Two Weeks, Three Days and Counting

How did the time go so fast? Here we sit, just 17 days before we leave and it feels like we just passed Court. We started packing our bags last evening and I realized how many warm clothes we need to get out of stoarge. Addis temps are nothing like Kansas Summers, so no lightweight tops or dresses. I got Amelie/Sosena a windbreaker and we're hoping to have a ride outside of Addis just to experience some of the natural beauty of the country. I hear the mountains are amazing, and even rival Alaska's raw beauty (hard to imagine).

In the meantime, we finished up laying ALL the Mexican clay tiles in the basement this weekend. It's funny how long we take to get do-it-yourself home projects done around here. A few weeks prior to getting Andrew home 2 1/2 years ago we had just completed the play room and art room floors of the basement, and I'd installed a carpet runner on the basement steps. It feels like yesterday. Now, here we are finishing up the floor of the basement breezeway...it's a wide hallway type of room connecting the stairs to the playroom, I'd say about 17-18 feet long by 10 feet wide. It's a tricky space that required a lot of precision cutting of the tiles around awkward corners and stair molding. We're grouting this weekend. I know that every time we look at our beautiful basement floors (with extra wide grout lines to mimic the Southwest style we love) we'll think of both Andrew and Amelie, and the time we waited for them. There is so much love put into this house.

I've got most of Sky's letters and gifts packaged. He and Andrew will receive one a day until we come home. I'll have to mail Sky's to my sister's house in advance because it's just too much to pack in a suitcase. Yesterday Sky became a raving mess again. Crying to the point of hyperventilating, flailing his head everywhere. So dramatic, you'd think someone died. It's so difficult to know how far he should take his emotions.... he can't simply talk to us about our trip, he just falls apart in an extreme way. I hold him a while, stroke his hair and we talk, and talk in circles. The same conversation each time. Then it's clear that coddling him is causing him to convulse and practically stop breathing. Really, it's that intense. He's pulling his hair, rubbing his eyes out and the tears have no end. We have 17 days left before departure and we're concerned about encouraging this each day. We want him to share his feelings, that's great, but we don't want him to make himself physically ill. His nervous system has to be on overload. It always feels like there is a deeper pain behind what he says he's crying about. An old, undefinable grief, possibly primal with his birth or foster mother in Guatemala. He's too young to figure it out, and all we can do is comfort him. He's done a lot of work on the abandonment issues at home and in therapy, but it's a lifelong, evolving process. I'm fascinated by how different Andrew and Sky are in this regard, even though Andrew came home much older- 7 years vs. Sky at 17 months. Andrew doesn't have the endless hole of grief, loss and fears of abandonment. I believe personality and prenatal karmic related tendencies have so much to do with it.

Anyway, to break up Sky's mental pattern last evening after an hour of crying, Daniel walked into his room at bedtime and said "Stop picking your nose." Sky stopped and looked at Daddy, puzzled "What?!" Daniel said "I saw your finger shoved way up your nostril and I don't want you doing that." Of course, this wasn't true, but it was an attempt at changing the subject so Sky would calm down and maybe start arguing instead of crying (his favorite past time). It worked. Daniel laid down with Sky and he was calm the rest of the evening, fell asleep fine. Poor guy gets caught up in a tidal wave of emotions that seem larger than life. Everything is super serious and all encompassing to Sky, and I mean everything is usually much larger than reality. When he's clear headed, I think we're going to start helping Sky focus on all the positives about this trip- that he gets to have a vacation at his aunt's house, daily gifts from Mom and Dad and the new sister he's just dying to hold and love. He also needs to start young at understanding something our guru emphasizes- he is not his emotions, and they don't have to control him. They're like wild horses pulling the carriage all over the place. God knows Sky detests the idea of anything controlling him.

Okay- time to go nest, clean, pack, make lists, start Embassy paperwork and enjoy the sound of a very heavy and constant rain. It's an empty house today and I'm really enjoying it.