sun.
Later, the clouds themselves would be mirrors for the sun's goodbye:
purple, rose, orange, deep blue, violet, yellow -- then dim --
then stars.
We could see them, still, when we chased fireflies at the corn's edge:
the wisps of cloud wandering the Milky Way's long winding road

-- drift -- change -- drift -- change --

Gram perches on her kitchen stool and tells me the story
of how her father kept bees on their southeastern Iowa farm,
of how sweet the honey tasted. I try to imagine Gram as young as you,
short pudgy legs hidden by the long meadow grass, a purple clover
clutched in tiny hands. Now she sprawls onto her back to delight
in the way the clouds drift across the inverted bowl of sky

just as she delights in your raised and lowered eyebrows,
the flash of frustration, the sudden hearty laugh, the sweet smile,
the wonder of her African great-granddaughter whose laughter
is as sweet as Iowa clover honey

We'll keep our eyes open, and think of Halle Berry

2009-07-24T13:54:00.001-08:00

I'll write about race. I'll write about skin, about color, about the way our eyes see. I'll write my understandings and my confusions -- so that, someday, I can help Mitike muddle through her own.

Vignette: Mitike and I are playing at the playground in Vanderveer Park, next to my mom's church in Davenport, Iowa. TK's poised to zoom down one of the slides; I'm laughing at the funny face she's making. She is my little girl; I'm her mommy -- neither of us ever think otherwise anymore. But then I see the graffiti scrawled in black Sharpie across the top of the slide, just above TK's sweet little head: "White people suck." A shout from the other side of the playground distracts me: two teenage boys, both Afrian American, straddle dirt bikes. They stare. I stare back. TK calls impatiently, "Watch me, Mommy! Watch me, my mommy!"

Vignette: Mitike and I sit next to my mom in church. The contemporary band is playing, and TK is clapping happily along, oblivious to what my more grown-up eyes see: hers is the only brown face in the congregation, hers is the face at which the white-blond-haired children in the congregation stare. She and my mom are also the only people clapping, which may be most serious of all.

Vignette, from six months ago: Mitike and I are enjoying our milk and coffee at an outdoor bakery-cafe in Oakland, California, where we're visiting my friend Sarah. A matronly, well-dressed woman approaches us, asks if Mitike is Ethiopian. I'd become accustomed to the question in this neighborhood, which boasts a large Ethiopian population. Sometimes, strangers assume TK is my biological daughter with an African American man, but people who know Ethiopians recognize the unmistakable eyes, the delicate curve of the jawbone, the coffee-with-a-drop-of-cream hue of skin, the looser curl to the hair. I nod. "I thought so," the woman says. She is African American, by the way -- not Ethiopian -- and, though that does not matter in most cases, it does matter to this story, because she goes on to tell me something serious. "She'll have a hard time sometimes in her life," the woman says, nodding, even as she plays with TK's fingers a bit, coaxing her to smile. "I heard an interview with Halle Berry, and she said her mama told her it's OTHER people who tell you you're 'black' and makes it negative, it's not you. You've got to get past what THEY say." The woman looks at TK and then looks deep into my eyes. "She'll get through it, though. You raise her with enough confidence, and she'll get through it."

Vignette: I am holding TK on one hip while we look at the family photos in my grandmother's hallway. Gram displays a photo from every year, starting in the year when my mother, the oldest, was a baby. TK begins to cry sadly. "But where's TK?" I hold her close. "Right here, baby, right here with Mommy." We leave the photos and go downstairs to the living room, where Gram has proudly displayed photographs of her Ethiopian-Alaskan great-granddaughter. TK is smiling now, and then she has rediscovered the wooden train and forgotten photographs entirely. I watch her play, half-amused by her sad insistence that she be present in every photograph (even the ones taken in 1956!) and in every story (". . .and TK!" she insists we add), and half-worried. How can I help her through her sadness when she realizes what it means to be adopted, when she realizes another family lacked the resources to care for her? And how can I guide her through her confusion when she realizes that her different hue of skin color will make some people doubt the depth of our real mother-daughter connection, that it will make some people judge her as less, that it will lead her into whole interactions and discussions and connections and disconnections with which I have had no experience and never will have experience?

How can I instill that confidence in her, how can I teach her to be strong enough to say she loves her color and her heritage, her adoptive family and her birth family -- and believe it?

She's napping right now -- one arm slung across her body, her little chest making the blanket rise and fall. When she wakes up, she always smiles her full smile to see me -- as if I am a gift she receives every time she wakes (every time, I'm overwhelmed, in love). Later, we'll go to the potty and she'll insist we look in the mirror together so she can point out that we both have brown eyes, that we both have a dark brown freckle on our foreheads. Someday, she'll notice we have different hues of skin. I keep reading adoption books to her -- picture books about bears that adopt yellow birds, hippos that adopt frogs, purple mommies who adopt little green children -- hoping she'll internalize the message the way she seems to be internalizing my message about her beautiful hair. "Oh, Purple Dolly," she tells her purple-haired doll, "you have such beautiful hair. I love it. We DO have to comb it, but just one time a week!"

But someday, her eyes will open more and she'll see more of what the world sees -- I can't protect her from that, like Halle Berry's mother could not protect Halle.

I want to be ready. I'm preparing myself, forcing my own eyes open though I sometimes want to close them and just see slides, with no graffiti.

Sidewalk chalk in June 2009

2009-07-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

From Baby to Little Girl, Too Fast

2009-06-28T23:15:00.000-08:00

This morning, the little girl who pitter-pattered out of her room -- shutting her door firmly behind her first, which she does every morning, as if to announce that she is DONE SLEEPING -- seemed months older than the girl-baby who fell asleep in my arms to my out-of-tune lullabies last night. "Mommy, do you want to play a game with me?" she asked, her eyebrows raised. I savored my awe at her complete sentence for a moment before nodding. "Okay," she said, nodding and moving toward the game shelf, "we play a game together, with Bunny. Bunny, you sit on Mommy's lap, okay?"

TK settled Bunny on my lap and then draped her pink blanket over both of us before she pitter-pattered over to get the matching game she loves to play. I felt young and teary, like TK was taking care of ME: how is she growing up this fast? When she throws herself on the floor because she wants gum before dinner, I long for her to grow older. . .but most of the time, I want to hold her close in her sweet babyhood; I inhale the lemongrass scent of her hair; I cuddle those sweetly pudgy legs and arms; I kiss her soft cheek. Motherhood must be about this pull and push, too: grow up -- no, stay little -- be a big girl! -- no, cuddle in my arms and be my baby.

The days move too fast. (Or it's raining and she's woken early from her nap, and we've already played with play-do and painted and made cookies, and time tick-tocks at an imperceptible pace).

Mostly, I'm astonished by the little PERSON she's becoming -- by the fact that it was a mere ten months ago that she babbled in Amharic and Hadiya baby syllables, that she feared the pool and dogs and most strangers, that she was so much more a baby. The other day, as she rode high on my shoulders to her preschool/daycare, I asked, "What are you going to do at school today?" and she responded, "Play!" then paused and added, "But I'll miss you, Mommy." Add that to the way she knelt importantly on a chair next to Ali's the other morning, pretending to type away on her own computer. "What are you doing?" I asked her, smiling. "Working, like Aye-Ay," she said, frowning at the computer screen and its burgeoning number of the letter "O".

Add that to our bedtime talks, when we list what we loved about the day and -- increasingly -- what we're thinking about. Seriously. She told me one night last week about how worried she was about the injured eagle up at the tram on Mt. Roberts (which the Juneau Raptor Center displays for visitors' education). "Somebody shot the eagle's eye," TK said sadly into her pillow, "and he can't see." I reassured her and reminded her that the eagle is loved now, and that he has a good home with the Juneau Raptor Center. But TK sighed. "He doesn't fly now," she reminded me. "So sad, Mommy."

I love the person TK is becoming. I love her empathy -- for eagles, for her family (she gives kisses to anyone who falls down or seems sad), for flowers. I love her silliness, and I love her seriousness (though I fear it, too -- as a sometimes too-serious person, I know the pitfalls of forgetting to be silly enough in this world). Some days, I'm ready for her to grow up faster, to move beyond toddlerhood. At her little friend Meadow's birthday party the other day, she dissolved into tears when she realized the present we had brought was JUST for Meadow, and today I carried her away from an outdoor carnival while she cried and shouted, "I'm NOT tired! I'm NOT tired!" But most days, I want to cling to every minute. I want to slow the clocks. I want to gather Mitike into my arms and memorize every syllable and every silly face. Writing here is not enough. I can't keep up with how much I want to record -- with how much I want to remember.

I Need My Mommy

2009-06-28T23:08:00.004-08:00

ME: "Why are you sad, TK?"

TK: "I need my Mommy."

ME: "I'm right here!"

TK: "Okay, Mommy. I love you. You stay with TK?"

ME: "Of course. Remember, I love you more than the whale --"

TK: "-- loves his spout, and the raven loves his treasure --" [quoting from the book "Mama Do You Love Me?"]

ME: "-- and the dog loves his tail --"

TK: "-- and TK loves her Mommy!"

A letter to Mitike, home for 9 months

2009-05-23T21:19:00.007-08:00

And then, like time does, our days and weeks blur, moving too fast. It's been a month and a half since I stopped to write, since I paused to breathe. But don't read these gaps in my recordings as times I didn't think about you, Mitike -- instead, read them as times when I jumped on the "jumpoline" with you or wandered the sidewalk's edge searching for dandelions with you or waded in Twin Lakes "with naked feet" with you or watched you zip down the bright yellow slide or created a new colorful mosaic of chalk on the driveway with you or went on "an adventure" with you through the forest. When it's sunny in southeast Alaska, which it's been for weeks, no one has time to sit at a computer and record life; we're all too busy soaking it in, our faces upturned to the sky.

