Pattersons of Ethiopia

My New Book, August, And Ethiopia

2011-08-15T22:22:00.001-07:00

If I didn’t make it clear in my essay about how I’m giving 10% of my book profits to Ethiopia Reads, my heart lies in the country where my daughter was born.

Sadly, Ethiopia and the country that borders it, Somalia, are in dire straights. You can read about it by clicking here, but I’ll warn you, it’s a heart-wrenching story.

I talked it over with my wife, and we’ve decided to send all the profits from the month of August of my new novella, “The Werewolf Solution,” to Doctors Without Borders.

What’s the novella about? Here’s the tagline: “In a world where werewolves have revealed their existence, a werewolf must track down the werewolf who killed his father before the killer can get to his son.” If you want to know more, you can check out the first review here. Or read an excerpt here.

Will this cut into my giving to Ethiopia reads? Not a bit. If “The Werewolf Solution” makes $100, I’ll send $100 to Doctors Without Borders, and $10 to Ethiopia Reads. That’s five books and enough vaccines to fight infections in 40 people.

The thing of it is, maybe you don’t want to buy my books, but you want to give. That’d be great. Click here, and give whatever you can.

And if you have no money, and still want to help, do me a favor. Link this entry on your blog. Post it on Facebook. Throw the link up on Twitter.

Help me to help Ethiopia and Somalia.

You can buy “The Werewolf Solution” on:

The Kindle

The nook

And if you find that you need an app for your computer, iPhone, iPad, or Android, go here.

Thank you.

Why I’m Giving 10% of My Book Sales to Ethiopia Reads

2011-07-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

Like many people, I grew up as a reader in a house with limited funds. Luckily for me, I lived in Oshkosh, WI – a city that had (and still has) a great library. I could go there at any time, and walk out with a stack of books I wanted to read, at no cost to me.

On July 28th, 2007, my wife and I arrived in Ethiopia and met our little girl. She was six months old, 12 pounds, and the most beautiful baby we had ever seen. I wept the moment I met her. (There’s video.)

Through our adoption journey, I learned about both the good and the bad of Ethiopia. The amazing food, the incredible culture, how the very history of mankind is tied to the country where my child was born.

And I learned about the abject poverty: The average person in Ethiopia lives on 125 dollars a year.

Then I became aware of a man named Yohannes Gebregeorgis.

You can look him up if you want to know more, but the thumbnail sketch of Gebregeorgis is that he was born in Ethiopia, and then immigrated to the United States in 1982. He got his masters degree in library science, and took a job at the San Francisco public library as the children’s librarian.

When he was unable to locate any children’s books that had been published in Amharic, the primary language of Ethiopia, he took it upon himself to write and publish one.

In 1998, he founded Ethiopia Reads. Its mission? “To create a reading culture in Ethiopia by connecting children with books.” In 2002, he moved back to Ethiopia, and has since established 10 libraries, including mobile library carts that are hauled to rural areas by a donkey.

In an ideal world, an organization like Ethiopia Reads would never want for donations, and would spend week after week opening new libraries and sending out new donkey carts stuffed with books for children.

In an ideal world, I’d have so much money to spend that I could fund this kind of important work myself.

But that’s not how things are.

I can’t do it alone. I need help. Your help.

Why? Because starting July 1st, 2011, 10% of profits from my book sales will go to Ethiopia Reads.

What does that mean?

It means if I make $20 that month selling my books, Ethiopia Reads will get two dollars from me. According to the program’s site, that’s enough to buy a book for one child. (The program also gives books to children to keep. For some it may be their first and only book.)

If I make 1,000,000 dollars, I’ll send Ethiopia Reads 100,000 dollars – enough to create ten donkey carts.

But as the saying goes: Wait! There’s more!

If any one of my books (I have three as I type this, with more to come) makes it into the top 100 of the Kindle sales listing, I’ll give 20% of my profits for that month to Ethiopia Reads.

The only way I can make this happen is with your help. Here’s how:

Put a link to this post on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog. The more people know what I’m doing, the more money I’ll (hopefully) raise for Ethiopia Reads.

Buy one of my books on the Kindle or nook.

Or, if you’re not interested in the genre of stories I write (supernatural/urban fantasy tales, some funny, some scary, all of them heartfelt), consider donating to Ethiopia Reads directly.

And that’s it.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for getting the word out!

Josh

Right, Dad?

2010-11-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure I can format this one to tell a story, but here it is anyway: The newest, oddest thing my daughter does.

It goes like this:

Mihret and I get into the middle of an activity. Suddenly, my daughter feels she must state a rule. Like so:

Her: We sit when we eat, right dad?

Me: Right, Mihret.

Her: Right, Dad?

Me: Right, Mihret.

And so on. It's like living in a "Leave it to Beaver" episode.

What's interesting about it have been the variations. If Kara is around, we get:

Her: Right, Dad?

Me: Right, Mihret.

Her: Right, Mom?

Kara: Right, Mihret.

And so on.

Only now, because she thinks it's funny, when it's just me and the kidpants, I'll get:

Her: Right, Dad?

Me: Right, Mihret.

Her: Right, Mom?

Me: You'll have to ask mom.

Her: Right, Mom?

Me: Dude. You know I'm not your mom.

Her: Right, Mom?

Me: *sigh*

I have yet to find anything like this in a parenting handbook...

Unsolved Mystery

2010-11-05T10:59:00.001-07:00

Lately, our life has revolved around a magical thing called The Potty.

If you listen to people like My Friend, The Nanny, kids eventually just get it. They figure out how to do it, they think it's grand, they pull off the pull-up and they are ready to go.

It happens as if by magic.

The only problem is, in our house, it isn't happening by magic.

Oh, we thought it would. We brought in underpants, we got excited about them, we tried to make them sound awesome. The little one, on the other hand, decided we could pee and poop in 'em. And why not? She doesn't have to clean them.

Then we figured we'd let it happen naturally at the day care. She'd move up to preschool, and all the other kids would be in underpants, and she'd want to be a big kid.

Didn't happen.

Then new, younger kids moved in, and we thought being a "big kid" might make a difference. Perhaps she'd learn to use the potty just to show the other kids how it's done.

Nope.

We tried a sticker system, which lasted for ten minutes, because she tore the special chart off the wall. Not on purpose. She just wanted to look at it. She didn't seem to understand what it was for.

And all the while, she kept getting better at the MECHANICS of the potty.

She can pull down her own pull-up. She can wipe herself, when poop isn't involved. She can wash her own hands, and use soap, and dry herself off.

And in the last four or five weeks, she seems to have gotten to a point where she can actually hold in her pee, instead of just letting it out in drips and drabs throughout the day.

Which is certainly an important step.

She's finally, finally, finally learning to put all her pee and poop in the potty, and I'm going to tell you how that's happening:

It's called The Treat Tin.

What's in the Tin? Candy. Lots of different kinds of candy, collected over time, given to us at birthday parties, at day care, and pretty much any time someone encountered us and thought we had a cute kid who needed a treat.

That Tin has all the power in the universe. And I think the reason it works is that it's not all the SAME candy. Whereas we played this game once before with M and Ms, she eventually realized that she was always gonna get a little hunk o' chocolate if she went on the porcelain throne.

So if she didn't want chocolate, well, feh. Why bother?

This feeds into my other theory, which not everyone in the household agrees with: I think our kid has refused to potty train because she realizes it's a bad deal.

Right now, if she's playing, or reading a book, or watching a movie, and she has to go? She can just go. There's nothing to stop her. She can void herself and just keep on having fun. She knows that's an awesome deal many adults would kill for.

(If you don't believe me, Google the Bleacher Buddy.)

But since there's a treat at the end of the tunnel, she races up the stairs, and voids her bladder, and runs downstairs because she knows some variety of candy, maybe one she's never had before, is totally on tap, and she is PUMPED.

Just last week, I got her through an entire day in a single pull-up, because every time she felt an urge, she knew a reward was waiting for her.

Which brings us to "The Mystery" in question.

Generally, when I'm in the shower in the morning, the little one occupies herself with something from our DVD collection. VeggieTales, Elmo, Dora, and lately Charlie Brown. She has some juice, she wakes up (she's not very good at that, just like everyone else in this house) and it gives her a chance to mellow before school starts.

Meanwhile, Kara is upstairs if there's an urgent need. Granted, Kara is asleep, but she would wake up if there was screaming or a loud crash.

At any rate.

On this morning, Kara was already at work. I went into the shower. I got out of the shower. And there was Mihret, with a big grin on her face.

"I went poop! Can I have a treat?" she asked.

Here's the issue: Mihret doesn't poop alone. She can pee alone, because she can take care of all the extra business that goes with it. But poop is another matter. We've had poop dropped on the floor and tracked around accidentally during poop alone time, so we carefully monitor her during such times now, and perform all wiping duties.

And I know her teachers give her a hand during these times as well.

So... I thought she might have been lying to me. Or, worse, had done horrible things in the upstairs bathroom even as I cleansed myself.

I checked her hands. I smelled her fingers. No poop.

I went upstairs and checked the floor, the toilet seat, and the box of moist wipes. All seemed to be clean, unused, and in order.

The only thing that indicated my wee one HAD been in the upstairs bathroom was her little stool, which she stands on when washing her hands. It had been moved in front of the sink, indicating that she had, at the very least, washed her hands while I was cleaning myself up.

I asked if she didn't just go pee. She insisted there was poop. Later than night, I asked her again if she went poop today, and she said she did. When I asked if it was before school or during school, she said, before.

Ultimately, I had to trust the little one, and gave her the treat she requested. But now I'm trying to figure out if there's some way to add a potty-verification system to the upstairs bathroom.

A Haiku for My Daughter

2010-07-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

A Haiku for My Daughter
(in Honor of her Mama Delame)

She sang to you and/
I'm singing to you and our/
Voices, mother-love.

-Kara N. Patterson

Family History and the Big Girl Bed

2010-06-30T14:19:00.001-07:00

Growing up is tough. Growing up as a parent is tougher.

The various tests and troubles of parenting start the moment your kid comes home. They have a pattern of some kind, but they can’t explain it to you, because they haven’t learned to talk yet.

So your life turns into a science experiment of eating, and sleeping, and diapers, and cuddling, and eventually you get to a point where everything works.

At which point: Boom. Over. On to the next phase.

And you get to learn a whole new set of eating/sleeping/running rules.

Then you adjust, and then, BOOM, over.

In the midst of it all? The big girl bed.

As an adult with no children, you spend very little time thinking about the many beds of childhood. Your brain understands the whole baby/crib, older child/bed thing, and that’s about it.

But as you start raising actual human beings, you learn that there are many itinerations of the big-girl bed.

First, you’ve got the crib. NO blankets allowed. Maybe one, if it’s really tucked in. Because if you don’t tuck it in, the kid will kick it on their face, and then IT’S ALL OVER.

At least, that’s what the parenting books tell you.

Then they get a little older, and maybe you put a blanket in there.

If they’re little when they come home, you leave the bar on the crib down. The kid gets bigger? You raise the bar.

Then comes the day when your child moves to a “toddler” bed. Which means you take the bars off the side.

It’s like a small miracle. First it was a crib, and now, with a little tugging, it’s a bed. A small one, granted, but a bed all the same.

Finally, it’s time to move your kid to an actual, you know, bed-type-bed. Maybe a full. Or a twin.

In our case it was a twin, though I didn’t realize it at first.

You see, Kara and I were PREPARED for this moment. We bought an awesome crib, which is designed to turn into a toddler bed, and then into a bed-type-bed. Even better, when I told my parents that I thought it was time to move the kid to a regular bed, they said they had one.

There’s a story I’ll come to there. In a moment.

So our plan was set. They’d come over, they’d bring the bed, and we’d arrange the little one’s room to accommodate her brand-new, big girl bed.

Only, as it turns out, I know nothing about beds.

To start with, I didn’t take into account that my daughter’s bed-to-be would have to be a full-sized bed, in order to accommodate the head-and-foot-boards previously known as “crib parts.”

So, instead, I tore apart her crib, and my dad and I (mostly my dad) hauled the parts of the bed upstairs and started assembling them.

Which is when I learned something – the bed used to belong to my dad.

For weeks, my parents had referred to the bed in question as belonging to my grandparents. But I didn’t realize they were talking about the Patterson side. I had assumed they were speaking of the Dorows, who both passed away this year.

I was sort of right and sort of wrong.

According to my father, the bed that now sits in my daughter’s room was his – or possibly his brother’s. My dad was one of seven kids, and the bed in question was, essentially, a cheapie from Sears. Back when my dad was young. Which would have been back in 1950-something.

The bed resided at the Patterson household for years, until the Dorows had to move into assisted living, and needed beds that would fit in their tiny apartment. So this little bed, and its brother, left the Patterson household for the first time in their long history, and became part of the Dorow household.

Then my grandfather passed away, and the bed returned to my parents.

The bed itself is in great shape. There’s a scuff here and there, but my Grandma Patterson recovered the headboard years ago in fake brown leather that almost perfectly matches my daughter’s bedroom set.

You might notice that the color is a little off from the other furniture, but it would take you a while.

In a lot of ways, the bed is perfectly at home in my daughter’s room, a collection of books and toys from her childhood, my childhood, and my wife’s childhood. Adding a bed that my father, my grandfather, and almost certainly I, have slept in at one time or another feels right.

I’ve already said that growing up as a parent is tough. Three generations of parents have slept in that same bed, and with any luck, one day Mihret will present a big-kid bed to her son or daughter with the words, “This used to belong to your great-grandfather. And your great-great grandfather, for a while.”

And if we’re all very lucky, the bed will pass along four generations of parenting wisdom.

An Open Letter to Huggies

2010-06-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Huggies People,

I've been meaning to talk to you for some time about your Pull-Ups. These are, of course, the diapers that have been designed to act like underwear for kids who sometimes still pee in their pants. Or poop in their pants. Or have other pants-related accidents that parents would rather deal with by throwing something in the trash instead of trying to wash something covered in fecal matter.

Here's what I wanted to say about them: I hate them. They are worthless. They have exactly one good quality, which I will detail now.

This is the good quality: Just like a regular diaper, you can put them on and take them off without having to remove your child's pants, shoes, socks, leggings, lederhosen, etc.

So I want to thank you for thinking of that, since you are the only Pull-Up makers who realized that would be a good thing.

But now it's time to talk about the stuff that makes me froth at the mouth like a rabid marmoset.

1. Pull-Ups are almost totally useless as a waste-containment system.

In winter, this is less of a problem, because the lack of heat in the air means my child doesn't require a lot of liquids. Ergo, she doesn't have to pee as much.

But now, as summer drapes its sweaty body over us like a warm, moist towelette, my kid gets thirsty all the time. And she wants something to drink. Something that comes out as urine. Which goes into her Pull-Up. Which can hold about two ounces of widdle before I start seeing little puddles of pee on my couch, on the floor, on my kid's pants, and so on.

What this means is, I STILL have to remove my kid's pants, and replace them, and while I'm not a huge fan of the process in general, I enjoy it even less when I get urine on myself in the process.

The job of the waste-containment system is to CONTAIN waste. So let's work on that, shall we?

2. Let's talk about how diapers go on.

Every disposable diaper that exists right now goes on in the following fashion: The the front of the diaper goes up over the waste-excreting part of the child, which is then held in place by two Velcro straps that move from the back of the diaper to the front.

To review: The straps in the back go over the TOP of the diaper in front.

But for some reasons, your Pull-Ups are the complete reverse. The straps in the FRONT go over the OTHER straps in the back.

Now, you might argue that Pull-Ups are designed to be pulled UP. Which is true. But please see above, re: removal of lederhosen.

Regardless, it's an irritating thing to have to learn in the midst of teaching a child to put their waste in another receptacle. We as parents are already frustrated - why do you feel compelled to ADD to it?

3. And speaking of Velcro...

Frankly, folks, your diapers just don't hold together all that well when doing the thing they are designed to do. Which is to slide off like faux underwear so that our kids can get used to the semi-removal of clothing all adults who need to void their bladders do on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, like most human beings,kids push down on the sides of their undergarments when getting ready to let the waste fall into the toilet. This is right where your Pull-Ups come together.

Which means that, frequently, the Pull-Ups just plain fall off. And when that happens, kids come to view it as how Pull-Ups are supposed to function. So they just start tearing them off, which is not how you use underwear at all.

At least, not in a bathroom setting.

To this end, let me make a radical design suggestion that just might prevent me from having to burn a pile of horribly soiled clothing that I just don't want to get involved with:

First, let's up the containment factor on these things. I realize that you make a "nighttime" version as well, but I don't feel like slapping Sleeping Beauty on my little one's booty every time she wants a cup of juice.

Second, let's fix this strap issue. For the love of sanity, please make Pull-Ups assemble the same way all the other diapers in the universe assemble. I realize this might cost you one more cent for that stretchy fabric, but you can pass that cost along to us, the parents. You were going to do it anyway.

Perhaps you can save some money by eliminating the "wet spot" portion of the diaper, which is supposed to tell kids that they're wet and should go pee in the potty, but just gives them a diaper rash.

You can get rid of the "when pee gets on this, it turns purple" section of the Pull-Up as well. You know why? Because it's under PANTS, which means no one can see that the color has changed.

I mean, have you not HAD children? Do you not realize that if a kid learns their diapers change color when you pee in them, they view it not as a reason to use the potty, but as a reason to play "baby science?"

In conclusion, way to go on the Pull-Ups that change like diapers. Now, I'm begging you, please do something so I don't have to change my kid's trousers three times a day just because she wants a drink of water.

Yours,

Josh

Why I Will Always Bring a Diaper Bag Everywhere: A Tragic Tale

2010-05-06T13:27:00.001-07:00

For the last several weeks, things have finally been warming up around here, and the giant yellow ball in the sky has finally started sticking around past 5:30.

In some ways, this is bad, as it is becoming a little more tricky to convince the little one that bedtime is nigh, when the sun is still a-blazing outside.

In other ways, this is A Good Thing, mostly because after a long winter of her wanting to sit and watch “a movie” after dinner, she is now much more entranced with the idea of being outside.

This pleases me, since I can now worry a lot less about whether or not I’m turning my child into a couch potato. If I am, I’m doing it slowly.

When we have time on our hands, we usually head to one of three places:

The backyard/around the block: We did this a lot last year, as we finally had a swing set, and a walk or two around the block was usually a good way to kill ten minutes.

A local school: They have a play area, they’re in walking distance, and if it’s just the two of us she can even walk by herself, with some assistance when we cross the street.

City Park: For some reason, this is often the place We Must Go. The problem is it’s kind of a commitment. We either have to drive, because it’s more than a half-mile, or we have to walk, and there’s at least one major street-crossing along the way.

Plus she can’t walk it, because it’s too long, so we have to get out the stroller, and walk for fifteen minutes, and play vigorously, and then walk back.

Don’t mock. This is how I lost eight pounds last summer.

The problem with carting the little one around is that you have to bring all her “stuff” with you everywhere you go. You need the diaper bag. You should probably have a drink in there, and snacks, and diapers, and an extra outfit, and also make sure you packed wipes…

But I’ll admit it. I’ve gotten lazy.

At first it was just the school. It’s a short walk, so why bring an extra diaper? If she gets wet, yeah, it’s uncomfortable, but we can be home in maybe five minutes.

Then I just got tired of bringing a diaper bag to the park, because it is a long walk, and after a while carting around an awkward bag just gets tiresome.

And here comes the meat of this story.

So, it was a pleasant Sunday afternoon. A light breeze, a lot of sun. The perfect park weather, when it’s not too hot to run around, and not so cold that you need a heavy, arm-impeding coat.

As per usual, it took a little scrambling to get out the door. We’re ready to leave, but first we need a snack, okay we ate, let’s clean our hands, okay, let’s go, no, wait…

So when I saw that the little one’s diaper was starting to look a little wet, the conversation went like this:

Me: We need to get you changed.

Her: No, I wanna go to the park!

Me: … Eh. Fine. We can change you there later.

And so we got out the stroller. And I looked at the diaper bag. And I thought, “Meh.” I just didn’t feel like lugging the thing. I’d already spent most of the day running from place to place, and I was tired and didn’t want to drag along an extra five pounds.

So I jammed a diaper in my pocket and we rolled out.

Things started well. The walk was tolerable, even though I felt like I could use a nap. And when we got to the park, we discovered that a couple of kids from Mihret’s day care were already there.

Then things went a little South.

Mihret, it seems, has something of a love/hate relationship with the little one in question. They’re both three, they’re both not great at sharing, and as it happens, neither of the kids had taken a nap and they were both running on fumes.

So they played for a while, and then there was some yelling about, “My ball!” and then the other little one started crying.

Mihret ran off to continue playing with the ball in question, while the other kid’s parents calmed him down. I apologized about the ruckus, but they calmly informed me that it’s just the way things go at this age.

I could not disagree.

Mihret returned, ball in hand, and gave the ball to its rightful owner so the other family could go home. A moment later, she lifted up what appeared to be a sand-covered finger. “Poop!”

I looked to the other family, who looked down at her. I looked back over at my daughter, and said, “I don’t think so…”

Partially because my daughter isn’t a diaper-digger. I’m not saying she’s a perfect angel, but we keep her hands away from the goo in her pants.

Also, partially because I really didn’t want her to have poop on her hand. Because, ick.

The other family looked at me with sympathy. The mom confirmed it was probably poop, and apologized and said they didn’t have any diapers or wipes. And then they left me there, to face the consequences alone.

(I don’t blame ‘em.)

I looked down at my daughter, who then turned around… and exposed the horror. The back of her pants, almost an entire leg’s worth… were brown.

Something had gone seriously wrong. And all I had on me was one diaper. And a fifteen-minute walk home, by stroller.

Oh. And Kara? She was at work.

I was on my own.

I glanced around the park, hunting for a restroom. It wasn’t a perfect option, but if I could at least clean her up somewhat… maybe stuff a huge wad of paper towels under her… perhaps I could get home mostly poop free, and fix things from there.

I grabbed Mihret’s poop-free hand and led her towards the bathroom. Luckily, she came with me. Sadly, that tapped out my luck reservoir.

Mihret and I stepped into the bathroom, and I saw immediately that nothing here was really going to help me. There was one stall, with some, but not much, toilet paper. There was no soap dispenser.

And in place of the paper towels, they had a hot air blower.

Oh – and no trash can in the bathroom.

I stood there and pondered my options. My child was, literally, covered in poop. And the scraps of toilet paper available to me were not going to protect her stroller, even a little bit. I could drag her home, and try cleaning it later, but the fact is, poop molecules don’t just leave that visible stain we all hate.

It also leaves The Smell That Will Not Die.

Plus, seriously. Poop all over the pants.

I took a deep breath and considered my options.

If I took the pants off and folded them juuust so, I could carry them home and try to figure out what to do with them. Or, if they were old, I could just toss them. Because seriously, this was a lot of poop.

I started pulling toilet paper off the roll, in an attempt to create a makeshift changing table on the floor. This didn’t really work, as toilet paper isn’t all that wide, and the slightest breeze, like, say, the one caused by setting a toddler on it, causes the paper to shift.

I removed the little one’s shoes and socks and set them aside. They appeared to be clean, but there was no way to know.

Then I started tugging at the pants.

I tried. I tried so very hard to keep the poop away from the parts of her leg that were clean, but the poop fought back and coated her entire leg, up to and including her foot.

I checked the pants. 3T. They were new. I couldn’t morally toss them in the trash. They would have to come with me.

I then discovered the source of the problem.

First, if you aren’t aware of it, Pull-Ups aren’t really diapers, per se. They’re too thin, don’t absorb all that much, and as a bonus, have a tendency to cave under stress. Either the sides get torn or detached when being pulled off and on, which is what a Pull-Up is FOR, or a too-large urine or poo flow can easily spill out of the edges of the filth containment system.

In this case, a side of the diaper had torn, rendering the diaper useless, but giving no outward signs that this was the case. So the poop was free to roam wherever it chose.

I took off the remainder of the diaper, which had very little poop inside it. It was, in fact, fairly clean.

Since there was no trash can, I just set it aside.

Then I started pulling toilet paper off the nearby roll, and attempted to turn the massive smear on my daughter’s leg into a slightly smaller smear.

This did not work. At all. The poop was already starting to dry, for one, and for two, it was coating her all the way to her foot, which gave me nothing to grab and manipulate the leg with. I couldn’t remove the stuff so much as spread it around.

Finally, I started grabbing a few squares at a time. Then getting them damp in the sink, but not too damp, because then they would disintegrate and I couldn’t use them. Then I’d wipe off perhaps a half of a square inch and throw the waste into the toilet.

This went on and on and on. At least two men came into the restroom while I was there, neither of them offering comment or help.

Finally, I deemed my little one “slightly cleaned,” and put a new diaper on her.

Then I picked up her pants. Poop rolled out.

I sighed. I used some more paper to pick it up. I realized that my fingers smelled badly, but there was nothing I could do because there was no soap in the bathroom, and nothing to wipe my hands off with except toilet paper or a pair of poop covered trousers.

I carefully shoved Mihret’s shoes and socks into my pockets, in order to get as little poo as possible on my own pants.

I picked up her dirty diaper, and dirtier pants, and also grabbed the last of the toilet paper. Sorry, anyone who was in there after me. I really needed it.

We walked out.

I found a trash can and disposed of the diaper, and then gave more consideration to just tossing the pants. Looking inside them revealed just how awful the damage was. There was a lot of poop, it was smeared everywhere, and it wasn’t just a light glazing. It was almost an eighth of an inch deep in several spots.

We walked back to the stroller, and I laid all the toilet paper down, but as I mentioned, the stuff doesn’t sit well. I put Mihret in, and started the long walk home, with a child who had no pants, and probably had at least some poo on her shirt. And also, one of my hands was mostly full of poop pants that I didn’t want to squeeze.

By the time we got home, I still had no idea what to do next. I had Mihret’s poo-covered shoes and socks on hand, and no one to take the little one from me while I attempted to deal with them before they dried out even more than they already had.

After much deliberation, I opened the screen door, then opened the door and tucked her inside. In an attempt to keep her from rolling away, I set the brakes.

I zipped down to the basement, and desperately tried to rinse the larger hunks of poo out of the pants. It simply didn’t work. Meanwhile, my child was sitting in her stroller waiting for me to set her free.

I gave up, and tossed the pants and socks in the washer, hoping that even if the stain didn’t come out, at least the washer wouldn’t smell like feces.

I went upstairs, passing my child along the way, and started running a bath for her. I had to move her soon, as she had started yanking the toilet paper off of her stroller and throwing it on the floor.

Finally, blissfully… I washed my hands. It never felt so good. I then selected a special towel, dubbed it the poop towel, and vowed I would dry my hands with no other towel in the near future.

I looked at myself. What to do? Had I soiled parts of myself? Should I just throw everything I was wearing in the wash?

