Two and half month personal progress report

Hi, friends,

It’s hard to believe, but Addison has been home with us for 2 ½ months already! We’ve been total slackers about sending out updates, because:
· We’ve been focused on bottles, naptime, bedtimes, baths, feedings, shuttling ella around and getting into a routine
· I’ve been back at work for a while, so during my non-work time I just want to be with the kids
· Holy shit! No one warned us that having two kids would be so overwhelming!

So, we thought it was time to say hi to everyone and to let you know how things are going.

· First and foremost, Addison is happy and healthy and a great kid. The poor guy has been poked and prodded so many times and checked for everything imaginable, and he’s 100% healthy and on track, even by US standards. He weighs 23 lbs and is 29” tall (at 13 months).

· Addison is 100% attached to Radames like you wouldn’t believe. Radames just walks around all day with him on his hip, and then Addison screams bloody murder when he puts him down. Ah, good times. [insert sarcasm]. He definitely knows we’re his parents, but he’s so much more connected with Radames, which is understandable since they are together from 6am until 8pm every day. It sounds weird to say, but we don’t even remember that he’s adopted. He’s just our son, and it feels like he’s always been with us. The adoption seems like a foggy memory from SO long ago.

· Radames has turned into a crazy housewife who complains about dishes and me “messing with his routine”. I think he’s losing his mind, b/c he’s being the best, overachieving parent you could ever imagine. The other day, he went to his man-cave in the basement and watched an entire football game. He emerged elated and claiming that he felt like he’d grown a few new hairs on his chest. (Needless to say, we’re working on him giving himself permission to relax and be a man again!)

· Ella is 100% attached to me in a way she never has been before. Thank goodness we can divide and conquer, but she is SO exhausting. Addison has been a really tough transition for her, b/c she’s so jealous of the attention she now has to share. If I kiss Addison, I have to kiss her twice. If he’s on my lap, she wants to be on my lap. When he gets out of his highchair, she wants to sit there, when I put Addison down she wants to sit in the room in the corner in the dark and watch me rock him to sleep (like a creepy horror movie). She’s starting to loosen up a bit, but the first month or two were pretty unbearable, b/c SHE was so needy, not Addison. It’s getting better though.

· We had his 1 year birthday in NYC on October 12th. We were there to see Radames’ family and go to a wedding, so we got to have a quiet celebration with a few cupcakes and hugs with family. [Note to self: don’t ever drive from TN to Brooklyn with two kids in the backseat again!]

· When we were in ny/ct, we got to see a lot of friends and let Addison do a bit of road show. He got to hang out in the burbs of CT, meet all of his extended Brooklyn family, see people who felt like they knew him already through pics, and eat lots of Spanish food. J It was so nice to see everyone; we can’t wait to go back to see everyone we didn’t get to connect with.

· We just had his 3 month (yikes!) check-in with our social worker who has to send reports back to Ethiopia at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months and every year until he’s 18. I think we “passed” our first check-in. It was really funny because we met her at a Cracker Barrel on the side of the road near Knoxville. As we pulled in, I couldn’t help but think, “little did this kid know he’d leave Ethiopia and end up at a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee!” It was a really funny meeting, complete with Radames sucking on some country ham while I tried to spare the official paperwork from getting country gravy on it. :)

· Addison had his first Halloween; he was Robin. Ella was Batgirl, and they were too cute. there’s a good pic of them attached.

· We are finally meeting with an attorney tomorrow who is helping us with the re-adoption process. Addison is a legal, permanent resident, but he’s not officially a US citizen until we “re-adopt” him via the US courts. That way he can get a US birth certificate, SS number, etc. We aren’t looking forward to all the paperwork and drama again, but we’ve been procrastinating long enough and need to get it done. Next thing you know, he’ll be officially Addison Miles Tyree-Rodriguez. (Now, he’s still legally Eyob Radames Rodriguez.)

· Addison took his first steps on Tuesday evening (Nov. 17th). He’s been teetering and standing, but he finally took his first drunk ol’ man steps across Ella’s bedroom floor. And we got it on video, so we’ll hopefully upload that to our blog soon.

So…we’re here. We’re alive. We’re trapped and will never leave the house again after 7pm, but we’re happy to be a family of four. :)

PS. THANKS so much for the visits, calls, cards and gifts! We are SO behind on the thank you cards, but I promise we’ll get them all out soon.

Addison Took His First Steps

On Tuesday, Nov. 17th, 2009 (at 13 mo. + 5 days, I guess it would be), Addison finally migrated from his imbalanced stance into a 3-step, drunken old man stupor across Ella's bedroom. He did it several times, and he's been off to the races ever since. Exciting and scarey all at the same time.