TK. We walked to a ballet performance downtown tonight -- our family and two other families. You ran most of the way, determined to prove to me that I didn't need to carry you in the backpack. I watched you, amused at your persistent stubbornness, which is also perseverance. You, running your toddler-waddle run in the scuffed pink slip-on shoes you call your "fancy shoes", clutching a handful of green maple leaves you'd decided to give to everyone when we got to the show. At a stop sign, you reached up to pat your new "ponytails" -- your short hair pulled into two tiny puffs -- and then you grinned up at me. "Uppy?" You'd proved your point; now you knew you'd be able to keep up with everyone if you had the speed of Mommy's long legs.

As of this weekend, you've been home with us for exactly nine months. That seems impossible. I'm sure I've known you your whole life. I'm sure I've always known the freckle above the bridge of your nose, the deep expression in your wide eyes, your wonderful overjoyed giggle, the way you stick out your tongue when you're happy. You're sure of all of this, too. You're sure I'm your mommy. You recognize the ways we're similar: both of us leaders (or both of us bossy, depending who you ask), both of us over-cautious (when it comes to high slides, big steps, etc.) but also confident (watch us both welcome the people around us), both of us over-serious rule-followers (the purple scissors go in that box, and it's annoying when we find them on the table) but also silly (witness our shouted rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus" tonight while we zigzagged home). You call for me when you're scared in the middle of the night; you pitter-patter your way to me in the morning.

But we had our first difficult adoption talk last night. You won't remember, so I'll record it here for you. We opened a new book together -- "The Cool Song," which is set in eastern Africa -- and we found a watercolor picture of a cluster of tukuls, the thatched round huts similar to the one in which you were born. You've heard me say "You were born in Ethiopia!" and we've read adoption books together; we've looked at the map of the world and you've heard me explain that I came to Ethiopia to get you and then we came to Juneau in the airplane together. I know you're only two and a half, but I want you to be accustomed to these conversations -- I want you to grow up comfortable with your story, as I grew up comfortable with the story of my mom bringing me home from a hospital. You don't know what "born" means yet, but you know about airplanes and home and Mommy.

Back to the story. I pointed at the tukuls in the book and I said, "TK! You were born in a place like that!"

Your eyes widened and you nodded, and then you looked up at me. "Mommy, you born in a place like that?"

I shook my head. "No, I was born in Iowa. I lived in a white house."

And then, without warning, your eyes welled with tears. "I want born in Iowa!" You hit the picture of tukuls. "I don't like that! I want born where Mommy is!"

Oh. A reminder: someday, we will have these difficult, sad conversations. Someday, your toddler innocence, your 2-year-old total acceptance of the fact that Mommy and TK have different colors of skin, your beautiful embrace of me as Mommy will waver. I know this moment was probably more about being 2 -- you will spit out your gum if I do, you will fall asleep if I pretend to, you will eat your lasagna if I eat mine. I know you don't know what it means to be born, that you just want everything about you to be the same as Mommy. But I also glimpsed what our future conversations hold.

Tonight, you picked that book again at bedtime. When we opened it, you pointed to the picture of the world and said, "Mommy, you come get me?" You remembered what I'd said about traveling to Ethiopia in the airplane to get you, to bring you home. But when I turned the page to the tukuls, you hit them again and told them you didn't like them. Here will be your struggle with adoption: your intelligent, logical acceptance of facts crashing into your deeply-felt emotions, your longings. Mommy's that way, too, TK.

Mostly right now, though, you are beautifully, fully two and a half -- chanting the ABCs ("A, B, C, D, G!!!"), counting your fingers ("1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 20!"), singing ("The wheels on the bus go all around the TOWN!"), asking questions ("But why?" "Why not?"), crying one moment because I told you you needed to finish your dinner before you have gum and then laughing the next moment because I've made a silly face at you. But you are more than just a toddler. You understand each of us: you read with me, color with me, sing silly songs with me; you laugh hard with Aye-Ay, share treats with her, plant in the garden with her, let her push you beyond your many comfort zones; you go on adventures with Tim -- hide-and-seek, jump-o-line tag, bubble-blowing; you cuddle up to Katie when she reads to you, you let her show you how to button your coat, teach you how to push your dolly in the stroller. None of us can imagine our lives without you. Look: you're in the backpack now, waving at Aye-Ay, Tim, and Katie, who have all turned around to wait for you. They're smiling. "Hi, guys!" you shout, and being born in tukuls or hospitals, Ethiopia or Iowa, doesn't matter -- not right now -- as much as catching up to your family, as much as diving into the fast-flowing stream of this beautiful together time.

Moving on to popsicles

2009-04-19T22:13:00.004-08:00

The low point of today (April 19) would definitely be the moment I dropped my 2-year-old daughter into the toilet. No, the moment right after, when -- responding to her terror and sadness -- I scolded her for struggling so much when I was just trying to teach her how to use the potty and not need diapers, which were not only expensive, but had horrendous environmental impact, and that if she hadn't struggled at all, if she had just used the potty like she was supposed to, then she wouldn't have fallen in.

Or the moment right after THAT one, when I started crying, too -- about my sometime lack of patience, about my propensity to get very frustrated about inconsequential things, about the details: her little soaking wet bum, Bunny watching impassively from the step stool.

Most of the day was beautiful
-- breakfast together
-- the playground and the walk along the lake
-- lunch together
-- the folk fest (dancing)
-- walking back, TK dragging the bag with the popsicle box (okay, but then the tantrum about the popsicles when we got inside)
-- shrimp talk over dinner
-- popsicles outisde
-- sweet reading time

Okay, so motherhood is about forgiveness, and popsicles -- and all the sweet and sour in between.

10 Lessons Mitike's Taught Me About How to Be a Mommy

2009-04-05T22:17:00.005-08:00

Mitike the Reader

2009-03-29T14:40:00.005-08:00

What makes someone a reader? I watch the struggling readers in my 7th/8th grade English classes, and I wonder what earlier interventions would have helped them become lovers of books. More books surrounding them when they were young? More patient parent voices in their ears, sounding out words, connecting picture to letter? Less access to video game and television, iPhone and internet?

Or -- and I think my 93-year-old grandmother, who reads the New Yorker weekly, and the newspaper and a wide variety of books daily, would agree wholeheartedly with this -- is a love of reading innate, flowing in certain people's bloodstreams, regardless?

Whatever the answer, my daughter's a reader. At home, she mimicks her brother's immersion in a book at lunchtime, trying to hold her "ABC" board book open with one little hand while she holds her spoon with the other. At Gram's house in Iowa last week, she settled herself in the tiny rocking chair and "read" books to the rest of us in front of the kitchen fire. This morning, when I sleepily told her 6:30 was too early to wake up, she nodded solemnly and asked, "Read books, Mommy?" and then proceeded to quietly flip through books while I dozed for a half hour more. In my half-sleep, I heard her pretend to read "Goodnight Moon": "Goodnight, goodnight," she said at every page.

It's true that TK's two mamas are lovers of words, that her brother would rather read than eat, that her nana makes sense of the world for others with words, that her great-grandmother (Gram) holds writers in the highest esteem. And maybe, since TK's early life in Ethiopia contained no books at all, she appreciates them as treasure even more. But I also think she LOVES books -- though she's only 2, she claps her hands to discover a new wonderful story, to hear a silly turn of phrase in Dr. Suess, to discover a character she likes (her favorite is Peter in Ezra Jack Keats' "Whistle for Willie" right now).

I'm not sure this kind of love can be taught -- but, like a mother who recognizes her child loves art and so puts paintbrushes in her hands, I'll keep introducing TK's wide-open eyes to new books. Nothing is sweeter than the sound of her little voice "reading", than the way she claps her hands at the last page and decrees, "The End! New book, Mommy!"

Re-defining "Break": a Letter to TK

2009-03-25T20:28:00.008-08:00

Dear Mitike,

In my past life -- which was still happening just last year -- "spring break" meant, as Oxford's second definition for the noun "break" explains, "a short rest or pause from work". I traveled -- Colorado, San Francisco, Minnesota. I read, widely. I cooked. I journaled. I napped. I took long walks; I trekked into the woods on snowshoes; I skied.

This spring break -- my first as a mother -- the two of us were suddenly in Iowa, at Nana's house, and a "short rest" was re-defined: I did the dishes as you and Nana searched for a blanket downstairs; I stole a walk along the field edges as you napped; I typed rushed words at 11:30 at night when everyone was sleeping; I gingerly turned pages of the New Yorker on the airplane, hoping you'd continue to sleep on my lap.

You are two, which means I need to be somewhere near you at all times -- to watch your somersault, to guide you down the long slide in the park, to wipe your bum or your nose, to help you reach a doorknob, to dry your tears, to listen to Bunny sing Abba's "Mama Mia". This is everything I miss, now, working, and it's beautiful to be immersed in you again every day, every hour. But this spring break is no break -- or at least this is no "short rest or pause from work". Your English major mommy needs to turn back to Oxford for other definitions.

The first alternative definition to "short rest" is "an interruption, pause, or gap". Much better. In Iowa for a week, we interrupt Alaskan rain and cold to play barefoot in a sandy playground, to pick purple Glory-in-the-Snow in Gram's backyard, to throw sticks into the river with Nana. We put our frenetic lives of Mama's work and TK's school on pause; we escape to those halcyon days when the two of us got to spend every minute together.