I tossed my shirt, and went down to get the kiddo. All the toilet paper was now on the floor.

I sighed, freed her from the stroller, and brought her up the stairs. I did this by holding her under her armpits and not letting the poo foot, or any other poo-parts, touch anything. At all.

Until I set her in the water. On her feet. And pulled off her diaper and her shirt.

The diaper went into the pail. The shirt went into the laundry, which I had already started to think of as “the poo laundry.”

I took one of the six washcloths I had grabbed and did a thorough re-scrubbing of all the affected poo parts. Then I took a second washcloth and did it again.

Finally, my daughter was allowed to sit down in the tub. A thorough bathing was administered, and when I was done I had used six washcloths.

Her towel went into the poo laundry. As did my pants. And post-bath-and-getting-dressed, all poo-laungry was put in the wash. Her pants and socks had come clean, much to my shock.

But, sadly, I still wasn’t done.

I had to collect all of the bits of toiler-paper that were on the floor under the stroller, and then scrub the stroller with soap and water. And then wash my hands for the eight-millionth time.

In conclusion: Ick. And also, bring a diaper bag with you when you go out to play. For that matter, consider bringing two.

Just in case.

-Josh

Hammock Haven

2010-04-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

This is Mihret cuddling in her Nona and Pappa's hammock with her Nona in Evansville, IN. I learned hammock hunkering (and Mihret cuddling) from the best!

April 21, 2010
Post-Crescent column: Warm weather puts me in the swing of things

You know spring has sprung at the Patterson house when the hammock is in full swing.

I'm not sure when my fascination with the freestanding, woven-rope-on-poles resting place first began. It seems like a hideaway I've always wanted to have.

Although far from an athletic child, I made up for it in imagination, and for that reason, I was always outdoors in good weather. I unfolded my share of picnic blankets and even read books perched on the highest bars of my swing set, but the hammock was a treat that never materialized.

A fan of the "Star Wars films" as a child of the '80s, I was well aware that the Ewoks, the teddy-bear-like helpers of Luke Skywalker and his sister Leia, had hammocks. Their village on the forest moon of Endor was pocketed with them. Perhaps that's what first caught my attention.

In the books and magazines I read, both fiction and nonfiction, adventurers and travelers always carried their trusty hammocks, whether they were National Geographic explorers or the hobbits of the Shire in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth.

I received my first hammock as a gift from my parents a few years ago. When the snow stays away long enough for our first tulips to show their greenery, we haul the hammock out of its garage hibernation and set it up in its place of honor under our lone apple tree.

Suspended between the hustle of the last hour and the bustle of the next, when I'm in the hammock with a good read and an iPod, everything seems to look, well, up.

I savor my chosen solitude and I take the time for myself that's so hard to get when my feet are still on the ground.

Now, if only I could put up a hammock in the basement for the off-seasons.
-By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer/www.postcrescent.com

Memoirs

2010-04-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of years, Kara and I have talked about writing a book detailing our entire adoption experience. We’ve gone back and forth about writing it together, or writing different chapters, and a few times I’ve talked about writing it myself.

Why just me? A few reasons. There are quite a few adoption books from a female perspective, but none that I’ve been able to find that take a man’s view. There’s also a time factor – Kara has always had the zany, work-all-the-time job, and getting extra writing in doesn’t seem feasible much of the time.

Why write the book at all? Because people have questions, and no matter how much time we spend talking to people, it never seems like we can describe everything.

Today, I went to a memoir workshop that was being held at a local library. We were asked to bring a picture, and then the person running the workshop asked us to write about what was happening in the picture in both the past and present tense.

I ended up with two very different perspectives that way, and since we don’t update nearly often enough here, I thought I’d share them:

Present Tense:

I am a father for the first time. The nannies at the care center have handed my child to me and my wife, and given us a bowl of baby cereal for our daughter. We’re ushered into another room, along with a fellow family, like we’ve been feeding Mihret for months.

Like we understand her.

I awkwardly try to cradle this 12-pound being that I’ve spent two years waiting to meet. My wife attempts to get the adult-sized spoon past her six-month-old lips, but our little one doesn’t seem to be hungry. I take a turn, and prove just as inept.

Wanting to hold onto this moment, we ask our new friend to take a picture of us feeding our daughter, even though we have failed in our first act as parents.

Past Tense:

When we take photos, we try to get everything perfect. We want to look taller, thinner, more competent, more awake, more alert. At our best.

But in this single photo, the only one we have, we are dressed in the same clothes we’ve been wearing for the last three days. I have slept maybe four hours of the last 30, and Kara only a bit more. We are posed awkwardly, our child seems to be half-asleep, and everything about us, even the picture framing itself, is askew.

But it is the only picture we have, so it is perfect.

Our Kid and Her Movies

2010-03-12T15:20:00.001-08:00

Recently, I had a friend of mine looking for recommended movies. As you know if you’ve been following this blog, Kara and I avoided watching TV with the little one until she was two, and then pretty much avoided watching it after that until she expressed curiosity with the huge screen-y thing that we sometimes used to show other people what she looked like as a baby.

Then we started getting into The Potty, and with it came potty videos, and then we were off and running.

Not long ago I read an article that said some kids as young as two years old knew how to operate the remote to the TV, and that many parents didn’t verify, at all, what their kids were watching.

So I gotta admit, the 90 or so minutes a day my kid watches a video while we attempt to accomplish necessary life tasks (making food, consuming food, cleaning, trying to plan other days in our life) don’t make me feel like a bad parent at all.

I also feel decent about our watching time because we do most of it together, and more importantly, it’s all DVD-based, so I actually know what it is she’s watching.

Here’s a list:

Elmo DVDs

We’ve got a few of these, but man, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. Which is the point. Kids like patterns, and so every Elmo DVD follows the exact same structure. Which is great if you’re a kid, but enough to make you want to weep for your sanity as an adult.

If anyone wants a complete list of Elmo DVDs, feel free to ask, but really. They’re all the same, and in general good at helping kids learn about concepts. For example, the one Mihret loved for about two weeks was “Elmo Visits the Fire Station,” which talked all about avoiding fire, and not to be afraid of firefighters.

So you can’t go wrong with them, but they’ll drive you insane.

A Bug’s Life

This was Mihret’s first real movie, which did lead to some whining when she wanted to watch it in the morning, when she needed to be entertained for about 30 minutes while I showered, and not for an hour and a half.

“Bug,” as she calls it, is an AWESOME movie, and even after seeing it more than a dozen times, I’ll still stop whatever I’m doing and watch parts of it with her. It does get a little intense at the end, which both scares the little one a bit. Though she enjoys it.

She takes after her dad that way.

Aladdin

This was Mihret’s favorite movie for about a week, and you know what? It got old, fast. The genie doesn’t show up for half an hour, and while you think he’s going to be funny, a lot of what he does is now based on fairly dated pop culture.

As for the rest of the movie, it’s got decent songs and an okay story, but it doesn’t whistle along the way Bug does.

Shrek

This one? Funny, but it made me a little uncomfortable showing it to the kiddo, as it contains a lot of jokes that use an alternate word for Donkey.

Luckily, the kid got over this one fast, and I’ve tried to tuck it away so it doesn’t become a staple.

VeggieTales

You know what? When I was in college, I resisted these, and I think I was partially right. I’ve seen some of the old videos, and while there’s humor and good life lessons in there, the animation isn’t that great, and the dialogue comes off pretty stiffly.

But a lot of the later ones are fantastic.

Mihret’s favorite one for a long time was the story of St. Nicholas, and honestly, it’s well worth a look. Check it out, and take a peek at the bonus features to see how much of it was true (they did actual research).

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie didn’t do all that well in theaters, and actually bankrupted the company, but there are some awesome songs in the movie, and it tells the complete story of Jonah. If you think you know Jonah’s story? Watch this, and learn.

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: This one is something of an anomaly, as it doesn’t mention God at all, making it a non-religious story. It’s a little slow in spots, but it still has a nice message.

Lord of the Beans: Lord of the Rings parody. A good one.

I also have a soft spot for Sumo of the Opera, which takes Rocky and Gilbert and Sullivan and jams them together in a really hilarious way.

In general, stick to anything made in the post-90s, and you’ll be okay.

Dora and Diego

Repetitive. Really repetitive. But the kiddo likes them.

In general, I’d say stick with Diego, who at least will teach your kid about animals.

-Josh

Making memories, one jelly bean at a time

2010-03-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

Post-Crescent column - March 5, 2010
My long oak dining room table holds multiple centerpieces at one time, a mix of handmade and handle-with-care.

Many of them — crafts my 3-year-old daughter Mihret created — we've arranged around a candleholder from my childhood home. A googly-eyed, blue paper octopus with crinkly, curled-up tentacles sits next to two nativity figurines we thought too precious to put away after Christmas. Their neighbors are a glittery pumpkin and a Mother's Day vase containing tiny handprint flowers.

The latest addition is a see-through jar of jelly beans with a flower arrangement atop it. The gold lettering on its ribbon is flecking off after several weeks of display, but we can tell it read "Great-Grandpa."

Mihret and her great-grandpa shared special time together in the few years they knew each other. David Dorow, my husband Josh's maternal grandfather, died Feb. 16 in Oshkosh at age 86.

When Great-Grandpa was a boy, he'd visit his grandma and she'd give him a jelly bean or two. He continued that connection with Mihret when we visited his assisted living apartment.

Unsteady on his feet, Great-Grandpa often sat in a recliner. Mihret knew the way to his apartment from the building's front door and she'd race ahead of us, often reaching him first.

She'd climb up on his lap, undeterred by the fits of coughing that had become a fact of his life.
Their exchange was simple. Great-Grandpa's hearing was almost gone, but this time needed no words. Great-Grandpa would reach into the container of jelly beans he always kept on his chair-side table, Mihret would accept the colorful candies from his hand and they'd snuggle together.

At Great-Grandpa's funeral, the flower arrangement and jellybean jar showed up among the other displays of caring. Josh's parents had thought of everything.

Mihret is too young to remember anything but snatches of her time with Great-Grandpa. We hope that when she eats jelly beans, it'll trigger those precious memories.

-By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer/www.postcrescent.com

The Word on the Street is: Braids

2010-03-03T13:24:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, we started getting our daughter’s hair braided on an every-two-weeks basis.

Since then, we’ve had a ton of questions asked, a lot of them the same, which leads me to think that that a lot of people are a) just curious, or b) wondering what to do with their own kid’s hair.

So here are the most commonly asked questions we get:

Do we braid Mihret’s hair?

No. No, no, no. I think if we were more crafty people, we might. But Kara doesn’t do all that much with her own hair, and while I’m good with words, I’ve never been much of an artist.

We have a wonderful woman, Miss Carla, who does her hair.

What does it cost?

$29. Plus tip.

How long does it take?

1 to 2 hours, depending on how squirmy the little one is, how elaborate the hairdo is, and how busy the hair place is.

Does it hurt?

Not me, no. And Miss Carla is well known in these parts for being an ouchless hairdresser. That said, Mihret will, every once in a while, give an, “Ow.” But much less than the average person combing their hair.

How do you get her to sit for so long?

First, she usually sits in my lap. She’s sat on the booster seat a couple of times, but I think the comfort of having daddy there makes it a little easier to take.

Second, movies. Miss Carla has a DVD player. So we put something in, it runs, and that helps to distract during the hair process.

Third: The smoothie. Our daughter is a fruit-smoothie junky, thanks to the College Avenue Farmer’s Market. So after she gets her hair done, she gets a smoothie. It works for her.

How does she sleep on her braids?

Very carefully. Actually, Miss Carla keeps the ponytails out of the way of the back of her head, and she can sleep on her hair just fine.

She does need a silk pillowcase, though, as she refuses to wear a silk hat to keep her braids looking nice.

How often does she get her hair done?

Every two weeks. We’ve gone for three, but she gets really, really fuzzy, and we can’t take her hair out because it’s gotten WAY to long to leave it free now.

How do you wash her hair?

Get her head wet, put some shampoo in my palm. Get the shampoo wet, then rub it into the spaces between her braids.

I’ll also rub a little shampoo into her braids as well, especially if things have been messy lately.

How often do you wash her hair?

Every 10-12 days.

Do you have to do anything with her hair between braidings?

For a while, I used to put extra conditioner in her hair every few days. Then I started doing it once or twice.

Now, I check her hair for dryness, and I’ll condition maybe once. The kid’s hair is REALLY soft now, and it doesn’t have a lot of weather damage, so this works out just fine.

Plus there’s conditioner in her shampoo. That also helps.

Feel free to put more questions in the comments, and we’ll answer them in another post. I know people hunt for this information all the time – at least, I know I did.

-Josh

The Whole Tooth... Er, Teeth

2010-01-21T18:37:00.000-08:00

Mihret's first official visit to the dentist. A few observations:

1. She took the actual visit in stride and was very curious about the surroundings, new people/health care providers, equipment, etc.

2. She was a bit reluctant about climbing up in the chair, although I did great prep work by having a good checkup right before Mihret's turn to ride in the chair and her brief oral exam. :)

3. So, being the daddy's girl she is, once Daddy sat in the chair (and Mama got behind the camera for the appropriate documentation of the moment) our peanut opened her mouth wide.

4. Because her teeth are in very good shape, she won't have to go back for her first official cleaning until I return for my next cleaning in six months. The dentist did note she has a "crowded mouth" but anything of that nature won't become an issue for a good number of years.

5. She loved the hygienist's mirror-on-a-stick and loved "examining" our teeth with it.

6. She chose a new Dora toothbrush at the end of the visit. She's graduated to the next-level toothpaste, too... the children's toothpaste that is the next step up from training toothpaste.

7. Not an observation from the dentist's visit, but just a cute anecdote, to close out... Mihret is very much growing in independence, and when she's in the right mood, is trying more and more to take care of some of her tasks of daily living. She's obsessed with her pink bathroom stool and she's figured out she can move it everywhere to help herself get things she wants. :)

Side note: One early morning when Josh was showering and I was either still sleeping or already at work (depending upon the day - can't remember in this particular instance) she carried the stool down the steps and used it to pull a candy cane down from the counter. She peeled off the wrapper and sat on the couch to eat the candy cane. When Josh came out of the shower he didn't know whether to chuckle at her cleverness or scold her about eating candy without permission and before breakfast....

But I digress.... One recent weekend, Mihret and I were brushing our teeth together at the bathroom sink. Mihret got her stool, and pointed at the "Hot" and "Cold" taps to make sure she remembered which was which. She did, so she proceeded to fill up her own Dixie cup with the little cute purple octopi on it, drink her water, and then say "Your turn, Mama" and fill up a cup for me. She is growing up.... and that's the Whole Tooth.

-Kara

New memories made with toddler-proof tree

2009-12-31T18:12:00.000-08:00

Post-Crescent column: Dec. 19, 2009

For the past couple of winters, my husband, Josh, and I have been trying to embrace a more child-friendly way of putting up and decorating a Christmas tree.

Our toddler daughter Mihret has had no problem getting her arms around what to us is a major change in tradition.

When we first got married about 10 years ago, we delighted in heading to Wal-Mart and picking out our first boxed evergreen. We'd each brought ornaments to our new home and couldn't wait to see them up on the tree.

Every Christmas after that, when the tree was twined with tinsel and lights, we'd turn back the years with our decorating. Each trip around the tree with a carefully chosen ornament in hand was like another step down memory lane.

We good-naturedly bickered over where to display the toilet-paper-tube-and-glitter cylinder that Josh crafted as a preschooler. We hooked and hung the glass balls that are heirloom ornaments from his family.

From my box, I pulled out a unicorn, a praying girl and others I'd received as gifts while growing up.

The bookworm that reads nestled inside a hollowed-out plastic apple ... the USS Enterprise that perches on a branch ... the theater masks ... the pianos. The tree practically shouts out "Patterson." One by one, the ornaments reveal the days of our lives, first apart and then together.

Because Mihret, who's very curious, still puts lots of little things in her mouth that aren't food, our tree won't see the light of day until next year.

Our replacement is a plush tree with oversized, colorful buttons. Recently, we helped Mihret loop plush nativity and winter-themed figures around the buttons.

I miss curling up on our couch and staring into the Christmas lights. But I have to say it warms my heart to watch Mihret hugging her very own little tree.

By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer/www.postcrescent.com

Santa Thoughts, of the Mama Variety

2009-12-29T23:14:00.000-08:00

This year Mihret is starting to really get into VeggieTales.

She loves to watch Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato and all their talking and singing veggie pals tell Bible stories and other great stories with lessons behind them, and sing "Silly Songs."

One of her favorite VeggieTales DVDs, from Nona and Papa in Indiana (Thank you again!), is about the legend of St. Nicholas, VeggieTale-ized. Mihret asked for it again and again in the days leading up to Christmas.

Josh and I both like the research, detail, clever dialogue and song lyrics by the VeggieTales creators and staff. Mihret is mesmerized by the animation and music and can explain parts of the story in her own way.

We purposefully didn't focus on Santa this year, and we're purposefully considering _not_ bringing Santa home, in the conventional sense.

But for me, what it will be important to tell Mihret is the story of St. Nick - the generous man of long ago who is the inspiration for the Santa story.

We'll tell her that St. Nicholas was inspired by the words and teachings of our greatest Teacher ever, the one whose birthday we symbolically celebrate on December 25, Christmas day. Because of this, St. Nicholas (before he became "St." Nicholas) thought about those in need and gave to them despite hardship for himself.

Mihret needs to know that we give out of the love that Father, Son and Holy Spirit have placed in our hearts. That's why we open gifts (like VeggieTales DVDs :) ) from loved ones on Christmas.

-Kara

Christmas Happens

2009-12-28T09:08:00.000-08:00

This year, due to the fact that Kara and I now have a daughter capable of understanding basic concepts, we had to deal with the question of whether or not Santa exists.

Believe it or not, this is something we started struggling with before we even had a child. We'd put up the tree, and lay the gifts underneath it, and more often than not the gifts contained few surprises.

In fact, one year, we stuffed the majority of the gits into one large gift bag, and pulled them all out on the correct day.

I suppose this kills some of the "magic" of Christmas, but it worked for us. We lived in an apartment for the first six years of our marriage, and frankly, trying to buy and/or order gifts, and then find a place to hide them for days, weeks, or months was far more work than the "moment of surprise" was worth. It also led to a couple of mix-ups, like the year I got her the same book for Christmas twice.

But I was talking about Santa.

For the last three years, we've done gift-opening at our house with the small child present. The first year, she was more interested in playing with the paper. Especially the whole putting-it-in-her-mouth kind of playing.

Last year, she didn't quite get the idea of unwrapping gifts, so she opened two or three and then wandered off. A month later, on her birthday, she seemed to get it a little more, and opened all the gifts. She played with them for a few minutes, and then wandered off to do other things.

She was, after all, a new two, and they aren't exactly known for intense periods of concentration.

Since Mihret barely got the idea of presents, Kara and I opted out of emphasizing, or de-emphasizing, Santa. Not that we had a problem with the guy, but it struck us that telling our daughter a story about a guy that doesn't exist when she barely gets the idea that a book has to be read in a certain order was probably not going to accomplish much.

Then we got to this year.

It's clear, at this point, that Mihret gets the iconography aspect of Santa. She can point him out to you in a store.

Of course, she can also point out penguins and snowmen. Which don't bring gifts. Unless I missed a Christmas special, which is always possible.

And this year, like the last few years, Kara and I didn't feel compelled to buy a lot of gifts. We had a few coming from the grandparents, and frankly, she has a ho-jillion toys, and games, and various and sundry other things that she is only just starting to understand.

(Games are still something of an issue. My mother kindly gave us a memory game. It had fifty-some cards. I took Mihret to her room, where we had some floor space, and started setting up the cards. After I got about twenty cards down, she kicked them, which scattered them everywhere.

I told her that they weren't supposed to be used that way, and set up all the cards, while watching the little one closely to make sure there would be no more kicking.

Then I tried to play Memory with her. I'd pick up two cards, and say, "They don't match." and then put them down. She'd pick up four cards in a row, and then I had to put them back because she didn't get that there was a pattern.

Finally, I got a match. Then I helped her get a match. Then she picked up two random cards and tried to keep them, even though they didn't match.

I had her put the cards back. I got three matches, and she got two. Then she came over, and stole all my cards, and walked out of the room. Game over. Clearly, my little one is not Memory-ready.)

In the midst of all the gift-setting-up, Kara and I debated the idea of Santa. We read about him a bit in some books for the kiddo. We considered talking him up.

And in the end?

We just didn't bother to mention this guy this year.

Having talked to various people over the last couple of months about Santa, we just aren't sure what the point of the big red guy is.

Well, okay, we found one: You can use Santa to keep your kids in line for a month or so.

Sometimes, anyway. At least, my memory is that mom and dad would sometimes pull the "Santa is watching!" card. Which would make me behave for perhaps five minutes.

But for all that, I'm not sure that I got anything out of the Santa mythos. Today, I don't remember "who" I got most of my gifts from. Even items from my grandparents vs. my parents are a blur, much less the collective figment of everyone's imagination.

And while "losing" Santa wasn't all that traumatic for me (at least, not as I recall), I know that a lot of parents spend years trying to ascertain where their kids are on the Santa spectrum. Is it time to tell them? Do they already know?

Trying to explain where babies come from is hard enough. Why add another story that you eventually have to explain away?

Ultimately, all the gifts in our house came from a living relative, and with any luck, Mihret will remember who got her some of the gifts so she can thank them.

Eventually, of course, Mihret will go to school, and her friends will start telling her how awesome Santa is. And if we need to change our tactics, Kara and I can talk about it then.

But for now, Mihret is Santa-free, and aware as she can be that her family and friends love her very much. And that's good enough for us.

-Josh

Bring On the Night

2009-12-08T14:20:00.000-08:00

A lot of conversations Kara and I have with other parents are about our nighttime schedule.

The first question we always ask is, "What time do your kids go to bed?" Then we get the answer, and we weep inside with envy.

Here's why:

Just about everyone we know, with kids under age three, put their kids down at 8 PM. 8:30 at the latest.

Why do we weep inside with envy?

Because on any given weeknight, the little one is awake until 9:30 PM.

When people hear this, their reaction is often mild shock... as if we keep the kid up late into the night, playing poker and watching late-night cable.

But no. Trust us, we'd love for the kid to head to bed at 8. And in fact, on weekends, when the little one refuses to take a nap, she'll often conk out somewhere between 8 and 8:15, tiny dark circles dancing under her eyes.

No, our options, as far as bedtime goes, are:

1. Try to put the kid to bed before 9:30. Then get up every five minutes to give mama a hug, go potty, get water, wash our hands, or some other such task that if you say no to, she'll scream, cry, and fight until she's EVEN MORE awake, thereby making bedtime 10 or 10:30 or 11 instead of 9:30.

Or

2. Put the kid to bed at 9:30.

Even that, however, comes with it's own set of troubles.

First, there's the bath. We do one every night, since it's supposed to help calm the kid and, frankly, she's still in diapers and wipes can only take off so much... uh... matter. As it were.

Secondly, we do lotion. Gotta keep the kid moist. Especially now, as it's getting colder and dryer, Mihret tends to get ashy if we don't lotion her up every night.

Third, we put on the pajamas. Sometimes, this is easy. Sometimes, Mihret wants to get down and dance on the floor. Have I mentioned that even if I'm putting her into pajamas at 9 PM, she's often still WIDE AWAKE? No? Because she totally is. She's raring to go.

Then, we're off to mom and dad's bedroom to read stories. We do this for as long as it takes to get to 9:20.

Then we have two options.

1. I take the little one to her room, where she asks to get up to go potty every three minutes, because she's in the middle of potty training and KNOWS we will not deny her. Plus she's figured out how to hold back some widdle, so that she can go over and over again. Six times in one night, even. She's done it.

2. Or, we can flick off all the lights upstairs, and wait for the little one to fall asleep on our bed while the family cuddles. Which is what we do, because this takes a LOT less time, and also, I don't have to sit on the floor for twenty minutes waiting for the wee one to pass out.

This takes about ten minutes, at which point I can put her in her room, turn on her night music, and close the door.

Only this, too, is not the end of the night.

Because, somewhere between 2 and 6 AM, our daughter will wake up, and mosey into our room.

Sometimes, I wake up, and stick her in our bed.

Sometimes, I don't wake up, and still manage to stick her in our bed, allowing me to wake up with a tiny warm spot in my back that doesn't feel Kara-sized.

Now, for the longest time, Kara and I were anti-child-in-bed. And then one day we realized, we could either (wow, check out all these numbered lists!)

1. Bring the little one in our bed and get some sleep.

2. Put Mihret into her own bed, often kicking and screaming, and sit there for an hour, until she falls asleep, and then stumble back to our own bed, and pass out, until an hour later when we either had to get up or, more likely, Mihret would get up again and once again come into our room, so we could lose another hour of sleep trying to get her to go back to bed.

Now, I'm not complaining too hard. At this point, we've at least got a pattern, which is more than some folks got.

But is it so wrong to want that 8 PM bedtime all week? Is it wrong to want to tell the day care to stop making our kid nap?

Because if that's wrong, I don't want to be right some mornings.

-Josh

Conversations with the Kidpants: The Wha? Edition

2009-10-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

Conversation 1:

Mihret is sitting on the potty before heading into the bath. I am there, along with Kara.

Mihret: Go away, please, Mama.

Kara: (Assumes Mihret is starting to learn about privacy.) Okay, Mihret.

Mihret: You’ll never leave here, Dad.

Me: *blinks*

Mihret: (Starting to stand up, pointing a finger at me.) I’m gonna poke you in the eye!

Me: No sweetheart. That’s not nice, we don’t do that.

Kara: Well, that was creepy.

Conversation 2:

It is about 2 AM. Mihret, who has been having sleeping troubles, wakes up in her bedroom, calling out, “Daddy! Daddy!”

I get up, go into her room, and find her sitting up, blankets pushed aside, barely awake.

Me: What’s wrong, sweetie?

Mihret: My pants fell down!

Suppressing a laugh, I pick her up just a bit, and discover… that her pants are fine. I lay her back down, put a blanket over her, and she conks out a minute later.

-Josh

Potty Penguin takes on important role

2009-10-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

Post-Crescent column - Oct. 23, 2009
There's a new pet in the Patterson house, and its name is the Potty Penguin. My daughter Mihret, who turns 3 in January, is its proud owner.

The faux-feathered, winter-apparel-wearing friend — a gift for me and my husband, Josh, from a holiday long past — stores candy in its hollow belly. Press its head, and the Potty Penguin produces the treats.

Josh and I had hidden the Potty Penguin away in a closet but pulled it out a month or so ago when we realized it might have a practical purpose. It now sits high atop Mihret's bedroom cubby, so she can see it but can't reach it without help. It only performs one trick, but that trick's enough to keep Mihret encouraged as she practices the steps for using the potty and continues the countdown toward consistently keeping her Pull-Ups clean and dry.

