Meskerem Walks, Parents Swoon

Sure, it’s a shaky, poorly blocked, jerky video, but it’s created by proud parents who just watched their little girl take her first steps:

Untitled from Tom Chandler on Vimeo.

Happiness is a Warm Fall Day

“Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.”

— Victor Hugo

The Long Trip Home From Ethiopia (The Journey’s Just Beginning)

We’ve arrived home safely from Ethiopia, but while the flesh is here, the spirit seems to have been left behind – probably somewhere between Greenland and the North Pole.

The trip home was long and – for an 11 month old child experiencing her parents and air travel for the first time – probably grueling.

Before the long trip home...

That little Meskerem endured it well is testament to her sweet nature; that her parents still act and feel like the walking dead is testament to the difficulty of the trip.

We’ve been home in the tiny alpine town of Mount Shasta four days now, and Meskerem is already growing before our eyes.

When we first met her she seemed cautious – perhaps even withdrawn.

We were a tiny bit concerned.

Right now, that concern has disappeared; Meskerem has become a happy, outgoing, and yes, sometimes loud little girl.

As her father, I’m proud to announce that I’ve successfully taught her to make raspberry noises with her lips, we’ve got the High Five down, and she’s even doing the inward-puckered fish face.

Sure, her mother isn’t exactly thrilled with the exact nature of the things I’m teaching her, but – and I’m sure every male child development professional will back me on this one – growth occurs in ways that we don’t always expect.

Besides, we’ll soon be moving on to making farting noises with her armpits. Mommy’s going to be so proud.

More importantly, in just a handful of days, she’s stopped observing life from a distance, and has plunged in head first.

She’s chasing the cats around the floor (after all, they’re all on four legs).

She’s not running when Wally the Wonderdog licks her face (and he loves licking her face).

The day before yesterday we slipped her into the backpack and took a hike into the woods, and she seemed completely transfixed.

And while nobody’s sleeping through the night, she’s been a trooper given her utter lack of a schedule.

We’re working on that part, and with the sun now shining for the first time in two dayds, optimism abounds here in our mountainside home.

In addition, I’ll be posting a few pieces I wrote while in Ethiopia (Internet access from the hotel never materialized, but us writers write anyway), and yes – the legally required photos and videos from the trip.

In other words, more to come. Our voyage is just beginning.

Tom & Nancy

Weekly Quick Thoughts Digest

• RT @jhawkerjohn: International adoption: the baby sleeps through the night and the parents don't. It's 4 am and I'm wide awake. #

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The Closer We Get to Addis Ababa, the Less The Trip Matters

We made it as far as Dubai, where we’ll hunker for a day before making the final, four-hour flight to Addis Ababa.

And I sat down with every intention of writing all about the 14.5 hour flight and the jet lag and the culture shock, but the words fade in light of the looming reality: We are on giant step closer to finally meeting Little M.

For so long, Little M has been an idea; an abstract.

Then she became a slightly more real abstract, but one that was months (at minimum) away.

Now she’s exactly one day and a four-hour plane flight from becoming a flesh & blood reality.

And the space between us – the time and distance – grows less substantial with every second.

Does Little M sense anything coming towards her? Something new and bright and shiny on the horizon?

The Voyage to Ethiopia Begins (or, How I’m Desperately Trying to Love International Travel)

In the larger sense, the journey is just beginning. The years stretch ahead.

Still, from a narrower perspective, the real journey – the part between here and Ethiopia and here again – is about to begin.

This is a long, long trip – one that stretches out seemingly forever because I travel about as well as your average cat (I try to hide, make pathetic hissing noises, and claw at anyone who comes near).

That sad reality casts the coming 15.35 hour flight in what I’ll call an unpretty light (the kind used to light popular horror movies might be appropriate), and if someone’s playing pipe organ music when I get on the plane, I’m turning around and getting off.

Travel, after all, is the thing you do when the place you’re at lacks something found at the place you’re going, so the way I see it, you start every plane ride with one strike against you.

Of course, those might be the bitter, cynical hissings of a cat that won’t sleep on planes, has trouble reading on planes, and largely hates sitting on planes.

Still, the laptop’s loaded with podcasts, Ted Leeson’s latest book beckons, and sure, 15.35 hours might be enough to write a whole essay chapter.

And yes, a bottle of Ambien lurks nearby, and I’m not above taking the coward’s way out (eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines).

It’s likely the trip over will seem like a cruise ship compared to the trip back, where a couple of parents with no real kid experience will be handed a kid (who has only 11 months of kid experience), and will try to shepherd that kid (now our tiny life form) back to her new life, and it’s possible she won’t be happy about the arrangement.

Well, not at first.