Or Oxford offers this other definition: "a sudden rush or dash", as in "a break for it". Here we are in the Seattle airport on a six-hour layover, sprinting full-speed through the atrium -- not because we are late for a plane, but because we are running away from the terrifying eight-foot-tall stuffed killer whale that stands outside the outdoor gear store. Or we are pretending to be airplanes ourselves, zooming along the edge of the enormous windows where the real airplanes wait for their passengers. We dash from table to table, our arms outspread, both of us laughing. I thought I would miss the long hours of reading magazines and writing in my journal that I had once, before you -- but I will choose the rush and dash of your break-for-it joy over and over and over.

Or -- my always moving little daughter -- let's examine the verb form of "break". As in "to separate into pieces" -- the way you eat your fruit roll-ups on the airplane, picking tiny pieces off and then naming the shapes: "Little triangle, Mommy!" -- the way you like you use your knife and fork all by yourself to cut up the lasagna Nana made you -- the way you love to use little scissors now (you turn the comics section of Gram's Des Moines register into tens of tiny colorful pieces). Or "to break" as in "to change suddenly", which you are doing too fast -- your face becoming less babyish, your body lengthening, your language developing into more and more "real" words and constructions. Or "to break" as in "to surpass" -- the truth of you surpassing every dream of you I had. Did I imagine I would enjoy your company so much that 20 hours of flying, through four airports, would feel like a gift?

I will give up the "short rest" spring break used to offer. Now I will love the interruption, the pause, the dash, the rush, the little pieces, the change, the surpassing of all understanding -- laughing, tumbling on every soft carpet square we find, our arms outspread. Now, on these breaks from work, I will drink in every minute with you, simply and fully glad to be your mama, to watch you re-define my entire world with your beautiful self.

love,
Mommy

Duh DUH duh duh DUH!

2009-03-12T21:33:00.003-08:00

TK [as she watches Katie skip down the sidewalk toward Rosie's house]: Mommy, where's Katie going?

ME: She's going iceskating with 'osie.

TK: Duh DUH duh duh DUH?

ME: What?

TK [grabbing my hand and imitating our usual silly ballroom dance when we pretend to ice skate on frozen puddles]: Duh DUH duh duh DUH!

ME: Oh! [And we sing together -- what's that song called, anyway? -- dancing around the living room, laughing.]

The Flawed Mommy

2009-02-21T13:35:00.012-09:00

I am a flawed mommy, and I need a confessor today. Listen for a moment -- I'll only list 11.

Confession #1: It is the middle of the night, and I have just laid down next to Mitike to comfort her because she has woken up crying. She tosses and turns, then rolls over and whacks me in the face, then asks to use the potty, then tosses and turns after we come back, which makes me lose my patience, grab her firmly by the shoulders, and say -- through clenched teeth -- "Time -- to -- sleep -- now!", which makes her cry harder.

Confession #2: We're reading Harold and the Purple Crayon and we get to the page where Harold draws a moose and a porcupine so someone can eat all the leftover pie. TK insists that the moose is called a porcupine and that the porcupine is called a moose. I should think this is cute, and I mostly do, but I also don't want TK to be 25 years old, hiking somewhere in Alaska, telling everyone that the moose are climbing trees and the porcupines are munching willow branches on the edge of the lakes, so I calmly explain she's wrong. Then she argues, "No, Mommy! Porcupine. Moose." I argue back. We both get upset. Harold stares at us, waiting for us to enjoy his purple crayon drawings again.

Confession #3: In the grocery store, I firmly remind TK that we do not eat any of our food until we've paid money for it. Then I turn away from her and snitch a bite of the muffin in my hand.

Confession #4: At the end of a day in which I try to quell and channel the energy of middle school students, more noise sometimes seems unbearable. One night, TK decides to experiment with how loudly she can yell. "TK!" I finally say sternly. Her eyes widen, and I feel horrible. "Okay, we can only be loud in the bathroom." She nods solemnly and toddles off to the bathroom, where she continues to yell. Days later, we are walking together outside, singing, "If you're happy and you know it, shout 'hooray!'" and TK puts a finger to her lips. "Shh, Mommy. Only loud in the bathroom."

Confession #5: TK is throwing a small tantrum because she wants Bunny under the pink blanket, and I mistakenly put Bunny under the red quilt AND the pink blanket. I pick up Bunny and hurl him across the room, and then -- yep, it gets worse -- I say, "Then Bunny can just sleep over there!" TK starts crying, and Bunny looks at me reproachfully with his embroidered eyes.

Confession #6: Ali and I are playing with TK, when she holds up her right hand with her index finger extended and raises one eyebrow: "Hold on. Just wait." Ali looks at me pointedly. I am bossy -- can we say I "exhibit good leadership skills"? -- in exactly the same way. TK is definitely my daughter.

Confession #7: It's 6 a.m. on a Saturday, and TK has just called, "Mommy!" When I stumble groggily into her room, she cheerfully announces, "All done sleeping!" I shake my head and say, "Shh! Everyone's sleeping. The house is sleeping. The books are sleeping. Bunny's still sleeping." In the dim light, she peers at me. "Mommy still sleeping?" I nod and stretch out in her bed. I close my eyes. Sometimes, she lies down next to me and we sleep until 7 or so. Not this morning. She shakes me: "Mommy! Up! Time play with 'itike!" But all I want is more sleep.

Confession #8: On a special Mommy-TK date at a Mexican restaurant, TK abruptly decides she does not want to sit down anymore; she wants to stand on top of her booster seat. I frown and shake my head. "TK, Obama wants you to sit down." She sits down immediately, upset at the suggestion that anything she is doing would offend her beloved Obama. "Mama," she whispers, craning her neck to look around the restaurant, "where Obama is?"

Confession #9: TK shouts at Katie, "Stop it! Go away!" for no apparent reason. I swoop in and pick up TK, and we face the wall together. Like a textbook mama, I murmur in a calm voice, "That made Katie sad. As soon as you're ready to say 'sorry' to Katie, tell me. Are you ready?" TK shakes her head stubbornly. "What about now?" I ask. She shakes her head again. I turn her to face me, and my words escape me to disobey all textbook recommendations: "Say 'sorry' to Katie, or she'll be sad forever!" She goes to Katie and apologizes. I feel like a liar.

Confession #10: "You don't need Skittles. Vitamins are much yummier!"

Confession #11: To be silly, Ali draws a face on a large spaghetti squash with a black Sharpie marker. We set the squash on the counter and talk to it to make TK giggle. Later, TK pulls the squash toward her when she's sitting on the counter and hits it repeatedly, laughing. For some reason, it's abruptly important to me that we treat squash faces with kindness. I grab the squash, give TK a reproachful look, and proceed to rock the squash in my arms while I hum Brahm's "Lullaby". TK's eyes well up with tears. An hour later, when I decide to cook the squash for dinner, I let Tim throw it on the floor several times to break it open. TK watches me, her brow furrowed. I know. I know. I've betrayed squash face. I'm a hypocrite.

I could tell you more. These are just the major ones. There are also the little transgressions -- the cookie I offer her if she'll just eat two more bites of chili; the five minutes of movie I let her watch if she'll just agree to put her pajamas on; the way I scratched her chin a little with my fingernail on her birthday because I scooped her up with too much gusto. I know she knows I love her; I know she'll never doubt I wanted to be her mommy. But will she survive my mothering?

Maybe I should ask Obama -- or a moose named Porcupine.

The Color Purple

2009-02-15T13:38:00.005-09:00

In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Shug tells Celie: “Listen, God love everything you love—and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration….Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it" (203).

I'm not sure about quite a bit about God, but I'm sure of this: my little girl, her smile wide, is absolutely full of admiration for the God/god/gods/??? who put the color purple in this world -- and she believes wholeheartedly that it's holy. Purple, purple, purple. In the mornings, Mitike chooses purple pants, a purple sweater, a purple headband; she claps her hands happily when I pull her purple coat and her purple stocking cap from the winter clothes basket. At preschool, she chooses the purple book, the purple sticker, the purple crayon, the purple play-do, the purple-frosted cupcake. Her teachers barely ask her opinion, now -- they hand her the purple whatever-it-is and then love her joy.

Last week, when Ali and I decided to move TK into Tim's room (and Tim into TK's), we decided to paint over the boyish green-brown walls. At Good's Hardware, TK did not hesitate: she pointed to the purple paint chips. Later, at Wal-Mart: the purple curtains. "'itike's new purple room!" she proudly tells any visitors to our house. Then she run-waddles into her room and stands in the center, looking up and around with the awe of someone beholding the Sistine Chapel for the first time.

I know: toddlers -- especially little girls -- often love to obsess over a color. But purple is not just a color. Listen to Shug. Listen to the Romans, whose Senate passed a law dictating that only the royal and important could don the color purple. Listen to the medieval kings of ancient Europe, who also reserved purple for the royals. Listen to lupine and its shout of color across southeast Alaska's meadows in high summer.

Purple is something to NOTICE -- and no one knows this better than my sweet TK.

Auke Rec, Juneau, Alaska -- January 18

2009-01-25T23:16:00.001-09:00

ME: Where are the whales, TK? I don't see them.

TK: I don't know, Mommy.

ME: They must be underwater. Where are they?

TK, pointing up: THERE they are, Mommy!

ME: Where?

TK: Up in the air! Whales up there, Mommy! Whales up there!

Open the Door: Mitike's 2nd Birthday

2009-01-22T23:30:00.000-09:00

On the morning of January 22, which is legally and officially Mitike's second birthday, my sweet daughter wanders to the top of the stairs in her brown and pink polka-dotted pajamas, like she does every morning, and calls out, "Mommy! All done sleeping!"

