Gotcha Day Video

I just wanted to share a video I made for Mikias for his Gotcha Day. It highlights his first year with us.

Gotcha Day!

Yesterday was Mikias' Gotcha Day...the day we met one year ago in Ethiopia. What a year it has been! We spent the sunny day together just the three of us.

Mikias was given his first hair cut. Or should I say, buzz? As you can see, the popsicle did not win him over. He did find it hilarious when he was staring at himself later in the mirror.





We also went to the beach where he enjoyed swimming, eating dirt and climbing on the playscape.





We ended the day by giving Mikias one of the 18 gifts we purchased for him while we were in Ethiopia. These animals have sat on his shelf, but he has never actually played with them before.


It was a pretty low key, yet fun, celebratory day. It is amazing to think one whole year has gone by since he joined our family. It's been said before, by others, but we have no idea what we did before we had him in our lives. (okay, maybe the house was cleaner)

That is a small price to pay for a large part of our hearts full.

May...came and went

Well the countdown to summer has officially started. I only have 2 more exams to write, 180 more exams to grade and 7 more days to do it in! But, that's beside the point....as summer is soon to arrive!

This past May was extremely busy. It tends to be a busier time at school. I was coaching track. Benjamin was/is getting used to a new job, yet we somehow still found plenty of time to introduce Mikias to May in Michigan.

Here are a few of the highlights!

We visited the Detroit Zoo where Ben and Mikias spent some time exploring the polar bear exhibit.

We celebrated Mother's Day with the grandmothers.

We met up with Seth's family at the Lansing Zoo! I love the fact that these boys have seen so much of each other. It is so fun to watch them interact.

We also had a gathering at our house with families who have either completed or are in process of adopting through Ethiopia. All of these families live in the Detroit area. It has been exciting to have a group close to develop a connection with. (P.S. We still love the West Siders, but the convenience of closeness was nice.) I am looking forward to when both sides of the state can get together and continue to keep all of these kids connected .

There were 3 children from Ethiopia present: Zoe, Amilia and little man. Zoe and Mikias were in both orphanages together and are only 3 weeks apart in age.

The thing that has been creeping in my mind lately is how at this time last year we were running around like crazy in preparation to go and get Mikias. So as the countdown continues towards summer, it will begin with a celebration of Mikias' GOTCHA DAY!

Dossier Date 4.28.2008

Our consultant, Chandra, contacted us on Friday to tell us that our dossier had safely made the trip from Detroit to DC, by way of the Ethiopian Embassy, back to GR and will be on its way to Addis on Monday! Thus, making our dossier date 4.28.2008. This date then marks the beginning of the next wait, which is a referral. We are last on the list....but at least we made it to the list!

In an ironic twist, we met Karen and Patrick soon after receiving our pictures of Mikias. They are in Ethiopia meeting their daughter right now....just as our packet arrives!

I have tried to talk with Mikias about bringing another child to the US from his home country. I explain that he will have a brother or a sister to play with. So far, his only response is "apple". (Sorry, Gwyneth, we will not be following your lead...)

Out of our hands

Well, our dossier documents are now out of our hands and on their way to Washington DC for authentication at the US State Dept and Ethiopian Embassy. I mailed everything out this morning. It's a little nerve-wrecking putting all those documents in an envelope. I can't help thinking how much it would absolutely suck if they were lost in the mail. Of course there is some consolation knowing that we've done this once before and everything worked out just fine. Actually, I have to admit that it was pretty easy getting all this in order because we had done it before. In all, we had 21 documents that we collected, had notarized, and then had authenticated. Check out the picture...pretty impressive. I wish we would have taken a picture like this the first time around. This was my second chance so I couldn't pass it up.

Hopefully, at this time next week the completed dossier will be back in our agency's possession and will soon be off to Ethiopia! Then the wait begins. It's strange how it seems like everything is moving so fast this time around but in reality the process is slower. It must be because Mikias is distracting us from obsessing over this adoption.

This afternoon the three of us headed to the Earth Day Expo at Oakland University. It was pretty cool. Joanna and I have been there the past few years and really enjoy it. Mikias' favorite part was definitely the African dancers that performed. He was totally entranced for about 20 minutes.

Serious Motorboat

A video from a couple weeks ago...I had to post it

In other news: Joanna and I are close to sending our completed dossier off to Washington DC. Tomorrow I'm going to the Office of the Great Seal (not to Lansing this time) to get all of our documents authenticated. Now they do document authentication at some Secretary of State offices and luckily there's one two miles from my work that offers the service. For Mikias' adoption I drove (twice) to Lansing to get this done. Anyway, if everything goes well our dossier will be in the mail on Saturday.

Other than that...just enjoying the nice warm weather and looking forward to the weekend.

Spring Break and The Golden Ticket

This past week I did not have school as it was spring break. Of all the "spring breaks" I have had, this was one of the best. I had solid days just Mikias and I.
We took advantage of the great weather and I was reminded of how much Mikias loves the outdoors. Good times!

