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It is difficult to believe that a year ago today Yikealo took the step out of his pictures and off the pages and swaggered into our lives in person. Has it really been a whole year!? Didn't we get him yesterday... or has it been ten years now...
In retrospect, we were foolish to make "the walk" up the hill from the Union Hotel to Hannah's Hope with such trepidation in our hearts (for an account of that day, see THIS). At the time though, there was no way for us to differentiate between our loving, well-adjusted, eats-everything-in-sight, sleeps-through-the-night son from the distant, troubled, picky, howler that we dreaded adopting. Rather than fitting the bill of our nighmare, Yikealo has been simply delicious for the past year. With a cherry on top!

From that first morning in Ethiopia when we woke up to him kissing our noses and then demanding we kiss his to giving me "some squish" this evening before bed, he has been a little boy full of love for his adoptive parents. His smile is infectious; there are new friends to meet everywhere. It is amazing how much better we know our neighbors now that he draws them into conversation everytime he sees them while we're out walking.

I am so thankful for the year that I've had with my son and that even though he's grown five inches eatin' his mama's cookin', he's still small enough to fit so comfortably in my heart.

Happy Father's Day, Dearest!

David, it has been an amazing thing to watch you grow into the role of a father during the last year. You have always been the best husband that I can imagine, and it has been a joy to watch the love that you have for me expand to include the precious little boy that we brought home from Ethiopia one year ago. So, thank you - for loving both of us, for being such a great provider, role model and picture of Christ all wrapped up in one wonderful package. I hope that you will always know how much you mean to both Yikealo and me. Right now, he may not have the words to tell you, but I hope that you see it every day in his actions - in the way that he begs for "one more kiss" before you leave for work, in the way that he drops whatever he is doing to run to the door yelling "Daddy's home!" when you return in the evening, in the way that he tries to emulate you in every possible thing, and in the way that he proudly tells people, "Me and my Dad have dark hair and dark eyes." He may listen better to me,  but it is so easy to see that you are everything that he wants to be!

Birthday Party

Yikealo's birthday is at the end of this week, but we celebrated with David's family last Saturday. A certain little boy was VERY excited about it all - he's been quite envious of all of his cousins who have had birthdays during the last year, and he's asked over and over, "When is MY birthday?" Thanks to James and Susan for hosting all 24 of us for a very loud, fun evening - just a little pre-cursor to our family vacation later this summer!

We were supposed to do appetizers for everyone, and as part of that, we treated the family to a taste of Ethiopia. My Mom was visiting for a few days, and we took her to Cleveland's Ethiopian restaurant on Friday evening. Mr. Y had not wanted to go - when we told him that we were going to eat injera and shiro, he said, "AGAIN??" and pouted (we haven't had it since February). As soon as we were served, however, he LOVED it - he couldn't stop eating, even though he was getting quite full. At one point, he was holding his stomach, and he asked me to loosen his adjustable waist jeans, but then he dug into the food again. I tried to caution him, "Yikealo, if you're getting too full, don't eat anymore. You don't need to finish this, okay? You don't want to get sick." He gave me one of those "You-are-so-silly-Mom" looks and said, "If somebody is getting full, they just need their mom to make their pants not too tight and they can eat more." Hmmmm.....makes me wonder if there was some psychological thing going on with memories of hunger, because we often have to argue with him to get him to eat more than about 3 bites.

At any rate, we bought some extra shiro and injera for David's family to try at the party and ALMOST everyone tried it!

Yikealo soaked up all of the attention as usual. There were presents, a pinata, a cake and lots of ice cream, and ultimately, a very happy little boy.

He fell in love with these goggles for some reason, and spent quite a bit of the evening riding a tricycle around the basement while wearing them...attractive, isn't he? He said that he was "the bad guy."

Check out this ornery kid! Is it any wonder that Quinn and Yikealo are such good buddies?

The younger boys all received matching shirts for our trip to the beach later this summer.

