5 Months Gone By

I guess we are not so good at keeping up to date. Summer has passed us by and we are well into Fall. Here is a brief recap of the last 5 months!
We enjoyed our summer by going to the pool several days a week and of course spending a week at our favorite place, Ocean Isle Beach. This was Jonah's first trip to the beach. Both kids loved the sand, water and playing with all their cousins.

JT practiced his teaching skills to help get Jonah ready to start pre school.

We went back to Cox Farms this year with the Harrison family. Jonah enjoyed being able to go down the slides this year and baby Kaija was a new addition.

In the last two weeks we have been a traveling family. Our first trip was to Florida for a 96B reunion. That was our adoption group number for the families we traveled to Ethiopia with. There were 4 families. One family flew from CA, one from MN, one from FL and us. We all went to Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. That is were one of the families live. Our hotel was on the beach. We went to visit an alligator farm and celebrated a birthday with adults only! The kids had a wonderful time hanging out and getting to know each other. It was so great to see everyone and how all the kids had grown and their siblings that we never got to meet.

Since we were already in FL, our family spent a little more time and went to Sea World and went to visit Mickey Mouse!

Our last trip was this past weekend to visit and celebrate Kevin's parents 50th wedding anniversary. The kids loved seeing their cousins and we stayed up north to celebrate Halloween. Jonah sported the peacock outfit and JT was Shrek. Jonah refused to wear the hood part of the costume so we never got the full effect. But he did love his orange tights!

We hope we can do a better job at keeping this up. Otherwise we will beck in 5 more months.....

Miss Agnes

We introduce to you Miss Agnes Mia Brauer Heilbronner. We will just be calling her Agnes. Think of an old, wrinkly lady. That is what she will become. She is an English Mastiff who does not drool too much!She comes to us at 9 weeks old, weighing in at about 25 pounds. Her father weighs 210 pounds and her mother weighs 160 pounds. We have high hopes for her hugeness. She is already a lazy, wrinkly beast. That's the way we like them. We waited almost exactly four years to add a third dog to the family after Mia's passing. We always said we wouldn't have three dogs again but here we are. 
 She is as cute as can be. JT and Jonah love her. Poor Tzeli is totally blind and can not see her but she is fine with Agnes. Then there is Zeus. Zeus only has one dog friend because he is mean to other dogs. But he will soon realize that she is here to stay. If he would play with her, they would have a great time together. I guess he will have to figure that out. In the mean time she just rolls around, sleeps and chews everything. Welcome Agnes to the Heilbronner clan.

Referral-versary

One year ago we saw this picture in an email from our social worker.



We laugh every time we look at this!





















Our little guy in stone washed jeans, pants undone, all with all big smile.

One month ago he took his first steps.

One hour ago he was eating pancakes at the kitchen table.

On May 15, 2010 we got The Call. It was what we had been waiting for, for three years. You can read about that here.
 http://kevinerin-ouradoptionjourney.blogspot.com/2010/05/we-got-call.html

All we can say is, "What a difference a year makes."

Our Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday JT. This was a great day for JT. I would say this was the first year he really knew all about his birthday coming up, understood what it meant and was excited about the day. He has been talking about his birthday, his Shrek party coming up and turning 4 for the last few months.

He loved going to school and having all the kids telling him Happy Birthday. He would say, "Thank you, I am 4 today" as each kid said Happy Birthday.
JT is a great kid. He has gotten so much better about not throwing tantrums and just loves all his friends and has been enjoying the great weather. He is the best big brother, loves swimming and soccer and overall we just love this kid. He makes us laugh (and scream) everyday! We love you JT.