When Mihret successfully uses the potty, the Potty Penguin dispenses an M&M. That's triple fun for her, because she loves to read the letter M — "M for Mihret" — and also likes to pick out a different color each time.

The Potty Penguin is a frequent topic of conversation when Mihret's around. She's also learning about sharing, so she's inclined to tell any visitor who excuses him or herself to the bathroom, "You can go potty and get an M&M." Most people respectfully decline.

We're hoping that soon, Mihret's friend the Potty Penguin will introduce her to another new pal — Hello Kitty underpants.

By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer/www.postcrescent.com

Newly learned letter fits daughter to a T

2009-10-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

Post-Crescent column - Sept. 9, 2009
Dear letter T, I'm writing you a thank-you note on behalf of Mihret, my 2½-year-old daughter, who's totally tickled pink to see you every day.

She's been telling me and her daddy every time she spies you out and about.

Your buddy, the letter M, is old hat where she's concerned. You're at the total center of her attention.

She first thought you were terrific after watching you twist and turn in a YouTube Sesame Street music video. Now, she can't take her eyes off of you.

You're at the Building for Kids, where Mihret plays almost every weekend, and you help remind families to watch their steps. Mihret can't move on without stopping to get down on her knees and trace you with her fingers.

It doesn't matter if you're high up on a street sign, and Mihret's in her car seat. She can spot you, especially on those big, red stop signs.

It's become a game between mother and daughter for me to get all excited about reading words with you in them when we're on the road, just to see Mihret's face light up and hear her giggle.

She can see you when you're big and when you're little. She hangs around our shelves so she can find you on the spines of our books.

At the end of the day, Mihret is still all atwitter over you. When she comes to give me a hug before bed, she points you out on my EAA AirVenture flight-themed nightshirt, in the to-do notes I've scribbled for myself, and on the pages of the National Geographic magazine I've put down to pull her up onto my lap.

Mihret's turning the next page on her learning and, letter T, you've happened along at just the right time.

Thanks again,

Kara

By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer/www.postcrescent.com

NAMIWalks 2009 Update

2009-10-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

NAMIWalks 2009 update:
Our team raised $975 for NAMIWalks for the Minds of America, and specifically for National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Fox Valley, our community's local affiliate of NAMI in Appleton. From our hearts, we thank all those who supported us financially, in spirit, prayerfully, in thought, etc.

We'll post a photo of our team later, as soon as Josh scans it in to our computer. (The volunteer Walk photographers took free photos of each team that were ready for the teams to take home after the event.)

Random Reasons NAMIWalks 2009 Rocks
-Our team exceeded its $500 goal by $475! We'll find out soon whether our affiliate hit or exceeded the overall $125,000 goal.
-The crisp fall weather was great for a 3.3 mile-or-so Walk.
-It didn't rain!
-There was a NAMI Knight... Fighting stigma, perhaps? I thought perhaps the Knight (a Walk-er dressed in blue-and-yellow cardboard armor with what looked like a huge cardboard sword and maybe a shield) was going to say "Ni!" to kick off the Walk. :)
-Some wonderful volunteer crafted NAMI bookmarks for any Walker to take.
-I had a breakfast of Fritos, fried donuts and candy. Only at the NAMI Walk do I have snacks like that before 10 a.m. ...
-There were wonderful conversations and catching up with dear friends. It's awesome to have an hour or so where you can't do anything _but_ talk with friends! Team, you rock.
-We celebrated the Walk with our traditional post-team brunch at a local diner (I had an omelet with veggies to compensate for the early morning candy.)
-I always love watching Mihret ride on her daddy's shoulders - now she's old enough that I don't worry so much about her falling off of them. She did great on the Walk, and Josh was a wonderful Mihret-carrier and Mihret-pusher throughout (When she was on his shoulders, I pushed the stroller, which actually gave my muscles an interesting workout of sorts in addition to Walking.)
-I narrowly avoided taking a pie in the face today... NAMI volunteers, staff and board members raised about $400 in an internal contest/fund-raiser to support the Walk. We all decorated money-collecting receptacles and waited for people to stop in the NAMI office and fill them up... the top two or three people with the most change etc. collected get to "pie" (put whipped cream in the face of) the two or three people with the least change etc. I'm on the docket to get "pied"... but organizers decided to do the "pie-ing" at a different NAMI function for some reason.
-It was awesome to literally feel the love from all the Walkers assembled there. The NAMI community is very special and the way to advocate, bust stigma and educate is to be visible! We all were very visible today. Team Serenity already is looking forward to next year.

-Kara

NAMIWalks 2009 - Team Serenity

2009-09-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Everyone,
We are writing today to tell you about an upcoming event that we are participating in that is both very important and very exciting to us. It is NAMIWalks for the Mind of America, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) signature walkathon event that is being held in Appleton, WI at Appleton Memorial Park on October 3, 2009.

Kara lives with bipolar disorder, and both Kara and Josh have loved ones who live with clinical unipolar depression, bipolar disorder and other mental (biochemical) illnesses (also referred to as brain disorders.)

Kara volunteers with NAMI Fox Valley, our community’s NAMI affiliate. She received training and now is a facilitator for Five O'Clock Friday, a support and discussion group for young adults who are living with mental illness. She also has attended courses at NAMI that educate consumers about living well with mental illness, and benefits from peer support groups that she attends. This is the fourth NAMI Walk in the Fox Valley, and the fourth walk for the Patterson family. It has become a fall family tradition.

NAMI Fox Valley continues to advocate for individuals and families in our community, fighting the stigma that unfortunately still exists.

On walk day, we're going to do more walking in one morning than we usually do in a week. :)

If you'd like to visit our personal walker Web page, go to http://tinyurl.com/nc54f4. You can donate directly to us online, if you choose. Donating online is fast and secure, and we'll get immediate notification via e-mail of your donation.

If you would prefer, you can give or send any of us (well, not so much Mihret, it’ll just go into her mouth) a check, made out to NAMI Fox Valley, and we will make sure that it gets to NAMI.

(Also, a quick note - if we have already walked, and you think you missed the deadline... you haven't! You can donate to NAMI Fox Valley - or ask about being a volunteer there, if you're in the area - at any time.)

NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the largest education, support and advocacy organization that serves the needs of all those whose lives are touched by these illnesses. This includes people with mental illness, their families, friends, employers, the law enforcement community and policy makers.

The goals of the NAMIWalks program are: to fight the stigma that surrounds mental illness, to build awareness of the fact that the mental health system in this country needs to be improved, and to raise funds for NAMI so that it can continue its mission.

NAMI is a 501(c)3 charity and any donation you make to support our participation in this event is tax deductible. NAMI has been rated by Worth magazine as among the top 100 charities "most likely to save the world" and has been given an "A" rating by The American Institute of Philanthropy for efficient and effective use of charitable dollars. Thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely,

Kara, Josh and Mihret Patterson

http://www.nami.org/namiwalks09/FOX/karapatterson

http://www.nami.org/namiwalks09/FOX/joshpatterson

And all the rest of Team Serenity

Success and Not Success

2009-09-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

I will now provide the definition of a mixed blessing. 1) My daughter pooped in the potty at day care. 2) She got off the potty too early and pooped on her shoes. I got to day care and she was wearing moon boots. Thanks to the return of her ‘fro, she looked like a small brown Napoleon Dynamite.

-Josh

On a Bear

2009-09-15T14:17:00.001-07:00

It was potty-training that finally broke the dam.

For the longest time, we more-or-less avoided having the TV on when Mihret was around. Kara and I are not really huge TV-watchers as it is, but we’ve been even more conscious of turning it on since the little one entered our home.

Our original plan was to avoid TV until Mihret was around two, then introduce it gradually – but we didn’t even feel compelled to do it then.

But along came potty training.

We’ve gone back and forth on the best way to accomplish training, having talked to friends and heard wildly different stories about their experiences, which ranged from “pretty much figured it out on their own,” to, “forced them to do it over the course of a couple of days.”

Not really wanting to go the forcing route, we’ve been taking our time and trying to be encouraging in the potty arena. For a while, it seemed like we were headed in the right direction, and then… Mihret kind of lost interest.

My mom thinks we missed a window, but I’m not really sure about that. Not long ago, Kara and I picked up an article on potty training that contained 10 things that indicate a kid is ready to potty-train, and Mihret had three indications, if you really, really stretched it.

So we didn’t worry about it.

My mother did, helpfully, provide us with a couple of “potty readiness” videos, one of which is The Bear in the Big Blue House: When You’ve Got to Go.

On the whim, one day, I stuck it in the DVD player and sat down to watch it with the little one. And she was totally enraptured.

I thought the video was all right, and there are bits that amuse me, but mostly I was just glad that she enjoyed it enough to ask for it again. Not wanting to watch it a second time, I looked around for something else that was short, and put it in.

And we were sorta-kinda off.

I have to say that TV kind of scares me. Mihret is a runner and a player, but I’ve seen the glazed “Bring me entertainment!” look that comes from watching videos for too long. At her best, she gets bored after 30 minutes and wants to run around. At her worst, she kicks and fights when you turn off the TV.

Which I do not really view as A Good Thing.

What makes it hard to turn it off, though, is the fact that suddenly pottying has become a LOT more important to her. She wants to go more often. She’s talking about wearing “underwears.” She’s even been seeking out the underpants her Nona got her.

However, she has not yet become good at telling us when she needs to go, whenever she needs to go.

We’re watching the video almost once a day now, and I’ve drawn the line at putting it in a second time during the day. We’ve also watched a couple of movies while putting in her braids, and taking them out, and I’m even willing to let her watch her Amharic educational video fairly often.

But I have seen the face of TV, and I have to say that it makes me nervous.

I also have to admit that watching the same Bear video over and over again has caused me to pick up on some things. Like, the bear is left-handed, and almost never moves his right arm. I realize this is because the puppeteer is using his right hand to operate the bear’s head, but really… it’s a little freaky, once you notice it.

Also, the Big Blue House looks really bad on the outside. Its right and left halves don’t line up very well at all, like they hired a model-maker who did a really shoddy job and then refused to fix it. It’s unfortunate.

-Josh

Pockets

2009-09-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

Recently, Mihret discovered that she has pockets in her pants.

Sometimes, she puts stuff in them, but more often than not, she just gets excited to know they’re there. She’ll stick her hands in them and wander around the house.

Her teacher shared a fun story with me a few weeks ago:

The Scene:

The teacher in question is standing on the playground while the kids race around. She has placed her hands in her pockets.

Mihret, ever the mimic, walks over to her, affects a similar stance, and sticks her hands in her pockets.

Teacher: All the cool kids stick their hands in their pockets.

Mihret: (conspiratorially) We’re cool.

-Josh

Flying, Boom-Boom!

2009-08-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

Mihret holds her mini-unicorn and purple bear on a plane flight to Florida to help Auntie Anna (one of Mommy's dearest friends ever) marry Uncle Markus (she was one of the flower girls, Mama was a bridesmaid and Daddy was an usher/toddler wrangler.)

Over the past few months, Mihret's imagination has taken off.

For quite a while she's been really into "cooking" for us using her pretend kitchen and taking care of her "babies," but lately her creative play has gotten much more original.

One of the games she and I have been playing started after our flights to and from Florida, where we spent a week in mid-July for our dear friend Auntie Ania's wedding to Uncle Markus. We call it "Airplane Boom-Boom."

It goes something like this: Mihret puts her Bumbo seat up (she can still fit into it) onto the couch, like she's sitting in an airplane seat. Then - and here's the "boom-boom" part - I'm sitting or lying down on the couch, and I lift her high up in the air like she's the airplane, and say "Airplaaaaane-" and drop her down suddenly into a great, big hug ("boom-boom!"). The reason she's into this is because when we were on our flights, she loved the varying speeds and bumpiness of take-off and touch-down.

So, after this, she gets out and pretends to be the flight attendant. ("I'll get you some apple juice. Here's some ice!") Then, we switch roles and I get to serve her juice. Then it's "boom-boom" again for the pretend landing.

I personally love this new game because it involves lots of cuddle time. :)

-Kara

A Sense of Humor

2009-08-07T13:24:00.000-07:00

One of the things that no child-rearing books seem to cover is just when a child is capable of understanding a joke.

A two-year-old can tease another human being, but that’s pretty rudimentary. It’s funny because it makes an adult laugh, but most kids don’t really understand why it’s amusing.

And then there’s our kid, who has figured out how to tell a joke.

Granted, her first “joke” was a pretty basic reversal tactic. For example:

Dad: Okay, should we go… that way? (Points left.)

Mihret: Nooo… that way. (Points right, then smiles.)

Dad: That way? (Left.)

Mihret: That way. (Right.)

Dad: That way? (Left.)

Mihret: That way? (Points up.)

As jokes go, that’s pretty elementary. But it’s clear that she gets that she’s telling a joke. Call it the toddler version of, “Take my wife… Please.” She knows that what makes a joke funny is to do the opposite of what’s expected.

Kara thinks our daughter is this way because I’m her dad, and I can’t disagree. But even I was shocked when she pulled out a second joke – and then later pulled out a variation on the same joke.

The Scene: Mihret is sitting in her swing in the backyard, while I am pushing.

Mihret: (singing) A-b-c-d-e-f-g-diaper-diaper-diaper-diaper…

Dad: (laughing…) What?

Mihret: (singing) A-b-c-d-e-f-g-diaper-diaper-diaper-diaper…

For those of you following along, my daughter has a) figured out that humor is found in the unexpected, and b) determined that potty humor is beloved by all.

Now, you could argue that someone taught her to sing the song that way, but let’s jump forward to later in the evening:

The Scene: Mihret is in the bath. Mama is sitting and reading the Noah story to Mihret, while Dad checks the computer.

Mihret: (singing) A-b-c-d-e-f-g-diaper-diaper-diaper-diaper…

Mama: What, honey?

Mihret: (singing) A-b-c-d-e-f-g-diaper-diaper-diaper-diaper…

Dad: She did that earlier. Our daughter has figured out how to tell a joke. It’s sort of eerie.

Mihret: (singing) A-b-c-d-e-f-g-birthday cake.

Dad: (Does a double-take.) That’s new…

So, to recap, our daughter not only knows that jokes are found in the unexpected, she realizes that eventually repeated jokes lose their power and you have to change up your game to make them work again.

Her teen years are going to be really entertaining or a complete train wreck.

- Josh

I'm learning to make most of small backyard

2009-07-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

Post-Crescent column: Wednesday, July 15, 2009
I've been a mom for about two years now, but my backyard is just catching up.
When we moved into our house a handful of years ago, my husband Josh and I had found such a good buy that we figured we'd deal later with our awkwardly positioned, L-shaped lack of green space.
As a couple without children, we'd toss down beach towels or set up folding chairs and spend summer afternoons engrossed in reading or talking about the future.
We toyed with gardening the small soil beds that lie flush with our house and in two back corners. A friend with a green thumb told us the clay content was high and growing potential was low. At best, our efforts yielded a lone loaf of zucchini bread and a panful of fried green tomatoes.
When we prepared to bring our now 2½-year-old daughter Mihret home from Ethiopia, however, we had to face facts. The backyard wasn't "cute" anymore. It was confining.
I thought back upon my earliest days in a rural cul-de-sac bordering farmland in upstate New York near the Canadian border. I roamed the lush woods that were our neighbors' property in fall, and in summer spent hours in an above-ground pool that felt like a secret hideaway. My best friend and I played "Star Wars" on my swingset, and I devoured books on a blanket under rows of crabapple trees.
At least, I consoled myself, we can search for a swingset that fits next to our yard's one gem, our apple tree.
Our January baby got her swingset as a belated birthday present from Josh's parents. Mihret's two grandpas and Josh installed it, along with a new hammock as an early gift for me, a September baby.
Hardly a day goes by when Mihret doesn't want to swing on her "blue swing" and go down her "green slide." She also piles into the hammock with me, or rocks me in it when I'm lounging there.
How our backyard has grown.
-By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer
www.postcrescent.com

Author's passing revives stories

2009-07-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

Post-Crescent column: Wednesday, June 10, 2009
One of my favorite authors, epic fantasy novelist David Eddings, died June 2 at age 77.
Like J.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle and other writers of the genre whom I "met" in my youth through their incredible storytelling, Eddings told stories I devoured, until it came to the last few chapters of the final book in a series. Then I purposely slowed my reading rush, not wanting to finish the book and, in so doing, have to mourn the characters I'd come to feel were friends.
Because I started reading the prolific writer's books in middle school, I literally grew up with them. My most recent memory of disappearing into his world was when I was a college student, bedridden with influenza and feeling isolated during an away-from-home internship.
Eddings' latest series, "The Dreamers," sits on my bookshelf, waiting its turn for attention among other good reads stacked high in piles throughout my house.
But my first memory of Eddings is tied to summer, and to the children's reading program at McCollough Library in Evansville, Ind.
At 11, I flitted back and forth between the teen and adult departments. I'd spend hours there each week. On the day I "met" Eddings, I was both hungry for a new reading challenge, and also somewhat lonely.
A summer library employee in her late teens or early 20s saw me wandering the stacks and struck up a conversation with me as she re-shelved paperback fantasy novels.
I don't remember her name, but if I walked into that library again, I could go directly to the spot where she picked up one of Eddings' novels and said, "I think you'll like this book. Try it, and tell me what you think."
She doesn't know how much her kindness meant to me, just as Eddings never knew how much his books did.
Rest in peace, David, and thank you for your stories. Thank you, summer library employee, for your time. And thank you, hometown library, for the memories.
-By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer
www.postcrescent.com

Our Big-Girl Bed Girl!

2009-07-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

The bars are off - Mihret's officially a big-girl bed girl. She actually sleeps better (most of the time) in her bed. She still sleeps in very odd positions - bottom up in air, head where feet should be and feet where head should be - it's very cute. We've positioned a plump green pillow next to and slightly under the bed so should she fall out (she does this once in a while) it will break her fall. We've got a routine down now so that getting into bed comes after we read a few books, say prayers and read her "Counting Kisses" book by Karen Katz (Interactive: "Ten little kisses on teeny tiny toes..." all the way down to "One last kiss on your sleepy, dreamy head.." and Mihret says, "Now it's time for Mihret's bed!") She is still daddy's girl through and through, so I have to leave the room right after we walk her in there, and go into the computer room or our bedroom and wait for Mihret to come find me (on her terms) for "one more hug, mama." I won't complain when there are cuddles involved, although she has started using that as a manipulative strategy to prolong bedtime. Working on that.... My favorite part of bedtime is that we use it as a chance to practice some Amharic. I tell her ishi, ishi, it's OK, my fandesha, smiley girl, and I love you, ewedishalehu. And she says ewedishalehu, mama, ciao-ciao, goodbye.

-Kara

We Love Our Library

2009-07-24T07:59:00.000-07:00

Mihret receives her first, very own library card at the Appleton Public Library. Now, to complete her collection... (Appleton belongs to one of two library systems in our area, and Josh and I also have cards for the system that encompasses Neenah and Oshkosh. We truly do love our libraries.)

+++++

We've fallen into a pattern, not unintentionally, of reading books about milestones or situations in Mihret's life. (See "Diapers are not Forever," "Teeth are not for Biting," and "My Own Big Bed," for example.) One of Mihret's favorite books is called "Lola at the Library," by Anna McQuinn.

Mihret loves to hear about Lola, a little girl who looks a little like her, who goes to the library with her mommy. That book is not a library book at our house - It was a present from Grandma P. We've read it quite a lot this summer, and not so ironically, we go to the library quite a lot. It's a nice, barely-ten-minute walk further downtown from our downtown neighborhood, something fun to do when we all can get home and eat an early dinner.

The library is a place where Josh and I can easily lose ourselves for hours. I can't count the numbers of times I've been barely on time (even late) for appointments and meetings because I've been skimming the pages of new nonfiction, checking the shelves for a documentary or foreign film, scanning the sci-fi section or looking up "just one more" item on the computerized card catalogue.

Mihret doesn't know what to do first in the library. She zigzags across the children's department as soon as one of us unbuckles her from her stroller. She wants to sit in a cubby with daddy and flip through a book. Then she wants to watch an older child play a computer game. Then she runs between the stacks, grinning, like they're part of a corn maze, and expects us to chase her.

While I'd like her to just settle down and pick out some board books - we more often than not end up grabbing a small pile of interest just before the library closes - part of me is just glad that she's able to be in the library. It's like bringing her to church well before she can truly grasp the importance of being there. We do that, and we'll continue to bring her to the library, too, until she's older and can lose herself in the stacks by reading.

-Kara

A Tale of Color

2009-07-10T13:58:00.001-07:00

The favored game in the bathtub these days is "cups." Mihret will say, "Cups, please?" And then some variation of the following will occur:

Me: Which cup do you want?

Mihret: Yellow one?

I place the yellow one on the edge of the tub. She now has four other colors to choose from: blue, pink, green, or orange.

Mihret: Orange one?

I place the orange one on the tub.

Mihret: Um... red one?

Me: You don't have a red one.

Mihret: Blue one?

I place the blue cup on the edge of the tub.

And so on, until she names all the cups.

Recently, however, we had two variations:

Mihret: Brown one?

Me: We don't have a brown one.

Mihret: Brown one?

Me: You don't have a brown cup. *a short pause, as I try to figure out her logic* YOU'RE brown.

Mihret: YOU'RE brown.

Variation two:

Mihret: Sing the cup song.

Note: There is no cup song.

Me: (Singing) Cuuuuuuupppppps.

Mihret: That doesn't make any sense.

I start laughing.

Mihret: Don't laugh!

I laugh harder...

-Josh

A Case of Clean

2009-06-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

This one is for all the parents who, like me, have been spending the valuable toddler years trying to figure out how to get stains out of their kids' clothing.

The only reason I feel compelled to post this is because:

a) I spent months trying to find a formula that actually got my kid’s clothing completely clean more than 50% of the time.

b) I figured all the other parents in the world had this kind of thing figured out, until I talked to a mom at a playground recently who also lamented how quickly a lot of her two-years-old’s nice outfits were becoming play clothes after one use.

First, a quick list of things I’ve tried, and their level of success:

Stain Stick: Stain Stick has been a standby at our household since the day Kara and I got married and moved into an apartment together. Perhaps once a month or so, one of us would accidentally dump something on ourselves, and The Stick probably got everything clean, say, 98% of the time. The big problems were generally things like olive oil, which just plain doesn’t come out easily.

I will say this: Stain Stick works really, really well. The problem is context – kids don’t get one dot of sauce on an outfit. When my little one comes home, it appears that she was playing paintball.

You can run a Stain Stick over that, but you better not have anything planned for the night. So that became sort of worthless.

Oxi Clean: For some reason, parents love this stuff. You take a scoop, throw it in some water, soak the clothes, and presto! Nothing happens, and you’ve still got a bunch of dirty clothing.

Oxi Clean worked perhaps 50% of the time, but I’m convinced that the clothing that came clean would have come clean even if I hadn’t soaked the clothing in advance.

Oxi Clean Max: This is a spray bottle that informs you that once you spray something, it MUST be in the wash 10 minutes later.

I’ll say this for it – the spray works, say, 80% of the time. Unfortunately, it still has to be applied everywhere your stains are. So if the wee one looks like she’s been playing paintball, chances are good that you either a) miss a spot, or b) spend lots and lots and lots of time trying to spray every inch of her clothing on laundry day.

So it’s useful, but not practical.

Color Safe Bleach: This, folks, is the magic bullet, and I say that in all seriousness.

A story: The little one was having lunch with us. Pasta. Red sauce. New dress, with a white collar. Guess what happened? Right.

I tried soaking the dress, then washing it. It did not come clean.

I tried the spray, then I washed the dress again. It did not come clean.

I tried the Stain Stick, then washed the dress again. It did not come clean.

I figured, “You know what? The dress is wrecked anyway. If the bleach makes it worse, so be it.”

And guess what? I washed that dress, and you would never ever guess that the thing had ever been worn, much less sauce-smeared.

So, to all you parents spraying and sticking and washing and hoping to get more wear out of clothing, I say this:

Stick all the clothing that seems like a lost cause into a separate pile.

Find a washer with a “bleach” slot in it.

Put the color-safe bleach in the slot.

Wash the clothing normally.

Weep for joy over not having to spend an hour in your basement hunting for stains.

-Josh

Tales from Early Morning

2009-05-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

The Scene:

Kara is trying to wake up after a week off of work. I, the husband, have been unemployed for almost three months.

Mihret sits on the bed.

Me: Wake up, mama! Time to bring home the bacon!

Mihret: I eat the bacon!

Kara: Aajgksdoijf...

Annnd... scene!

-Josh

Motherhood often a shared journey

2009-05-21T04:38:00.000-07:00

Post-Crescent column: May 9, 2009
My daughter Mihret has two mamas. Every time Mihret looks in the mirror, her Ethiopian birth mother, Mama Delame, looks back at her.

When Mihret studies herself in the glass, something she loves to do at age 2, I often watch her and smile. I can't help but notice how she is Mama Delame in miniature.

Mama Delame will always be with her, in her serious, solemn look that's well beyond her years, and in her smile that flashes her teeth and shows her dimples.

I don't feel threatened that we share the title of mama, or Mihret's heart.

Ever since Mihret came home from East Africa with me and my husband Josh as a 6-month-old, we've shown her our photograph of me and Mama Delame standing together in a dusty care center courtyard in the countryside, our arms tucked behind the small of each other's backs.

We're both wearing long skirts out of respect for the occasion, our first meeting. I'm in awe of this slender yet strong woman, barely out of her teens, who breastfed and sang to Mihret and told us about her dreams.

As we're about to celebrate Mother's Day, it's bittersweet. The sweetness is our daughter, our precious joy, and the trust Mama Delame placed in us to parent her child. The bitterness is the tang of missing my sister in Christian motherhood, and knowing we may never meet again in this lifetime.

For an early Mother's Day gift, Josh and Mihret strung together a special necklace for me at the Building for Kids in downtown Appleton. Miss Patty, who runs the art studio there, chose for Mihret a stone from Zimbabwe as the necklace's centerpiece. Five beads surround the stone on each side to represent our family: Josh, me, Mihret, Mama Delame and Mihret's birth father figure, her Grandpa Demesse.

As Mihret grows into a young woman, she may wrestle with ever-changing emotions, with all that's sweet and bitter about life after adoption.

We — all of her family — are her constants. And her Mama Delame will always be with her, wherever she goes.

-By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer
www.postcrescent.com

Random Photo Gallery

2009-05-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

Mihret's teachers at day care school helped her make this precious, personalized vase and "flower bouquet" for me for Mother's Day. The felt flowers are her hand outlines and the flowers on the vase are her thumbprints.

This time, I remembered to raise the blinds so our Africa/Ethiopia stained-glass suncatcher, handmade by our cousin Hanni, is visible too!