The kids all had a marvelous time with the pinata - just what they all need, more sugar!

I was very busy last week with the Nursing Home silent auction, so David handled the party planning and the cake. He did a great job, and I don't think that I have ever seen a Dad so excited about a little boy's birthday...

I wish that I had gotten a good photo of Yikealo's face while we were all singing "Happy Birthday" to him - he was just glowing!

After the candles were blown out, the two little boys had a great time dipping the candles into the cake and licking off the frosting. The germ-a-phobes among you can pretend that you didn't see that part!

As a special note to Aunt Susan and Aunt Julie, the boy has been spending as much time as possible this week riding his bike while wearing his new Spiderman "hollmet" and squeaking his horrid bicycle horn. He generally has his new pop-gun wrapped around the handlebars, and has to make frequent stops to "shoot" our next-door teenage neighbor boy, Heath. Heath, being a great kid, plays along and pretends to fall down dead, which of course encourages "the bad guy" to continue...

One Year of Parenthood

One year ago today we officially became parents to a little boy named Yikealo when our case passed court in Ethiopia. One year ago today Yikealo said goodbye to his birth mom when she stopped by Hannah’s Hope to visit him after finalizing her relinquishment during the court process. Here is a photo of him from that day taken by our case worker who was in Ethiopia at the time:

On the other side of the globe, my day was a little different than I had been imagining it would be. I had always pictured myself staying quietly at home, praying and fasting through the day of our court date, but that wasn’t to be. David was voted onto the board of directors for our church’s nursing home a few years ago, which made me an automatic member of the ladies' auxiliary. Friday, June 5th, 2009 happened to coincide with our HUGE annual garage sale and silent auction at the nursing home, so I knew that I was going to be kept very busy all day - all week actually. Looking back, that was probably a good thing because I really didn’t have time to worry or fret over the outcome of the court appointment. In fact, that morning I was up by 5:00 in order to get everything ready on time to be at the nursing home by 6:00. Ethiopia is 7 hours ahead of us, so as I sat down for a quick breakfast, I knew that it was quite possible that our case had already gone before the judge. We had been told by our case manager that we would not hear any results until the following week, but as I spent some prayer time with the Lord that morning, I remember telling Him, “Father, I wish I could somehow know the outcome of this. I would feel so much more peaceful today if I could just know whether we’ll pass this step. Could You please let me know somehow?”

I opened my Bible, and the following words leaped off of the page at me: “Woman, behold thy son.” My arms were immediately covered in goosebumps, and I JUST KNEW…I was a Mama. Three days later, that news was confirmed by a phone call from AGCI’s office, but God had told me first.

So, technically, I've been a mother for one year now - and what an amazing year it has been! As of today, we've sent off our signed and notarized contracts to AGCI for our second adoption, and we are looking forward to what the next year will bring...

Memorial Day

Today was a fun day full of new experiences for Yikealo. We started out the morning by meeting Grandpa, Grandma, Jana, Jason, and James and Susan's family for breakfast and then we watched a Memorial Day parade. After the parade, we attended the special service held at the Wooster Cemetery. Yikealo got to see his first parade, learn about saluting the flag and spend lots of time with his cousins - all very exciting things. Our favorite quote of the day, however, came as a result of our attempts to explain our plans for the morning:

Me: "Yikealo, you need to hurry up and get dressed, because we need to leave soon."
Y: "Menden we're going?"
Me: "Well, we're going to go have breakfast with Grandpa and Grandma, and then we're going to go to a parade."
Y: "Menden a parade is?"
Me: "It's kind of hard to explain, but you'll get to see some police cars and some fire trucks and then we'll go to the cemetery and you'll get to hear some guns being fired and hear a band playing some music. Doesn't that sound like fun?"
Y: "Yeah! Mom, can I please shoot the band?"