Eventually, she’s going to love it, but I suspect that doesn’t happen until she arrives home and gets her feet licked by Wally the Wonderdog, who will become her favorite play toy.

I’m going to love it too, though I suspect I’ll love it more once I’m back on solid, un-moving ground.

In the meantime, contact with the outside world (the Intertubes) will be limited, though I do plan to barrage my readers with images, words, and video once we return.

Until then, the voyage continues.

Growing as a Person (or, Why You Should Occasionally Throw a Brick Through a Window)

An influential professor always told me that comfort is your enemy, which is why – every once in a while – we all need to pick up a brick and toss it through one of the plate glass windows which so neatly contain our lives.

In other words, if you want to grow, you sometimes need to make uncomfortable, life-altering choices.

Like that day in college when I realized words were cool things, and perhaps I could make a living arranging them for people.

Or the decades-later realization that my clients had email addresses, so maybe I could live near a good trout stream instead of the alternate universe known as the Silicon Valley.

Then there was the afternoon I realized life with a certain woman looked a more appealing than life without her, and that it was time to make this whole thing permanent.

Every one of those decisions seemed huge at the time – and each created its fair share of anxiety – but all worked out beautifully.

Time to pick up another brick.

Soon, my wife and I are saddling up a Boeing 777 jet and flying literally halfway around the world to meet our little daughter.

Our new little daughter.

Holy shit.

I’m about to become a parent.

The New Reality

And yes, since this process began over a year ago, I have often huddled in bed at 3:30 in the morning, eyes wide open, mentally bulleting the ways I could emotionally (and physically) scar a kid already facing the challenges of adoption.

The good news? While adoption rules forbid me from posting her picture or name here, the pictures we’ve seen clearly indicate Little M (my clever code name) is cuter, smarter and just plain better than all the other kids on the planet.

In fact, it’s likely she’s a world-class athlete, a brilliant chessplayer, and a natural-born fly fisherman.

I just know it.

You can tell by looking. Plain as day.

(And yes – I already have the whole Proud Poppa thing down pat.)

The Parent Trap

I suspect I’m not entirely alone in this, but as parent-to-be, I’m already excellent at cycling between excitement and sheer terror.

One minute I’m convinced I’m going to be a great dad, teaching my daughter all the really cool, important stuff while driving her to her next athletic triumph (track/tennis/soccer/etc – I’m easy).

The next minute I imagine falling prey to one of my absent-minded fogs, forgetting to feed my daughter, wandering off, then coming home to find her swilling drain cleaner from the bottle I left on the floor next to the gasoline-soaked rags piled on the accidentally left-on stove.

Clearly, anticipation is a two-edged sword.

Stepping beyond the glass window that defines the limits of your “normal” life means picking up a brick and creating a little chaos.

You throw the brick, life changes, and then you sweep up the broken glass – and notice the view is clearer, plus you’ve got more room to grow than before.

Things may be challenging for a while, but you remember that’s the way things are supposed to be, and you can’t really complain.

I mean, it’s what you asked for when you picked up the brick in the first place.

Weekly Quick Thoughts Digest

• Received a gift book about raising Muslim children from someone. Of course, Ethiopia's a Christian country… #
• How is it everyone knows someone who has adopted internationally? #

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International Adoption Fodder for Reality TV Show?

It’s hard to believe, even when you read it: television has-been Pauly Shore is launching a comeback attempt with his own TV reality show chronicling his attempt to adopt a child from Africa.

Lovely.

International adoption has not benefited from the attention of celebrities; Madonna’s recent adoption serves as an excellent example about how not to do something.

Suddenly, an act of love and commitment becomes fodder for a has-been’s comeback attempt.

I hope the subject’s handled with something approaching sensitivity. But I’m not holding my breath.

Adoption & Patience (or, Waiting on Family)

Patience isn’t my strong suit.

Our court date has come and gone – and we’re apparently the actual legal parents of Little M (my clever code name for our cuter-than-every-other-kid girl). Yet still no news as to when we go get her.

To say I’m impatient is an understatement.

And yes, this is precisely the kind of situation where a real adult person might practice a little patience, adopting a fatalistic approach and enduring the wait with good humor.

My solution?

In my less patient moments, I say throw Little M in a FedEx box, poke a few air holes in it, toss in an extra bottle and blanket, and she’s here tomorrow morning.

To me it sounds foolproof, which is why it’s a good thing that people like my wife run things while people like me mostly just write about them.

I’m not exactly serious, but I am ready to begin building our family, and the light at the end of the tunnel feels as if it’s both coming in view and receding at the same time.

Still, it’ll happen. It just seems like forever.

We’re coming Little M. We don’t know precisely when. But we do know we’ll starting becoming a family the second we arrive.