This girl has hair! Konjo (Amharic: beautiful) hair! She is ready for the big-time braids.

Mihret sitting and "copying" Auntie Rachel, a dear friend of ours.

Our peanut - the girl of many facial expressions. I love this one, for some reason.

Two new family photos on Mother's Day. (We were visiting Great-Grandma Peg and Great-Grandpa David in Oshkosh.)

Mihret pays homage to the new Star Trek movie, which we (Kara, a hard-core Trekkie, and Josh, a semi-Trekkie) are planning to see next week. Maybe Mihret will watch it in a decade or so.

-Kara

Saturday, How I Love Thee

2009-05-02T18:04:00.000-07:00

Saturdays are great fun at our house for many reasons, but one of the biggest of those is that we're (usually) together, all three of us, for big chunks of the day.

After a week of talking with lots of people and writing lots of stories (me), talking with lots of people, writing some freelance pieces and networking with people on the job search trail (Josh), and hanging out with cool teachers and tiny peanut friends (Mihret), we're all ready for weekend togetherness-time.

Mihret is juggling a lot of milestones at the moment, and we're trying to figure out the best way to handle them all without being either lax or pushy. The parenting dilemma that transcends ages.

She's sitting well at the table like a big girl (still in a seat on top of the seat, so she can reach the table) and eating from her plastic Hello Kitty plates fairly well.

In other business, today Josh printed out "Mihret's potty chart," which we posted today up on the side of her bedroom cubby. She picked out her first Minnie Mouse sticker (she likes the "Ms") for telling us she had to sit on the potty, and then sitting on the potty. (By the time she got there it was too late for her to be productive, as it were, but her new princess Pull-Ups are helping her to at least feel when she is messy and associate that with the need for pottying.)

Perhaps the most fun for us is to watch Mihret grow in her capacity to learn, create and express herself. Today at the Building for Kids, our local children's museum, Josh took her to make me a Mother's Day gift in the art room. Mihret wanted me to open it right away. She handed me a tiny, square cardboard box and said, "Here's a present for you, Mama!" I lifted the lid, and teared up. There was a necklace with five small beads on each side of a large, black stone. Josh told me the stone was from Zimbabwe, and he'd helped Mihret string on the five beads on each side to represent the five members of our family: Josh, me, Mihret, and Mihret's family in Ethiopia, her Mama Delame and her Grandpa Demesse. I said I'd consider the big rock in the middle from Africa to represent God. I put the necklace on right away.

To end this post, a humorous out-take from our day. It goes like this:

It's lunchtime. Josh is helping Mihret with something related to mealtime. As I walk back into the dining room from putting away some provisions, I hear:

Mihret: "That was an immense help. Thank you, Daddy!"

We did a double-take and asked her to repeat herself. She said it again.

"That was an immense help."

Words are awesome, and tiny peanuts who say them are awesome. And the Saturdays during which they say them are .... you guessed it. Awesome.

-Kara

Mihret Does Faces For You

2009-04-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

Note: Uncle David face is a face that my brother taught her. He's a good guy. He just needs to learn that we will turn such things around on him.

-Josh

Loving Lists

2009-04-22T19:26:00.001-07:00

I'm a big fan of lists, and I thought I'd let the blog be my electronic Post-It note today to share some observations about Mihret and the simple yet amazing ways she fills our days. We'll go with ten.

1. She loves pepper from the salt and pepper shaker, and she now asks for "Pepper, please" to put on almost anything at dinnertime. I doubted she could pepper her hummus without dousing it, but she was very gentle and she actually ended up asking for MORE pepper! We think that having the treasured gift of breastfeeding from her Mama Delame in Ethiopia may have prompted a love of somewhat spicy foods.

2. Her two favorite books right now are "Curious George and the Monkey" and "Zoo Animals." She can recite most of the first book, and names most of the animals in the second. When we climb up on our bed for storytime, she now brings the following items: 1) as many "babies" as she can carry; 2) the new pink rubbery ball and the new tiny Koosh ball she got from Grandma for Easter, and 3) her wooden cross that we haven't yet hung on the wall, that says "Jesus "heart" Me and I "heart" Jesus." We're working on having her keep the balls and the cross out of her mouth, but she is doing really well with not biting her books. Yay for good behaviors!

3. When it started to *snow* the other day after a weekend of (comparably) warm weather, I grumbled about it in the morning before I headed to work. Mihret looked at me and said, "Mama, it's _just_ snow." I guess I need an attitude adjustment. :)

4. Mihret has learned her colors and loves to point out what is purple, what is pink, what is yellow, etc. etc. Her "Hello Kitty Colors" book and her vibrantly colored bath toy cups have helped reinforce this. She kept mixing up "blue" and "red" for the longest time - I thought there'd be a better chance she'd mix up "red" and "pink," for example - but now she's getting most colors right about 95 percent of the time.

5. Josh found a way to help Mihret cope with getting her hair done in the morning. He took the play mirror from her talking purse and asked her if she wanted to watch while Daddy did her hair. She has been so much more cooperative since then. Her teachers at day care school have done her hair a few times (the cutest 'do was the four-poof 'do) and she loves that, so we're hoping to bring her to the stylist for a hair health checkup and a 'do that's a little more complicated.

6. She's taking to her big girl bed arrangement in her crib very well. She's also taken to bringing her stuffed platypus from Uncle Dave to bed - it lays on her pillow alongside two of her favorite "babies." Sometimes Grover gets to join them - sometimes he's relegated to a toy box.

7. Josh told me he's noticed she's figured out that when he plays the piano and reads the sheet music, there are directions on the pages that tell Daddy how to make the piano make music! Hopefully next year he will start teaching her some piano basics. For right now we're just openly letting her (respectfully) explore the instrument and seeing if she keeps up her interest.

8. She's growing to love Ethiopian pop music! We dance to it at home and watch Ethiopian music videos on YouTube.

9. She still points out the outline of Africa everywhere she sees it.

10. She fills my heart with such joy.

-Mihret's Emaye (Kara)

A Prayer for the Journey

2009-04-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

A blessed Easter - Christ is risen!

Mihret's new word Easter week was, "Alleluia."

Our continued prayer is that God would help us be the parents Mihret, and He, need for us to be. I pray regularly for the support team of loved ones in Mihret's life who will surround her - those we know and those whom we haven't yet met - who will show her God's life, love and light, and eventually point her to Him. I hope someday to rejoice with her as she receives her new life in baptism - the outer symbol of her personal choice to live for God. Please, if you feel moved to do so, lift up a prayer for our daughter's someday choice.

-Kara

Mihret's (Pseudo-) Big-Girl Bed

2009-03-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

Mihret's been napping on a cot without side rails at day care "school" for awhile, so we decided to see what steps we could take at home to get her ready for a big-girl bed.

We don't think she's quite ready to be tucked into a bed without rails yet, because she would likely roam free. We have a gate at the top of our stairs and we could shut all the other doors to the upstairs hallway, but we'd still worry. I'd also heard a suggestion to try shutting her door, but she can escape - believe me. She loves figuring out how to open doors and she's very good at it.

Her crib turns into a toddler bed - take off the rails, and presto. Then, when she outgrows her toddler bed, apparently we go out and purchase a large mattress and reconfigure the crib parts in some way that makes sense, and presto - an "until-you-leave-the-nest" twin bed.

What we decided to do, you've probably already figured out from the photos. We made up a bed for her, with new big-girl pillow, pillowcase, comforter and sheets inside her crib, so it's basically a bed with rails. We figure maybe when she's about 2.5, it will be an easier transition from there to taking off the rails and tucking her in.

Josh usually puts Mihret to bed, after we finish our family reading and prayers routine, I give last kisses, sing a final lullaby and leave the room. He's reported that Mihret seems more willing to let him leave the room and fall asleep on her own now that she's in her pseudo-big-girl bed.

They'll start off sitting in her rocker and then Mihret will tell him when she wants to get into her big-girl bed. Then, Josh will rub her back for a bit, until she tells him, "Daddy, you can go potty now." (That's how he got her to let him leave the room, by telling her he had to go use the potty. :) )

She loves to put her babies, Grover, Elmo, etc., to bed, too. She hasn't jumped out of her crib at night, and this is comforting. Big-girl bed makes everyone happy!

-Kara

Mihret, The Singing Dinosaur

2009-03-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

In Mihret's day care "school" class (2-2.5 year olds), the teachers instruct children using theme weeks - weather, transportation, Dr. Seuss, to name a few examples. After one recent week, "Dinosaur Week," Mihret came home with a very cute little skit. Watch as she pretends to be a dino.

And because she likes to sing, watch for her to launch into her version of the "Numa Numa" song.

-Kara

Kiddo Conversations

2009-03-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Part I:

The Scene: Mihret is at day care. She is talking to Alex.

Mihret: Alex, you go home?

Alex: I'm going to my daddy's house!

Mihret: Okay. Bye, see you later!

I'm not going to say my kid is a brilliant conversationalist, but how often do you see two two-year-olds having a conversation that makes sense?

Part II: I had to fetch a paper for Kara to sign from out in my car. The only problem was, Mihret was up already and Kara was in the shower, and I'm still a little wary of leaving Mihret alone for two minutes.

So I picked her up, and we went outside, got the paper, and came back in.

Kara emerges from the shower:

Mihret: Mama! Daddy and Mihret go outside and get the papers!

Kara: Did you help daddy get the papers?

Mihret: Yes.

Note to self: Do not rob a bank with Mihret in tow...

-Josh

"Mihret's Talking to Daddy Right Now..."

2009-03-23T18:52:00.001-07:00

I am so happy that Mihret, like her Emaye and Abaye, seems to be falling in love with words.

She loves to choose lots of board books to read (we're waiting to let her hold the books with more delicate pages until she's a little gentler with them). She often tells us, or her "babies," or her bear, or her Grover, Elmo, etc., the stories on the pages. We like to read along and then pause so she can fill in the missing words or phrases.

She's got the "ABC Song" down pat - it's one of the songs she sings most frequently right now along with an eclectic mix of "Africa" by Toto, the "Numa Numa" song by that Romanian band, the "Way-O" song from the Wisconsin-based performers Colleen and Uncle Squaty's children's educational songs CD, and "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

She also can recognize four of the 26 letters by sight: A, B, C and "M for Mihret." She "read" us the first three letters off of her organic Sesame Street butter cookies box and we got all excited. As many of you know who are reading this post, Josh and I are avid readers - make that uber-bookworms - and we can't wait to share this world that is opening up to Mihret.

The sentences Mihret is saying these days are also becoming much more complex. She always speaks in full sentences now, although the grammar is a bit mixed up sometimes. She is learning about contractions ("No, I didn't!" "No I don't!") and compound sentences ("Mihret's blueberries all gone, and I need some more berries in my tummy!").

My latest favorite gem from Mihret, although I have to catalogue it under "a bit sassy"...

I stopped home briefly while on a dinner run during a weekend night shift at the paper the other day, and Mihret was eating her dinner at the kitchen table. She looked up when I came in the door, and said...
"Mama, Mihret's talking to Daddy right now. Go upstairs and read your book on Planet Bed." (our endearing term for our bed, which we pretend is a planet when we zoom Mihret to it in her laundry basket.)

Words... you never know which ones will come out next, and in what combination.

-Kara

Mihret Matches Her "Baby"

2009-03-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

Toilet Paper, Please

2009-03-04T18:03:00.000-08:00

(NOTE: For this posting, Josh was begging for an alternate title: Our Little Whiz Kid. :) We're all about the puns at the Patterson house.)

Mihret's been aware of the potty for quite a while now. We decided we didn't want to put any pressure on her to sit on it, but we've made sure that she knows it's there for the sitting at any time.

She's watched us use the potty plenty of times. She's fixated on the roll of toilet paper that hangs at a fairly low and accessible level for little peanuts. At first, she stood by the roll and handed the potty-ing parent piece after piece. ("Need paper? There you go, Mama!") Now, she favors shoving handfuls into the potty-er's hands and walking out the door, closing it behind her.

For the past month or so we've been taking out her potty seat (one that secures onto the toilet seat) and asking her before bathtime if she'd like to try sitting on the potty. She's been doing that most nights, except for when we've been running behind schedule and she's been overtired, or a few nights following the two times recently when she's been sick to her stomach (we had the unfortunate experience of having to introduce her to "getting her uckies into the potty." We figure having to hang over the potty head-first while doing a frightening thing like vomiting scared her away from it for a bit.)

In her new classroom at day care "school" - she moved up in early February, shortly after she turned two - she's been sitting on the potty about twice a day. Her teachers say she hasn't been initiating the bathroom visits, but when her older friends line up for the potty, she usually follows right along.

Lately at home, her before-bathtime potty time has gotten more and more involved. She's wanted to wipe with square after square of paper ("Toilet paper, please!" she asks, and we oblige in moderation, giving her a piece at a time for conservation's sake). She also started asking for reading material - the magazines we keep in a basket in the bathroom. Truly a child after our own hearts!

So tonight was the big splash (pun intended). I was actually in the computer room checking e-mail, and Josh was helping an enthroned Mihret leaf through a "Parenting" magazine. All of a sudden, I hear Josh saying, "Mihret _went_ potty!"

The funny thing? She was really more into looking at the magazine than she was in getting excited about her tinkle. But she did wipe all by herself and try to flush (Josh had to help; the lever's too heavy for her to push down on at this point.)

We're not going to rush the full-on and intense potty training, but I can't help but wonder how soon her potty time will become productive on a regular basis.

Next step: Checking into the Pull-Ups diapers. (We still use the ones with the tab fasteners.)

-Kara

We try to make most of teachable time

2009-03-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

March 4, 2009

Post-Crescent column: We try to make most of teachable time

Our 2-year-old daughter Mihret loves going to day care, which my husband, Josh, and I like to call "school."

At her Christian school, her creative and compassionate teachers help her learn to love God, care for others and explore the world around her with a healthily curious attitude.

We've accepted the fiscal fact that, in order for us to provide for her and also plan for a second adoption, we need to be a two-income household. That means Mihret sees more of her teachers in her waking hours during the workweek than she sees of us.

So as her first teachers, we've tried to make every minute with Mihret meaningful.

When she's eating her snacks, Josh plays piano. While we clean up, we sing together, following her lead. One favorite — a "Mihret medley" of the first verse of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" that leads right into the chorus of "Jingle Bells."

When we shop, she loves to help us unpack bags. It's fun to hear her identify groceries ("Pasta! Yogurt!") and it's also interesting to see what she'll call items that are a mystery to her. Lemonade has earned the affectionate term "Clamonato."

We play catch with her globe-patterned bouncy ball. She loves to point out Africa, the continent she recognizes. We use the game as an opener to talk about her Mama Delame, Grandpa Demesse and other birth family members who live in Ethiopia.

We read her favorite books, including "The Snuggliest Snuggle in the World," a book about a mommy leopard who goes hunting and leaves Little Leopard to play with jungle friends until she returns to give hugs only parents can give. We talk about how Mama and Daddy have to go to work, but always come back.

And every night before bed, we pray together about our busy day, and the day to come.

-By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer
www.postcrescent.com

Mihret Sings Her ABCs

2009-02-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

Mihret's learning her ABCs... here she is singing the ABC song.

Daughter's too-small dress still holds memories

2009-02-03T17:23:00.000-08:00

Mihret in fall 2008, at about age 18 months

Mihret in fall 2007, at about age nine months

Emaye with her Fandesha (smiley girl!) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, summer 2007

In bottom photo: Kara holds Mihret at a goodbye ceremony at the CHSFS Ethiopia care center, while a pediatrician and a caregiver look on. Summer 2007, about age 6 months

Post-Crescent column: Daughter's too-small dress still holds memories

Jan. 23, 2009

I've gotten used to sorting through my toddler daughter Mihret's closet and parting with clothes, even my favorites. I know they're going to a good home, my goddaughter's.

But during a recent survey of Mihret's dresses, with her upcoming 2-year-old pictures in mind, I paused at one, not wanting to admit it didn't fit anymore.

The white, gauzy cotton dress with a silken underskirt and accents of green at bodice and hem has a matching white cotton headscarf with green trim.

It's the dress Mihret wore in summer 2007 on the bittersweet day her nannies at a care center in Ethiopia, her homeland, placed her in our care.

The home where Mihret lived from age three months to six months in Ethiopia's capital city of Addis Ababa supplies children there with a traditional outfit. It's theirs to keep and it's what they wear on the day of the goodbye ceremony that signifies their transition into their adoptive families.

On that day, we saw how lovingly one particular caregiver held our daughter, who looked so small and so scared, her headscarf slipping off of her barely-there curls.

The caregiver assisted my husband Josh and I as we marked Mihret's hand with red paint and pressed it firmly against a wall of the care center's playroom, to the sound of clapping from care center staff, children and other families. Although she was leaving the country with us, that most unique part of her — her handprint — would remain behind.

When I look at that white cotton dress — when I hold it in my hands, bring it up to my face, breathe in deeply and try to imagine its original scent, an almost indescribable mixture of incense and spices — I'm no longer in Wisconsin.

I'm back in that room, that day our daughter first wore the dress and we wet it with our tears of joy mixed with sorrow at her separation from all that was familiar.

We have other Ethiopian garments in a plastic tub in our basement that are waiting for Mihret to grow into them. But nothing can replace her white cotton dress.

-By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer, http://www.postcrescent.com/

A Little Hyper

2009-01-28T18:48:00.000-08:00

The Scene: Sunday, lunch with my parents and my brother David, post-church.

We're all sitting and eating, and Mihret is having a great time, because she loooves her uncle David. They sit and make faces at each other.

The little almost two-year-old is sitting there, being two. Which means she was being somewhat hyperactive. She's eating her food for a second, then trying to play with my brother, then saying "Grandpa!" and waving at my dad.

My Mom: "Can you say ADHD?"

Mihret: "ADHD!"

The entire table loses it. Except for Kara, who rolls her eyes in shame at our inability to control ourselves.

-Josh

Tag... We're Thankful!

2009-01-22T17:40:00.001-08:00

We've been tagged!
We're sorely overdue as it's a Thanksgiving tag... We need to write about five things for which we are thankful.
I'll answer this my way, and then let Josh come on here later for his.
We've been tagged by Kara V. (Many of you reading this know that I also used to be a Kara V. - and I've finally met another Kara V.! Thanks for the tag, Kara! :) )
Here are my five:
1. I am thankful that God has blessed my life with safe and (mostly) effective medications and skilled, caring physicians, a therapist, pastor and church family, a local NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) chapter and a loving support system of family and friends to help me live well with my chronic illness, bipolar disorder.
2. I am thankful for my husband. He is my best friend, my helpmate, my rock, my lover, my strength.
3. I am thankful for our daughter. She is a precious one, a wonder, a joy, a blessing, a little mystery waiting for us to discover who she is. I can't wait to help her find herself, find her faith, and find her purpose/God's plan for her as she grows.
4. I am thankful for Mama Delame and Grandpa Demesse and all of our Ethiopian family, and for their courage in the face of hardship and daily struggle.
5. My first four are so serious .... so my fifth posting is going to be thanks for some random things I lurv ... ladybugs, penguins, unicorns, books, popcorn, the smell of bookprint, back scratches, back rubs, cups of chai, Post-Its, extended deadlines, Facebook, my new aloe-covered slipper-socks, our digital camera, my new scrapbooking basic tools, the fact that we have so many diverse languages and cultures in this world, and the fact that I still can be lots of things when I grow up. :)

-Kara (who will tag five other people/households as soon as Josh explains the tagger ettiquette)

She's Definitely Listening...

2009-01-19T22:06:00.000-08:00

Here's Mihret looking like a big girl in her Emaye's glasses.

A common scenario in our house after mealtime is Mihret trying to free herself from her high chair before her hands and face are clean, usually even before her bib is off. Sometimes before her tray is gone.

At that point, I tell her "One more minute." It's been our "time phrase" that she seems to understand as "Wait, please." I also have asked her to "be patient," which we also use in conjunction with "Wait, please."

The other day in church, Mihret was playing with the goldfish crackers I kept handing to her one by one so as not to create a crumbly mess.

They're goldfish of many colors - pink, orange, green, purple - and I didn't want the dye to rub off on our clothes or anything else. So when she kept on handling the fishes instead of eating them, I put the lid back on her mini-Tupperware container and took the fishes away.

She promptly dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl under our chairs. They're regular stackable chairs so when they're fitted side by side, a tiny peanut could easily crawl through the gaps like she's navigating a maze. Not acceptable during church time.

While my mom-in-law held onto the back of her little pants suit so she couldn't shoot out under the back of one of the chairs - we were in the very back row, a quick scamper to the stairs - I leaned forward and said in a very exasperated stage whisper, "Mihret. That. Is. Enough."

What did Mihret say in return?

(Wait for it...)

"Mama," she said, looking up at me with those big brown eyes. "Patience."

-Kara

It Begins

2009-01-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

(Note: Alex is a little boy in Mihret's day care. Up until recently, they were in the same room, but Alex just aged to the room. Mihret will follow in a few weeks.)

The scene: Saturday Morning. The little one has just woken up, and we're all sitting on the bed while Kara is on the phone with her parents.

Kara: Mihret, do you want to talk to Nona?

Mihret: Hi, Alex!

Kara: Mihret, Nona is on the phone.

Mihret: Hi, Alex!

Kara: Can you say, "I love you, Nona?"

Mihret: Hi, Alex!

Kara (to her mother): It's starting already.

Second Scene: Kara, me, my mom, and my dad, are all sitting eating Chinese food. I have just finished relaying a story about Mihret at day care.

Kara: Mihret, who do you play with at school?

Mihret: Alex!

Kara: And who else?

Mihret: Alex!

Me: Who else do you play with?

Mihret: Alex!

Kara: Do you play with Bella?

Mihret: Alex!

Me: And Logan?

Mihret: Alex!

Me: Do you play with anyone else?

Mihret: Alex funny!

Me (to Kara): We're in trouble.

Third scene: Mihret and I are looking at a picture of Sam and Rachel Bass (two of our favorite people!) and their kids (our Godkids!) Iris and Ian Bass.

Me: Mihret, who's that?

Mihret: ?

Me (pointing to Sam): Who's that?

Mihret: Unca Sam!

Me (pointing to Rachel): Who's that?

Mihret: Rachel!

Me (pointing at Iris): Who's that?

Mihret: ?

Me (pointing at Ian): Who's that?

Mihret: Ian!

Me (back at Iris): Who's that?

Mihret: ?

Me: Is that Iris?

Mihret: ?

Me: Iris?

Mihret: ?

Me (pointing at Sam again): Who's that?

Mihret: Unca Sam, and Rachel, and Ian.

Me: What about Iris?

Mihret: ?

Me: Hmmm...

-Josh

A Little Unworthy

2009-01-06T20:59:00.001-08:00

I've wanted to be a father as long as I've known what a father was - and maybe longer.

My mom was the one to point this out to me. At family gatherings when I was younger, I tended to gravitate towards the littler kids - playing games with them, being silly with them, and often throwing them up on my shoulders and walking around with them.

In more than one instance there was a child who just had to be held, and had to be held a certain way, and I was often more than happy to do it for minutes or hours at a time. I even changed a few diapers, though I never got that good at it.

Somehow, though, I always knew that there was some kind of daddy gene in me.

The daddy gene was activated in other instances as well. When our church was working on shuffling around who was teaching the babies, and who was watching the babies during service, Kara and I were always more than happy to step up to the plate.

And for a few wonderful months, there was even one little-little girl who became our Sunday charge most weeks, while her parents taught classes.

We were sad when her family left. We were just as sad when they came back for a visit, and suddenly we were strangers to the little girl again.

Time passed, and a couple of years of emotional distress, and then came one of the top five happiest days of my life - the day I really, truly, became a dad.

You can see it in our Ethiopia visit video. They caught the first time I ever saw my little girl. I burst into tears.

A few days later, when Kara and I finally got to bring her back to the guest house in Ethiopia, I held her, and tried to sing to her, and I started crying so hard my throat closed and I couldn't do it.

I finally started changing a lot of diapers, and started getting good at it. (True confession though: The first time she pooped in her diaper, the smell hit me so hard I had to go throw up. Not a magical moment, but certainly an indicator that you adjust to such things quickly. That's never happened since.)

I finally reached a point where I could sing to my daughter without being overwhelmed by emotion.

And I got good at other things - knowing when she was hungry, knowing when she needed to be changed, dealing with her spit-ups.

Through it all, I always thought I was a good dad. Maybe even a very good one.

I never felt inadequate to the task of parenting. I had the daddy gene.

As Mihret started getting older, for a long time she didn't really express any interest in dolls. She liked stuff with wheels - things she could push around, or walk with. She was, and is, kind of rough and tumble. She wants to run, and jump, and be picked up and be bounced around a bit.

Recently, however, that's changed a bit. She has a lot of dolls now - mostly given to us by my mom or Kara's mom, and she's slowly but surely starting to treat them as her babies. Which is fine and wonderful and cute, only it can be confusing because she has a few of them now and they're all called Baby.

A few nights ago, Kara was working and I was on solo bedtime duty. So, Mihret had her bath, and got her jammies on, and then we grabbed her current favorite baby and went to Planet Bed for story time.

First we put down the baby, and then Mihret got onto the bed, put the baby on her tummy and started rubbing her back.

I read Mihret the story we picked out (The Snuggliest Snuggle in the World - it may as well be called: Mom Has to Go to Work, and the People At Day Care Are Second Best When It Comes to Hugs) and I set the book down and said it was time to do prayers.

Mihret flipped her baby over, held the baby's hands together, and said, "Thank You, Amen!"

I thought that was pretty nice, so I decided to try doing a thank you prayer. "Thank you, God, for Mommy, and Daddy, and Grandma, and Grandpa, and Nona, and Papa, and all the Great Grandmas and all the Great Grandpas, and especially for Ethiopian Mama and Ethiopian Grandpa. And thank you for Jesus. Amen."

And Mihret said, "Thank you for Grandma, and Grandpa, and Grandpa, and Grandpa, and Grandpa, AMEN!"

And tears started to prick my eyes, and my throat started to close again.

So I sat there, while Mihret read to her baby, and rubbed her baby's back, and sang Itsy-Bisty Spider to her baby, and put a blanket on her baby to keep her warm.

When I told the story to Kara later, she pointed out that the reason that Mihret was doing all those things is because she learned them from us. (She also pointed out that Mihret will also, on occasion, tell her babies, "No biting mommy. No biting daddy," and then will give them a time in.) That these were all good things.

But for me, for the first time, I felt like I might not ever be a good enough father to her.

Trying to explain why is hard, but I think it has something to do with love - that strange emotion that gets mirrored for us in songs and movies and books, where creators struggle to show us what it could, or should, be.

Watching my daughter do all those things, being so wonderful, so loving, I felt like I somehow got so much more than I deserved - a little girl who is so like me, and so like me at that age, only better than me on a physical and mental level.

