Blessing Four: Double Mint Family

The computer with the pictures is having a temper tantrum and is in time-out so I haven't been able to post all the fun times we have had in September. This kind of squelched my blogger creativity but then I thought I could still list blessings even without pictures.

I actually had to mentally take this thought and make it a blessing as I found I was getting frustrated with it. What is it you ask? Being the Double Mint family. I remember there were ads in the 80's for Double Mint gum which had a bunch of twins in them. The hot twins would get tons of looks and people would stare at them or in my mind take a double take... look once, turn away, and then turn to gawk. I remember our senior year of high school the identical twins in our class did a hilarious spoof skit on this idea. Weird fact is we had four sets of identical twins in our class of 90 students. Anyways... off that tangent.

Since we have had the boys we have become the "double mint family". People look at us, turn away and then turn back to stare at the rainbow of colors. Some are subtle and some so obvious that they are rude. Some think they are subtle and some don't care that they are gawking at us. They look at me and or Ben, scan to the boys, and then back to me who is often still watching them. I found for awhile that I stopped making eye contact as I didn't want to see the same old looks of surprise. Sometimes I just want to blend. In fact far too often I have wanted to blend in life. I am too much of a people pleaser and just want to be part of the crowd. I don't want to stick out everywhere I go or have people stare at me. I was never the gorgeous person that people would stare at. I did have one summer in England where I fled to recover from a broken heart. I was skinny as all get out from said heart ache. I had a small tan and long bleached blonde hair. I think being heart broken adds a mystery to you that is appealing and for one brief summer I was the girl who turned heads. At first it was an ego booster at a time when I really needed to feel good about myself. Soon enough though I was tired of sticking out and wanted to blend in even then. I didn't want to stick out even for a good reason.

So I have struggled with the realization that our family will always turn heads. People are always going to be trying to figure out who the parents are. We will continually be asked adoption questions often at inappropriate times. I do think it will get less as more and more adopt outside their race. I am sure the first families who adopted from Asia had many stares, comments, looks, and reactions as we do. But now it is so much apart of our culture to see that I am sure they get less of what I am describing. I read an article about an African American family who adopted a white girl and the reactions, many negative, that they had.

But I realized I HAVE to accept this part of our life as a blessing so I can help the boys react positively to the unwanted attention we receive. I was in a really bad mood last week and we went to the store where we got our usual comments, stares and questions. I just didn't want to deal with it that day and in my head I wished we were all the same color. But I immediately heard a small voice reminding me that I did not really want this. We are who we are and part of that is our skin color and I don't want to change who we are. I don't want to change our family story just so that we can go to the store and not get stared at. I know that Ben and I were meant to adopt Yared and Nati and this has been the greatest adventure of my life, so why would I want to change it to blend. I like the way our adoption has opened my eyes to so many things about life, our culture and even myself. If the boys matched us then they wouldn't be who they are and I DO NOT want to change them. I am mentally reminding myself to thank God every time we get stares or comments. It gives me a chance to brag on the boys or be proud of our family. It reminds me not to take for granted that I got one of my greatest wishes granted.. I get to be a mom. I am going to walk confidently through life taking the looks, stares, comments and questions in stride being grateful that this is the life God picked for me. We will never blend in and that is ok. We are a family. We are happy. We are blessed to be who we are. We are blessed to be different. I am going to choose to see this as the huge blessing it is. I will just play the Double Mint commercial music in my head and think "Yes Moira, you are doubly blessed and don't you forget it EVER."

Family Night Two: Back to School BACKWARDS night

I am so behind on blog posts I am just going to randomly post what comes to mind. Here is our second Family Night where we celebrated back-to-school, actually it is really starting school, but that wouldn't work with our BACKWARDS theme so it remains Backwards Back-to-school Night . We did everything backwards. We did all our evening routine backwards starting with going to bed first. We dressed backwards, we ate backwards and if we could have we would have gone to sleep backwards:). It was fun but we chose a rushed evening and Ben and I lacked our usual energy. Lesson learned for Family Nights.. MUST HAVE ENERGY:).

Started the night by pretending to be in bed...but not their beds, our bed.

Then came shower time. They were in really goofy moods.

Then we dressed inside-out and backwards including my pony tail in the front. I felt like I was back in the 80's. For some reason this idea of wearing his clothes backwards sent Nati into hysterical crying. As the whole point of family night is to have fun, he just watched the rest of us dress backwards. Yared thought it was great.

On Friday nights we often watch a little TV as a treat after dinner. This time we watched a little before because... it is BACKWARDS night. I love the lighting of this picture.

The next part was for sure Yared's highlight. He got dessert first. It was an upside down cupcake.

Dinner was leftovers (I told you I was lacking energy) of upside down pizza, a bun dog hot dog and peas in a eggcup. I am not sure how that is backwards but it is odd so it worked. The boys literally drank their peas and giggled the whole time. We also did juice, which they never get, and upside down juice boxes at that.
We ate under the table instead of on top and the kids had grown up plates and we had kid plates and cups.

The boys thought Mommy should be the one to wear the bib to make it even more backwards night but we showed them it didn't fit.
Yared enjoying his bun on a hot dog.
It was another fun night and I love that we are creating these memories. I love that Ben thinks they are fun too and really gets into them. I love the giggles and laughter and excitement we hear as we get ready for a Family Night. I love hearing Yared telling people about them afterwards or having him suggest ideas for new Family Nights. I heard him bragging to someone this week about how he got to have dessert before dinner. I love breaking the rules and realizing how much it means to little ones to be silly and just enjoy LIFE.

Blessing Three:Turning Three

Friday was Nati's third Birthday. We waited to celebrate until today as we had good friends coming into town. It was kind of a mellow party when you consider Yared's Pirate theme extravaganza, but Nati didn't care. He loved all his presents and did pretty good with sharing. Yared was an amazing big brother getting excited for Nati and not getting jealous at his presents. Nati loved his cake. I had a blast making it and it even tasted good. He had wanted a fire truck cake and he wanted "lights on Mommy". I added a flashing bike light to it and he was captivated. You can't see it in the pictures but he loved seeing the lights. Thank you to all the family for the wonderful gifts you sent his way. He went to sleep a happy happy boy.

I just went in and kissed his sweet little face as he slept and I was touched again by the depth of my love for this little man. I find the longer they are with us the more I ache for the days we didn't have them. I want to know everything about them. I want to erase every sadness they had to face. Yet at the same time I know that if they didn't start life the way they did, they would not be who they are and I love them just as they are. I love their birth mom for all she did to nurture and protect them. I love her for the gift she gave me. I pray for her this week that she isn't sad, but rather peaceful knowing her boys are adored, safe, healthy and happy.

Birthday hangover and his hat once again taped on as he HATES the "rope" as he calls it under his chin.
Pictures of the Birthday guests. Just a few but good friends. Ben's best man from our wedding Terrell, his wife Heather (my good buddy now too:) and little Eli.

This was his present from Mommy, Daddy, Nana and Babu - a car. He LOVED it. He hasn't quite mastered it yet but he calls it his race car. He also loves the new helmet which is his "race car hat". It is amazing as he hates his other helmet, that is identical. Yared waited very patiently for a turn and pushed the other little guys around.
Even Ben tried it out.

He tells me quite often "Me grow up. Me fireman." so this was very appropriate.
And our little model!! He figured out quite quickly that if he just waited a minute Nati put one new toy down and then he could jump in and have a turn. Smart boy.
The remnants of the cake.