Tzeli Monster

It was Thanksgiving break back in 1999 when I went to go look at dogs for fun. I came home with Tzeli. We all know you can never "just look." Our first night together, she snuggled under my armpit and slept all night long. She came back to ECU with me and lived with Teresa and Laura, my roommates. When I had swim practice at 6am. I would bring her in Teresa's room so she had someone to snuggle with. She met her sister Mia that year even though Mia lived in another household for a few years after that before returning to us . (long story!) She had a lot of "Aunts." She spent my Senior year with me and then got to live with her Aunt Sloaner. Sloaner loved Tzeli and gave her, her very own PP (Princess Pillow). (Just a pillow that Tezli would perch herself on) She enjoyed eating Sloan's underwear, along with many of mine and ate through a tapestry as well. She got a virus that year and had to spend the night at the vet. That was the first time I cried over a pet thinking she would die. She bounced back and saw me graduate in December 2000. We then made the trip back to Virginia.
Tzeli went through everything with me. She saw me through 2 boyfriends (the only 2 I really had), saw me start my career as a teacher and had the honor of staying with her friend Kayleigh during the day so she wouldn't be lonley. She was there when Mia got to come home forever and then she got to meet her Daddy, (Kevin). She then took in her brother Zeus who was 10 times her size, yet still always showed him who was boss. Tzeli had a "reading" at our wedding and then moved to a new house.
Over the years Tzeli has welcomed her two brothers JT and Jonah. She has had to say good bye to her beloved sister Mia. She sat by the rug by the door for 2 weeks after we had to put her to sleep. Jonah who was afraid of dogs when he first came home, spent the day today kissing her over and over again.
For some reason, Tzeli has lost an extreme amount of weight in the last 3 weeks. She is peeing all over the place and licking it up. We know she probably has cancer and Cushings disease but we have already done lots of blood work and don't find it necessary to bring her back to vet. She is dying and there isn't anything we can do about.
We have tried to prepare JT for Tzeli's journey to Doggie Heaven and he understands that Mia is there waiting for Tzeli at the pearly white gates. We haven't made the decision of when that will be and I am just hoping she will pass in her sleep while at home. We both know that probably won't happen but we will try to hold out until we can come to finally say, "It's time."
We have been through this before. I talk about Mia everyday and I wouldn't go with Kevin to put her to sleep. Only because she was a hyper beast and I couldn't bare to take my hyper, crazy dog, who happened to be very sick and put her to sleep.
Tzeli is very ill. She has no energy, yet still eating and she got to live almost 12 great years. She slept in our bed, usually in between our legs every night. She had a great life and the best thing about her was that although she was only 15-20 pounds, she thought she was 150 pounds and acted like she would kill anyone who tried to hurt me. She was a pain on walks and annoying every time someone came over or rang the doorbell, but we love her. She was my first baby. Even though everyone knows Mia was my favorite, I do love my Tzeli Monster and we have a lot of memories and history together.
We love you Tzeli. In the meantime, we hope your last days are comfortable and happy for you.



Helping Mia celebrate her birthday.




Tzeli waiting for JT to come home from the hospital.



Cake Pop Mania

The new in "thing" these days are cake pops, for those in the baking world. They have them at Starbucks and bakers are now really getting into them. I am no baker, that's for sure. But, I am anal, detail oriented and love sweets. Back in my college days, I took over our apartment and the refrigerator and started making chocolate molded lollipops. They were delicious, beautiful and very detailed. They also took a long time to make, because of my detail and then I couldn't sell them for anything over $1 because it was really just a chocolate lollipop.
I started making  cake pops in the last few weeks. They are divine and beautiful, I might add. I am still working out the kinks, like the dark chocolate and milk chocolate dry so fast, I have a hard time getting the decorations on there. The white chocolate is very easy to work with. Some pops are fancy, some are cute and some are just plain. I have baskets and vases that the pops can be put in for a center piece. You could just put them in a bowl or even get a lollipop stand. Oh, the options!
I am having an Open House for those in the neighborhood and friends. I am not the best sales person but these things are great for birthday parties and any holiday. Hopefully my little business will take off.

Starbucks Pops-  plain, simple, small- $1.50

My Pops...... also $1.50 and bigger, I have a small and large size. The large is $2.50.

