Last Day

Today is Melese's last day of preschool. In September we'll try a new school. School has been a real mixed bag for Melese. I feel like we started him too early.

His new school is just blocks from Meazi's. Somehow I feel this will make a difference.

We shall see.

Hair Today...

A bit nervous.

Better call in reinforcements.

Like a friend from Russia.

Have a lollipop.

Take a deep breath.

Call in more reinforcements.

Get ice cream.

He did it! We did it! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was just a haircut! Why was I so worried?

He is so grown up.

He is so handsome.

He has no split ends.

Safe.

I lie next to him in bed. Our faces are so close I can feel his breath. Our noses are almost touching. His curls are tucked into his silky, gold, sleep cap. My left hand cups his right shoulder. It feels so very small. My eyes are closed but when I open them briefly I see deep into his dark eye. "What are you worried about?" I ask, seeing a great fear in that space. "Noffing," he says. "There is nothing to worry about," I assure him. "Ok Mamma," he says. We lie here together and I wonder to myself just how long it is going to take before he finally feels safe. Will it ever happen? Up until last December I would say things like, "Today we are going to eat pancakes, go to so and so's birthday, and then shop at..." He'd interrupt me to ask, "And then I get a new mommy?"

I think about what it must be like for him. He is three. This already seems to be a jacked up time developmentally for any kiddo. "I do it myself!" seems to be the mantra, whether they can or not. I feel he is in a big place of growth right now. He is his own person, with big beautiful ideas, and some nasty three year old behavior. He likes to spit. This drives me crazy. I want to throttle him when he spits. He pushes my buttons. Today I tried a new tactic to deal with these types of things. I tried, whenever he did something to piss me or anybody else off, to just shower him with complete love. "I love you Melese. I love you so much. We don't spit in this family. We don't throw food. Do you need extra hugs today? I think that you do." I hug him, and hug him again, and wonder how on earth this beautiful child will ever feel safe.

At preschool the other day I told him I needed to use the bathroom. When I came out of the bathroom I found him sobbing. I hugged him and he whimpered into my shoulder. He thought that I had left without saying goodbye. "I was just in the bathroom," I said, "I just had to pee. I was coming right back."

What is it like to be three and to have had two moms, and to have two dads and to have family in different, far away places? Isn't life confusing enough? Isn't it enough for a three year old just to figure out why they can't have a fucking lollipop whenever they want? Isn't that enough worry? Why can't I have a fucking lollipop mommy?

But instead we have this. "Why did my mommy die mommy? How are we family if they are there mommy?" Really goddamn good questions Melese.

His eye is blinking. It is finally getting heavy with sleep. I know that I will have to move soon because he can't physically touch Meazi with me between them. The only way they both sleep soundly is if parts of their bodies are actually touching. If they are not they will thrash all night, searching for each other. I have been between them sleeping, and gotten a good elbow in the throat, a fast slap in the face, and a heel blow to the ribcage. I know now to find a new place in the bed so that these two can find each other again.

Why wouldn't they try to? It is all they know to be constant. It is all they know to be there, and to be here. The two of them together through the trauma of their past, the confusion of their present, and the vast unknown of their future.

I look at him one more time. His eyes are closed. I'm not sure if my eyes are watering from his hot breath on them, or from my great sadness of what I think it must feel like to be my beautiful son.

Wordless Wednesday

Start Sanding

Dear Melese,
Mommy and Daddy are on their way, please don't worry. We love you very much. Meazi is okay, and we will all be together soon. Your teachers will take good care of you until we get there. We love you so very much.

I just had to write an earthquake kit letter for Melese. It is a letter for him to open if there is a big emergency WHILE HE IS AT SCHOOL. Did I mention that he is going to start school on the 6th?

This 'in case of earthquake' letter pretty much sums up how I feel about Melese going to school. I feel like I am leaving him in a room without power, the earth shaking, with strangers who are kind, but not his family.

I know, logically, that school will be wonderful for Melese. He is only going three morning a week. He has dear friends in his class, and he loves visiting there. It is a lovely little school that follows this nice philosophy. He needs to be around other kids. It is a good thing. I know all of this.

I am still having a little trouble with the idea. The problem with all of this attaching we have been doing for the last two years is that I AM REALLY ATTACHED TO HIM!

It will be a challenging transition for both of us. He still seems so young to me.

I just Googled 'How to Remove a Barnacle' and the first result said, 'Start sanding'.

It is only nine hours a week. This might be a good thing too, the nine hours to myself. I might actually have time to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer instead of finding the wet clothes several days later, and just rewashing them because they are a bit moldy smelling. I might even haul my flabby bleg (it's not leg, it's not butt...what is it?) to the YMCA. The possibilities are endless.

