7 months and beyond...

My babies got shot...

by a very talented photographer, I might add. Check out these photos that my oh-so-talented sister-in-law took over the weekend. It's like she went over each baby with a fine tooth comb, and highlighted each and every sweet detail on their bodies. Ohhhh... I'm in love with my babies all over again!

Check out her photography here. If you're in southern California, maybe she could work some magic for you too!

Baby Updates

I haven't been much of a blogger lately, due to laziness... and a little distraction! But life at home with the twins has been fantastic. The progress they've made in the last month has been amazing, and I swear they grow by leaps and bounds everyday.

Just a quick update:

• Yes, they're sleeping through the night.
• Yep, they're on the same schedule!
• No, they don't cry much.
• Yes, they are the sweetest little things I've ever known.
• And oh yeah, sometimes I want to eat them. That's natural, right?

In lieu of a written journal, here are a few photos from the last month. Can you tell how rotten these guys are? :)

Life at Toukoul

Check out this beautiful footage of life at the Toukoul orphanage:
(Thanks for sharing these links, Tania!)

Part 1

Part 2

Ethiopia: Day 7/8, The Journey Home

Today I stayed back at the guest house with the babies during the afternoon, and Eric headed out to find some local music CDs to bring home with us, with some guidance from Solomon. I tell you, that guy is a jack of all trades. He has a great sense of humor too. Eric has nicknamed him MJ, due to his love of all things Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan. His iPhone (of course he has one), even had a Michael Jackson song as the ringtone. Do You Remember the Time?

We had our last Ethiopian dinner at the guesthouse with all the other families, and though it was weird to be leaving this place, Eric and I were both ready to be home. One last crazy taxi ride, and there we were at the Addis Ababa airport.

Things are different here. For instance, while waiting in the terminal, several people just lit up cigarettes right next to us. OK, so there’s smoking inside the airport. Only in designated areas, which are in no way sectioned off from the other areas, but apparently, right where we found the only 2 seats together.

So, we moved across the room, and eventually found some new seats. As we waited for the airline to announce which rows would be boarding first, Melese started to get a little restless. He went from uneasy to hysterical in a matter of minutes. Right about then, they announced that the plane was boarding. Not like, “such and such rows are boarding now”, but more like, “Everybody board at once!”. Total chaos.

We frantically tried to gather our things, but could not pull ourselves together in any graceful manner. Meanwhile, Melese was getting more hysterical by the second. What is wrong with this boy? We thought he might be hot in his baby carrier, so Eric started to pull him out… and that’s when I saw it.

Possibly the worst diaper explosion ever.

That boy had poo from his crack to the top of his back. Sick. And what impeccable timing! At this point, Eric and I became frantic. Eric rushed to change Melese’s diaper as he screamed and flailed (his clothes were so bad, we threw them away), while I tried to organize our stuff for boarding and keep Mamenesh calm. Meanwhile, people are crowding right around us to board the plane. We felt like we were on display, with a sign that said: “HEY! Look at these ridiculous new parents. They have no idea what they’re doing!!”

Our stuff was strung out everywhere. Mamenesh was growing more restless by the second, and I could not fit everything back into the diaper bag, that had once all fit so nicely. The situation was making me so anxious, I had to laugh to keep from crying. Which then made Eric upset. He couldn’t understand how I could be laughing at something so frustrating. And of course, I could not explain myself at this point. It was like I was outside my body watching us.

Of course, Mamenesh then had a repeat performance of the messy diaper… TWIN POWER! Luckily it wasn’t the exploding type. So, two dirty diapers later, we finally got everything in enough of a pile to carry onto the plane. Frankly, after such a stressful start, I wasn’t sure if we could handle this flight home. I looked around the terminal, and everyone had boarded but us. The gate attendants were making the last calls for boarding.

We finally step onto the plane, and the flight attendant must have seen the distress in our faces, as Melese continued to arch his back and scream at tones only dogs can hear. She could not have been nicer or more accommodating to us. We had seats apart from each other, but she somehow managed to rearrange other passengers on this sold out flight, and sit us together in front of a bassinet. OH, praise the Lord!! This was nothing short of a miracle, on this flight that had at least 30 other babies. I said a little prayer right there.

Ten minutes later, and we were taxiing down the runway. Bottles in baby mouths, and Eric and I looking at each other, wondering what we were in for over the next 30 hours of travel. (Not to mention, the rest of our lives...) Would we ever make it back to the States? Or would we wind up in a mental institution somewhere in Amsterdam?

Fortunately, after that rough start things could not have gone smoother. The babies slept the whole flight from Addis to Amsterdam. The 7 hour layover in Amsterdam was a breeze, thanks to the beautiful baby lounge in the airport. And then from Amsterdam to Connecticut, we got 2 BASSINETS, and the babies slept nearly the whole way. Seriously, miracles do happen!