I felt like she deserved a better dad than I can ever be.

Writing this down now, I feel a little silly. Lots of people have told me how lucky my daughter is to have me for a dad, whether it's because I'm a hopeless goofball, whether it's because I don't mind reading the same stories over and over, whether it's because I don't run when it's time to change diapers, or even just because I "saved" my kid from a much harder life in her homeland.

But I think it's all right to feel this way. So often we complain about all the thing that aren't fair to us - not enough money, a job we don't like, the fact that we'll never be as good-looking as we should be, or that no one ever notices how smart we are.

In this case, though, God gave me so much to live up to, put such an amazing person in my life and said, "Here, she's yours, take care of her as well as I would," and then stepped back.

It's a powerful blessing that I don't know I can ever fully live up to. But I'm going to try.

-Josh

Jingle Bells Ha-Ha

2008-12-30T13:05:00.000-08:00

She has her Abaye's piano skills... Counting down the years until he can start teaching her. Right now she's just learning by example, watching him sing and play for her while she eats her meals or snacks in her high chair nearby. (Listen for her to say, "I likin' this song!")

-Kara (Mihret's proud Emaye)

From our family to yours...

2008-12-24T18:20:00.000-08:00

From our family to yours... May God grant you a peace that surpasses all mortal understanding, in the remaining days of this year and throughout the year to come.
May He direct and guide your steps, and may you feel the joy and certainty of knowing where you need to be, what you need to be doing, and for whom.
May He bless you indeed.

-Joshua Grover-David Patterson, Kara Nicole Vozel Patterson and Mihret Aida Mirjam Demesse Patterson

Recent Peanut Scenes

2008-12-23T22:14:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday, driving to church:

Me: No wonder it’s so cold!

Kara: Hmmm?

Me: Look at the bank sign. Negative five degrees.

Kara: Oh.

Upon arriving at church, Kara attempts to get Mihret out of her car seat.

Mihret: Mama! I cold! I tired! Five!

Apparently, Mihret has not yet learned the word “negative.”

***

Last night, with Mihret eating dinner and me playing the piano while she eats:

Mihret: Daddy! All done!

I stop playing the piano.

Me: What is daddy supposed to do?

Mihret: Sit!

Me: Okay.

I sit. A minute passes.

Mihret: More music!

I resume playing.

Mihret: Daddy! All done!

Repeat.

***

I’m playing the piano while Mihret eats:

Mihret: Jingle Bells!

I start playing and singing Jingle Bells.

Me: … laughing all the way…

Mihret: Ha! Ha! Ha!

Me: … Bells on Bobtails ring…

Mihret: Ha! Ha! Ha!

Repeat after every line of the song. And also, sometimes in the middle of a line.

***

In the tub, I take out a cotton ball and go to clean Mihret’s nose of gunk.

Me: Squink!

Mihret: Mihret do it!

I dutifully wet a cotton ball and hand it to her. Mihret proceeds to clean her nose.

Mihret: Sgweeenk!

***

Kara and I are coming out of Target after much Christmas shopping. Also, we bought Mihret a whole mess of diapers.

I am putting Mihret in the car while Kara puts the rest of our purchases in the trunk.

Me: Mihret, mama is putting away your diapers.

Mihret: Yes!

Me: Mihret, what do you do with your diapers?

Mihret: I poop in there!

TV for daughter will have to wait a bit longer

2008-12-19T15:43:00.000-08:00

....Instead, we play with Play-doh! :)

Four generations of women (and toddler) playing with Play-doh at Thanksgiving. Mihret, Nona (a.k.a. Grandma), me and GiGi (Great-Grandma).

December 15, 2008
Kara Patterson column: TV for daughter will have to wait a bit longer

As our daughter Mihret approaches her second birthday, my husband Josh and I have been preparing for upcoming major milestones, buying potty training seats and the next size of clothing.

Her special day of Jan. 28 was going to be the day we introduced her to television. But we've decided to put that off for a while.

Before she came home with us, we planned to keep the television turned off during her waking hours until her second birthday.

And we've done that, for the most part. At our house, the only program she's seen featured presidential election results, and the only movie she's watched is the video of her birth family from our international adoption agency.

We respect others' choices to the contrary. Mihret has seen snippets of shows at our friends' homes and football games in the background at family get-togethers.

Josh and I love to watch movies together when Mihret's in bed, and we give each other boxed sets of our favorite television programs as holiday gifts.

It's just that we don't want that medium to distract Mihret from her first imaginative play and her fascination with books. Plus, our family time together during the week is fleeting, and we don't want to drown it out with unnecessary outside stimulation and noise.

Like we did when we were young, we want Mihret to someday follow the journey of the Last Unicorn as she travels to the edge of the world to find others like her.

We hope Mihret will laugh when "The Sword and the Stone's" magical Merlin and Madame Mim try to outsmart each other in a shape-shifting battle of wits.

And we're already envisioning some family sing-alongs with Annie.

It'll be a birthday present for another year.

-Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer (http://www.postcrescent.com/)

Our Little Fruitatarian

2008-12-18T18:58:00.000-08:00

Mihret wearing tofu, one of her favorite foods.

I understand (from our toddler guides that we've been studying) that as Mihret gets closer to (and surpasses) age two, she'll likely start to become more and more of a finicky eater, and we'll be less and less certain of what she'll eat or not eat. At least until her taste buds settle on what will be her preferences.

So... I pay homage to ten of Mihret's favorite foods, lest they be forgotten for all time...

(in no particular order)

1. Tofu (see above photos)

2. Rice

3. Green beans

4. Pasta

5. Hot dogs

6. Any kind of fruit (we like to call her our little "fruitatarian" as she's been known to eat whole meals full of just fruit) - she really loves cherries, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, bananas, grapes and applesauce.

7. Hummus

8. Soy yoghurt

9. Snackies, namely goldfish, dried fruit, dried cereal, hull-less popcorn and Toddler puffs

and of course... (she gets these sparingly, but still...)

10. Cookies

-Kara

Preserving the precious moments...

2008-12-14T17:58:00.001-08:00

Mihret with her new baby doll and her penguin friend at Nona's and Pappa's for Thanksgiving

Just thought I'd take a few minutes and share a few random Mihret experiences. I love interacting with her, and you never know what she'll say next or how she'll interpret a situation or what she'll come up with on her own. She's always been expressive and it's fun just to watch her figure out her world. When she's trying to make a connection, to suss out how something works, she gets a particularly adorable look on her face that we call her "thinking" face. She kind of purses her lips together and looks up and to one side. Two other endearing and distinct expressions that she's had since we can remember are what I call her "Mama Delame" look and her "Grandpa Demesse" look. When she's being quite serious and solemn, she is a miniature of her birth mama. When she puts on her great beaming smile she's her birth grandpa all the way. I think there even may be dimples. :)

Anecdotes from Mihret's world:

We're always telling her, "You did it!" i.e. "You took your coat off by yourself! You did it!" to reinforce what she can do on her own.

Bathtime for Mihret. Josh already put her in the tub so he asks me to fetch him some cotton balls. Mihret hears this, so when I return triumphantly with my find, what does she say?

M: "You did it, Mama!"

We've started having Mihret recite back to us three of our big "get-along-with-your-friends" rules that she has to get down pat: "No biting, no hitting, no hair-pulling." One of her favorite bedtime books right now is a book in a really great series, the Best Behavior Series. The book is called "Teeth are Not for Biting". (Other titles, either on our bookshelf already or will be, include "Hands are not for Hitting" and "Words are not for Hurting.") Anyway, Mihret loves to "read" this book back to us. She loves to look at us sternly and say, "No biting, no biting!" as she does this. We also say "Teeth are..." and she excitedly yells "no biting!"

We've been having some trouble getting Mihret to stay asleep for afternoon naps on weekends, since weekends often find us on the go and she tends to nap in the car if we're doing a half-hour drive or longer in one stint. When we try to transfer her into her crib she often bolts awake and then that's it for that. So we've been bringing her onto our bed (since afternoon nap time on Saturdays and Sundays is when Emaye and Abaye also get naps, and we can't let those go, no way...) and trying to get her to snuggle between us while one of us cat naps and the other sleeps. We kind of trade off so one of us knows what she's doing at all times. So this afternoon, she saw we were tired, and she sat down between the two of us and said, in a nurturing sort of way, "Rub mama back. Rub daddy back." Then she rubbed Josh's back (and my tummy, since I was too groggy to flip over) for a while.

Mihret loves Play-doh, and I have to confess I kind of love it too. Because I had to work a little bit from home this afternoon, I promised her we could get out the Play-doh before her bedtime. She chose the white Play-doh so I started to show her how we could build a snowman. I gave her her own little hunk to work on in the meantime. She rolled out a " 'nake!" (snake) with no prompting and then flattened it into a pancake. Then, she came over and flattened my snowman, which only had two parts to it, poor thing!

And finally... Tonight Mihret was a good Emaye to her baby doll, who looks like her except for the one tuft of hair tied up with a bow. We were on the Webcam with Nona, my mom - something we do every Sunday is talk with Nona and Pappa, my dad, and sometimes Uncle Zack, my brother, since they live in Indiana. So Nona and Josh were talking, and Mihret had put her baby in its carrier, hooked it over her arm and said, "Bye!" She walked over into the corner and sat down with the baby. Then she took her baby out of its carrier, and rocked it back and forth in her arms, with a big smile on her face. Baby went back into carrier, then got a bottle (placed in her carrier, kind of in her ear :) ) and then, the coolest thing ever... we looked back at Mihret and she had her hands folded and was whispering a prayer to her doll. We could hear her say "Thank you.... Amen!" a couple times. Then, if that wasn't cool enough, she reached over and brought her doll's hands together to get her to "pray." More whispering.

I think the most precious moments happen when the camera's not on...

-Kara

The Sleepytime Formula

2008-12-12T17:44:00.001-08:00

One of the things my mother frequently reminds me is just how easy I’ve had it in the sleep department.

“Your brother,” she will solemnly intone, “didn’t sleep through the night until he was three.”

What’s strange is that I actually have memories that relate to this odd little issue. Things like the fact that for a while, every single night they would let him watch "The Great Muppet Caper," which I guess lulled him to sleep.

Perhaps it was the musical numbers.

And there was also the time that I woke up in the middle of the night and noted an odd thing. I was sleeping on the top bunk of the bunk beds my parents had gotten for me and my brother.

My brother, at the time, was still in a crib.

On a small table on the floor, a TV was showing cartoons. Or rather, a cartoon, "Animalympics." Why I remember this, I have no idea.

I do recall getting out of bed, and turning the TV towards myself, and getting back into bed and watching for a while. And I have an even more vague memory of my parents coming into our room, turning the TV back towards my brother, and telling me that the TV was for him.

So clearly, this no sleeping thing made some kind of impression.

Over the years I’ve known many sets of parents to ask (or really, more like beg) each other for advice on the topic of sleep. Mostly along the lines of, “I’m dying here, I MUST sleep, please tell me what you do to get your kids to sleep.”

For that matter, there are whole books dedicated to the topic. I recall coworkers passing around a book called The Baby Whisperer with a kind of reverence, while others inquired in hushed tones, “Did it work? DOES IT WORK!?”

Or, as my nanny friend said when I explained our current predicament: “Sleep is a tough one.”

The thing of it is, mostly sleep has been an easy thing around our house. Despite a huge time change, our little one slept through the night starting about three days after we got home. Then we had some teeth/night terrors/awakening at night issues, but those eventually went away.

And we were finally reaching the next stage, when you stick a toddler in their crib, say goodnight, and let them put themselves to bed. And it was working fine. We’d hear some playing or some talking, for a bit, and then finger-sucking snores.

Until we visited my in-laws for Thanksgiving.

I’m not blaming them for her sudden sleep issues. I’m blaming the unfortunate shift in what was a perfect, well-oiled machine of a routine.

To wit. 7 PM arrives. Bath time. Reading time. Bed time by 7:30-ish.

And during the middle of the day, a little nap to prevent the little one from being overtired.

So, yeah. We went to Indiana for Thanksgiving and things started to unravel.

First she stopped taking a nap. Any attempts to put her down in her Pack ‘n Play were met with the kind of screams usually reserved for being eaten alive by fire ants. There were tears, and loads of snot, which indicated to us that this wasn’t a standard “I don’t wanna,” but rather a “Something is really wrong,” kind of situation.

But the fact of the matter was, by the middle of the afternoon she was totally wiped out. If I sat with her, and held her, she’d pass out in my arms. But the minute I tried to set her down? Screams of terror.

After a couple of days we didn’t try all that hard to get her down for a nap. Either something was wrong, or she just didn’t want to be away from mommy and daddy in "not-home," and either way she’d be back into a routine in a few days. We could deal with a little bit of ornery.

Then bedtime started to become an issue.

With no nap, the kid was WIPED. Holding her for even a minute seemed to put her into a near-coma-like state, right up until her head touched her temporary resting place. Then the screaming started again.

Ultimately, I’d hold her for 30-45 minutes, until she was well into la-la land, and then put her down. There would be minor fussing, but ultimately she couldn’t fight the tired.

We thought this would all resolve itself when we got home.

What fools we were.

The trip back was bad enough. She fell asleep around 7:30 PM, as we were driving, but then woke up again at 11 PM when we got home. Wonderfully refreshed, she was ready to run around. All motions towards sleep were met with screams, and we finally got her to pass out around 1 AM.

Then again at 3, 4 and 5. At which point I just brought her in bed with Kara and me.

We figured the next night would be better.

But we got home late from performing a vehicle exchange with my parents, and she got to bed at 10. And she REALLY didn’t want to go to bed. There was more screaming.

Then came the next day – Tuesday. Back to the routine, finally. Only she didn’t want to sleep.

She finally gave in and passed out around 10.

Wednesday. Out at a gathering, slapped her into some jammies and drove home, and tried to get her to bed with a minimum of fuss. She finally gave in around 10.

Then I went to my old friend The Internet.

Thursday, we set her in bed, but didn’t walk out right away. We took turns rubbing her back, and in Kara’s case, singing to her. Finally, we got “permission” to leave after nearly an hour of this.

Which was still too long, but showed some improvement.

Only it got worse on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as bedtime again stretched to an hour and a half or two hours.

I think I’ve found the formula now, though to be honest, I thought that I had it last week, and I’m putting it here in hope that it might help some other suffering parent to deal with the toddler who will not sleep, or is afraid of sleeping, or is perhaps just a little crab-monster.

I should note, first of all, that bedtime is still taking MUCH longer than I’d like it to, even as we’ve started the routine earlier. Last night, after a late start (about 7:15-ish) it took about an hour to complete the entire routine. But it’s better than three hours.

Second note: The “secret,” such as it is, seems to revolve around calming the little one into submission.

Here’s what we’re doing.

First, we moved the start of bedtime back. Or rather, we’ve been trying to, but it’s been a busy couple of weeks and our time frame has been a bit off. Regardless, instead of starting at 7, we’ve been trying to get going around 6:45.

Run the bath. Take the bath. Allow some time for playing.

Take little one out of the bath after about 10-15 minutes. Dry child, put on new diaper, put on lotion and jammies.

Planet Bed. For a while, we were trying to do, say, one book, and then have Mihret look at her “Ethiopia Book,” which has pictures of Ethiopia and her birth family in it. But her interest, which was high for a few weeks, has now scaled way back.

So now we’re doing two books, and reading them once or twice depending on interest level.

Then we do prayers, and mama gives hugs and kisses.

Then I take Mihret into her bedroom, shut the door, and grab one of her blankets off her crib. We rock in the rocker for a while.

The rocker seems to be the major key. When we were setting her in the crib, she would either ask for rocking or ask us to rub her back for a long, long, long time. And when you’re bent over a crib, it’s even longer.

Plus, the minute we thought she was down, she would suddenly pop up, making the continued rubbing process even more painful.

But rocking is low-key and pretty easy.

After five minutes, I tell Mihret that we’re going to her “pillow.” Because we put a pillow in her crib, because she’s old enough, and sleeping without a pillow is no fun. Plus it gives her a nice, soft focus point for sleep.

At this point, she usually lies down on her pillow in a kind of crouch, with her legs tucked under her. I put the blanket(s) over her, and rub her back firmly.

The “firmly” is key to the process, I think. Whether it’s because it feels better or is more reassuring or because it feels like she’s getting some time at a spa, I don’t know. But I do know that if I don’t rub all that convincingly, she’ll sit up and either say, “Hi, daddy!” or “Daddy, rub back!” and that means she’s not sleeping.

So, firmly.

After a while, she will un-tuck her legs and lay flat on the mattress. Which means that she’s really getting down to the business of sleeping.

Then, more firm rubbing. Another three or four minutes.

Then, slightly softer rubbing for a minute or two.

Then I stand in her room for another two minutes without moving. This is sort of boring, yes, but having spent several nights thinking I was in the clear, then walking towards the door, only to have Mihret pop up and get upset, which meant I had to start the process ALL OVER AGAIN… it’s worth the two minutes.

Then I walk out.

So far, this has worked three nights in a row. Let us hope this trend continues.

-Josh

Counting Down the Days Until Our Peanut is Two

2008-12-05T12:56:00.000-08:00

I recently added a birthday counter to our blog for Mihret. It's counting down the days to her second birthday on Jan. 28, 2009. Due to the way our blog is configured, it fit best at the very bottom, so to see it, scroll all the way down to the end of the page.

Check out the counters you can make at http://www.lilypie.com/, from birthday counters and adoption counters to wedding and anniversary counters. There's even a "Trying to Conceive" counter, although I'm not even going to pretend to understand how that one works. (I wish we had known how to access these during our adoption process... filing that mental note away for next time. :) )

For some nostalgia... Here are a few pics of Mihret right around her 1st birthday last year.

Mihret visiting our home library...

On top of her Abaye's shoulders, one of her favorite places to hang out ...

And in her Emaye's lap, trying very hard to give Emaye's Newsweek a bottle.

Time flies so fast. Pretty soon we'll be putting up 2-year-old pictures.

-Kara

Fascinating

2008-11-25T19:17:00.000-08:00

Kara has noted on multiple occasions that I seem to spend a lot of time bragging about our daughter in this space.

But honestly, I don’t think of it as bragging. It’s just that I find her development sort of fascinating. After months and months of being warned that she was going to be behind her peers, in size and possibly in smarts, to see her leapfrog past some of them sometimes seems like nothing short of a miracle.

And when you pause to think about how many changes happen in twelve months, or even in six, it can blow your mind a little bit. Less than a year ago, we were working on Mihret’s crawling. She could alllmost do it, though more often than not she would go backwards instead of forwards.

Which was sort of hilarious, because it was obvious she knew what she wanted to do, but couldn’t do it. She’d stare at an object, focused on getting to it – and then slowly creep away from it, all the while getting more cranky because she was going the wrong way and couldn’t figure out how to fix that.

So, yeah, Mihret is way smart, and the other night I sat down to try to
figure out just how smart.

So I pulled out the What to Expect: The Toddler Years book and figured I'd keep
flipping until I reached an age where she couldn't do the "basic" stuff
that age can do. (She'll be 22 months old on Friday, Nov. 28.)

I got to age three, which is where the book ends.

Among the milestones that Mihret passed a LONG while ago include:

Can say up to 50 words (Kara and I guess she can do somewhere between 150 and
200, and maybe more).

Can stand on one foot for a second. (This one I had to test, by standing on one
foot and saying, "Mihret do?" And then she did. Didn't lose her balance or
anything.)

Can hold a two-to-three sentence conversation. (Granted, it's not often, but we've done it. Usually it's "What do you want for dinner?" "Cheese." "Anything else?" "Fruit." "Would you like some milk, too?" "Yes." "What do you say?" "Please!")

(Or, in the more hilarious version we had in the car recently: Mihret: Horsy! (There was no horse nearby. Me: What’s the horsy do? Mihret: Sleepin’! Me: Why is the horsy sleeping? Mihret: Jumpin’! Me: The horsy was jumping? Mihret: Yes!

We repeated this conversation three times in a row.)

Can jump. (Yup. In fact, she can stand in the middle of a room, not touching anything, and jump straight in the air, and both her feet leave the ground. This is a huge deal. Ask any doctor.)

Removes article of clothing. (Shoes and socks. A little more often than we'd like. Side note: She put a shoe back on the other day! Twice! Also, she's finally in size five shoes.)

Can identify one of her friends by name. (Um, she can identify the majority of the people who work in the building at her day care.)

Can point to four pictures and name what's/who's on them. (This was another one where I went, whoa, she's WAY past that. Based on people alone, she can do all the parents and grandparents (though not the greats), and her uncles. She also knows birth mama and birth grandpa, and Angel, my parent’s dog. Animal-wise, she can now do the majority of the animals, though a cow is still a "Moo" about 95% of the time.)

Can follow two consecutive directions without hand signals. (I had no idea this was different from using hand signals, but, yeah, she can do this too. Of course, most of the directions are "go to X, get Y, and bring it to me.)

Other interesting developments:

She's WAY into being a daddy's girl right now. I thought the last go-round of this phase was bad, but it's gotten a LOT stronger over the last few weeks.

It seems that at day care she's developed a daily pattern - she plays with the dolls, kitchen and other toys in the morning, and then goes to the book corner and looks at books in the afternoon.

Most bedtimes now, after she gets a book read to her, she wants to take the book away and "read" it again herself. Of course, she hasn't really expressed interest in letters yet, so we're not giving a lot of thought to the early reader stuff just yet.

And the most recent of interesting stuff she does is related to discipline. Most likely because her very last tooth is pushing on her gums in a truly awful way, she’s turned into a bit of a biter recently.

Kara and I don’t punish her much. Usually a stern “No,” will make her stop doing something she shouldn’t. But on the rare occasions that she keeps repeating bad behavior, she gets a Time In. Which is pretty much us holding her in our lap and counting to sixty.

This works pretty well, but has taken an odd turn, because a good 95% of when she gets a time in are related to biting. So now, the minute we have her in our lap and go, “One…” she immediately says, “No biting, no biting, no hitting.”

I’m sure at some point in the near future I’ll have something wonderful and profound to share about the nature of fatherhood. But for now it’s mostly about being amazed about development.

Trust me, if she was your kid, you’d think it was fascinating.

-Josh

The Dance of Daily Life

2008-11-24T17:44:00.000-08:00

Mihret and her Emaye play before church on a recent Sunday

Continuing my career as a full-time journalist while raising Mihret together with my hubby Josh, who works a full-time day job as a communications specialist while pursuing screenwriting and novel-writing, means that Mihret spends almost 10 hours per day at day care.

We call it "school" to help ourselves feel better about sending her.

We're lucky she's in a good, Christian environment, with loving teachers who read with her, teach her about God and Jesus and the Bible, help her complete take-home art projects, let her get her energies out in exercise and games, prompt her to explore with all her senses what we call "baby science" (Water flows down, not up! Sand feels gritty and leaves are crunchy!) and introduce her to friends her age who are also learning how to get along with others. (No biting, no hitting, no hair-pulling!)

Because I only get to spend up to a half-hour with her in the morning (unless she wakes up super-early) and up to two, two-and-a-half hours with her every night, that time I do have is all the more precious.

I have two self-imposed rules that I do my best not to break. I will be home in the morning to help get Mihret ready for school, and I will be home in the evening to help put her to bed.

The morning is easier - I can file stories from home via e-mail to meet an early morning deadline, and then be there to give Mihret her first snuggles of the day.
The evening is trickier, as I've usually got late work or outside volunteer commitments several days a week. When I do have to come home after she's in bed, I always come up with a reason to open her door a crack - her clean laundry is happier in her room, I say, so I slip in and slide it into her basket.

I watch my little one in Mihret sleep mode - on tummy in her footy PJs with bottom in air, sucking her finger, surrounded by Cabbage Patch Baby, Beegabug (her stuffed ladybug), Grover and Elmo and the three blankets she always kicks off.

I breathe in the scent of her room's air freshener. I check to make sure her baby monitor light shines green. Then I tiptoe out, almost hoping that she'll stir so I can go back in and pick her up.

As a family, we make the most of "Patterson family" moments.

When Mihret wakes up in the mornings, grumpy, Josh and I go into her room and turn on her CD player. Josh picks her up and she wraps her legs around his waist, while I hold and hug her from the back.

We three sway and bounce to whatever in our eclectic collection happens to be in the player - early Michael Jackson, Prince, the African Children's Choir, Ethiopian pop - and Mihret is content. She pats Josh's chest, while I lean over and kiss her cheeks.

For two minutes, or three, or sometimes even five, time stands still while we move and groove together.

She'll even ask to do "the family dance" during the daytime, on weekends, when we're all downstairs.

"Mama back?" she'll ask, meaning she wants me to hold her from the back while she's facing her daddy.

I'm thankful for these precious, precious "Patterson family" moments at home.

-Kara

Dear Mr. Obama

2008-11-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

By the time this publishes, you will have been elected the next President of the United States of America.

As the parent of an African-American child, I have only one request:

Be someone my daughter can look up to.

Thanks,

Josh

P.S. If you could also do something about the war and my 401k, that would be nice, too.

Bringing heritage to child easier with help

2008-11-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

Umoja 2008 - A black heritage experience
Green Lake, Wisconsin: Oct. 24-26

Kara Patterson column: Bringing heritage to child easier with help

November 3, 2008
It takes a whole village to raise a child. I've heard the African Children's Choir sing that phrase, and I've read it as an African proverb.
Recently, when my husband Josh and I took our Ethiopian-American toddler, Mihret, to our family's first Umoja, a weekend retreat celebrating black heritage and culture in Green Lake, I felt that phrase come to life through the actions of others.
As a transracial family, formed in 2007 when we brought our now 21-month-old daughter home from Africa, we take pride in our place in the black community. Umoja was an affirmation of that place.
Black leaders, college students and participating families from Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota came together for discussions, activities and events that helped us understand more about what it means to be black in America, and appreciate the rich diversity in the African Diaspora.
Our daughter marked a cultural milestone at Umoja by getting her hair braided for the first time. Over the past several months, we'd watched Mihret's springy curls grow and waited with anticipation to see if they'd be long enough for the hairstyle.
A black college student who had volunteered her time in Umoja's makeshift salon from morning until evening on Saturday reassured us that she could work with her, saying she had just the hairstyle in mind.
We knew it would be a challenge for Mihret to sit for her braids. They're pulled tight so they can stay in for a week or two, and we had seen older children that day bear the strain with some tears.
As Mihret squirmed and screamed in Josh's lap, the student deftly coaxed out a row of sleek braids that twisted back from her forehead and ended in little puffs.
One of the event's volunteers came over when she heard Mihret's wails. She tried to soothe her by playing an African drum she'd brought over because she'd spent time with Mihret earlier that afternoon, the two of them tapping on it and dancing.
Other children with newly braided hair encircled Mihret, telling her how pretty she looked. They made silly faces to take her mind off the hair "owies."
Mihret calmed down, and we wiped her face as she played with a spray bottle of water the student had handed her.
What we couldn't do for our daughter alone, we could do with the help of our weekend "village."
-By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer

http://www.postcrescent.com/

Catch

2008-10-30T20:39:00.001-07:00

Mihret throws the ball to my parents' dog - Angel. Listen for, "Angel! Ball!" and "Go get it!"
-Josh

Tagged

2008-10-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

Tagged by: http://journeytonumberthree.blogspot.com/

We’ve been tagged to come up with seven facts, but since all three of us post to the blog (Josh, Kara and Mihret) I’m going to try to divide up the factoids a bit. Let’s see how I do.