Off to See the Social Worker

So, tomorrow we are headed to Knoxville to meet up with our social worker. It's hard to believe, but it's time for her to write up our 3 month "progress report" that we have to send back to Ethiopia. We have to do one at 3 mo, 6 mo, 9 mo, and then every year until he's 18! And I just can't believe he's already been with us over 2 months and it's time to write up our first one. Where did the time go!?

In many ways it feels like Addison just got here, b/c he's still just such a peanut. But in other ways, I can't ever remember our life without him. He's definitely our son, and, honestly, I rarely even remember or think about the fact that we adopted him. It just feels like he's always been with us. I can barely even remember going to Ethiopia. It feels like such a foggy dream, and I have to remind myself that it really did happen.

We also finally made an appointment with an attorney for the week after next. He'll be helping us do our TN re-adoption. Addison is legally ours, but his adoption isn't official in our home state (e.g. no US birth certificate, SS card, etc. can be issued) until we re-adopt him in TN. I ventured out the county courthouse last week to pick up petition filing paperwork, and needless to say, that was a futile exercise. I can understand why people would go postal. I was ready to "go legal" after 15 minutes of dealing with Betty and her idiotic co-workers who had no clue in hell what I was talking about and how to be of any help. Even after being re-directed to the "new courthouse where all the fancy offices are", I still ran into nothing but roadblocks as the nasty bi-otches at every counter were like, "honey, I have no idear whatch you'ra talkin' 'bout." I lef there thinking, "Why!? Why!? Why, Wynne, did you even come here!? Why would you waste 1 minute of your work day trying to deal with this?" We're excited for our lawyer's meeting is all I'll say. He was referred to us by our pediatrician who has an internationally adopted daughter, and from what I understand he's even done Ethiopian readoptions. Fingers and toes crossed.

Every thing is going well with the fam. Addison had his (belated) 1 yr check-up this week, so we had to hold him down while they drew even more blood from him poor little arm. Ugh. I hate that more than anything. I just want to burst into tears. They also gave him four shots in his chubby little thighs. :( And I'm not a big vaccine fan, but I just sucked it up knowing it was best for him. :( I hope we don't have to go for a long time. It's just so unbearable every time we're there, b/c he's getting 3 different types of HIV tests, 4 types of Hep A, B, and C tests, checking his titers to see what vaccines "took" and which didn't (so we don't over-immunize him), etc. I hate it, because he hates it.

Ella is doing a lot better with him now. She is acting a little less jealous and getting in the groove of him just being her little brother. She was driving us crazy for a while, but things are calming down now. Radames has this place on 100% lock-down. He's running the house like a military camp. 6am up, 6:30 feeding, 9:00am nap, 11:30 up, noon feeding, 3:30 nap, 6pm feeding, 7:30 bath, 7:45 bottle, 8:00 in crib asleep. He does NOT like his schedule being deviated from in any way. And he pretty much won't let anyone do anything for him. He is in "I've-got-this" mode, and I'm clearly the window dressing. I'm pretty much taking care of Ella as much as I can, so he's not too overwhelmed, but every time I try to take care of both of them he freaks out and tells me he's got it.

I actually had to tell him the other day that he needed to lighten up (imagine me telling Radames to lighten up!), because he's being super hard on himself and uber martyr-like about the chid rearing. I've been working a ton these past few weeks since I've been back at work, and his feeling is "you take care of the business; I'll take care of the family b/c that's my job." How could I ever begin to have to have a problem with that, b/c what woman in the world is so lucky, but...jeez, he's gotta give himself some respite. He needs to call a friend, go to a game, go play some music in the DJ room, something...he's turning into a crazy stay-at-home mom who complains that the bottles aren't in order and that Ella is in bed 5 minutes late. And he's actually quite miserable, b/c he isn't getting his fuel. Work is my fuel, b/c I love what I do and I get to do it with friends all day, but music, movies, friends and sports and solitude are his fuel, and he hasn't been getting any of it. And since we live in a place where none of his close friends live, and it's not a walking city, he's cooped up like a crazy housewife from the 'burbs that's going crazy and complaining about how she can't remember things and how she feels alone.

We're working on it. I've been forcing him to leave us alone and let me do my other job (or being a mom!), just so that he'll go in the basement and watch a game or something. We'll get it worked out. He has to just let go after 5pm; and I've gotta push him outta the mix more often.

Oh, totally random, but if I owe any of you a thank-you card for goodies you've mailed us, I'M SO SORRY. I promise it's on it's way. I've just been swamped at work, and traveling, and then spending every spare minute I can with the kids (did i just say "kids"?!), so I've been writing like 1 per week. We've gotten everything, and are SO thankful. Sorry we've been so rude about that. Well, that I've been so rude about that. Radames isn't really the card-writing type. And he totally get a pass on this one. :)