Ethiopian Cuisine

We are lucky enough to have two Ethiopian families within our little neighborhood. One of the ladies I am good friends with and is a walking buddy of mine. The other lady I met last year and told her how were would be bringing Jonah home soon. I don't see her often but the other day she caught us as we were taking a walk. She met Jonah and asked me if I make Ethiopian food for him. I didn't want to tell her that I can't stand the food and the smell of the spices makes me nauseous. So, I held back the details and just said, "No, not really." Then she came right out and asked if I liked the food. Well, you know me, I had to come out and just say, "No, I don't really like it." She laughed and said her husband doesn't eat it either but wanted to know if she could make some food for Jonah to eat.
Obviously Jonah ate Ethiopian food for at least the last 4 months he was in Ethiopia and he loved it. She said she would come by and drop off some food for him. She went on to say that she would love to make him food and that her mother, who lives with them, would be in heaven if she could make food for Jonah. I told her to come by whenever she wanted.
The next day, right at lunch time, she appeared at the house with containers full of food. She also had injera (Ethiopian bread, sort of....) She asked if she could stay and feed Jonah. JT and I enjoyed a nice grilled cheese sandwich while Jonah enjoyed his Ethiopian cuisine. JT was offered it by the way. Jonah loved the food, as did the dogs. They waited patiently to get anything that would fall on the floor.
She has now come by again and dropped off another batch of food. The good thing is that it's free food and who doesn't love that! The bad thing is that my child spells of Ethiopian spices and garlic. I am trying to embrace the culture and ignore my sensitive nose.

Keeping Busy

     JT has been really keeping us on our toes. That is a nice way of saying that he has been driving us nuts. He will still have the occasional meltdown but they have subsided. Instead when he disobeys us, he just acts as sweet as can be and smiles at us. So, we end up laughing and whatever we are trying to covey to him seems to get thrown out the window. JT has been trying to give up his nap. We wouldn't mind if he would act like a normal person from 4pm.-7:30pm. but he doesn't. He is a mess and exhausted. He is also being a pain about staying in his room at night after we have already put him to bed. The other night after he had already come out of his 5 times, I noticed the hallway light on. I walked into his room, he was not there, his bathroom, not there, our bedroom, not there. Our bathroom, the door was locked. I knock. "JT, let me in." I walk into our bathroom. JT is covered with baby powder. The water bowl for the dogs, filled with powder and water. "JT what is going on?" JT says, "I am giving Fiona a bath." I looked at him sternly and told him not to move. He looked scared. I went downstairs, came back up and he hadn't moved. I told him to smile and took his picture. He was very proud of himself for giving Fiona a bath and happy that she was clean. Needless to say, we had a little discussion and he went to bed.
     JT has been shaving with Kevin in the morning but he practiced at first in the bathtub. He has also become a great plumber and fixed our dishwasher. JT is also working on his artistic abilities.
     Jonah needs to start walking soon or I will need back surgery! He is working hard on it. He continues to take swim lessons and loves the water. Jonah can now hear and has a beautiful penis. He had surgery Friday and did great and is recovering nicely. He continues to laugh at everything we do and at himself. He loves JT and they both like to laugh obnoxiously and make loud weird noises. Boys!