(For those of you who claim that Mihret never writes anything here, I would like to point out that while she does, they are mostly angry political screeds that we set as protected. We don’t feel her opinions on the possible presidents should be published until her arguments extend past “No way!” and “Obama, shoes on!” and, when asked who the president should be, states something besides, “Daddy do it!” Clearly, she doesn’t understand that I must be at least 35 years old to assume this position, so it’s hard to take her other stances seriously.)

(Ahem.)

Seven Totally True Facts, As Far As You Know:

1. Kara and Josh have performed music for three weddings. In all three cases, none of the people getting married had ever heard Josh play the piano or sing until the day before, or the day of, the wedding. The first time we performed for a wedding, the man officiating asked us if we had a business card – to which we replied, sure, if the couples in question were willing to fly us to Pennsylvania to perform.

2. Our first child was originally going to be adopted from Kazakhstan, a country hardly anyone had heard of until the movie “Borat” came out. We never got past the initial paperwork, as we didn’t meet one of Kazakhstan's adoption regulations.

3. Kara is an award-winning poet.

4. Josh has been a judge in two different film festivals – The Wildwood Film Festival, and Films on the Fox.

5. Mihret has, on one occasion, spoken two very full sentences back to back. They were, “I’m sitting in the water,” and “I shouldn’t throw the toys. Shouldn’t throw them.” We’ve captured these on video, but they will not be shown here as proof because they were taken in the bathtub. Rest assured, however, that my mother knows speech pathologists, and both of these phrases were authenticated by professionals.

6. Despite that fact that Josh is a journalist, columnist, award-winning screenwriter, and has been working as a professional writer for the last four years, the last writing or English class he took was as a senior in high school.

7. Kara's memories of what movies she has watched is sometimes hilariously weak. Many is the time she’s gotten halfway through a movie, turned to me, and said, “I think I’ve seen this before…” To be fair, my memory for names is terrible, and when pressed to the names of friends or family members at a moment’s notice, my brain will frequently stick the name down a mental well, allowing me access to it only after several hours have passed.

We tag:

http://dramasthething.blogspot.com/

http://pulcinifamily.blogspot.com/

http://alicroc.livejournal.com/

http://www.betterleys.com/blog/

http://milestochina.blogspot.com/

http://www.itbringsmegreatjoy.blogspot.com/

http://dlcrawfords.blogspot.com/

-Josh

Cuteness and Development

2008-10-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

A sampling of vignettes from the daily adventures of Mihret, who turns 2 on Jan. 28, 2009:

The scene: Walgreens, during what should be the kiddo’s dinner time, only we need to pick up some medications.

The problem: The folks at Walgreens have tried to substitute a generic for Kara’s meds, which is a big no-no. We have been running around doing nothing for fifteen minutes, and the wee one is bored.

Finally, we get paged.

I walk over to the medication dispensing section of the store, and wait in line. Again.

We get to the front of the line, and I start paying for the medication.

Another woman behind the counter sees that Mihret is a bit fussy, and hands her a coloring book.

Mihret: Color book!

She takes the book and starts to flip through the pages, as though she were reading People magazine.

Woman Behind the Counter: Um… how old is she?

Me: 17 months.

Woman Behind the Counter: Uh…

Me: Yes, I know. She’s very smart.

##

The scene: Culver’s restaurant. Mihret has gotten tired of sitting her seat because she is done eating, so we put her on the booth’s bench with us. Mihret proceeds to look over the back of the bench, where other people are eating.

A woman turns around and sees Mihret:

Woman: Hello.

Mihret: Hello.

Woman: Who are you?

Mihret: Mihret!

My mom, who is sitting across the booth from me and Kara, physically demonstrates that she is shocked by Mihret’s ability to self-identify.

My Mom: I didn’t know she could do that.

Me: I didn’t either.

##

Mihret has slowly been learning how to string sentences together. These can be hilariously random.

The one that cracks me up every time is when Mihret walks up to me, points at my feet, and announces: Daddy, shoes on!

Mostly because I wonder why it’s so important that she has to point it out. Who is she telling? I know my shoes are on. Perhaps she’s letting me know that she knows?

##

Recently, Mihret has started pulling her shoes off in the car. At first, I thought it was because of the kind of shoe she was wearing – some white patent leather things that can easily be slipped off.

But then she started doing it with her sneakers, which are pretty firmly Velcroed.

Once, while we were sitting and waiting at a stop light, I discovered that both of her shoes and socks were off – a habit I hope she gets out of before winter fully hits around here.

I reached an arm back and twitched my fingers over her feet until she giggled. “Tickle toes!” I said.

For about a week, our little one kept pulling off her shoes and socks. At which point, she would, without fail, cry out, “Tickle toes!” until I got to a light and could perform the magical act of toe tickling.

##

Back when walking was still a kind of new trick in Mihret’s arsenal, a friend of mine called her not-yet-two daughter over.

“Watch this,” she said. She took her little one by the hands and said, “Jump! Jump!” and her daughter dutifully leapt into the air.

“Did you see that?” said my friend. “She actually jumps with both feet off the floor. That’s a really big deal.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

Last weekend, my daughter started jumping in the air, taking both feet off the ground. She wasn’t being supported by me, or Kara, or any furniture. She was just jumping in the middle of the room.

##

I am starting to suspect that Kara and I might spend a little too much time on the computer.

If the computer is off, Mihret isn’t all that interested in it.

But if the computer is on, she will:

Ask to sit in the computer chair.

Tap on the keyboard, as if she were typing.

Move the mouse around, and click the buttons.

Pick up the nearby phone and say, “Hello!” into it.

I’m considering finding her some work in an office with a reasonably low Words Per Minute typing requirement. I doubt a lot will get done in that office, but it’ll be the friendliest place to work, ever.

##

Mihret is not the world’s greatest shopper, but she does enjoy putting groceries away.

The shopping part is rough because she can’t really do all that much in the shopping cart, and as a bonus, mommy and daddy are constantly putting new and exciting things into the basket behind her and then refusing to let her play with them.

So we try to shop fast, because at the end of the trip, we’ve pretty much devolved into the “let’s scream and see how much it echoes in the big store.”

Home is another matter, though, because we set all the bags on the floor and let Mihret take things out and hand them to us.

If she knows what something is, she’ll identify it. Which is hilarious, because we’ll be standing by a cupboard, putting something away, and suddenly hear, “Yogurt!” and have to turn around and take the yogurt from her and put it in the fridge.

The only flaw in this plan came to light when Mihret couldn’t identify a few things. Kara kept saying, “Thanks, honey,” every time Mihret would give her something. So unidentified objects became, “Honey!”

-Josh

Planet Bed ™

2008-10-17T17:23:00.001-07:00

Mihret, pre-Planet Bed era, finding out how much fun an empty laundry basket can be. (Photo taken in June 2008)

One of the things pretty much any parent will tell you is that kids need routine.

Having been a parent for a little over a year, I question this somewhat. If you’re like me, and you take your kids to day care five days a week, you’re probably all too aware of the fact that trying to maintain that same schedule on a weekend is impossible.

For example, at my day care, they put kids down for a nap at noon.

Which I guess works fine for anyone who goes to church at eight AM on Sundays, and is out by nine, but which doesn’t work at all for folks like us, who finish church at noon and really, really need feed their kiddo, rather than allowing them to fall asleep with an empty tummy.

Because what kind of parent does that?

I even question how well the bedtime routine “works,” on the whole. I imagine that if there are kids who have problems going to sleep on a regular basis, that maybe they benefit from having a regular, “Okay, first we do this, then we do that,” routine.

But our kid?

When we first brought the wee one home, this was the routine:

At 7 PM, we’d go upstairs and start the bathwater running.

We’d get her undressed, and then put the little one into the tub and give her a semi-thorough scrubbing.

Then we got her out of the bath, dried her off, lotioned her up, and put on her jammies.

One of us would give her a bottle while the other one read a story.

We would do prayers, and if Mihret was having trouble going to sleep at the time, one of us would rock her until she passed out.

Then she got a little older.

The story was the first thing to go. Mihret engages very easily – she’s a social butterfly, which can be a problem when we’re trying to get her to go to sleep when we have guests over.

So no more story, because we’d get to the end and she would be wide awake, instead of slowly moving into dreamland as she finished up her formula.

Then came the question of when to get rid of the bottle. After she was a year old, people started telling us horror stories about decayed teeth and other such maladies. But we weaned her off the bottle almost by accident. One night, she was just so tired that we put her down and she went to sleep without one.

The next night, we didn’t have formula upstairs, but we did have some water. So we gave her a couple sips of that and she went to bed.

We did the same thing the next night.

And I declared us bottle-free, and we cleaned all the dirty bottles and never used them again.

There have been other changes as well. We used to turn on a low-wattage lamp so she could have a night light, but after a few weeks she stopped going to sleep. So that went off.

Then we discovered that the hall light was sometimes enough to keep her awake with, so that goes off now, too.

And there have been other problems. There were a couple of weeks where she was waking up screaming, and we got some nice advice about that. The best guess we were offered was night terrors, we’ve gone back and forth between the problem being that or something teething related. From what I’ve read, teething may actually cause night terrors, which lines up pretty well with the issues we’ve had.

(Two teeth to go. I am so looking forward to those last two chompers poking out of her gums, so that her bottom stops getting red at the slightest provocation, and her nose stops doing the consta-run.)

Eventually, Mihret’s “routine” became a little bit less routine. We still have a bath most nights, and lotion most nights, and we always have some version of pajamas.

But she doesn’t really like to be held and/or cuddled anymore just before bedtime, and even if she wants water, she’ll only drink about an ounce and then be done. So we started handing her a sippy and letting her wander around or play with us until 7:30, depending on what mood she was in.

We still do prayers, but we say them as we’re getting into bed, and they’re usually met with a very enthusiastic “Amen!” from the tiny one.

Over the last few months, however, we’ve grown (Kara more so than I) sad about the fact that we lost the nightly bedtime story. Pretty much any teacher will tell you just how important reading to your kids is, and while we try to do it during the day, it always added a nice cap to the evening.

And then, Planet Bed was accidentally born.

The birth of Planet Bed arrived thanks to a collection of nearly-unrelated events.

Mihret has her very own laundry basket, which, from time to time, is devoid of clean laundry. On this particular evening, she stepped into the basket, sat down, and looked up at me. “Ride?”

I figured why not, and picked up the kid-filled basket and carried it through the four rooms upstairs – Mihret’s room, the bathroom, the office, and Kara’s and my bedroom.

As it happens, the bottom of the basket was sitting about mid-thigh on me, which is roughly the same height as our bed. Without really putting any thought into it, I solemnly declared, “We’re landing on Planet Bed.” Then I set the basket down, and Mihret stood up, and I plucked her from the basket.

Kara was lying on the bed, working on something-or-other, when this happened. So I asked her if she wanted to read Mihret a story. And Kara said, “Yes,” and I grabbed one of Mihret’s books which currently resides in our bedroom.

And I left the two of them alone to read.

It’s not that I don’t value family time, but I am well aware that a) Kara could use some extra Mommy-Daughter time, and b) another person in the room would just be a distraction.

When the story was over, I came in, picked up Mihret, and we did prayers as we headed back to her bedroom. And then there were good night kisses, and then it was sleepytime.

Afterwards, Kara and I pretty much agreed this was a nice idea, and that we should stick with it. Mihret was reasonably calm during storytime, and given the chance to read to her, Kara was happy to take it.

So we did it again the next night. “Get in your basket, honey. We’re going to Planet Bed.”

And then the next night. Only Kara wasn’t there, so I had to fly Mihret to Planet Bed, and then read her a book, and then fly her back. Which is tiring. She keeps getting bigger.

But last night, it all paid off. In the middle of bath time, I said, “Mihret, are we going to Planet Bed after we take our bath?”

And Mihret said, “Planet Bed!”

Once her jammies were on, she went over to the basket, and sat down, and I picked her up, and she got her ride.

And when she landed, she said, “Planet Bed!”

I can’t say that I think routines are always necessary. But they can be a lot of fun.

We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Beegabug

2008-10-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

(Kara's photo addition and caption: Mihret sports her "beegabug" onesie. "Don't Bug Me," it tells the political phone-survey peeps. Kara's shirt says, "Talk Nerdy to Me." She'd prefer to be reading instead of answering the phone. Josh, that day, was wearing a shirt that said "I Make Stuff Up." Very fitting for a fiction writer and screenwriter!)

In order to fully appreciate this story, you’ll have to know a couple of things.

Our home is not a terribly political one. We have our beliefs, and we do our best to carefully consider who we vote for. But Kara, in particular, keeps her views to herself because she’s a member of the press.
Despite the fact that Mihret can say words like “helicopter” and “new diaper, please,” so well that people who aren’t around her all that much can understand her, she is unable to say the word “ladybug” – instead, she says beegabug.

It was bath time, and as per usual, Mihret was sitting in the tub playing with her toys. This has its own entertainment value, most nights.

Lately, she’s been playing with her beegabugs a lot. There are four of them. A “mommy” beegabug, which is large and has a flat back, and three smaller beegabugs, which fit onto mommy’s back.

They can also all float around the tub on their own.

Mihret will do any number of things with the beegabugs. Sometimes she pushes them around separately, sometimes she shoves a few of them closer to the front of the tub, and a few to the back, and then yells out “beegabug” and points, which is my cue to float them all back towards her.

Last night, the phone rang during bath time. I could tell someone was asking for me, because Kara started asking who was calling. I yelled out that she should tell whoever it was that I was giving our daughter a bath.

Instead, Kara brought the phone into the bathroom.

I sighed, and wiped off my hand on a towel, and took the phone from Kara.

Me: Yes?

Phone Person: So-and-so is running for thus-and-such. Can we count on you to vote for so-and-so on Election Day?

Mihret: Beegabug!

Me: I’m sorry, but I’m still looking at the issues, and I haven’t determined who I’ll be voting for just yet.

Mihret: Beegabug!

Phone Person: (Who, by the way, sounded about fourteen. What, does so-and-so have their kid making phone calls?) So you’re undecided?

Mihret: Beegabug!

Me: Yes.

Mihret: Beegabug! Beegabug!

Phone Person: Thank you for your time, sir. Have a nice evening.

Mihret: Beegabug!

Me: (In my brain: What, you’re not going to try to convince me to vote for so-and-so? I guess you don’t like your parent very much.) You too.

Mihret: Beegabug!

Me: I’m getting the sense that I should vote for Beegabug.

Mihret: Beegabug!

-Josh

Bye, Pee!

2008-10-05T21:46:00.000-07:00

Music by: M. Patterson

Lyrics by: M. Patterson

Performed by: M. Patterson

Things to note about this video:

It was totally spontaneous. She wanted to play the toilet, and we let her, because it made us laugh.

"Bye, pee!" is one of her many new phrases. Yes, we're getting ready for toilet training. No, we're not planning on starting in the next few days, or anything, but the sooner you introduce the potty, the better.

(For the record, we have taught her other things. She can now identify an astonishing number of body parts, for example. She knows the word helicopter, and can say it so you can understand it, and most importantly knows what a helicopter is.)

Check out her playing. Although she doesn't do it for a long time, she's very much in rhythm. I'm not saying she's a great drummer, but the girl can carry a beat.

That funny squeak at the end of the video is me losing it. What can I say? My little one makes me laugh.

-Josh

Volunteering as a family

2008-10-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

Josh, Kara and Mihret at The Building for Kids children's museum in downtown Appleton during the 2007 Boo Bash, an indoor community Halloween party for kids. We volunteered through Appleton Fox Cities Kiwanis, a civic organization of which Kara's a member. Mihret, a.k.a. "Happy Feet," helped us run the beanbag toss.

Here's my latest column from The Post-Crescent (http://www.postcrescent.com/)

September 29, 2008

Kara Patterson column: Volunteer work at different level now

At a recent church rummage sale, I came away with a unique 10-cent find. I'd never seen a book like it before.

It's a flat, hardback journal from Aid Association for Lutherans that helps families document the volunteer projects they complete.

There are spaces for photos and reflections on experiences, and pages for writing down "wish lists" of what to do next.

With our 20-month-old daughter, Mihret, there are limitations on what community service we can undertake as a family. But it's important to us that she's right there with us whenever it's safe and feasible.

Last fall, we stroller-walked Appleton's Memorial Park during the National Alliance on Mental Illness' Walk, a fundraising and awareness-raising event for the local affiliate, NAMI Fox Valley.
We stopped at rest stations along the way to give a bottle or change a diaper, and were one of the last teams to finish. But we felt good that we had stepped out as a family to support NAMI.
We also brought Mihret when we ran a beanbag toss game at The Building for Kids' Boo Bash during Halloween week with the Appleton Fox Cities Kiwanis Club.

Mihret dangled from my husband Josh's chest in a Baby Bjorn carrier in her penguin costume.
She was a good icebreaker, especially for the children who saw her and laughed, "Happy Feet!"
She made people smile and often her presence started conversations, especially with parents of other little ones.

The Boo Bash evening and the NAMI Walk are the first two photos that will go in our family volunteer journal.

Both events are coming around again, and we're looking forward to making more memories.
We're also excited for the time when, a few years from now, we can ask Mihret what's on her volunteer "wish list."

-Kara Patterson

Post-Crescent staff writer

NAMI Walks for the Mind of America 2008

2008-09-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

Team Serenity (Josh, Kara, and Mihret in the middle) at the 2007 NAMI Walk for the Minds of America, NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Fox Valley, Appleton, WI

Dear Everyone,

We are writing today to tell you about an upcoming event that we are participating in that is both very important and very exciting to us. It is NAMIWalks for the Mind of America, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) signature walkathon event that is being held in Appleton, WI at Appleton Memorial Park on October 4, 2008.

Kara is bipolar, and both Kara and Josh have loved ones who live with clinical unipolar depression, bipolar disorder and other mental (biochemical) illnesses.

This year Kara became involved with NAMI as a volunteer. She received training and now is a facilitator for Five O'Clock Friday, a support and discussion group for young adults who are living with mental illness. This is the third NAMI Walk in the Fox Valley, and the third walk for the Patterson family. We're planning on making it a family tradition.

NAMI Fox Valley continues to advocate for individuals and families in our community, fighting the stigma that unfortunately still exists.

On walk day, we're going to do more walking in one morning than we usually do in a week. :)
If you'd like to visit our personal walker Web page, go to www.nami.org/namiwalks08/FOX/TeamSerenity. You can donate directly to us online, if you choose. Donating online is fast and secure, and we'll get immediate notification via e-mail of your donation.

If you would prefer, you can give or send any of us (well, not so much Mihret, it'll just go into her mouth) a check, made out to NAMI Fox Valley, and we will make sure that it gets to them.
(Also, a quick note - if we have already walked, and you think you missed the deadline... you haven't! You can donate to NAMI Fox Valley - or ask about being a volunteer there, if you're in the area - at any time.)

NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the largest education, support and advocacy organization that serves the needs of all those whose lives are touched by these illnesses. This includes persons with mental illness, their families, friends, employers, the law enforcement community and policy makers. The NAMI organization is composed of approximately 1100 local affiliates, 50 state offices and a national office.

The goals of the NAMIWalks program are: to fight the stigma that surrounds mental illness, to build awareness of the fact that the mental health system in this country needs to be improved, and to raise funds for NAMI so that they can continue their mission.

NAMI is a 501(c)3 charity and any donation you make to support our participation in this event is tax deductible. NAMI has been rated by Worth magazine as among the top 100 charities "most likely to save the world" and has been given an "A" rating by The American Institute of Philanthropy for efficient and effective use of charitable dollars. Thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely,

Kara, Josh and Mihret Patterson

Llama Llama Something Something

2008-09-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

If you're a parent, you should totally look up the Llama Llama books. There are two of them, and they're both kind of wonderful. They are:

Llama Llama Red Pajama (Which makes no sense - that word requires an s, thank you.)
Llama Llama Mad At Mama

Both contain several words that rhyme with Llama, but they abuse this fact and use the words Llama drama in both books (Come on now! You'd never see Dr. Suess stooping to using the same rhyme!) and making up things like the Shop-O-Rama.

Given the very few words that rhyme with Llama, however, Kara and I thought we would lend a helping hand with the next few books:

Llama learns a valuable lesson about running with sticks in: Llama Llama Eyeball Trauma.

Llama discovers the importance of good punctuation in: Llama Llama Errant Comma.

Llama learns about the importance of government in: Llama Llama Vote Obama!

Llama goes to work for his country in: Llama Llama Finds Osama.

We're sure that the author of these fine books (Anna Dewdney) will be happy to share whatever money she makes writing and illustrating these fine bits of literature. Or at the very least will not sue the pants off of us for creating these titles.

-Josh

Mihret Plays the Piano

2008-09-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

I kind of love this video because it doesn't go quite the way you'd think.

I figured she was going to just kind of bang on the piano - and she does, at first, but then she kinda-sorta starts to play it.

If you look just behind her, you can see her high chair. Because she usually has to eat dinner before Kara and I are ready to sit down to eat, I will sit and play the piano while she has dinner. It seems like she's started to pick up on that, if only a little bit.

-Josh

World of activities awaits young daughter

2008-09-04T05:59:00.000-07:00

Mihret at about 10 months old, tickling the ivories with her Abaye

My (Kara's) latest column in The Post-Crescent: (from Aug. 27, 2008)

My 18-month-old daughter, Mihret, and one of her day care teachers love to dance together at day's end, when Mihret's waiting for me or my husband, Josh, to pick her up.

Our energetic toddler loves to make up her own moves. Recently, she figured out how to turn on the CD player to get the music started.

Her day care also offers Musikgarten, an early childhood music and movement class, as an addition to the curriculum.

Mihret loves singing, and she's gone from parroting back sounds on pitch to repeating lyrics. Josh, a Beatles fan, has gotten her to sing "backup" on car rides, echoing him on "Hey Jude."
Even though she's not yet 2, we can't help but wonder what organized activities she'll want to try as she grows.

We both had parents who signed us up early for various types of lessons, some that lasted and some that didn't.

Now we're staring at our daughter's clean slate, wondering what marks she'll make on it first.
We're already thinking of ways we can offer opportunities without racking up the costs. There's Mihret's Grandma's well-preserved violin. Her Uncle Dave can give her drum lessons, and Josh can teach her how to play our home piano. Then there's Josh's company's discount at a local dance studio.

It can be too easy to tire our child out theoretically before she's old enough to protest.

Our job as her parents is to be her first coaches, advisers and teachers. We need to encourage her when we see she may enjoy an activity.

But what she sticks with when she's older, well, we need to remember that that's got to be her move.

By Kara Patterson, Post-Crescent staff writer

http://www.postcrescent.com/

The Toy Duckies Splashed Me... Seriously!

2008-09-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

Below, Mihret emerges soaked and satisfied from a water-table battle involving a friend and some plastic ducks at her day care's summer picnic. I (as Mihret's mama) was trying to get a close-up shot without getting our new digital camera wet. This is my favorite shot of the bunch... Kara :)

Kids' Music at the Patterson Household

2008-09-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I just have an aversion to kids' music - but I didn't listen to a lot of it as a child.

I did have a few children's records, but most of them were - a little off the beaten path. And in some cases, they were just really old.

When I was younger, my dad had set up an old record player in the basement. And he provided my brother and me with a lot of records that he had owned as a kid.

Which is why, to this day, I'm deeply in love with something called The Silly Record, which still hasn't been issued on CD.

And I had my other favorites as well, I suppose, but most of them were stories instead of music. And in the rare cases where the records were musical in nature, they weren't what you would think of as "baby music" - they were Sesame Street records, and Disney Songs (I got college scholarships for my essay about listening to the Mary Poppins soundtrack as a kid) and a few Chipmunk records - which of course took popular songs of the day and gave them really high voices.

(To this day, every time I hear Arthur's Theme, in my head I hear Alvin saying: "Fall in love? Ha! I can think of a hundred things better than falling in love. Like Pac-Man, for instance.")

And so, when it comes time to play music for the kiddo... there are almost no children's CDs getting played in the house.

I would wonder whether this warps my kid or not, but I have a lot of fond memories of being very little, and having my dad play Steve Miller's Greatest Hits, and The Beatles, and any other record he felt like playing.

And so I do the same for my own kid.

Mostly, I've found she likes a loud, thumpy beat, because it says "dancin' time!" to her.

The music we've listened to the most in the last few months:

The Beatles: Number 1s

This is something of a tribute to my own dad, because I grew up hearing these on the stereo, probably when I was as young as Mihret.

Hey Jude is a big favorite, and we sometimes sing the song to Mihret. Often, she kinda-sorta sings with us, echoing the last word or two that we sing.

Except the one time that I swear, and Kara can verify this, that she sang "Remember, to let her in to your heart..." unprompted.

Aqua: Aquarium

Yes, they are the Barbie Girl people. No, we don't listen to that song. We prefer Happy Boys and Happy Girls. Which is how Mihret learned the word happy. Can your eighteen-month-old say happy?

The New Power Generation: New Power Soul

It's tough finding a Prince album with very few bad words and a lot of thumping on it. This is one of them, though we skip some songs.

They Might Be Giants: No

Yes, this is the one kid's record we do, but there are tracks on there that get old after a while. Real old. "Violin" is brutal after a while.

But Where Do They Make Balloons is usually good for a listen or three.

Bobby Brown: Don't Be Cruel

'S loud and thumpy, for the most part.

Soul Coughing: Irresistible Bliss

It's got a great boom-THUMP, boom-boom-THUMP opening. Though, strangely, the song Mihret likes to dance to most is White Girl. Go figure.

Ethiopian Music

We have a couple of CDs worth, and we enjoy putting them on and listening to them, but it's hard to listen to something for more than a few days when you don't know what the words are.

Aimee Mann: Smilers

For some reason, Mihret likes the song Freeway, even though it's pretty mid-tempo.

Michael Jackson: Greatest Hits

We learned that Mihret understood the concept of rhythm when we put on Billie Jean and she started bopping along with it - at six months old.

Other things that have gotten a spin here and there include the African Children's Choir, The Lion King, Julia Nunes' Left Right Wrong, Stereo MCs.