Still, in my mind he is cowering in a door frame, his pants wet because no one reminded him to use the potty, tears streaming down his face. He is clinging to a picture of Meazi, and this lame little earthquake letter I've written him.

I know, I know- I am the barnacle. Not him. He needs to remove me. I need to be sanded off.

It is just that it happened so fast. I miss him so much already.

Melkam Lidet Melese!

About my son, the almost two-year old...

I don’t write that many posts about Melese. There are two reasons for this, I always feel like I am gushing when I write about him, and I really can’t come up with the right words to describe how much I love him. He is the person I am closest to. I spend my days with him. At night he sleeps right next to me, his little chest rising and falling, his tiny toes digging into my rib cage.

Cute, sweet, funny, smart, he is the ultimate baby, but he is not a baby anymore. He turns two on New Year's Day. I am grateful for every single minute I’ve been lucky enough to spend with him, (even the frustrating minutes when he is standing on the coffee table, throwing my Mac onto the ground).

I think about what he has been through in his short life, and my heart hurts for him. Like a turtle, he is resilient. 

Melese’s language developed slower than I thought it would, his super chatty sister rarely lets him get a word in edgewise. It has been a great joy to hear him speak new words. Months ago, we pulled into our driveway after running errands. I turned off the car and took a deep breath (because really, isn’t the car the most relaxing spot for a new parent? I mean a parked car with your children STRAPPED in safely? You know exactly where they are, and you can just rest for a moment). It was very quiet, I took a look at the front of our house and from the backseat I heard Melese say, “Home”. It was the first time he said the word. I looked at him and smiled, “Yes Melese, you are home.”

We have been going to Music Together classes. Melese, unlike all of the other kids in the class, wonders around during the songs. Occasionally he will make it back to the circle and plop down in my lap for a moment, but for the most part he likes to explore as he learns (something to remember when we begin to choose schools for him). Toward the end of the semester, during a song called, There’s a little wheel a turning in my heart, (we always substitute, “There’s a little boy Melese in my heart” when we sing it at home) Melese walked over, grabbed both of my hands, looked into my eyes and sang to me. It was the first time he really sang. Of course I began to cry because he was just so beautiful, and his voice was so sweet, and he was singing just to me.

Melese is extremely sensitive. He is empathetic. One of my saddest days with him was when we visited a friend who was having her hair done. Like almost every Ethiopian girl I know, this girl was crying while getting her braids. (Meazi cries every single time we do her hair, no matter what detangler, or conditioner we use). The cries of his friend were too much for Melese. He fell apart, completely. He was a mess for hours. It may have triggered something in him, but what it really felt like was empathy. He kept hugging and comforting his friend when her style was done. His big, gigantic, eyes still pooled with tears. 

People, Ethiopian women mostly, always tell me to cut his hair.

I cannot. Look at his curls! I will not. Yes, I know his name sounds like “Melissa,” and yes I know he is very pretty, and yes, folks think he is a girl, but I am not cutting his beautiful hair.

I know that he loves me, one of his other words is “Mommy,” or sometimes first thing in the morning when he wakes up and I am not there, “MAAAAAHHHHMAAAAAHH!!”

He is very affectionate. He loves both Steven and me. However, his person is still, and will always be…

His sister. She is it for him. She is his person. After we take her to school, every single time we leave the house between 8 and 2:30 he says, “Get Meazi?” When the blessed time finally arrives, we go and sit in the parking lot, waiting for her to come around the corner. The minute he sees her he bolts across the lot, running and shouting, “Meazi! Meazi Meazi!” He throws his arms around her eliciting a collective “Awwwww, from the teachers and other students.” It is, indeed an Awwww inducing moment. Meazi smiles and we trundle off to the car together, his posture showing a new relief that she is finally, at long last, back within arm's reach.

I could write one thousand posts about Melese, about what it means to me to be his mother. What a gift it is to be his mother. I hope I can say what I am going to say next without sounding like an entitled asshole. Here goes:

When you wait for something for so long, when you want something so much that the longing for it permeates every pore and fiber of your being, when you are a woman who wants, and tries for a baby for a full decade, to be given an opportunity to parent a baby, this baby, well, then you are humbled, and grateful, and really, really, happy.

On the day of our very last music class, the instructor played a lullaby on her guitar. Melese had been wandering around the room, not really paying too much attention. When the lullaby started he first sat in my lap, and then he got up and went around to each child in the class. He walked up to each one of them, gently reached out his hand and stroked their heads, one by one, around the circle. I cried again, as did some of the other moms. It was a moment as sweet as Melese himself.

Happy early Birthday my beautiful son. Being your mother has been the single most redemptive experience of my entire life. I love you.