The Reality of Rude People

    A lot of people who are close to us have asked us if people stare at us or ask us questions about Jonah. I had said I didn't notice if people stared at us and no one had really asked us anything about Jonah. Just within the last few weeks though, this has changed. Maybe it wasn't really happening or I just didn't notice but I have in the last few weeks.
    Many people have stopped by while we are out shopping and look at him and say,"Oh, he is so gorgeous." Ok, I know Jonah is cute and all and maybe I am just not a baby person but I never go up to people to tell them how cute their kids are, especially when I don't know them. I know people do that when tiny little babies are in a shopping cart. I may look and say, "Oh my gosh, he/she is so little. How old?" Well, Jonah is not an infant. So, now I assume that people are looking, wondering what the deal is, and wondering what's his story. So they just say, "Oh, he is gorgeous." Now, this does not bother me at all. I know Jonah does stick out just a little bit in our family of four. I see families all the time that are mixed raced and always wonder what the story is. It's human nature to be curious and we do not mind answering questions at all. Everyone knows that we are pretty much an open book.
    But within the last two weeks, two very rude comments have been made. And yes, they bothered us. So here was the first one. I was at Panera ( no surprise there!) with Jonah in a stroller and there was a man in his 40's with his father. I heard his father talk to him and he was definitely from somewhere in Africa and had a very cool accent. They both kept looking at Jonah. The younger man came over and asked where Jonah was from. I told him Ethiopia. His next comment was, "So, did you use and agency?" This may sound strange to most of you but we have learned that there is a bad perception of adoptions happening in Ethiopia due to illegal activity going on and bad agencies not being ethical. It was a little rude more because I felt like he was questioning if we went about the adoption properly and legally but I understood. I told him we used Wide Horizons. WH is one of the biggest and most well known agencies and prides itself on it's ethics. ( I didn't tell him that part of it but I don't think he was looking for that anyway. He just wanted to see if we used an agency.) Again, I was fine with all this but then came the next question. "So, how much did he cost?"  Yes, you read that right. At that moment I was shocked and actually didn't know how how to respond. I felt my face get red, like I was embarrassed for him for even asking such a thing! Ok, it's rude enough to ask how much we paid for the adoption, let alone phrase it as if Jonah was a thing we bought at a store. My response was, "The adoption cost a lot." I am not sure what the right answer is. I don't think there is one. Now after talking about it we have come up with other good responses. Some sarcastic of course! So the man said, "You guys did a nice thing." I said, "Thanks" and walked away.
A few things here....
1) It is nobody's business how much we paid for the adoption. Everybody knows adoption costs a lot of money. Then again, many people think it's priceless, the outcome is a child in your life. Does it really matter anyway?
2) If you are interested in adoption, then asking about costs is completely normal (at least for us, we don't care) Just for some education- the costs go towards lots of legal fees that we don't even see or know about because we had an agency do all the leg work for us. Again, that is some of the cost. You need a home study, fingerprints, state seals and then the cost of travel. There is a lot more that goes into it but that's an example.
3) We didn't pay for Jonah. We paid for the process to get him into our lives.
4) We don't look at Jonah as a charity case. We don't want him to ever feel that way either. We saw all the kids in Ethiopia, herding their cattle, with smiles on their faces and loving their life. They don't know any different and are very happy. We both felt sad leaving Ethiopia ( I was glad to get away from all the smells, don't get me wrong!) and taking Jonah away from his birth country. We both know Jonah could have lived just as happy a life there as he will here. I will say that the medical care we can provide for him here will allow him to live a healthy, long life, that he maybe would not have had in Ethiopia.


Kevin was talking to a lady that we know, hadn't seen in a long time, didn't know we were adopting and had just met Jonah. So, she asked a lot of questions about the adoption. (which we don't mind) After the questions, she then went on to say, "Well, there are a lot of kids here that need to be adopted." Maybe to someone else that wouldn't have been so offensive but to us, that is so rude and heartless. Are you telling me that only people in the US, should adopt kids from the US? To us a child is a child. If they need a home, they need a home and who cares where they are from. Kevin told me this on the way home in the car and I was pissed. I told him he should have said, "Well, why did you add one more child to our country when there are already so many that need a home, right here the US! Why don't you adopt a few then!" Instead he said we didn't want to financially support a birth mother while pregnant, to then change her mind after giving birth. The lady then said, "Yea, that happened to a friend of ours." Kevin then said, "Well, then there you go." In the end the lady really believed that we should have adopted from the US and that's fine, I guess. 
Ok, a few more things....
1) Everybody has their own beliefs and can obviously say what they want. Just don't say them to us!
2) Kevin and I obviously don't believe that people should not have their own biological children and should adopt. We have JT. We chose adoption for our own reasons and know that adoption is not for everybody.
3) There are many reasons we chose to not adopt domestically, not just the one above. Both domestic and international adoption has their challenges, not one is better than the other.
4) If you are wondering why we chose international adoption or specifically Ethiopia, just ask. Don't tell us though that there are kids here in the US that need homes too. We know this!
5)Just some facts. Over one-third of Americans have talked about adoption or even considered it, but only two percent have actually gone through the process and completed it.
   We knew we would run into this kind of stuff and we don't pretend like it doesn't bothers us. It does, but really just a little. I plan that this will be the only post about this. This was for the some of you who have asked us.
   We love Jonah just like we love JT (and Mia of course!) (and Zeus for Kevin, I know poor Tzeli) We do both find it strange that as soon as we were on the plane with Jonah, we felt like he was ours. Right away we felt this. This feeling sometimes takes months for adoptive parents to feel and that is completely normal. Jonah was just ours. He didn't grow in my stomach for nine months, we didn't get to hear his heartbeat for the first time, we didn't get sonogram pictures of him, but I also didn't get stretch marks, didn't have to through labor and didn't have to gain 35 pounds. See there is a plus side to everything! JT loves Jonah to death. He laughs with him, hugs and kisses him and pushes him and steals his toys as any good brother does! Jonah is ours just as JT is ours. He just came to us in a different but special way!