Okay, so he totally missed the point of that explanation! Not to mention - what a violent way to commemorate Grandpa's service as a NON-combatant army medic in Vietnam! Once we got to the cemetery, he wanted to know if he could pull the flags off of the soldier's graves and play with them. We told him that he couldn't, and David attempted to explain:

David: "Yikealo, do you know what a soldier is?"
Y: "No. Menden a soldier is?"
David: "A soldier is a person who fights a war - as part of an army."
Me: "So that other people can be free."
Y: "Oh! Okay! I'm free too!" (He meant "three" - he still can't get the "th" sound down.)
David: (grinning at me) "So, how's it going for you this morning?"

Anyway, he was pretty fascinated with everything, even if he didn't get to "shoot the band." Here are a few photos for everyone...

He got to ride on Grandpa's shoulders for quite a bit of the time - what a spoiled little boy! In the first photo, he was insisting that Jana hold his hand so that she wouldn't fall.

Jumping In Again...

So, God has been moving in our hearts for quite some time now, and during the last few weeks, He's really been grabbing our attention...and we are starting over on another adoption! It's so different than last time, and yet so much the same. It's scary stepping out into the unknown, but it's not quite so unknown as it was in the fall of 2008. We've actually got almost a year of parenting under our belts this time around, but of course every child is different, so that may not mean much at all in the end. We've already been through the paperwork and homestudy part of it once, so we may know what to expect, but on the other hand, there have been lots of changes to the process since we went through it, the most obvious being that Ethiopia now requires two trips to adopt a child.

The biggest change is in our hearts. We aren't fighting with God going into this adoption - instead, we are looking forward with joyful expectation to see where He will lead. Our eyes have been opened to the great need of the nearly 150 million orphans in this world that we as Christians have been called to serve and care for. Our hearts have been broken by the contrast between our lifestyle and the ones we saw in Ethiopia last summer, and we cannot turn our backs on the fact that we have the room and the resources available to take in another child in desperate need of a family. We are thankful that God has called us so clearly once again to reach out to "the least of these," and we are looking forward to the day when we meet our second child.

Will there be difficult days ahead? Absolutely. The little boy or girl that God brings to us will have already dealt with some type of horrible tragedy in his or her life. There will be scars and pain to deal with. Satan will try his best to distract us from the Lord's plans, and there will be days when it feels like he is succeeding. The last time, his attack came in the form of David's disintegrating health at a very crucial time. Yet we know that "greater is He who is in us," and our Father will be there through every single moment - to pick us up, dust us off, and restore our faith in the beauty of His promises. He is faithful, and after all, He has already done this for us: adopted us as His son and daughter - in spite of the mess that we were in, in spite of the way that we fail Him, in spite of the way that we push away from Him at times. He loves us anyway - always and forever. If we are to be His reflection to a dark and dying world, how can we turn away from those who need His light so very much?

We invite you to pray with us as we embark on this new journey. Pray for our unknown child, for the family in Ethiopia that is perhaps being forced into unimaginable choices, for Yikealo and his acceptance of a future sibling, and for our courage and faith to stay strong. Most of all, we ask that you pray that the name of Jesus will be glorified!

Proof of Citizenship

Apparently, there was no need whatsoever for concern about our appointment with USCIS yesterday, but thanks anyway for your prayers! I'll have to give some background here on why I was worried in the first place...

When an adopted child enters the US on an IR-4 visa (meaning the adoptive parents did not meet the child before the adoption became final in the foreign country) that child becomes a permanent resident, but not a citizen, so the parents need to re-adopt the child in order to gain citizenship. Every state, and actually every county, has different requirements on re-adoption, so it can get a little confusing. The state of Ohio requires that the child must live with you for a minimum of 6 months before the re-adoption takes place, and our county requires an attorney and a court procedure. We took care of that part of it in December, received an Ohio birth certificate in February, and then tried to apply for a Social Security number using his new birth certificate and the official court documents. I knew that eventually we would need to apply for a Certificate of Citizenship (COC), because you cannot get a US passport using only the Ohio birth certificate, as it is a shortened version. However, at that point, we were mainly concerned with getting our taxes done so that we could collect the rather hefty adoption tax credit, and I had heard from other adoptive parents that dealing with USCIS to obtain a COC could be quite a lengthy process. One family applied for their COC last July, and in mid-February, they were told that hopefully their application would be looked at within that next month - a little longer than we wanted to wait!