But my dad seems to have gotten it right - The Beatles made the only CD where, at the end of every song, Mihret yells out "Again!"

-Josh

The Columns

2008-08-18T18:04:00.001-07:00

Even before we started the blog, Kara started writing for the Post-Crescent, covering the little corners of raising Mihret.

For a long time, we kept saying, "Oh, we'll get the columns up on the blog," and then we'd forget.

But now!

Of course, the problem becomes, after all these months, do we stick all the columns together? Or do we put them where they belong, chronologically?

And if we do that, how do people find them?

This is how.

Kara's name appears at the bottom of each column, but here's the real tip-off that she wrote them, and not me.

Correct spelling.

Correct grammar.

Reasonably sized.

Take it away, Kara:

September 12, 2007:

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2007/09/nearer-grandparents-are-better.html

October 29, 2007:

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2007/10/as-time-marches-on-marriage-can-last.html

December 10, 2007

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2008/08/daughter-on-move-is-bittersweet-for-mom.html

January 21, 2008:

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2008/01/daughter-as-daddys-girl-is-all-right.html

March 4, 2008:

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2008/08/first-birthday-can-be-puzzler.html

April 15, 2008:

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2008/08/choir-concert-made-special-connection.html

May 27, 2008:

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-words-open-new-world-for-toddler.html

July 9, 2008:

http://pattersonsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2008/08/discipline-for-toddler-calls-for-time.html

So Tired

2008-08-14T18:02:00.001-07:00

One of the things that fills me with pride in my kid is her ability to tell me what she wants.

I kind of doubt she's got everything sussed out at 100%, given that she has a limited number of words, but with a little prompting she does okay.

So, for example, if I'm feeding her dinner, and she requires additional whatever, she can now say, cheese, fruit, milk, water, cracker, or pasta.

I'm not saying that's all we ever feed her, but those are the big staples.

She also knows how to ask for a cookie. Which is something she's VERY enthusiastic about, even after she has also let me know that she's "Done!"

Lately, however, we've been having some nighttime trouble.

As usual, I'm forced to concede that on the whole, our nightly issues aren't that bad. My mother, in particular, loves to remind me that my brother didn't sleep through the night until he was three years old.

But Mihret has mostly slept through the night, since about three days after we brought her home.

Things have changed, lately.

The problem is not that Mihret wakes up. The problem is that she wakes up and screams in a high piercing fashion that doesn't say "I'm sad," but rather, "I think something in my room is on fire!"

So we run to her room, and there she is, either standing up or lying on her tummy, screaming her little lungs out. And here's the strange bit:

If we try to put her on her back, and give her back her blanky, she screams and thrashes and makes every attempt to inform us that NO, THIS WILL NOT DO SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG.

But if we pick her up for, oh, say, ten seconds, she passes out in our arms, and allows herself to be lowered back to the mattress for sleepy-time.

What's bothering Kara and I is that we can't figure out the cause of the distress. For all intents and purposes, things seem to be par for the course in our kid's world.

The theories we've tossed around include:

1. Teeth. She's getting at least three, and maybe four of them right now. Previous teeth have come with no troubles, but these are the big bads. On the other hand, she has no problem making it through the day without Tylenol, so unless nighttime growth is just that much more awful, this probably isn't it.

Also, we've done nights with Tylenol, and nights without, and she seems to wake up either way.

2. She's cold. Our house is 85 years old, and like most beings that make it to that age, it has circulation troubles. (That's an awesome bit of writing right there. Please be impressed, readers!) Winter isn't awful, as most of our heat rises and we keep fairly warm.

But summer is a problem, because our A/C isn't all that well distributed upstairs. The baby's room is the first on the pipe, so it gets the most A/C. Then the bathroom (because who doesn't love an icy-cold bathroom?), then the office, then our bedroom.

So while Kara and I roast a little bit, the baby's room has actually caused me to shiver, even while ensconced in my fluffy, fluffy robe.

On a couple of nights, I've noticed that Mihret seems unusually chilly on he exposed skin, and popped her into wintertime jammies. Which seems to have fixed things. But, of course, some nights I haven't done that, and she has still fallen back into a restful slumber.

Also, according to some book or another, the "best" temperature to keep the house at for restful sleep is 68 degrees. So maybe she's too warm?

No idea.

3. Snot problems. This is kinda related to teeth, but maybe not, as I've seen other kids with runny noses at Mihret's day care. Which might have been caused by teeth. Or allergies. Or tiny angry pixies with a little dust to burn off, who have decided that in order to attract our attention, they're going to stuff the dust up the noses of toddlers, encouraging them to awaken, screaming.

Parenting isn't an exact science, ya know?

Anyway, it seems that having too much gunk in their nasal passages can cause children to have something called Night Terrors, which sounds like a great title for a Twilight Zone-style TV show, but in actuality mostly causes kids to wake up screaming.

I should point out that most of the loss of sleep in the household is on my end. I don't fault Kara or Mihret for this. I assume Mihret has a reason for screaming, and that it's a good one as far as her 18-month-old brain can figure.

But even if her screams persist for a full minute, and she falls asleep on my shoulder a minute later, she's out 5 minutes of sleep, tops.

Kara is the same way, because she has powerful sleeping abilities that I have to remind her to use only for good.

This sounds like a joke, but consider:
Kara has fallen asleep during a ten-minute drive across town.

She falls asleep every Sunday on the way back from church while Mihret sleeps in the back seat. (I should add that I do the driving, which, I think we'll all agree, is a Good Thing.)

Kara has sat up in bed when I'm getting dressed for work, asked me a question, gotten an answer, and then fallen asleep while I'm still getting dressed. You might claim this is impossible, but she starts to snore. No lie.

But then there's me, who, after getting up and doing whatever must be done to get the baby to do some of that lying-down-not-screaming thing I prefer at night, have to sit there, kinda-sorta awake, for as long as it takes me to stop grinding my teeth, waiting to hear what appear to be shrieks of pain, but are actually not, coming from the other room.

(The teeth-grinding thing is totally normal for newer parents, according to my doctor. Yes, he really told me that, and yes I really did ask.)

One could argue, I guess, that this is all just part of the process of being a parent, but I gotta say, I'm not jumping up and down about it.

I can't. I'm too tired.

-Josh

Parenting: That Which Is Unspoken

2008-08-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

I did a lot to prepare me for being a parent.

I'd wager that I probably did more than 99% of the folks in the United States gearing up to have a baby thrust into my arms like a tiny bundle of easily shattered crystal with the only words screamed at me while it was happening being, "This is yours to take care of for the next 18 years! Don't mess it up!"

Not that it went down that way.

But I was prepared. We had a bunch of stuff, you know? All the stuff that everyone says you need, and some stuff that everyone said we would need but that we did not actually need, which everyone said, "Oh, yeah, you don't really need that," once we had thrown away our money on said item.

And we took classes. We took classes on adoption, and parenting, and despite the fact that I had changed many diapers in my life and my child was going to be too old to swaddle, we took a parenting class that talked about swaddling and diaper-changing.

There was also a bit about cramming a thermometer into your kid if they had a fever.

Lucky us, we haven't had to do that yet.

The problem with these classes is that they mostly cover the "Your Baby is an Immobile Lump" phase of parenting. Which is nice, but kinda useless after a while.

The thing about parenting a child during the lump phase is that it's pretty simple. They're small and easily controlled, and you could set them on the floor, and as long as all sharp objects and firearms are at least a foot away from the child, they will come to no harm.

But then they learn to move, and they want to move all the time.

And they want to move at unexpected times, and in unexpected ways.

Diaper time is the worst of it.

It starts off easy, because they can't move. They might struggle, and sometimes there's the surprise fountain effect, but if you're fast on the draw with the new diaper, this can be controlled most of the time.

Then they learn to roll over, so you gotta kinda lean on the kid to keep them flat while you deal with the results of their bodily functions.

But then... ugh. The thing that no parent will tell you about, that no one will admit to you until you're a parent, and you find yourself crying to to skies, "Why, why, why would you do that?"

I am speaking, of course, about...

... how to put this delicately...

... about...

...

... about when your kid learns to operate their hands. And there's bodily waste. And you're trying to change the diaper.

And your kid tries to check out the "diaper area."

There are a number of horrors there, all of which are the kind of thing that can give you fits.

First, yeah, there's the poo, which no one really wants to be involved in. But anyone who wants to bring a small being into their life accepts pretty early on that there's going to be a lot of wiping and cleaning and A and D-ing in their future.

Then, naturally, there's the squirming. Which is easy to control at first, but as your kid gets bigger there's more of them to squirm, which makes it harder to hold them down, which makes it harder to keep the surface beneath them from becoming, shall we say, soiled.

And then the kid tries to flip over, or stand up, while covered in the remains of their food from 24 hours ago.

Finally, there are the hands - the tiny little lightning-fast hands, the little hands that wait for the moment, the singular moment when the diaper is off and you're trying to grab the wipes, and BAM, faster than any pickpocket they've got their hands racing to check out the food remnants they're coated in.

It's awful.

And what do you do? Do you yell at the kid? Do you grab their hands away, yelling out words like "yucky" and "no" and "look, little one, that's just not right?"

It's a mystery, really.

And you know what else? No one tells you about the sand.

When kids are little, they like to put things in their mouth. There's all sorts of science involved, stuff about how the mouth is how they best experience things, and nerve endings and such, but, yeah, it doesn't really matter, because the problem is there are just things that shouldn't go in anyone's mouth.

Sand is the perfect for instance.

Sand isn't all that dangerous, really. It's dirt, yeah, but dirt that exists away from toxic waste is generally pretty clean and, you know, earthy.

The problem isn't on the mouth end. The problem is, the sand has to come out.

There's a joke that most people make, when they get their hands on toilet paper that's not as soft as the stuff they use at home.

People say it all the time - "It was like wiping with sandpaper."

The thing is, though, that the digestive process? Can make this a total possibility with small children. They empty out, you go to wipe, and there's this, you know, grit. And if we're all honest with ourselves, when we picture taking an actual piece of sandpaper to our lower regions, we all flinch a little.

And yet, there's nothing you can do.

I suppose you could always strip your kid to nothing, stick 'em on the lawn, and spray the grit off with a hose. But I don't think they would enjoy that either.

In my year as a parent, I've probably changed 1,000 diapers. I've cleaned and scrubbed and washed and medicated and, in general, managed to keep my kid healthy and happy and free from long-term suffering in the diaper area.

And so, so I think it's time she met me halfway and stopped eating sand. At the very least, it will help me to help her.

-Josh

One Year

2008-07-30T20:16:00.000-07:00

First plane experience in Aug. 2007 (below) and second in July 2008 (top). Helpful hint for fellow travelers with wee ones ... the Baby Bjorn works wonders for in-lap babies and toddlers during long (or short) flights. Mihret can still fit in hers!
+++++

Back in the 70s, when international adoption was a little different, it was easy to figure out what your Gotcha Day was.

After all, back then, you'd get a call, and go to an airport, and someone there would hand you your child and that would be it. Gotcha Day!

But I remember, very vividly, one of the other parents in Ethiopia turning to everyone at the breakfast table, and remarking, "So... what are YOU guys using as your gotcha day?"

None of us knew.

Our timeline was like this:

On the 26th of July, Kara and I got on a plane.

On the 28th of July, Kara and I landed in Ethiopia and met our daughter.

On the 1st of August, there was a little ceremony and our children were handed over to us permanently. Rather than going back to the guest house childless, we all returned with a small person who was ours forever.

On the 4th of August, we all landed back home in the States.

I suppose, technically, that the 1st of August is the "right" day, but you could make a case for any day in that long wonderful week.

Much like this time last year, we spent a lot of time in airports just recently. Kara's side of the family has an annual reunion, and while we opt to drive there (there being Pennsylvania) most years, this time around we decided to take some of our hard-earned money and scarce vacation time and combine them in some way.

And so it was that while last year found us on plane on July 26th, this year that same day found us at the family reunion we missed last year.

It was an amazing day, and an amazing chance to show off our child, who will have been in our care a year on Friday, August 1st. She was shy, yes, but smart and smiling and wonderful, too.

She played catch with Papa.

She went for a walk with Nona.

And in general she was just her wonderful self.

The next day, we were all on a plane home again.

In a lot of ways, the flight home on the 27th of July didn't mirror our trip home last year. The trip back from Ethiopia was long and exhausting, with many hours in the air and a small child who barely knew us. This time we had two short flights, each about an hour, and we've been her parents for months.

And she was, of course, so different then. She had a lot of hair for her age at the time, but a year later her curls stretch out to nearly six inches worth of hair. She walks and talks and in general is just more like a real live adult person every day now.

Whereas then she was just a tiny thing that couldn't take care of herself at all.

It was our Lifebook DVD, and the second flight that did me in on Sunday. Just a day shy of a year, we watched ourselves meet our little girl for the very first time, and there, on the screen, I was crying. I was so happy.

And I still am. So I cried again.

As our second plane headed for the sky on Sunday, Mihret and I looked down over the city below us. Kara sat quietly on my right.

In the moment, I realized that in one important way, our trip home from vacation and our trip home from Ethiopia were exactly the same.

We were going home.

It's been a long year - with new jobs, family leave, medical problems, and friends and family all getting older - and some of them who aren't with us any more.

As I sat in my seat I felt my eyes well up - and then spill over.

The flight wore on, and Mihret played peek with us, and played with her Lion King doll, and read a book, and told us that bunnies go "Hop, hop!" And I eventually got myself under control.

We've been a family a whole year. What could be more wonderful.

-Josh

Gifted

2008-07-23T21:34:00.001-07:00

After making jokes about looking at the What to Expect: The Toddler Years book in order to feel superior to other parents, I realized last week that it probably wouldn't hurt to take a peek at our copy and see if there was anything we should talk to the doctor about when we visit her in a couple weeks.

So I turned to the 18 month chapter, which I was a little early for, but, you know, close enough. Mihret will be 18 months old on the 28th, after all.

Mihret could do everything on the list, from the "Your child MUST be able to do this, or you should call the doctor," to the "Your child MAY EVEN be able to do..." listing the things that only the most precocious child manages by 18 months.

So I checked month 19. She could do all that as well.

And then I checked month 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24.

She can do all of it. And more.

The big one is words and pictures. Apparently, being able to look at a picture and tell you what it is? Is a very big deal. A huge one.

One so "hard" to do that your kid should be able to look at two pictures, by the age of two, and be able to tell you what they are.

Things Mihret can see in pictures and tell us what they are right now: Doggy, Kitty, Elephant (Ellie!), Nona, Papa, Monkey, Elmo. That's stuff I can just name off the top of my head.

Oh - and all her classmates at school, and her teachers.

She's supposed to be able to use, say, 75 words by age two. She knows more than 100.

She's supposed to be able to use two-word phrases by the time she's two. In fact, that isn't even on the list for a couple more months.

Phrases she can already use: Help please, Down please, More milk, (Foodstuff) please. Also, Thank you, and Bless you, which she says when we sneeze.

Physically, she can run, throw a ball, and KICK a ball. And she's got amazing fine motor control.

I asked my mom, who specializes in development about this - did she know that my 18-month-old is basically two?

Yeah, she knew.

There's an old adage about your parents wishing that you had a kid "just like you" when you grow up, and it looks like it's actually happened.

And what's kind of scary about it is, I didn't realize it was a big deal. Which is exactly what happened to both my parents and Kara's parents.

In my case, it happened like this:

My mom wanted to get me into preschool, but I'm a June baby, which always throws that kind of thing off. Plus, boys are, I guess, dumber than girls, so they usually try to hold us June kids back for an extra year.

This was, more or less, what the teacher at the preschool was trying to explain to my mother, when I turned to my mom and said, "Look mom, there are two o's in the word school."

So the preschool took me.

I have no idea if Mihret is going to be an early reader, or some kind of sports star, or if she's even going to keep ahead of the curve. At some point, she might just become a child completely average and normal for her age.

We're okay with that.

But if she does end up as a famous dancer, a respected engineer, or a brilliant athlete, I guess I won't be able to say I never saw it coming.

-Josh

I'll Teach My Kid 100 Words

2008-07-16T20:12:00.001-07:00

There's something about milestones that parents love. I think the folks that write the "What to Expect" books are stone-cold geniuses, because it gives us all a chance to feel superior.

Really, I think that's what the books are for, because as far as health stuff goes, if you're taking your kid to the doctor at the correct intervals, they'll cover all the "well, if he/she/it's not standing by this date, then we'll worry..." stuff.

Meanwhile, we're poring over these books, checking the months against our little ones, and crowing, "It says here that by 18 months she should be able to use 15 words. Our kid is sixteen months and uses over 60! In your face, other parents!"

Mihret has proved to be an anomoly on every possible front. From the day we started the adoption process, we spent month after month after month being told that our child would probably be delayed, would probably need some special help, would probably... you know... be a little behind everyone else.

But with hard work, etc., everything would probably be okay.

This was hard to hear, but not always for the reason you'd think. Both Kara and myself accepted pretty quickly that those little markers in the Expecting books might be missed, or that our daughter might hit some, but not others.

We felt bad for her, really. Not for ourselves, which is what we were being trained against.

I can sort of understand why people might feel bad about their child not being up to whatever level these books have decided is correct. In a lot of ways, parents feel like their kids are an extension of themselves, and to have a child who is "not as good" as other children feels like a failure on their part - like if they'd fed them differently, played with them more, or just bought the correct educational toy, their kid would hit, and exceed, all the benchmarks.

But Kara and I just wanted our daughter to be happy and healthy. If she was a super-genius, then okay. If she was more "normal," then okay.

We felt bad not because of failure or shame on our part, but because it's hard to realize that while here in the USA there are myriads of ways for birth mothers to get what they need to make sure their child is getting the necessary nutrition, that simply isn't the case in Ethiopia. We felt bad that our child couldn't have what she needed from the moment she was born.

So we were as prepared as we thought we could be. We alerted our parents that there might be some delays, but that everything should be fine. And we got ready to enlist the help of my mother, who worked for a few years in birth to three, helping those kids who need help catching up to do so.

Kara even asked her to do an assessment once Mihret had been home for a few weeks, just to figure out what kinds of things she might need to work on. (Our daughter, that is. Not my mom.)

Then we got her home - and pretty much from the moment my mom saw her, she knew our kid was going to be okay.

From we first held her, Mihret was bright and alert. She watched people intently, fascinated by the big people who could make different kinds of sounds, who could move around, sometimes on two legs, sometimes crawling or stooping or doing all manner of motion.

She wanted to see everything.

My mom, watching her lying on the floor of our church, looking up at everyone, moving around, and smiling, sat next to her friend, who works the mentally challenged, and they both said the exact same thing: "She will never be in our class."

They're right.

Mihret started on the Smart Train early, and she's just kept on choo-choo-ing along. She sat up before I did at her age. She was pulling herself up to stand, and letting herself down slowly and carefully months before I was able to.

She walked two months before me as well.

And then came the words. At first it was some of the usual stuff - Ducky, Mama, Daddy, and so on.

Somewhere along the line, though, her collection of words exploded.

By the age of 18 months, kids should know, and know how to use, about 15 words.

At sixteen months, Kara sat down and tallied up the list of words Mihret uses consistently. She came up with 62 of them.

My mom came up with 63. And when they started comparing their lists, they both realized that had missed some.

Somewhere around 17 months, we just started saying that Mihret can use 70 words, but that comes with two caveats.

The first is that we don't include names of people. Mihret knows the name of her day care teachers, and all of the kids in her class, which is probably something like eight names.

The second is that Mihret is constantly busting out words that we didn't know she knew.

Case in point, I picked her up from day care one day. As we stepped out into the sun, Mihret turned towards one of the vehicles on the parking lot and said, quite clearly, "Car!"

A few days later, I was getting her ready to go home, and said, "Do you want to have some pasta?"

"Pasta!" she cried, like it was the greatest idea ever. (Which I suppose it is, since our household has something of an Italian bent to it.)

I figured she had just mimicked the word, until she got home and I put the noodles on her tray. "Pasta!" she reminded me, as she grabbed and chomped.

She also has a book called "Good Night, Gorilla," which I figured would probably just become "monkey," when she looked at it.
Until about a week ago, when she picked up the book, pointed to the gorilla on the cover, and yelled out, "Gorilla!"

She's done it a few times since then.

And there have been other things that just blew my mind. One afternoon, my mother-in-law asked if Mihret knew how to count.

I looked down at Mihret and said, "Mihret? Ooone..."

And she looked up at me and said, "Two!"

That was it for that, as we couldn't get her to repeat it. Until one afternoon, when Kara was reading a book to Miret, and she pointed at the various kitties on the page.

"Mihret. Ooone?" said Kara.

And Mihret kept pointing at the page, "Two, three, four..." and then she stopped and got off Kara's lap.

Kara said she heard five and six, but I didn't.

Even more interesting to me has been Mihret's physical development. The kid does not walk. She runs, and she climbs, and she knows that if she sticks her shoes out "just so," on a slide, she can stop herself from moving.

As a baby, she was like most kids, who look like tiny dolls with realistic movement.

Now, she looks like a little person.

When we got her, she was so small, and had so little of the baby fat that kids her age get.
She had a problem processing fats, one that soy formula seemed to fix, and the little rolls returned.

And now she's so active we can't keep them on her. She runs everywhere. She wants to push toy cars and shopping carts around, and when we're opening a door with her in our arms, she wants to help.

Kara and I have wondered, openly, if ours was a case of results not typical - of getting a little girl who would have been amazing in the hands of anyone, and if the other kids from Ethiopia are much the same.

I can't say.

As for myself, I've credited playing with my kid, letting her run around instead of trying to keep her still, and lucking into a good day care with a lot of areas where our kid can race around and have fun and interact with kids her own age.

Other people, kind people, have said that Kara and I are great parents, and how well Mihret is doing is because of how good we are with her.

Kara and I have kept in touch with the other families we met in Ethiopia, though, and all the kids are doing well. Some have fewer words, some don't run, but all are growing and thriving and getting more amazing every day.

And I suppose maybe I do have an answer to why that is.

Back many years ago, when Kara and I were first looking into the adoption process, we attended a fairly large gathering where a bunch of people looking into adoption got to watch a bunch of people who had adopted talk about their process, and their kids.

An older lady, a social worker, was there. And she said this: "The thing is, you see these videos, and the kids look sort of nonchallant, sort of not-all-there. But I promise you, once you've had them home for a month, they blossom like little flowers."

That's the secret - it's the love these kids get. With CHSFS, it starts all the way back at the Care Center, where the nannies love up on every one of them. I've seen it.

And it's even more powerful when the children get home. Because these kids aren't surprises, or interuptions, or anything other than the thing these parents wanted most in the whole wide world.

The kids might have their problems, but just as much as other kids, and maybe even a little bit more, every mom and dad wants to help their kid to succeed. Whether it's walking, or running, or building with blocks, or learning to speak 100 words, all of us, moms and dads, are ready to walk a little farther, stay up a little later, and babble a little longer.

Maybe all the warnings get are designed to remind us that sometimes working a little longer makes for a child who's a little more amazing.

Or maybe it's the fact that unlike most birth parents, who assume that nothing can be done, we've been told that something CAN be done.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Birth children, adopted children, the thing about all children is, they need our love and hugs and support. And we'd all do well to remember that.

-Josh

The List of Love

2008-07-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

Most of the posts I've put up here lately have been a little too poignant - and I've been thinking about another one along the same lines.

So here's a cute list of the ways that Mihret shows her love, both to Kara and myself and to other people.

1. The "It's Daddy/Mama!" Giggle.

Mihret does this whenever we haven't seen her for, say, ten minutes. I didn't realize it was unusual until someone at church pointed it out to me.

At church, both the kids and adults have class. So afterwards, we haven't seen each other for, oh, maybe thirty minutes.

But the minute she sees one of us, she starts laughing and laughing and laughing. It's awesome.

2. Blowing Kisses

This is also cute as all get-out. We have her do this with people when she's saying bye-bye.

The best part is that she not only blows kisses to loved ones, but she has also learned to make the *mwah!* noise when she does it.

3. The Full-On Hug

Usually we get these when we ask for them. "Mihret, can I have hugs?"

She comes up and clings to us like she's never going to let go. If we're extra-lucky, she'll also says "Huuugs!" when she does it.

4. The Stealth Hug

Mihret is finally learning to show affection of her own free will. Instead of us asking for hugs or kisses, she will sometimes race up to us and give the only part of us that's nearby (which is to say, our legs, usually) a big hug.

Sometimes times, when Kara is sitting on the floor, Mihret will sneak up behind her and give her a big ol' hug that way.

5. Get the Mama!/Daddy!

This one is just fun for everybody. Either Kara or I pick up Mihret, and then yell "Get the mama/daddy!" and hand Mihret off to the opposite person.

Mihret thinks this is hilarious and hugs and wiggles and laughs.

It's the best stuff in life.

6. Give kisses!

I saved this one for last because it's got a certain magic for me.

There was a short period where Mihret got really good at giving kisses. You'd ask, and get a big sloppy wad of drool on the cheek.

She doesn't do it a lot now, except for when we're visiting my Grandpa and Grandma. For whatever reason, Mihret has never turned us down when we say, "Give great-Grandpa kisses!"

I don't know why this is. Maybe great-grandpa has extra soft cheeks or something, but she has never pulled away or said no. She just gives him the world's sweetest kiss on the cheek, and then she gives one to everyone else as well.

It's hard to think of a time in recent memory that I've seen my Grandpa and Grandma look happier.

Oh look, I've gone and got poignant again. Such is life with a toddler.

-Josh

Discipline for toddler calls for a time-in

2008-07-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

Living with a feisty, active, curious 17-month-old, we're always walking the line between nurturing her personality and nudging her back within the boundaries of good behavior.

When she wriggles out of our arms to walk from day care to the parking lot, we don't mind. We just hold her hand tightly and teach her about watching for cars.

And when she talks or sings loudly at church, we don't want to discourage her from participating. Instead, we try to quiet her by making a game out of whispering or saying, "Shhh."

But Mihret has also developed some willful behaviors we don't want to indulge. They include swatting at people, screaming when she's not hurt, sick or scared, and repeatedly touching things she shouldn't, like DVDs or the contents of our wastebaskets.

Sometimes she'll stop herself, and we'll praise her. Recently, she put a DVD back immediately after picking it up and told herself, 'No, no, no.'"

When she gets a certain gleam in her eye, pauses, and then lets out another shriek or lunges to hit, she's having too much fun testing us to move on without encouragement.

We started time-ins after Mihret turned 1, because we can reasonably expect her to sit in a lap for about one minute. We hold her close and tell her why her behavior wasn't acceptable, and what we'd like to see instead: "Hitting Daddy hurts. We use gentle touches." Then, we take her to a toy or book that usually refocuses her energy and attention.

The message we hope she's getting at a young age is, "We love you, but we don't like wrong behavior. Let's work together so you can learn what's right."