I rush up the stairs and sweep her up in my arms. "Happy birthday, sweet girl!"

Her eyes widen. We've been talking about her birthday for a few days -- she's been chanting, "'itike's birthday comin'!" and singing the "Happy Birthday" song, waiting as patiently as a toddler can wait. "Mommy," she whispers, "'itike's birthday, open the door?"

That's TK's way of asking if something is beginning, of course, but the writer in me couldn't help but savor the phrase. Open the door. Just five months ago, TK, I pushed open the door to an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and searched a dim-lit playroom for your face, which I'd only seen in two photographs. A week later, Ali opened the door to our house in Juneau, Alaska -- exactly half a world away from Ethiopia -- and you squirmed out of my arms and ran inside, as if you knew what "home" meant already. Open the door.

"Mommy!" TK's voice brings me back to this moment. "Balloons!" I smile. We've reached the bottom of the stairs, and TK's just glimpsed the balloons Tim and Katie filled and then hid under a blanket to surprise her on her birthday. TK leans down and pulls the blanket away, then claps her hands in utter joy. Balloons, balloons! She reaches for the purple one, and I start singing: "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear TK. . ."

But pause a moment. Let TK play with her purple balloon and come into the kitchen with me -- I need more coffee. The truth is, this isn't really her birthday. This is a date the translators at the Addis Ababa office recorded on her orphanage paperwork -- it's a date converted from the Ethiopian calendar one her birth father provided. Here is one of the many questions I did not ask Abose but which I wish I had in that mere half hour we got to meet: When was Mitike born? I'm certain he did not possess a calendar, or a concept of time -- he was struggling to feed himself and his family; his wife was sick; his thoughts were blurred by desperation. Two years later, he had to make a guess when the orphanage people asked him, "When was she born?" "Taerr," he must have replied, which is the Ethiopian month which begins on our Jan. 9 and ends on our Feb. 8. A guess.

Watch TK now. She is batting the purple balloon up in the air, laughing with her mouth wide open. "Lookit, Mommy! Lookit! Silly balloon!" She's clearly older than two. The pediatrician shakes her head, smiling: TK has all her teeth, she hits all the benchmarks for fine and gross motor skills, she is developing language at an amazing rate; she's either a genius or she's two and a half -- maybe three.

This makes me sad. I forget sometimes that TK's only been with us for five months; I feel I've known her her whole life. But because I haven't -- because she came to me carrying a green-brown country with round huts, goat herds, tall leafy false banana plants, a weary man with smiling eyes, 5:30 a.m. chants, wavering music, "Salaam!", and berbere spice -- I desperately want to know exactly how old she is. I want to know if it was the rainy or the dry season when she was born. I want to know which birds her birth mother might have heard when she woke in the tukul after labor. I want to know what farming task her birth father completed before he entered the tukul to find a new baby had joined his family.

I want to know how many days TK knew before she knew me.

Last week, our friends Topaz and Colin visited us with their month-old baby in tow, and -- as we watched TK run joyfully from living room to kitchen and back again -- Colin asked me when I started to think of her as my daughter. He said it was automatic for him, watching the baby grow in Topaz's body, witnessing the birth. I was startled -- not by Colin's good question, but by my own answer: when I opened Mitike's photo in my email on May 22, she was my daughter. She had been my daughter for her life, which did not mean she had not also been (and continues to be) the daughter of a woman named Amarech, whom I will never know. It simply meant that when I saw her photograph, I knew her already. That I loved her already.

And here she is now, proudly helping me balance the tray of cupcakes we made as we walk through the door of her preschool. The cupcakes are frosted in Technicolor, then sprinkled liberally with pink and purple sugar. TK has dressed herself completely in purple for her birthday day, and she beams her wide and beautiful smile when her teachers call out birthday greetings to her. I store away my sadness. I cannot know everything. I missed her first two years; now I miss these hours when she is at preschool and I am at work. What matters is this incredible little person, my brimming love for her, and the U.S. Embassy-recognized fact that today, January 22, is her birthday.

I scoop her up into my arms and kiss the soft place beneath her ear. "Happy birthday, my beautiful girl," I murmur. She wraps her little arms around my neck. "Happy bir'day, 'itike, beautiful mommy," she whispers back, and then happily squirms down to the floor, where she runs toward the other kids, toward a day of cupcakes and singing and the color purple. Toward a day of being two years old -- the door open wide.

Mama Work Airplane

2009-01-09T14:29:00.000-09:00

Mitike is smart -- a boast I feel I can make only because she's not biologically mine. When I carefully explain to her that Mama has to go back to work and that TK is going to start school, but not until AFTER Nana and Gerry come on the airplane to visit, she nods, a concentrated frown on her face.

"Mama work?"

"Yes, and TK's going to go to school."

"After Nana-Gerry airplane -- up in the air?"

"Exactly."

She nods, then pauses to take another bite of her bagel. "Mama work airplane?"

Okay, she is only two -- she can't understand everything. What she did begin to absorb this week, though, is that she and Mama have entered a new phase -- a phase in which Mama is suddenly dressed up in the mornings, with earrings and a necklace on -- a phase in which Mama is rushing out the door to her car when TK is still in her pajamas. She knows I go to a place called "work"; she knows I'm gone until after her nap. But because of the sweet presence of my mom and step-dad this week, TK doesn't yet know that her own days will be utterly changed from the slow, easy rhythm of the past four months -- that from 7:45-3:45 every Monday through Friday, she will now snack, play, eat, read, nap, and go to the potty with twenty other toddlers at the Juneau Puddle-Jumpers Day Care.

In an effort to stay positive, I call her daycare "TK's school". For a month, we've visited for an hour or two each day, and she's loved it. It's a bright, colorful, loving, safe daycare. My mom and step-dad confirmed that when they visited the place with her. But still I feel worried.

I watch as TK bounds happily through the daycare's door, packs her coat into her little cubby, and runs to join the 2-year-old group in the day's lesson. I stand back, nursing my sadness. I want our months of coffee shop dates, sledding runs, coloring at the kitchen table, splashing in puddles, yelling "Come on, Birdie!" to the seagulls at the harbor, cuddling at naptime, Bob Marley dance parties, cooking lessons, hide-and-go-seek games. I don't want to give her up. I want to melt onto the floor like she does when she's sad -- refuse to get up until someone tells me I don't have to go back to work, until someone says I can keep being a stay-at-home mom.

TK, on the other hand, runs back to me to ask, "Mama, come back?" and when I say of course I will, she waves at me and then turns back to building blocks with Ms. Charm and her small learning center group of 2-year-olds.

And anyway, though I wondered what TK was doing all day with my mom and Gerry this week, I never worried. As I circulated my classroom, bending to help students, my mind kept drifting to the way I knew Gerry was probably lifting TK high to touch the ceiling, the way my mom was probably cuddling her close, the way Gerry was probably allowing her to scribble on his hands with markers, the way Mom was probably letting her stick stickers all over her sweater. If only Nana and Gerry lived in Juneau.

I know TK will be entertained at daycare, that she will learn new things. My worry about daycare is more about influence. Two days ago, TK whined for the first time, "My toy!" to Tim -- a phrase she could only have learned in daycare. Yesterday, she said "Go away!" to Katie. I don't think she learned the way she said that phrase from my singsongy "Rain, rain go away. . ." The word "mine" has crept into her otherwise sweet vocabulary, and she's begun to grab for things again -- a habit I thought I'd convinced her to break.

This is my weight to carry about daycare for my beloved little girl: that she would learn more about becoming a good person if she had my one-on-one influence all day; that she would feel more secure being nurtured by her mother all day; that four months was not enough time. I know the social benefits of daycare, the reality that I HAVE to work for financial reasons, the gift long and open summers are to parents who are teachers like Ali and I are. But every utterance of "mine", every tantrum when she melts onto the floor in histrionic sadness will make me worry again.

My mom reminded me this week that TK is more than smart: she's also resilient, confident, strong-minded, and happy-spirited. The little girl who rides at the front of the long blue sled, gets a spray of cold snow in her face, and shouts, "Again!" will survive the challenges of daycare. The small person who looks confidently up at adults and invites them to sit -- "Bum!" -- and then promptly offers them imaginary tea and imaginary bowls of soup will emerge from the influence of the mine-sayers and the grabbers fairly unscathed. The silly child who points at the drawing of the moose in Harold and the Purple Crayon and shouts, "Porcupine!" will retain her personality in the midst of the crowd.

I know all these things. I know, too, that Nana and Gerry have their lives to live in Iowa, and that daycare is a necessary reality, whether I welcome it or not. Maybe it's ME I'm most worried about. When I came home Monday afternoon -- after the longest stretch TK and I had been away from each other since we met four and a half months ago in Ethiopia -- I swept her up into my arms and held her close, savoring the softness of her warm cheek, the sweet strength of her little arms around my neck.

"Were you okay when Mama went to work?" I murmured into her hair.

She patted my back in soothing circles with her little hand, just like I do to comfort her when she wakes from a nightmare in the night. Then she pulled back and looked at me with concern, her little brow furrowed. "Mama okay work?" she asked.

I suppose that's the real question.

Becoming an Alaskan Girl

2008-12-27T22:17:00.000-09:00

For awhile, I worried Mitike had lost the sun.

Transported from eastern Africa half-way across the planet and then northwest to a small city in southeast Alaska, she now lives in a place where sun-sightings are cause for local newspaper articles and animated sidewalk conversations. She now lives in a temperate rainforest -- cool and misty most of the year, except when it's cold and snowy. Watch her: after only five months in her new home, she insists that she cannot leave the house without hat, mittens, coat, snowpants, boots.