On our last flight from Connecticut to home, the babies were squealing again when we stepped onto the plane. Backs arching, tears, screams, the whole package. At this point, Eric and I were so delirious tired, we could only laugh as we tried to soothe them. You know—that scary, crazed laughter, where you’re not sure if you’ve crossed that line of insanity or not. We looked around this tiny little plane at the other passengers, cringing at the thought of these screaming babies, with their new parents who had clearly gone mad. I think we normally would have been more apologetic...but we had no sympathy for other passengers at this point. A 2 hour flight? Pshhh…that’s nothing! HA

Eric saying "Hsss... don't take a picture, he might start squealing again!"

Thank goodness, they fell asleep again on that last flight. (Melese, asleep in the back-arched position. At this point, whatever makes him happy is fine with us.) And just as our heads started bobbing forward, and our eyes began to roll around, we landed in our hometown. Safe and sound! Babies strapped on our fronts. Bags on our backs, over our shoulders, and under our eyes. Covered in spit-up and slobber. But we were here, and we were happy. Life could not be better!

Our families anxiously awaited us in the terminal, and it was an awesome greeting. These tiny little celebrities were surrounded by the family paparazzi, and boy did Melese ham it up. All the excitement caused him to puke a little on his granddad, but he was good after that. Our drivers took us home, and Eric and I crashed hard, while Grandmama took the first night shift and saved us from the sleep-deprived insanity that we feared was just around the corner. It was a beautiful thing.

We are so happy to be back home in sweet home USA!

Ethiopia: August 6

Today we ventured out to see the Ethiopian national museum in the afternoon, only to find out that Melese isn’t much of a history buff. We walked around the ground floor for about 20 minutes before he started wailing for some reason, and no matter what he tried, we could not calm him down.

There’s a funny thing about being in Ethiopia with an Ethiopian baby. The whole community notices you. And in a way, feels that they know your baby. Sometimes the attention is really nice, like when people compliment your baby, or say nice things. Then again, sometimes it’s just weird, like when people (total strangers) tell you how to hold your baby, or that you need to feed him so that he will stop crying (even though he just had a bottle 20 minutes ago). Hey, thanks for the tip!

So after 10 minutes of trying to calm Melese down outside the museum, attracting the security guards, cashier, and an American doctor (ya, this boy can scream), we gave up and headed back to the guest house. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we sat in the car Melese mysteriously stopped crying. Go figure!

This afternoon we headed out to the Post Office, a touristy shopping spot, to pick up some souvenirs. Beautiful carvings, hand woven scarves, clothing, jewelry, artwork. Anything you can imagine, it’s all there. And the bargaining is kinda fun too. We even picked up a couple future birthday presents for Melese and Mamenesh.

Afterwards we hit up a coffee shop, and bought some fresh roasted beans to take home with us. The shops here roast their own beans, which we heard takes around 3 days to do. The shops are a little smoky inside, from all the roasting, but they smell wonderful. Can’t wait to try that stuff!

Later, we headed out for dinner with the other families from the guest house to Fasika, a traditional Ethiopian restaurant in town. The restaurant was beautiful. The music was thumpin. The dancers were stompin. And the food… oh! Awesome. Just look at this beautiful plate of food.

I think my favorite part of the evening was the dancers. They performed the whole evening, doing dances from each of the cultural regions of Ethiopia. It’s amazing how different each region is. And all so beautiful. One set included the dancers wearing giant fluffy wigs made of monkey hair. But we particularly enjoyed the region our babies came from —Gamo Goffa, shown here.

At one point, the dancers split up and went to tables to involve the crowd. I was lucky enough to be chosen to dance, and I did my best—though my classic dance moves didn’t quite fit the bill. Lots of shoulder action on this one. And I swear this guy was looking just below my shoulders the whole time. Maybe that’s part of the dance… or maybe he was just a perv. I dunno.
Anyway, it was an awesome night. It was great to spend one last night with our fellow guest-housers, and the entertainment was amazing. Oh, and can you believe, all of this only cost around 100 birr/person? That’s about $10 USD, including tip. Pretty amazing.

Ethiopia: August 5

Our first night with the twins started out well. I’m not saying we slept much (since both of us were listening for them to breathe every 5 seconds), but at least the babies slept well. They’ve both been fighting some congestion, and I think they sound a little bit like Mogwais (you know, baby Gremlins) when they breathe… so when the snorting stops, you wonder if they’re still ok! All was good until around 2:30am, when Mamenesh decided it was time to get up and play. In addition to her stuffy nose, the formula we’ve started her on doesn’t seem to be settling as well as it is for Melese, so she’s having some tummy issues. Eventually, we got her back to sleep and Eric and I were both tired enough to ignore their little Mogwai snorts for awhile. Then Melese woke up and was ready to party too. Woo hoo! Long story short, we didn’t sleep too much. I guess I better get used to these shiners around my eyes, cause life might be this way for a while… Anyway, it’s lunchtime now, and Eric just left to grab some formula that may work better, and amazingly, the twins are both sleeping right now. (Of course they would, it’s daytime now!)
The guest house has been really nice. You pretty much have a full service staff here, which is weird to get used to, but I can’t complain. They’ve cooked great meals every day, and even wash the baby bottles for us! I’ve heard they even do your laundry here. My only problem is that I feel a little weird handing my undies off to a stranger, and asking them to wash up! Hmmm. I’ll have to ask some of the other guests how they’ve approached this.