Our 4th year in a row to celebrate her adoption anniversary at the "Green Park" |
I cannot believe it has been 3 years since we brought this little girl home. We feel so blessed. She continues to outsmart us every, single day. But she is also the most happy and complimentary person you will ever meet.
Alemitu has asked a lot about her history this past year. She loves to talk about Ethiopia . . . or "Oopie Oopia" as she refers to it. She loves to talk about her friends, Sophie and Ty, that are also from Oopie Oopia. She is very aware that she has two mommies, and she loves to happily announce that to everyone.
The thing that makes me really sad is that she is terrified, terrified of us leaving her. While I don't think she remembers her first 9 months of life, I do believe that experience helped shaped her personality. And part of that is her living with a terrible fear that we will leave her. Several times a week, I have to promise her that I will never leave her, and that I will always be her mother. Just the other day, she was talking about an incident that happened over a year ago where for 10 seconds, she looked up and couldn't find me at a children's museum. It isn't like she cries when we leave her (although she does do that at times), it is a much bigger, overall fear of being left. I'm glad she feels comfortable to talk about this (a lot), but it really makes me sad.
But, back to the happy stuff -- Recently, she was talking about how we went to get her from Oopie Oopia. She
then asked where we had gotten her brothers. I said, "Brothers were in
my belly." And she said, totally shocked, "YOU ATE BROTHERS?!?!?" She is still a little confused about adoption.
She loves to talk about her skin color. One time, I pretended to eat her arm because it looks like chocolate. She still laughs about that, and she told her teachers all about it. She also told Adam and I that she is a "bamvire" (vampire), and we can't be "bamvires" because we don't have brown skin. Only people with brown skin can be "bamvires" - so she reiterated that her friends, Ty and Sophie, are also "bamvires".
Adoption is such a wonderful experience, full of ups and downs. Most days, I love how we can openly talk about it in such a happy way. On some days, I get really sad and anxious over the fact that we don't have a lot of answers for her concerning her Ethiopian family. We hope to go back there with our entire family in a few years so that our kids can experience that beautiful place filled with beautiful people.