Mourning the loss of warmth and golden light for her, I decide we need to visit a friend in California. In the Juneau airport, someone asks, "Why are you going to California?" at the exact moment my toddler is standing at the window excitedly pointing to some slightly brighter rain clouds. "Look, Mama!" she cries, "SUNSHINE!" I look at the stranger. "Ah, I see," she says, her brow furrowed as if TK has a medical condition.

And yes, California kept its bright promise -- TK and I strolled down the sidewalk in our sandals, coatless and hatless, and smelled purple and pink flowers; we zoomed down slides free of frost; we fed ducks on the edge of unfrozen lakes; we sat outside at a coffee shop and wriggled our bare toes. "Sunshine -- isn't it beautiful?" I repeated again and again, and my sweet girl would nod, mimicking the way I closed my eyes and soaked it all in.

But when we returned home to Juneau -- just in time for Christmas -- we returned home to SNOW, that fluffy, glistening, bright, white amnesia-causing beauty. Now TK trundles happily after her older friends, her little purple snowsuit impeding her usual stride -- and then the deep snow tripping her. She nestles beneath a fleece blanket on the sled and shouts, "More, more!" as I pull her down the snowy sidewalk. She and I zoom down the sledding hill together on our orange sled, TK laughing, her hands up like she's on a roller coaster. Sunshine seems completely unimportant, suddenly.

Then tonight, in a burst of Alaskan craziness, TK decided to strip off all her clothes (diaper, too), put on her snow boots, encourage Katie to do the same, and then run out into the snow. The two girls did a silly dance out there, lit by the purple icicle lights hanging from our house's roof edge, laughing, laughing. The air was cold, and dark -- it gets dark at about 3:30 p.m. this time of year -- and the unplowed snow on either side of the girls easily cleared TK's head. TK shook her bum and then waved her hands back and forth until I gathered her into my arms and pulled her back inside. "More, more!" she asked, giggling.

This is not a girl who is pining for warm sunshine. This is an Alaskan girl -- already so in love with our weird dark, cold, snowy landscape that the only sensible thing to do is to run outside naked and perform a silly dance.

At least she doesn't know how to make snow angels yet.

Brown Eye-YAH-Voes Are Beautiful, Too

2008-11-20T13:45:00.000-09:00

Mitike and I just had our first mother-daughter talk about skin color. I know -- she's only 2. And I know -- research shows that children do not begin noticing skin color until about age 3, and that they do not possess an awareness of "race" as an idea until 4 or 5. But there we were -- TK perched on the potty, me sitting across from her on the step-stool -- talking about how brown skin is just as beautiful as peach-colored skin.

It's Disney's fault, of course -- and Costco's. In an attempt to save money on diapers, I purchased an enormous cost-saver box of toddler pull-ups, only to open the box at home and find that half the diapers had blonde-haired, blue-eyed, peach-skinned Cinderella plastered across their fronts. The other half of the diapers -- in a Disney attempt to be more multicultural, I suppose -- placed red-haired Ariel and black-haired, brown-skinned Jasmine just behind Cinderella. English-major Mommy read this message: Cinderella is still the one to which you should all aspire, little diaper-wearing girls, but we suppose these girls are okay, too.

I opened the box with TK standing right next to me -- clapping her hands with joy to see all the beautiful princesses. "Pretty!" she exclaimed. "Pretty!" My heart sank. I had already screwed up! I had unwittingly opened the door to a world I didn't want my beautiful little girl to encounter until she firmly and ardently believed that her brown skin, brown eyes, and black hair were unquestioningly, undoubtedly beautiful. I bit my lip, watching TK joyfully pull princess diapers from the box.

"TK," I said suddenly. "I'm going downstairs for a sec. I'll be right back."

She barely heard me. Cinderella's blue-eyed gaze had already begun to work its spell. I had to move fast. I ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, where we keep two tubs of markers and crayons. TK calls them "eye-YAH-voes". I grabbed all the brown ones I could find, and then dashed back upstairs.

TK's eyebrows went up at the sight of the eye-YAH-voes. She knew the rule was to keep them in the kitchen. "Mama?" she asked. I smiled and then scooped her up -- she clutched a Cinderella diaper in her hands -- and set her gently on the potty.

"Let's make Cinderella beautiful," I said, and handed TK a brown crayon. I picked up a brown permanent marker, and proceeded to draw swirly brown curls over Cinderella's blonde hair. TK giggled and began to scribble all over Cinderella's face. "More, Mama, more!" she laughed. We scribbled all over the diaper, making it -- well -- ugly.

THIS was how I was going to teach my daughter that her skin color -- the loveliest color of coffee with a bit of milk -- was beautiful? This was more of a lesson in graffiti, or in modern art. Or worse, this was calling too much attention to an issue of which she would not be aware for years.

I looked down at the diaper that lay stretched between my lap and TK's. It was almost completely brown now -- an unfortunate color for a diaper. I took a deep breath, dismayed at my first failure as a "white" momma to give my "black" child a healthy racial identity.

"All done eye-YAH-voe!" TK handed me the crayon and then held the diaper up proudly, tilting it at different angles, as if she were studying it. "Beautiful!" she proclaimed finally, and I started to laugh. I touched her hands and her face and her little feet and murmured, "Beautiful, too." She nodded seriously, then parroted, "Beautiful, too."

The Cinderella diapers are gone, now -- peed into, pooped on, thrown in a plastic bag and then hurled into the Juneau landfill. Now TK wears diapers with pink and green dragons on them -- and she still insists on coloring the dragons brown while she sits on the potty. My Costco purchase seems only to have increased TK's range of artistic mediums.

But the other night at bedtime, as we read the book "Amazing Grace", TK gently touched the page where the 11-year-old African American protagonist stands up in class to volunteer to be Peter Pan. "Beautiful," TK murmured. "Beautiful." And although my little girl applies that new-found adjective to chalkboards and the sides of buses and restaurant menus and the swirly design seagull droppings make on the dock, she means it when she uses it.

I just hope the understanding sticks.

To Mitike: Remember Nov. 4, 2008

2008-11-05T14:28:00.001-09:00

Dear Mitike,

On November 4, 2008, when you were almost 2, a man named Barack Obama was elected president of the United States of America. You won't remember crowding into the polling booth with me, Tim, and Katie. You won't remember the anxiety that swirled around you all day from hopeful adults who stopped each other in school hallways, in the public library, in Marine Park, just to say, "Do you think he'll win?". You won't remember the way you chanted, "Obama! Obama! Obama!" with me as we walked down the sidewalk together at noon -- still hours before the first polls would close.

You won't remember the way we crowded into a neighbor's house that evening, shared chili and bread and lentil stew, and watched -- our breath held -- as Obama's electoral numbers creep up and up. And you won't remember the way we all counted down to the closing of the west coast polls, or the way everyone in the room threw their hands in the air and shouted joyfully, "Obama!", or the way we all ran out into the street with pots and pans and wooden spoons and drummed our happiness for the Alaskan night to hear. You ate your blue-frosted cupcake and smiled at everyone, happy everyone was happy, glad everyone loved the word you loved: "Obama, Obama, Obama."

But Mitike, my dear, happy daughter, you must remember this day. And because you will not, I will mold it into words for you -- I will give it to you here, the soft clay of a moment shaped and fired into a bowl that holds a future.

The others in the room last night watched you lovingly, Mitike, thinking -- as I was -- how particularly important this election was for you, a child of color adopted from the African country that neighbors Obama's father's own Kenya. This United States of America, Mitike, has a difficult and painful past when it comes to people of color -- a past that will anger and sadden you when you learn about it someday. You may never fully realize how fortunate you are to live now, instead of then. You may never fully appreciate just what it means that a country that once sanctioned slavery, that once claimed black people were merely 3/5 of a whole, that once prohibited black people from voting or even drinking out of certain water fountains, has just chosen a black man as its president.

As a white woman, Mitike, I cannot fully appreciate it myself. That's why I'll make sure I'm never the only one telling you these stories. But I will say: remember this election, Mitike, because -- for the first time in U.S. history -- we chose a person of color as our highest leader.

But remember this election, too, Mitike, because President-Elect Obama's mother had peachy-tan skin like mine, which matters because it means Obama has spent his life navigating both his "white" and "black" identities, like you will. Add "Kenya" to "black": another identity to navigate, as Ethiopia will be another for you. Add "Hawaii" and "Indonesia" for Obama -- you'll add "Alaska" and other places we'll live; add Obama's identities as politician and lawyer, as husband and father, now as president -- you'll add yours, and among them will be "woman", "daughter". Remember this election, Mitike, because we chose for our highest office a human being who has embraced all these layers of himself, who has sought to weave them together for a whole self -- who knows that to reject any one of those identities would be to be incomplete and a less than authentic participant in the world.

Most of all, my sweet daughter, remember this election because of the way it echoes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who dreamed of a world in which his children were judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Remember this election, Mitike: while it is historically significant that Barack Obama is black, and while it is personally significant for you that Barack Obama is half Kenyan and half "white", it is most significant that our nation chose Obama for his ideas -- for his convincing message of hope and change -- and not for his skin color.

I hope that by the time you read this, Mitike, you will be surprised that Obama's election felt so monumental to me. I hope you will be accustomed to a country led by people of all ethnicities, by men and women, by members of many religions and backgrounds and preferences. I hope, by the time you read this, our country will be a global leader in peace and conservation, committed to working with other countries for the good of the world and not to serve power or greed. After yesterday's election, I even believe that hoped-for world is attainable.

