Four Months Home - Communication

Four months ago today I held my sons for the very first time. I am sure some day I will just be living it, but for now I continue to celebrate these monthly milestones because I continue to be amazed by how much progress our family makes in a month. So much change has occurred in the past four months that it feels like we have been together at least as long as we waited to meet. Time is a funny thing.

The biggest change over the past month has been our ability to communicate. The boys now know enough English for us to reason, reward, explain and discuss things that were completely out of reach a month ago. I am no longer reading about adoption related conversations, wondering when and how they will occur in our life, I am having them. We talk about how they lived in Ethiopia, and we talk about the people who still live there. We look at pictures of those people. They tell me stories about them. I tell them how much they still love them, even though we can’t see them anymore. We talk about how we got to America on a big airplane, each and every time we see one in the sky or in a book.

Outwardly my boys show little fear, but with language has come the ability to express fear. This has helped immensely. They no longer worry about their next meal, and then about whether I am going to poison them. They know when their next meal will be, and they eat everything, including veggies. Suddenly bedtime has become enjoyable. We read books, lots of books, and every night, as we lie in the dark snuggling, they say, “no woosah (wild animals), no buggy, no rain in America”. By that they mean none of those things will come into their beds and harm them while they sleep. This part amazes me, and tells me that their memories are long and strong. It has been a year since they lived in a place where woosah, bugs or rain would bother them while they slept.

There are little things too. Months ago, before communication was strong, I told the boys that they were “smart, beautiful and sweet”. Several weeks later, sitting in a crowded and noisy cafeteria at the zoo, one of the boys leaned over and said, “thmart, youful, fweet”. At first I didn’t know what he meant--it was so out of context--but then it dawned on me:

“Smart, beautiful and sweet?”

Head nod affirmative. Coy little smile.

“Yes, Honey! You are my smart, beautiful and sweet boy!”

Now they love to say it and hear it, many times a day.

We also talk about how we are a family, and the fact that no one is leaving. This topic came about one day when we were looking at a world map and talking about how we flew in a very cool airplane from Ethiopia to America. One of the boys took my face in his little hands and said:

“Mommy, this one yucky. Connecticut good.” He was so earnest and there was worry in his eyes.

“Sweetie, you are not going back to Ethiopia. You are going to stay with Mommy and Daddy forever.”

He gave me a big smile, wrapped his arms around my neck, and then he was over it and went off to play (while I went into time-out to choke back my tears). Now, in addition to “no woosah, no buggy, no rain” and “smart, beautiful and sweet”, they also like to say, “Mommy-Daddy-Dash-Taye, America, no leaving”.

I must say that I am surprised that we are having some of these conversations so soon, but I think it is a huge advantage of adopting older children, and words cannot express how lucky I feel to be having these conversations with my brave, resilient, smart, beautiful, sweet boys. I can't wait to hear what's in their amazing little heads this month...