We were told three different times by three different Social Security agents that we had everything necessary and that we should receive the number within 2 weeks. After waiting for 3 weeks and hearing nothing, I called the SS office to check on it. Sure enough, I was told that they had been "planning to call me" because their computer system wouldn't take Yikealo's information without a COC, so we would have to get that document first. AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!! At that point, it was past the middle of March, so taxes were due in less than a month. We filed with the IRS for a tax ID number for Yikealo and also filed for an extension on our taxes. In a funny side-note, the tax ID # supposedly takes 4-8 weeks to obtain, but ours came after 3 and 1/2 weeks...on April 16th. We barely needed that extension!

In the meantime,  I got serious about the COC nonsense and downloaded the form from the USCIS website. The 7 page form has 8 pages of instructions, and you have to send copies of every document ever produced about yourselves in with it: birth certificates, marriage license, proof of residence, court documents, Ethiopian documents and translations, green card, passport photos, etc. Oh yeah, and a check for $420. In addition, we sent copies of the referral documents that showed the two different birthdates for Yikealo, as well as a letter stating why we had made the decision to change his birthdate. Before I sent the packet in, I called USCIS to find out if I needed anything additional to explain why his Ethiopian and Ohio birth certificates had two different dates. The woman that I spoke with said, "Oh my, I have no idea how you should handle that. Let me check with my superior." I waited on the phone, and when she came back, she informed me that USCIS would undoubtedly reject my application unless I wrote to the US consulate in Ethiopia and asked them to please have the Ethiopian government to issue a new birth certificate with the new birthdate. WHAT???? In a slightly panicked voice, I told her that was impossible, and then I got a little sarcastic, "So you're telling me, that even though he became a US citizen in DECEMBER, has an OHIO BIRTH CERTIFICATE, and a UNITED STATES JUDGE signed court documents stating his new birthdate, that you still need another meaningless birth certificate from ETHIOPIA? It's not like the current Ethiopian birth certificate is original in any way - it has our last name on it, for crying out loud!  Don't you think that the Ethiopian government has more important things to do than make up documents for citizens of another country?" She stated again that I could try to send in what I had, but that it probably would be rejected.

I called our adoption agency and spoke to the post-adoption coordinator, who told me that she had never heard of such a thing, and they'd had several families who had successfully changed a child's age. I went ahead and sent the application and supporting documents to our local USCIS office in Cleveland, and then prepared to wait for months before hearing anything further. To my surprise, we received the interview summons within 3 weeks. It didn't say anything about why an interview was required, but it did say in bold letters that we needed to bring the original documents for every single copy that we had sent in. Needless to say, I was a little worried, although David kept telling me that everything would be fine.

So, yesterday we went to Cleveland for our appointment...and it was great! We were essentially there for a ceremony welcoming Yikealo as a US citizen. The lady that we spoke to was very friendly and she kept commenting on how cute Yikealo was. The only "original document" that she asked for was his green card - which she kept, because he no longer needs it. We had to verify his name, our address, and his birthdate, and then sign several documents in his name. Finally, David had to stand, raise his right hand and take an oath of citizenship on behalf of Yikealo. Y thought that this was great fun and raised his right hand too, trying to repeat everything that the lady said. Finally, we received the coveted Certificate of Citizenship, along with a letter from President Obama congratulating Yikealo, and Yikealo received a little American flag. It was actually a sweet little moment, and even better....we're DONE! All that remains is to get that Social Security number...