Your eyes were drooping when Obama stood to give his acceptance speech at the podium in distant Chicago. While we all strained to hear Obama's words, you struggled in my arms, murmuring, "Upstairs, Mama. Milk." But you asked me to pin your Obama button to your pajamas, and your last words before sleep were "Obama, Obama, Obama." I think you understood, somehow, that this was an incredible day. Or maybe you were just excited about your first cupcake. What mattered, Mitike, was that, as your eyes closed and you fell into sweet sleep, your mama breathed more easily, feeling, for the first time in her life, like her country might be heading in the direction its ideals intend. Remember this election, Mitike -- it may mark a shifting tide, a change that will give you a better world in which to live -- as a woman of color, as a daughter of Africa, as an adopted person, as a human being.

I love you, TK. That is the reason this election matters most for me.

Love,
Mama

Patience's Limit is at 2 a.m. in the Morning

2008-10-22T14:33:00.001-08:00

At 2 a.m. in the morning, I am not a good mama. I am not patient or kind, or loving or tender. I am not playful or silly; I am not full of guidance or knowledge. I’m just tired. I just want to go back to sleep.

My almost-2-year-old daughter, Mitike, doesn’t understand this at all. During the day, her mama laughs with her, and throws her up in the air; she encourages her to talk and talk, and she pulls out all kinds of interesting toys for them to enjoy together. During the day, her mama thinks Mitike is hilarious and endearing and sweet and cuddly.

In the darkness of 2 a.m., though, Mitike’s mama frowns when Mitike starts talking; she lifts her finger to her mouth and whispers, “Shhh. Sleep now. Shhh”; she shakes her head disapprovingly when Mitike crawls out of bed and pitter-patters over to her favorite books and toys. Over and over, Mitike’s 2 a.m. mama picks Mitike up and lays her back in bed – less and less sweetly and more and more insistently each time.

At 2 a.m. in the morning, Mitike’s mama is pathetically and entirely human.

In two months of parenting this sweet and amazing little person who is my daughter, I’ve mostly been awed by her. But, as Ali often reminds me, Mitike is still two years old. Though she will sit happily beside me in a coffee shop for an hour, though she will tirelessly wander Alaska’s outdoors with me, and though she is the kindest and most generous tiny person I’ve ever known, her two-ness still manifests itself once in awhile– occasional tantrums at naptime, middle-of-the-night attempts to play instead of sleep, silly jealousy of my attention – even to the microwave, crazy crying because she was not allowed to hold some obscurely dangerous thing, like a jar of cayenne pepper, or a hot iron.

It’s in those moments that I realize with dismay that my patience actually has a limit – even for my sweet little daughter.

Witness: one afternoon, after a trip to Costco and then a visit to Tim’s class’s field trip to the salmon hatchery, Mitike began sobbing as I took off her coat. Over and over, she cried, “Where’d it go? Where’d it go?” She was inconsolable – hitting at me, throwing her toy car across the room, sobbing enormous tears that streamed down her face. I assumed she was tired, scooped her up and took her upstairs. Her crying escalated. She thrashed around on her bed, hitting the walls, sobbing “Where’d it go? Where’d it go?” I stared at her in dismay – she looked insane -- nothing like the little girl with whom I spend most of my time. I ran through a mental checklist of her special things: we had Bunny with us in bed, she was clutching her toy car and her toy helicopter, all three of her Obama campaign buttons were secured to her shirt. Nothing was missing. She continued to sob. Every time I moved to comfort her, she hit me or tried to scratch me. Now I was upset – and confused. I began to cry, too, and then my patience ran out. I took her by the elbows and shook her once, but firmly: “WHAT DO YOU NEED?” Of course, she began to cry even harder. I scooped her up (not very gently) and hurried downstairs and out the door to the car. I threw open the car door and gestured angrily to the inside: “WHAT do you NEED?”

And she stopped crying. She peered into the car’s interior, saw the pile of Costco groceries we had purchased hours earlier, and breathed a deep sigh: “There it is, Mama!” She smiled up at me, her tears magnifying her brown eyes. We went back upstairs, she let me lay her down in her bed, and she fell asleep in ten minutes.

I spent all of naptime feeling like an awful mother. The poor child had just wanted to make sure we’d brought the food home, and I had lost my patience with her.

Or return us to 2 a.m. in the morning. Mitike has been awake for over an hour. First she wants warm milk (“Mawk please, Mama?”), which I happily get for her. She cuddles up to me and lies still for about 2.3 seconds. “Caca,” she whispers in my ear. “Caca.” I want to encourage the potty-training, so I fall for the ruse. I lift her up and carry her to the bathroom, where I unzip her pjs, undo her diaper and set her on the potty. In accordance with a sleep book I read, I do not turn on the lights and I do not make eye contact with TK – the sleep book insisted toddlers will fall easily asleep again if parents do not encourage them to play during nighttime wakings. TK finally tires of sitting on the potty in the darkness and whispers, “All done.” I lay her back in bed. She lies still for 3.4 seconds this time. “Baby beluga, Mama?” I do not respond – I pretend I am sleeping. “In the kitchen!” she says hopefully. I still do not respond. She struggles free from my arms and pitter-patters over to her toy kitchen, where she proceeds to cook a plastic hamburger in her tiny frying pan. Normally, I would find this incredibly endearing; at this moment, I have – again – entirely lost my patience. I stand up, walk over to her, sweep her up and plop her down onto the bed. “Sleep,” I mutter, and I can feel my clenched teeth. I am too tired. Then I actually wrap my arms around her and firmly hold her there -- though she struggles again to get free – and let her whimper-cry herself to sleep. Ugh.

As she finally begins to breathe deeply, I again feel like a mother who is in dire need of patience lessons. I want my daughter to fall asleep every time knowing her mama loves her – not like she’s restrained in a mama straight jacket.

What would I do if, instead of TK, I was supposed to parent one of those toddlers I see at Juneau’s indoor play area – you know, one of those toddlers who is always screaming red-faced at their parent, or who is throwing sharp objects at another child? My toddler is extraordinary – I am constantly thankful. If I lose my patience in the rare times she behaves like a normal 2-year-old, I’ll never make it through her teenage years.

I've confided my worries about my lack of patience to my friends who are mothers -- who have survived or are surviving their own children's toddlerhoods. They've hugged me and then laughed kindly, telling me stories of how their own toddlers' limit-pushing drove them to startling cliffs: one woman kicked her son off the bed in her frustration; another locked herself in the bathroom to shout the "f" word over and over; a third took a day off of work to remove every single item from her daughter's room as a punishment for her behavior; a fourth strapped her toddler in the stroller, gave her a pile of unhealthy snacks, and jogged in the cold rain for two hours so she could calm down. Toddlers drive even the kindest, most serene women to a kind of insanity.

And then I think about what my friend Becky says about parenting toddlers – that it’s like working for an irrational boss who puts work assignments in front of you at odd hours, when you’re feeling your worst, and demands he needs them done NOW. No one’s capable of good work in that environment – all one can do is struggle through and hope for the best.

In other words, I’m learning slowly that motherhood’s about forgiving myself -- again and again and again. It's about telling myself that my lapses in patience and tolerance are okay, as long as I wrap my arms around my little girl and love her, still; as long as I love myself, still. It's not easy, especially for this lifelong perfectionist. I’ve read many, many books on parenting and adoption and racial identity, but now -- in the midst of it -- I see motherhood doesn’t contain “right” and “wrong”. It contains human beings – human beings struggling to love each other tenderly, even at 2 a.m. in the morning.

Dreaming in Three Languages

2008-10-15T22:26:00.000-08:00

“Mama!” TK calls from the top of the stairs. It’s 6:45 a.m., and the house is still Alaskan-October dark. I stumble to the bottom of the stairs and look up. My silly little girl is smiling expectantly, her arms extended to me. “Downstairs, Mama?” I nod, and climb to gather her in my arms. She leans in and kisses me all over my face. “Hi, Mama, hi!” Then she points toward her dark room and whispers, “Shh. Bunny asleep. Shh.”

What’s incredible in this moment is not so much TK’s happy waking demeanor – though that brightens every one of my mornings – but the fact that she has learned to use so much of the English language in only six weeks. Six weeks ago, my daughter heard her Ethiopian nannies speak only Amharic, Ethiopia’s written language. Three months before that, she had only heard Hadiya, her birth family’s language.

And now she gains at least two English words a day. She strings them into sentences with creative syntax; she imitates my intonations and my gestures. She explores language’s geography with a true explorer’s glee. When I pointed to the Mendenhall Glacier on our hike a couple weeks ago and said “glacier,” Mitike spent the next half an hour chanting the word – “GLASH-er, GLASH-er” – as if she wanted to taste it on her tongue, to touch it the way she stretched out her small hand to touch the spongy sphagnum moss on an alder tree.

As her mama, I’m simply amazed at how rapidly she is learning to communicate. As a teacher, I’m proud, though I think her aptitude is due to her strong-willed determination, not my instruction. As a writer, I’m witnessing an ongoing found poem – composed daily from the world TK experiences.

The poem begins with Mitike’s first word: "ababa", a baby-babble version of "abba", the Hadiyan word for “father” – a word Mitike carried from the tukul in which she was born in southern Ethiopia to an orphanage in Addis Ababa (where the nannies spoke Amharic, not Hadiya) to a yellow house in Juneau, Alaska (where everyone spoke English, with a smattering of Spanish). How does a toddler keep a word – how does she clutch it tightly in her small hands, the way she clutches the day’s chosen toy? She points to a Time magazine cover of Barack Obama and she shouts, “Ababa!” She insists Mama check out the library book Uh-Oh again and again, so she can point to the brown-skinned grandfather on the last page and whisper, “Ababa. Ababa.” She falls in love with chanting the word “Obama” at a rally because of its phonetic similarity to that precious Hadiyan word she first knew.