And also: "No matter what you do, we will always hold you close."

Kara Patterson: Post-Crescent staff writer

I'm Not a Hero - I'm a Dad

2008-07-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Not long ago, I found myself on the phone with someone who was looking for information about myself and my family.

(I'm being vague on purpose here, as the person on the other end of the line seemed like good people, and I don't want to hurt their feelings if they should ever read this.)

When it came time to talk about my daughter, I decided to save some time:

"Let me just spell her name for you: M - I - H - R - E - T. Mihret. It means Mercy in Amharic, which is the primary language of Ethiopia."

I've used this line a few times - if you're a writer, like myself, you'll see that it conveys a lot of information in one go. It tells you my daughter's name, how to pronounce it, and where it's from, which is usually a tip-off as to where she's from.

So you avoid making someone feel awkward (and some people do) by avoiding that other A word - adoption.

Now, I have no problem talking about adoption. There will come a time, in the very near future, when it won't be up to me any more. Mihret will start to learn what that word means, and to really understand where she comes from, and if she doesn't want to talk about it, she doesn't have to. And if she doesn't want me to talk about it in front of her, I won't.

That's her right.

But I digress.

The nice person on the other end of the phone wanted to know just how impressed she was with me. "You adopted a little girl from Ethiopia?" she gushed. "You're a hero, you know? A real life hero."

I didn't say anything for a moment. The pause wasn't long enough to be awkward, but it was long enough for me to breathe in and out of couple of times.

I wasn't offended. I had heard the same words before, from other people. I had even been warned by our social worker that people would say something like that.

And I get it. I do. Every child is adopted for a reason, and every one of those reasons has something in common: Someone out there in the world didn't have the means to care for a child.

So to step in, and to say, "This little person, who might never have a chance? I'll give this child a chance," it sounds heroic. When some rich individual offers free dental care to kids who couldn't otherwise get it, or money for school, or food, or clothing, or any one of a hundred things that kids need to grow up and become adults who can add something to the world, they give those people medals.

Or plaques.

Or they name a day in their honor, or give them the key to the city, or any one of a hundred things that say, "This person is a hero."

And here come people like me, who provide it all - everything - food and clothing and love and dental appointments and an education - and it makes us sound like heroes.

I think parents want to be heroes to their kids - but they don't want to be THAT kind of hero.

I'm not a hero.

I'm a dad.

It doesn't matter that my child doesn't share some kind of direct genetic link with me. I'm her dad.

It doesn't matter that she came into my life because of a bunch of paperwork and some plane rides. I'm her dad.

Ask any set of parents who had their kids the way we all think of parents having their kids, and they do all the things I do. Buy the clothing, brush the teeth, change the diapers, figure out when kids are supposed to stop drinking milk before bed, try to figure out how to pay for college...

It's all the same stuff I'm doing, and no one calls them heroes.

(Or maybe they do. But no one is doing it when I'm around.)

I've wanted to be a dad for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I changed my tiny cousins' diapers and played with them and thought about having kids of my own.

How I had them didn't matter.

How they came into my life wasn't important.

I just wanted to be a dad.

Today, I'm a dad. I'm a dad to one of the cutest, smartest, most hilarious seventeen-month-olds on the face of the planet. And I mean it when I say she's hilarious. My little genius understands comedic timing.

But more importantly, she's my daughter. And I'm her dad.

I could have said all that to the person on the other end of the line, but I didn't want to hurt their feelings.

Instead, I said, "You know, I've always wanted to be a dad. And now I'm a dad. I'm very blessed."

The voice protested. "But you gave her a life she might not have had otherwise!"

"Yeah," I said. "And she gave me one, too. Like I said, just a dad."

"Weeelll..." I could hear the person on the other end of the line winding up, getting ready to add something, to change my mind, to convince me they were right.

"Really. I wanted to become a dad, and now I'm a dad, and it's wonderful, and also tiring. That's all."

The voice paused for a second. "I still think it's amazing. I'm going to tell all my co-workers I talked to you tonight. What a great guy."

I let another couple of breaths go by. It was clear to me that I could spend another ten minutes on the phone telling this person that really, I was just happy to have a child after so many years of wanting one, and that I was the lucky one, and no more or less impressive than any other father who dotes on his kids.

But I didn't.

Instead, I said, "Really, I'm just a dad. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

As it turned out, there wasn't, and we hung up.

I stood in the kitchen, phone in hand, for a full minute, playing and replaying the conversation, trying to figure out how I could have convinced the person on the other end of the line that I was no more wonderful or special or heroic than any other dad on the planet.

All I could think of was this:

Being a hero makes you separate from other people. You're not really someone relate to, you're someone to be in awe of, someone who is just a little untouchable.
I don't want to be untouchable. I want to be there for my kids, and for them to know that I made mistakes and learned from them. And that when they don't feel good, I'm there for them. And that when they need something, I'll do everything in my power to get it for them.

Heroes are just out there.

I'll always be right here for my kids.

Because I'm not a hero - I'm a dad.

-Josh

The (Mostly) Whole Tooth

2008-06-27T20:15:00.001-07:00

One of the tougher aspects of being a parent is the whole litany of bumps and bruises kids pick up.

Most people will tell you not to beat yourself up about it - that kids are kids and they'll run into things, or trip and fall, or pinch their fingers somehow, or...

Well, the list goes on.

Mihret has, for the most part, lucked out a lot on that score. My mom has told me, dozens of times, that as a kid I wasn't all that graceful, and that when I learned to pull myself up to standing, I didn't learn to get down at the same time.

So if she saw me standing up, she'd throw a pillow down behind me. Because I would need it.

Mihret was not that way. She figured out right away that once she got up, she needed to be super-careful about getting down.

And then there was the crawling thing. Where so many kids get those clunks on the head, crawling around, getting under things, lifting their heads up suddenly... she didn't do that.

Kara and I figured this was the 'fro factor. Since our little one has a half-inch of hair between her and whatever she was going to collide with, she had some warning, or perhaps it was the bit of padding, that meant she didn't hit it hard enough to get into yowling territory.

Her big problems tend to be her fingernails, which grow very quickly and seem to be as sharp as the blade on my pocketknife. As recently as last night, with only a week and a half since I last cut them, my daughter the Wolverine managed to give me a little cut above my lip with an errant swipe of a finger.

So whenever I see a little cut on her face, I figure she just got a little overzealous.

And things were good.

Yeah, there were bumps and bruises, and she's had a little cut or two, but, well, you know. They happen.

And then came my birthday.

I should have guessed it was going to be a little worse than usual when Kara called me at work. "The day care called," she said. "They said that Mihret had a little accident, but that she's fine now and she's outside playing."

I shrugged it off.

Then I got home. Then Kara brought Mihret in the door.

With a big old scab across her nose. Probably the biggest I've seen on her.

"Look at her teeth," said Kara. "Do they look chipped to you?"

Now, let me just say, my kid has an awesome smile. She can't quite control it yet, the way adults can, but when she's giggly and happy, she's way past cute.

So I looked at her teeth, and, yep - chipped. Just a little. Just enough so that you go, "Oh, no, they're fine - no, wait, yes, they're chipped."

Now, my teeth aren't perfect in the slightest. I've done the whole mouth full of metal thing, and it was not great, and at the end of it my teeth decided they still weren't huge fans of symmetry.

But the problem is, fixing teeth, really fixing something that's chipped involved veneers, and glue, and often stuff like screws and surgery.

And as my dad noted - there's another set coming.

On the advice of friends and family, I've been watching for the teeth to turn gray, or to otherwise indicate that they're causing Mihret pain, but she's fine.

Her scab healed and flaked off, and the area above her nose has cute new pink skin, which will darken over the next couple of weeks and match up with the rest of her lovely face. And yeah, eventually her baby teeth will fall out, replaced by new, perfect little rows of white.

When we got the accident report from the day care, it noted that they had tried, several times, to ice the wound on Mihret's face - but that she wanted to get down and play. And so, eventually, they let her.

Would that we could all shake off our hurts so easily, secure in the knowledge that the troubles of today won't matter to us in the slightest a few years down the road.

-Josh

Harried

2008-06-06T21:20:00.001-07:00

One of the issues everyone with an African child faces is: Hair.

Everyone will tell you this well in advance of you getting your child.

"Look into styles," they say. And also, "You're going to need a bunch of products."

These people are right.

Among the many things that fascinate me about my kid's hair is just how long it is. When it's wet, or when I'm combing it, I can see that it's roughly three to four inches long.

But if I put some conditioner in it, and leave it alone for a bit so that it goes all curly - it sticks out maybe a half inch.

When Mihret's hair got long enough to work with, Kara and I dutifully packed her up in her car seat and went to a local hair salon, which is owned by a friend of ours. We asked the nice woman behind the counter what product to use, and she mentioned a conditioner that sounded good.

Only they were out of it.

So we ordered some. And we were told it would arrive in, perhaps, a couple of weeks.

I didn't fault the store for this then, but today, I fault them even less - and I'll come back to why in a moment.

We were told that, in the meantime, baby oil would do the trick. So we headed to a nearby Walgreens and bought some.

Luckily, our friend had already provided us with a comb.

The next morning, it was time to do the hair.

After a little thought, we decided to stick Mihret in a Bumbo, which is a kind of soft chair designed for kids who can't sit up on their own, yet. It's actually made in Africa, which is kind of neat, really.

It's a great little seat, and we fed Mihret in it, and put her in it when we wanted her to practice sitting up, and it is just in general a helpful little tool for holding a child in place.

I got out the baby oil, and put some on my hand, and stuck it into Mihret's hair.

And then I learned something - baby oil is awful.

It's hard to pour out of the bottle, and oftentimes, I got WAY too much into my palm, and there was nowhere to put the excess.

Once it's in a child's hair, the hair is "wet" for quite some time - leaving little "oil slicks" every time you place your child's head on a blanket, or into her car seat.

And once the stuff is on your hand, I hope you like it, because nothing will get it off. Not washing your hand, not a paper towel, not spreading the oil on other body parts. The stuff simply doesn't go away.

It's just not a good scene.

Subsequently, we were overjoyed when the conditioner came in. And we were very happy to find out that while it's still a little greasy, and makes your hand (and Mihret's head) smell for the rest of the day, it is, at least, a nice smell, which people tend to like.

(Although I will say, quite often you end up with random friends and family sniffing the baby's head. That's a little weird.)

Mihret hated having her hair done from the word go, and has been able to show it more and more as she has gotten bigger.

She kicked, and she flailed, and in general made things worse for herself. When I would hit a snarl, and try to get through it slowly, she would jerk her head, ripping through the tangle, while screaming at me. This, too, has not improved since day one.

At first I thought the process must really hurt, and I worked hard to comfort her right after. I'd pick her up from the seat, cuddling her with my clean hand, while doing a single-hand wash of the other greasy hand o' mine.

Then one day, I managed to muck up both my hands, and I left my daughter on the floor in her Bumbo while I went to wash my hands. The very second I walked out of the room, and she didn't have an audience, the wee one stopped crying and screaming, and opted instead to play with her toys.

It was all an act.

If it does hurt her to get her hair done - it isn't hurting very much, is what I'm saying. My toddler is just trying to play me.

Then, more recently, two criseses hit us at the same time.

The Bumbo stopped working. Mihret had gotten too big and could push herself out of the seat.

This was a problem, because now we were into control issues. While before I knew she could sit, safe and sound, while I worked conditioner through her hair, I now have to kind of hold her in place with my legs while I attempt to work a comb through the snarls.

As a bonus, I realized that all the hair she's growing means we were running out of conditioner, and quickly.

So I sent Kara to the store to pick up more of the stuff and... they're out. And won't have more for about two weeks.

With less than a week's worth of the stuff on hand, I started to panic. I did NOT want to go back to baby oil, because now that she can roam free, and squirm even more than before, it can't do anything but lead to an even larger mess than it previously did.

So I hit the Internet. I looked up our child's product and clicked around, back and forth, until I discovered that Walgreens sells the stuff online.

I was hoping to get it in two days - but they said it would be a week.

Still better than two weeks. I ordered the stuff, and went for five bottles. Why not? I would save money on shipping, and there would be much less chance of running out...

I'll have to stretch the stuff we have, skip a day or two, but that should be all right.

And then today, I get the email - they shipped the stuff.

I got excited - I might only have to skip conditioning my daughter's hair once, maybe twice at the most. She'll have so-so hair days, but most kids this age have kind of a mess of hair anyway, and she never gets that bad...

And then I realized something - they didn't send five bottles. They sent one.

Bonus round? They didn't backorder the rest, because they're out of stock, and they don't know when they'll get more.

I find myself torn as I write this.

I now feel a great deal of pity for my friends running the local hair salon. I don't know who supplies the stuff, but I now know that coming across a bottle of it anywhere is something of a miracle.

I also feel bad for the local African-American community. They've got kids, and I've got a kid, and we're all in this together, and the best product I've seen on the market is almost impossible to lay your hands on.

I thought I was prepared to deal with my kid's hair. I took a class, I got some books, and I did some research.

But no one told me I'd need two extra arms and private investigator who specializes in hard-to-find hair care products.

-Josh

Like a Weed

2008-05-30T18:10:00.001-07:00

Dandelions are the oddest of things.

They're kind of magical in and of themselves.

Flowers aren't all that magical, really. I mean, they grow in your garden, and they look nice, and usually smell nice. But then they die, and leave an ugly, twisted thing on top of a green stalk, and that's it.

Dandelions, on the other hand, seem to start off like a flower. They've got a bunch of leaves, and they're a bright, cheery, yellow. And then, poof, one night they close up, and when they open, they're this little puffball of seeds, that you can pluck, and blow, and watch sail off on the lightest of breezes.

They undergo another transformation as well.

When you're little, they're flowers. Your parents tell you as much. After all, they're all yellow and lovely, and if you pick a bunch of them and give them to your mom or dad, they'll tell you thank you and stick them into a glass with some water.

That makes them flowers.

And then one day, they aren't flowers any more. Someone tells you that they are actually weeds, a hideous pest that must be destroyed, and that you have to wipe them out. At all costs.

Once you're in school, of course, you also learn that they have these huge root systems, which is what makes them so hard to get rid of. If you pluck them, or cut them down with a mower, well, they'll just come back three days later.

Those things are deep underground.

So people pull them out, or mow them, or just in general do anything to get rid of them... and yet...

The other day, I took Mihret out on the lawn. My lawn is kind of bad, really. It's patchy, with spots where grass has just decided it doesn't really want to grow.

In other places, I've been overtaken by this short little weed that has pushed the grass away, and generally just taken over the lawn.

And here and there, but especially near the curb, I've got a bunch of dandelions.

At the moment, most of them aren't yellow. They're white and puffy and ready to go out into the world, and burrow into the earth, and make more dandelions.

Mihret was fascinated by them. She'd walk from dandelion to dandelion, holding out her hand, looking at the fuzz on them.

I plucked one, and blew on it, and watched as the seeds floated away. Mihret blinked in surprise, then made little blowing motions at the last few seeds on the stem.

I grabbed another one and tried to get her to blow the seeds off, but she didn't quite seem to get it. She just kept holding out her hand. So, finally, I just handed the dandelion to her.

She grabbed the fuzz and plucked it off the top. Ran the fuzz through her fingers. And then dropped the seeds on the ground.

Now she was on a mission.

She walked from one dandelion to the next, pointing at them, looking at them, having me pluck them from the ground so that she could carry them around while pulling the seeds from them, and throwing them to the ground.

Eventually, she grew bold enough to pluck them from the ground herself, without my help.

It was clear that she wanted to understand them. Being a good dad, I did try to explain that the white fuzz were seeds, and that if they flew through the air, they would go make more dandelions. I even tried to show her that the yellow dandelions and the white puffy things were the same thing, but she didn't really get that.

And no, I didn't really expect her to.

It was only recently that I learned that a "weed" is a generic term used for anything in your garden that you don't want there. And I've grown to think that dandelions shouldn't be classified that way.

Because in a lot of ways, dandelions are kind of like kids. They start of as this amazing thing, small and pretty and with so much under the surface.

And then one day, they're something else, something they became when you weren't looking.

And then one day, they blow away, out into the world, taking their roots with them, and spreading themselves out, and creating the next generation.

It's baby science on a whole new level.

-Josh

New words open new world for toddler

2008-05-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

It's common, in parks and on playgrounds and in any other places families frequent, to hear moms and dads encourage their toddlers, "Use your words."

Our 15-month-old daughter Mihret is in the middle of a language explosion. She's encouraging us every day to help her use her words.

The few baby signs she knows are giving way to sounds, and sometimes she's bypassing the signs altogether. Sometimes she gets so excited that, when she can, she uses both.

She's learning to recognize that objects have names, although she's in that stage where a few favorites cover a lot of territory.

All red fruits are "apples," all people are "babies" (except Mommy, Daddy, and my father, her "papa") and most furry or hairy animals are "puppies," except when they're "monkeys" and "kitties."

On a walk to the library from our home in downtown Appleton on a recent afternoon, Mihret, bouncing on my husband Josh's chest in a Baby Bjorn carrier, surveyed the world from her outward-facing perch. Every few minutes, she'd point at a parked truck or a tall tree and ask, "What's that?"

Every sight was a potential new word for our little vocabulary sponge to soak in. She'd repeat the words gleefully, every time we passed a truck or tree.

When we returned home and set Mihret down to play, she eagerly ran to her high chair and motioned to her mouth, emphatically declaring, "I eat! I eat!"

When she screeched for her sippy cup of soy milk, we gently prompted her to ask nicely.
She grinned at us, then energetically rubbed both hands across her chest to sign the word at the same time she said, "Peeez, peeez."

You just say the word, Mihret, and we'll be there for you.

Kara Patterson: Post-Crescent staff writer

Grandma Patterson

2008-05-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

When my Grandma Patterson died, it was both a shock and not a shock at the same time.

My grandmother was ninety years old when she died, and she didn’t die of anything mysterious or surprising. It was just old age. And yet, no one saw it coming, because she was so healthy when it happened.

Most people who make it to ninety do it on a plethora of medications, and with a variety of aches, pains, surgeries, and hospital visits.

My grandmother was on no medications, and her biggest problems medically were the fact that she was slowing down in her old age, and that her eyes just weren’t what they used to be. She had problems seeing when it started to get dark.

And that was it.

She went the way I think we all hope to. Fit and happy and with all her faculties intact. From what we can tell, she sat down in her easy chair and just didn’t get up again.

I’ve lived a charmed life on the grandparents front. I know people my age (31, as I write this) whose grandparents are long deceased, and who have even lost a parent by now. But I’ve lived most of my life with my grandparents watching over me, still sending me cards on my birthday, still giving me and my family gifts at Christmas.

Death always leaves us with some regrets, and I have two, and both of them are downstairs.

On the dining room table there’s a Mother’s Day card we got for her that is, and will stay, unsent. Life got in the way, and I’m sad that she won’t get it.

Also downstairs is a photo of one of her many, many great-grandchildren. When we had photos of my daughter taken not all that long ago, we set aside four, one for each of the great-grandparents.

We meant to get a frame for the photo, and to get it to her. And we didn’t. And now I’m at a loss as to what we should do with it.

Ultimately, I don’t know that those things matter. These are the things that matter:

***

Last summer, my extended family threw an adoption shower for Kara and myself and Mihret. It was a pretty large gathering, because we’re a big group of people.

Grandma and I sat on a bench while the younger kids ran around, playing whatever games kids play when they’ve got a few rubber balls sitting available, and plenty of energy.

We talked about this and that, and Grandma remarked that it was the first time she’d seen some of her grandkids in a while. A lot of us live in central Wisconsin, but some of us have flown the coop – and finding the time and the money to visit isn’t always easy.

My Grandma looked at me. “It’s the first time I’ve seen some of ‘em since Grandpa died,” she said. And as she looked over at the kids running back and forth, my eyed glassed over a bit.

Somewhere inside me, I really realized that Grandma wasn’t going to be around forever, even if it sometimes felt like she would be.

I wonder now if she knew, even then, that “not going to be around forever” was going to be such a short stretch of time.

***

At every major gathering, my Grandma used to make oyster crackers. Or rather, she doctored them up with various herbs and spices, and I would inevitably grab a small plate and fill it with garlic-y goodness.

Over the years, Grandma realized how much I loved those crackers. When each family gathering was over, she would find me and give me the rest of the bag she had made.

And when I was away at college, she gave the bag to my parents, so they could send the crackers to me.

As the years wore on, I discovered that one of my cousins also loved the crackers, and so we started taking turns taking them at the end of each family gathering.

When Grandma discovered we were doing this, she started making an extra bag, just to make sure that both of us got some at the end of every family get-together. She did that right up until last Christmas.

She also gave me a copy of the recipe a few years ago – actually handed me the recipe card right out of her old recipe card box. I’ve made them a few times over the years, but they were never quite as good as Grandma’s.

***

Two Christmases ago, Grandma surprised all the grandkids. We were all pulled into her bedroom at the same time, and she gave a speech that I hope is captured on video somewhere.

Or maybe it’s better if it’s not, because videotape couldn’t ever really capture what we all felt that night.

With all seventeen of us crowded into her room, Grandma announced that she wanted us all to get our inheritance right then and there. She wanted to give it to us while she was still alive, she claimed, so that she didn’t have to hunt down all our Social Security numbers and put down amounts in her will.

We all got a check for the exact same amount that night.

Kara and I used the money to fly to Ethiopia to bring Mihret home.

***

My Grandma is tied to Mihret in another way, as well – they both have late January birthdays.

I have struggled for years in an attempt to remember my Grandparent’s birthdays, but I’m awful about it. I can remember Kara’s birthday, and mine, and Mihret’s quite easily.

On a good day, I can tell you my brother’s and my parent’s.

Anyone outside that circle, though? I count on the kindness of my mother to remind me when to call or send a card to my grandparents.

Last Christmas at the big gathering o’ Patterson family, my mom pulled me aside and told me the semi-secret plan.

We were going to hold a double-birthday gathering. The family had picked a Sunday, and we were all going to show up at The Old Country Buffet and celebrate the birth of my Grandma, who would be 90, and the birth of my daughter, who would be one.

There would be food, and balloons, and some gifts.

And so it happened.

That same night, I took the picture you see at the top of this entry – the four generations picture.

***

The four generations picture is special in a number of ways.

It’s the only picture I have of my Grandma holding Mihret.

Outside of my wedding photos, I’m pretty sure it’s the only time my mother, my wife, and my grandmother have appeared in a photo together.

And there’s something else – it is, almost certainly, the only photo of four Patterson women who became part of the family not because they were born into it, but because someone loved them enough that they wanted them to be part of it.

There’s Mihret, with her arms in the air. She became part of the family because Kara and I wanted a child so badly that we were willing to work through multiple adoption agencies, to fill out mountains of paperwork, and to put piles of money together and send them to wherever they need to go just to find her and bring her home.

There’s Kara, who I met in college and fell in love with and who, on the day I graduated, I asked to marry me.

There’s my mother, Diane, who met my dad when she was in high school, who she married before she finished college, and through whom she finally got her first batch of brothers and sisters after years of being an only child.

And there’s Grandma, who married my Grandpa. They’re both not here anymore.

They’re together again.

***

There are other stories I could tell. About how she made an afghan for every grandchild, and how we each got one when we graduated high school.

About how, every year, every grandchild got an ornament for Christmas. There must be a half-dozen grand pianos on my tree, each one given to me by her.

About how it was so important for her to have a clean lawn that she would pick up errant birdseed from the bird feeder.

About the time her kids decided to rib her about her always-clean home, by collecting pine needles from their various real trees and sneaking into her house and putting them under her fake Christmas tree.

About how I got an Easter card from her every year, with a few dollars in it, when I was in college.

About how she never missed a birthday card, ever, except for the one time she accidentally put my card in my (female) cousin’s envelope, and my (female) cousin’s card in my envelope. (I still have that card, somewhere.)

About how, when we decided to prank my uncle, and hold his 40th birthday party on his 39th birthday, she went along with it. When my uncle insisted he was 39, my Grandma looked him square in the eye, and said, “No, you’re 40.”

About how, that same day, my uncle mooned (or perhaps just made as if to moon) my aunt, and Grandma, who we feared would be offended, nice Catholic lady that she was, said, “Eh, I’ve seen it before.”

My Grandma lived long, and saw much, and loved many.

And she was loved by many.

And we’ll miss her.

-Josh

Ode to a Mom

2008-05-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day at our house had one of those neat bonuses that life hands you sometimes.

It was Kara's first "real" Mother's Day, with a kid in the house who gave a card to her (with a lot of help from a certain Dad who shall remain nameless). (It was me. That's not a name. Hush, you.)

But more than that, it was May 11th, a day that will forever be known as "Referral Day" in the Patterson household.

Which is to say, yeah, a year ago on Sunday, we first heard the name Mihret. We got our first picture of the girl who was going to be ours.

It was a strange and wonderful and amazing day.

It was a Friday. Kara and I were both at work. I spent the day calling doctors and having them check her medical information, all the while looking at Mihret and thinking, "This might be my daughter. This is my daughter. This is what all that paperwork was for."

She's three months old in the picture. Her finger is wet, covered in drool, the way it still is now when she's looking for comfort.

She's tiny and perfect in the picture.

I got no work done that day. Kara did better than myself, because she had deadlines to think about, and deal with, and things had to get done.

But me? I got nothing done.

And when all the decisions were made, and we called our social worker back, to say, "Yes, this is our daughter," it was amazing. I emailed Mihret's picture out. I sent her dossier to my parents and Kara's parents.

The moms cried. Maybe the dads did, too, though no one ever told me one way or another.

We printed up pictures of our daughter and gave them away to loved ones. And on Mother's Day last year, we surprised my Grandma by presenting her with a picture of her very first great-grandchild, already in a little frame.

She cried. So did I.

And last Sunday, it was a year later.

Mihret has been home for months, now. She's a real person, not just a picture in a frame. She's gone from tiny (ten pounds, in the picture) to more than double that size. She's a skinny, tall little girl, and not a baby anymore.

She says a ton of words, words that we helped to teach her.

She can walk, and runs most of the time. She can climb, and goes up the stairs with ease (and down the stairs kind of ungracefully, though she'll get good at it one day).

And that's just her. In the same few months, Kara moved into a new position at work. I got a new job entirely.

My grandparents, who have had health problems for years, have continued to get older and more frail. They moved out of their house. My parents moved into their house.

My brother moved into my parents' old house.

He also got a new job.

The world - our world - is different now, a year later. But the first picture we ever got of her, looking tiny and beautiful, is still sitting on my desk at work.

She'll get bigger, and get older, and one day, I might even put a new picture in that frame. But I'll always keep a copy of that picture nearby, as a reminder of the day I gave my heart away to a little girl I had never seen before, on May 11th, 2007.

-Josh