In the poem’s second line are the Amharic words – small revelations of orphanage care: "woh" (baby-babble version of “WOO-ha” for water), "a-MY-aye" (the word for “mother”, which TK called her favorite nannies and now calls me and Ali), "caca" (which Amharic-speakers inherited from the Italians, who briefly occupied Ethiopia), and "oh" (baby-babble version of “ah-woh”, which means “yes”).

Mitike the poet begins a new stanza. In the quiet blank space between the second and third lines, she furrows her tiny brow at the pale-skinned woman murmuring strange new words in her ear. When she falls asleep at night, it is to this woman’s singing – and even the lilt and lift of the music is different from everything she has known.

In the third line, the poet writes just one word – her first English word, and exactly the word a smiling, sparkly little girl should learn first: "yay". “Yay!” she calls out suddenly at the Addis guesthouse, when her new mama has just balanced an entire tower of Duplo Legos. She raises her arms, like she has seen the new mama do. “Yay, yay!”

"Mama" in the fourth line. For days, “mama” described a thin photo album I mailed to the orphanage back in June, when I completed my acceptance paperwork. TK slept with it, carried it everywhere, showed it to people and said solemnly, “Mama.” Then she would call for me: “Aye-AY!” Gradually, she realized I was the mama in the photos, and she gave Ali the name Aye-Ay.

The poem picks up its pace. Water – to drink, to stomp my feet in, to watch fall from the sky, to point out to Mama and hear her say “ocean”. Apple – for all fruit remotely round, regardless of size. Photo – for all cameras. Home (she says “hah-mm!"), which she exclaims with joy every time we walk in the door.

Now nonsense words she has made up: "eye-YAH-vo" for all writing utensils, "boppo" for food, "gossie" for balls and socks and her brother.

Now the poem’s words run together, as TK learns faster and faster: Helicopter – birdies – airplane – car (she says “nah-car”) – juice – milk (she says “mawk”) – coffee – two – three – one – I’llcomeback! – Iwuvyou – Good night! – off – uppy! – down! -- alldone – allgone -- puppy – kitty cat – fishy – coatandhatcoatandhat -- BunnycacacacaBunny? – asleep – Bunnyasleepshhh – Katieasleepshhh – I’llcomeback! – eat? – cookie – please? – thankyouMama – you’rewelcome – phone – Nanaphone? – IwuvyouI’llcomebackgoodnight! – bye-bye – hello -- brushyourteeth! -- bearwhere'dhegobear? -- GLASH-er! -– hi, mama, hi – Comeon! Comeon, Tim, comeon! -- onetwothreeweee!

The poet yawns – “Baby Beluga, Mama?” It’s time for bed. We’ll sing the Raffi song together -- she'll point out the glacier on one of the pages -- and then she will drink her warm milk and point to the light: “Off please, Mama!” I’ll cuddle her close while she fiddles with the two Obama campaign buttons she insists I pin to her pajamas and then – finally – falls asleep. In what language will she dream? All three? Barack Obama campaigning on the tukul’s doorstep, the Addis Ababa nannies waving to the seagulls from a boat in Alaska, her mama lifting her onto her shoulders in the warm Ethiopian sunshine. . .

Mitike for Obama!

2008-10-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Tim, our 8-year-old, shook his head bemusedly the other morning as he watched Mitike dance around her bedroom in her pajamas, patting the “Alaskans for Obama” button she insists I pin to her clothing at all times and waving a toy piano while she chanted loudly, “Obama! Obama! Obama!”. “If adults acted like toddlers,” Tim said softly, an affectionate smile on his face, “they’d be crazy.”

To explain the Obama button: last weekend, TK attended a Barack Obama rally with me and Ali. She marched proudly between us, chanting, “Obama! Obama! Obama!” Six days later, she still hasn’t parted with her campaign button. When I unpinned it one evening after she fell asleep, fearful of the safety pin opening in the night, I woke to TK’s small voice on the baby monitor, asking plaintively, “Where’d it go? Where’d it go?” As soon as the button was pinned back on her PJs, she fell asleep again, murmuring, “Obama, Obama, Obama.”

My mom shared this story with a friend, and the friend mused with Obama-hope, “If only 2-year-olds could run things.”

I spend all day with a 2-year-old – and often with several -- so I can imagine that world quite well. Let’s replace all members of the legislative, judiciary and executive branches of the U.S. government with 2-year-olds. The U.N. asks our governments to sign a perfectly reasonable treaty that would reduce carbon emissions. NO! our government replies in true 2-year-old tantrum style. Oil, now! The toddler government proceeds to grab oil from other countries’ hands. An ambassador from the Sudan describes the dire humanitarian situation there, but our government has not developed empathy yet. Instead, we pound our spoon on the table. More, more, more!

Or, instead, let’s just replace our two candidates for president (and their running mates) with 2-year-olds. While the nation watches, they engage in parallel play for awhile, seemingly happy. Then they suddenly realize they both want the same toy. A struggle ensues. One toddler bites another; another toddler scratches. They’re all screaming for Mommy, and the media answers. But 2-year-olds don’t have much vocabulary yet. They can’t accuse each other of domestic terrorism or spin facts and misquote statespeople to fool Americans into voting for them. That’s adult stuff.

What Tim doesn’t know yet, in the sweet innocence of the age of 8, is that adults are just as crazy as toddlers – particularly if we’re talking about the people who run things. At least in a world run by 2-year-olds, conflicts would end with hugs and sweet kisses, tears dried by soft towels, hurt pride soothed with warm chili and a cuddly warm nap in the afternoon. At least in a world run by 2-year-olds, forgiveness comes quickly – the toy that was fought over an hour ago is forgotten, as a tiny girl and a tiny boy share animal cookies from the same bag. At least in a world run by 2-year-olds, a simple red balloon can still amaze, a butterfly can still astound, a toss in the air can still be the height of the day’s joy.

Of course, I know TK’s chanting of Obama’s name has nothing to do with the election. She loves the sound of the word – it sounds like “Mama” and like “Ababa”, the word for “father” and her first and only word in her first language (Hadiyisa, an indigenous and unwritten Ethiopian language). She loves the reaction she gets from other people when she proudly shows them her button. She’s two. She doesn’t know that Obama could salvage the windblown ship, that he could be the president who re-connects us to other nations and realigns our national priorities with our national ideals, that he could re-focus our country on the middle and lower thirds – instead of that richest third for which Bush loves to advocate.

Ask TK whom she wants to win the presidential election, and she’s as likely to shout, “Apple!” or “No!” as she is to shout “Obama!” But she’s also a person worth “listening” to. She kisses our 6-year-old gently on the face to wake her up in the mornings; she bobs her head to music and grabs our hands to dance, making sure we’re all included; she shares her food with whomever is nearby; she makes “drawings” for Tim and then watches his face to make sure he likes them; she pulls me and Ali close in a sweet and full hug, her arms around both our necks. She’d have some good input into national policy, though she’d probably shout “Caca!” at inappropriate times in meetings, and she would require an extra chair beside her for her beloved stuffed animal, Bunny.

Someday, I’ll tell Mitike the story of how she campaigned for Barack Obama in her own crazy toddler way. I hope I’ll also get to tell her that, in the year she came home to us from Ethiopia, our country elected its first black president. And someday – no matter what -- I’ll tell her that she could grow up to lead our country, too.

Someday. Right now, Mitike’s waving a dish towel to disco music, patting her Obama button and waving one little hand in the air – no less crazily than an adult with the same joyful hope that the world could – and should -- improve.

Parenting a Toddler: An Insane Wonder

2008-09-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

Parenting a toddler falls somewhere between marveling at a miracle and watching an insane person, open-mouthed. I’ve only done this for a month now – I brought my sweet 20-month-old daughter Mitike home from Ethiopia at the end of August – but I’m astounded by the simultaneous insanity and beauty of toddlerhood, of motherhood, of this fierce love I feel for a creature who is very small and yet so big she fills every physical and emotional space of my days.

Mitike shows me the many things I miss, though I’ve always prided myself on being the writerly woman observant of small details. One day, while she sat on the kitchen counter eating breakfast, Mitike pointed out the window. “Yes,” I said encouragingly, glancing out the window, “a tree branch!” She shook her head and pointed again. “Yes, there’s the neighbor’s house.” I returned to my apple slicing. She shook her head and pointed again. Finally, I looked. There, on the smallest branch of the alder tree out the window, perched a hummingbird. “Oh!” I exclaimed, and caught TK’s eyes. She grinned at me. Finally, Mama had actually stopped to look long enough to actually see.

She reminds me of what I have forgotten to notice. Playing in the living room one morning, she suddenly began to clap her hands in the air and shout, “Yay, yay, yay, yay!” I laughed, convinced she was being silly, but her face held this look of absolute joyful wonder. “Yay, yay, yay, yay!” I re-focused my eyes. In the rays of sunshine streaming through the window, dust motes danced and swirled – it was these that she was watching move with the motion of her little hands. I can’t remember the last time I noticed how beautiful dust motes are – that they are not merely reminders of the kind of housekeeper I am.

Because Mitike cannot yet navigate the world with experience, she navigates it with emotion. She possesses a sense of people and places – of which ones are safe and which ones are not – that is far more finely-tuned than mine. The first moment we visited the public library, she struggled to get down and happily ran around, touching books, petting stuffed animals, grinning at the librarians. The first moment we entered a doctor’s office, she refused to take her coat off. She opens her arms wide to certain people, smiling her beautiful open-mouthed smile at them; she turns from others and hides on my shoulder. It is not arbitrary – upon later reflection, I realize that I have similar positive or negative feelings about those people.

Even more, TK navigates her new world with wonder. A stick is something to be examined closely – tasted, maybe – and then stuck into the sand. “Whoa, whoa!” she’ll call out when her stick draws in the sand. The ebbing and flowing waves on the beach might be water – she touches her hand to them to find out. Oh! Colder than the bath! A seagull dips low and she puts out her arms in imitation – then a floatplane motors overhead. She points. “Mama!” she seems to be saying, “they do the same thing!” She is an explorer; every discovery is the first one anyone has ever made.

But there is the part of raising a toddler that is far more like watching an insane person, open-mouthed. Suddenly, Mitike is crying – loud wailing, as if she is hurt. I rush to her, only to find she is crying because the balloon she was holding is now on the floor. “You can pick it up,” I tell her, and she does. Then she smiles. Then she is asking for help – “Hawp! Hawp!” I rush to her again. She looks panicked, and she is pointing at her head. I search wildly for any injury – but no, she just wants her stocking cap adjusted more to the right.

The little girl who watches the world with such wonder and joy is the same crazy person who insists on holding two things – one in each hand – at all times. She sleeps with strange objects – a bottle of cayenne pepper one night, a package of baby wipes another, a toy witch’s broom another, a whole orange (cradled in two hands) another. She cannot continue eating dinner if she sees a bit of food on the floor – “Caca, Mama! Caca!” she’ll call until I clean it up. Then she’ll sigh as if the whole world had been set right. If only it were that easy.

Already, I’m discovering how lucky I am, to get to parent this particular toddler. She is more weird than demanding, more communication-frustrated than tantrum-prone. She is generous – willing to share half-eaten cookies with other children or with adults she trusts. She is affectionate – kissing my cheek after she accidentally bonks it with the baby wipe container she is clutching. Her crying is short-lived. Most of her day, she laughs, and marvels, and reaches her small arms out to the world, wanting to discover more and more and more of it.

Bringing Mitike Home

2008-09-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

I met my daughter on the grey-blue carpet of a care center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in eastern Africa. It was not a joyful reunion. Her enormous brown eyes welled with tears as she kept her head down, trying to focus on the pile of toys she had gathered into the triangle of space between her splayed legs. She was only 19 months old, but I could tell she possessed some understanding of what was about to happen. Just when she had finally adjusted to this care center – so radically different from the grass-thatched hut she had left behind three months before – this pale-skinned lady had come – the same pale-skinned lady in the photographs the care center nannies showed her each evening. The nannies would point at the photos of the lady and murmur, “Mama, Mama, Mama”, and now here was that lady, and here were the nannies chanting, “Mama, Mama, Mama.”

She knew her own name already – the cayenne-pepper accent from the nannies’ lips: “MIH-tee-kay! MIH-tee-kay!” She loved to run-toddle into those nannies’ arms and be hoisted high up in the air. The care center had become her small world; she sensed that this “Mama” was about to take her from it.

I, on the other hand, had loved this small person for so many months – her photo creased and folded in my back pocket at all times – that I could not help feeling devastated when she did not reach for me that first day, or the second, or the third. The moment I saw her referral photo last May, I knew with an eerie certainty that she was the little girl Ali and I were supposed to mother. Mitike didn’t seem to feel the same way. By the second day, she grudgingly played with Duplo Legos with me, but then wailed when a nanny picked her up and put her in my arms.

Then the third day, her favorite nanny put her in my arms and pushed us out the door and to the waiting mini-bus, where seven other families held their whimpering and screaming children. Mitike seemed inconsolable. I held her close and rocked her, murmuring soft words.

Watch her now, two weeks later, back in the U.S. in Juneau, Alaska: she toddles around an indoor playground, laughing, her tongue out in a silly curl, her eyes bright. Often, she turns to find me and beams, or she runs toward me with her arms out and jumps into my embrace, covering my face with kisses. Then she jumps down again and toddles off to explore other things. At home, she sips her milk and holds my gaze, stopping her slurping to smile at me; she zips up my jacket and laughs; she cuddles close to me when it’s time for quiet reading and nap. In the mornings, she opens her eyes and smiles when she finds me in her vision.

Other parents – parents of biological children – have trouble believing there was ever a day Mitike did not love me and reach for me as her mother. And it’s true that – especially compared to other toddlers – TK is happy and good-natured, generous and loving, perceptive and appropriately cautious. To others – and even to me, who knows her whole story – it seems she has always been well-loved and well-nurtured.

But then, her story confirms that. Although her birth father had to bring her to an orphanage because he could not provide for her most basic needs – food, clean water, clothing – and because she was losing weight at a frightening pace after her birth mother’s death – she did not lack love. When I traveled south to meet him, I presented him with a framed photograph of Mitike (opposite a photograph of me) and he held it close, murmuring, “De-NAH-may, de-NAH-may” (“beautiful” in Hadiyisa), like a prayer. His eyes crinkled with laughter often, and I saw – in spite of his gaunt frame and his dire situation – a man who loved his little daughter dearly, who treasured her – so much, in fact, that he had been able to admit that he could not give her life.

I want her to be a good Ethiopian, he told me through the translator. I want her to be generous and to welcome guests. I want her to get an education. Half a world and two weeks later, I watch her extend her small hand and offer some of her snacks to a friend’s 2-year-old boy. I watch her smile sweetly at my friends when I hug them (her clue that they are people to be trusted). I watch her eagerly reach for the stack of books I keep beside her bed.

But there is loss. Who said adoption is both the happiest and the saddest thing? Here is my little girl, giggling on the kitchen counter as she draws pictures in the baby formula she spilled everywhere. She has already forgotten her sorrow to leave the care center nannies; her affection has transferred to me and Ali (she calls us both “Aye-AY” – a version of the Amharic “Ah-MY-aye”, which means “mommy” – “Mama” is the photo album the nannies used to teach her who I was). She has already forgotten her fear when the mini-bus pulled away from the care center; she has already forgotten the way she furrowed her small brow in confusion when we boarded the plane in the Addis airport.

I’ve cooked spicy lentils and shiro for her; I’ve fed her chicken berbere. I’ve hung Ethiopian art in her room, and I’ve filled her bookshelves with Ethiopian stories. But I cannot make injera – the flat crepe-like sour bread Ethiopians eat with every meal – and TK does not agree with me that tortillas are a close substitute. Tortillas crumble in her little hands, and she frowns, just as she frowns at the way American bananas taste – she peels another and another, taking little bites of each one, searching for the Ethiopian sweetness she remembers.

The rain of southeast Alaska is familiar to her, as are these cool temperatures – it was the rainy season in Addis when we left. But the wind makes her laugh in surprise – she points at the way the grass flattens, at the way my hair flies every which way. What will she say when the snow comes? When the temperatures drop even more? The rushing water in our creeks startles her – she cannot stop gazing up from her perch in the baby backpack to the tall tops of the spruce trees. Across the meadow where we walk, she sees a frozen swathe of blue-white and shakes her head at it – glacier, I tell her, and she looks at me for a moment, then points up at a bald eagle flying overhead, then at a small floatplane. She’s too young to miss the acacia and banyan trees, the streets crowded with donkeys and herds of goats, women clad in brightly colored scarves, men laughing with wide-open mouths, the 5 a.m. singing from the Christian Orthodox churches, the 6 a.m. call from the muezzin, the bananas hanging in bright bunches beside material and Tupperware and tools in the outdoor shops, the scent of ripe mango and berbere spice and simmering wat. She’s too young to long for Ethiopia. Already, after just two weeks, she helps me pull on her fleece hooded jacket and then happily extends her arms, as if to embrace her whole room, our whole house, this whole Alaskan life. Ethiopia is a dream she had once. She was hungry sometimes, and sad, and she laughed sometimes, and was happy.

Her birth father cannot imagine where she is now. He knows her new mother is a teacher and the daughter of a farmer. . .and he believes he understands those two facts well. But he cannot imagine my classroom with its two thousand books lining the shelves; he cannot imagine my father’s acres and acres of corn and soybeans; he cannot imagine my classroom computers or the way some of my students sulk about “having” to go to school or the national law that every American child attend school; he cannot imagine the speed and wealth of America. He lives in a round hut made from sticks and mud, thatched with grass – a tukul. He grows false banana (or enset) on a tiny plot of land, and struggles to feed himself and TK’s older siblings from the bread his eldest daughter forms from the plant’s root. They are starving. Meanwhile, TK ventures down a red plastic slide, copying my “Wheee!” with her sweet little voice. For lunch, she drinks apple juice with her spicy lentils; now she naps beneath layers of cozy fleece, a stuffed bunny cradled in her arms.

Here is the sorrow. TK will feel it again someday – the odd disconnect between the life she has now and the life she might have had – the two different planets on which she and her birth siblings live. Now she will live, her birth father told me. Now she will live. My heart twisted. Thank you for loving her, I whispered, and the translator repeated what I’d said in Hadiyisa. Bless you, he responded. Bless you.

It feels, suddenly, like TK has always been my daughter – like we have always woken to each other’s faces, like I have always listened to her babble or sung silly nonsense songs with her. Her tears, now, are about how much she dislikes the car seat’s restraint, or about how much she wishes she could go into her older brother’s room and dismantle his Lego structure, or about how dearly she would like to stay up a little later and laugh some more with her older sister. In my arms, she reaches for Ali and pulls her close, so we sandwich her between us. It as if we have always loved her.

Maybe we have.