On Wednesday, we received our I-171H for the second adoption. This is known as the golden ticket in the adoption world. It does not get us a trip to a Chocolate Factory. In fact, it is a stamp of approval that says the US gov't feels we are able to "furnish proper care to an orphan as defined by section 101(b)(1)(F) of the immigration and nationality act". I feel so much better knowing that we have this declaration. We needed this same paper for Mikias...so I am guessing this time was just a double check. :)

What this does allow us to do is move forward with the second adoption. I am excited. We are taking the next couple of days to finalize our dossier and off it goes. At that point, our hands are off and we will be back to waiting for a referral. WOW!

Hard to believe it's been a year

This past Friday was the one year anniversary of the day we opened our referral and saw the first pictures of our little boy. What a year it has been! It's amazing how much he's grown and it's hard to imagine what it was like before he was in our lives.

Frozen at One Year!

So, apparently we have been on hiatus from the blog world! Can I blame it on the fact that I would love to freeze the age of Mikias on any given day? Oh, he is so much fun!

Aside form hibernating in this winter wonderland, things have been well. Christmas was wonderful. The highlight being my niece, who was 3.5 at the time, taking Mikias and introducing him to Santa as "her new baby cousin who came all the way from Africa!" This was a totally unprompted comment. So cute!

We have been enjoying winter. Mikias has gone snowshoeing, downhill sledding, on a toboggan ride on a frozen lake. We participated in a library program. He has visited Gigglebeans (a huge playroom for toddlers), been to Chicago (where he watched traffic for at least 20 minutes) and has seemed to enjoy his daycare. His latest tricks include repeating everything we say, sticking his hands in toilets, screaming at the top of his lungs while folding in half when he is doing something he is not supposed to be doing (aka...sticking his hands in the VCR door and getting stuck...often). Life is good.

We are STILL trying to balance the work, home, kid, life thing. Some days are good...some days...well you know. All in all, these months have been good.

Our adoption 2.0 (Thanks, Kubiks) has been moving along as well. We decided to adopt again through Ethiopia as we caught wind of some rule changes that might affect us. It is interesting how life takes you on a path in which you might not have "planned". It has been exciting to watch the developments in the Ethiopia program as many more families have brought their children home.

We are at the point where we are collecting our documents for the dossier and waiting for the golden ticket. The adoption world knows this as the I-171H!

Included are some snapshots of Mikias enjoying the last couple of months.

Happy 1st Birthday Mikias!

I am so far behind with updating this blog with so many of the things we've had going on the last few weeks (meeting with the Norris', Thanksgiving, Mikias' birthday party, etc.), but I definitely wanted to make a point of wishing our little boy a Happy Birthday. It's so amazing to think that we posted a 1/2 Birthday message on here just six months ago...and we hadn't even met Mikias yet!! What an unbelievable 1st year this has been for Mikias. It's hard not to think of what he was doing and who he was with one year ago during the first hours of his life. We feel so blessed to now be his parents.

We celebrated a little bit tonight with Mikias...and as you can see from the videos and picture he celebrated a lot!

Happy Thanksgiving

It isn't hard to figure out what we are most thankful for this year. Mikias has added so much to our lives that it is difficult to think about what we did before he was part of our family. For that, we are grateful.

Of course, I am also thankful for "our new normal". Recently, I returned back to work. Although it was extremely difficult to take Mikias to daycare for the first time, I have learned once again why I am working. It has been fun being back with my students in my classroom, despite the ridiculously difficult new Algebra curriculum that all of my 8th grade students are expected to take. Benjamin and I have worked out a decent daily schedule which still allows for plenty of Mikias time. It has still been a bit of a balancing act, but for the most part has seemed to fall into place.

One thing I would like to expand on was my experience with taking Mikias to daycare. Wow, I was not prepared for that one! We had been so focused on attaching to him that it didn't occur to me how difficult it would be to "let up and let go" a little. I do believe as I walked away the first day, I didn't even make it to the car without sobbing. My conversation on the phone with my sister went something like..."I dropped Mikias" (and I was trying to say at daycare, but was crying too hard). She responded "why are you calling me, call a doctor!". Of course, she soon found out I didn't physically drop Mikias but had taken him to daycare.

After some encouraging words and some better days at daycare, Mikias and I soon adapted to our new routine. Now, he enjoys going and I love peeking in on him right before I pick him up. It is in those moments before he sees me, where I am most proud of him and most grateful to his birth mother. First, because I am amazed by Mikias' resiliency. In his first year of life he has adapted so well to a variety of situations that I know there is nothing in his lifetime he won't be able to face. Second, I am so thankful for the opportunity to be part of his life. I have never felt love so deeply before which again makes the argument that "blood' has very little to do with family. Finally, I am so appreciative towards his birth mother who has so selflessly and even more difficultly "let up and let go" so that our son has a chance for a good life and we have been given the opportunity to peek in on him as he goes about his daily happenings.

For these reasons and many more it is indeed a happy thanksgiving!

Walking man

Our boy is definitely on the move now. It was kind of odd to see him waddle in to the kitchen tonight when we were making dinner. He's still a bit unsteady, but I'm guessing he'll be an expert in no time.

Halloween and the turtle

I just had to post a couple pictures of Mikias dressed as a turtle for Halloween. We took him to a few neighbors' houses, but mostly just to show him off. He was definitely more interested in watching all the other kids in the neighborhood in their costumes. Joanna's parents and Rick & Caroline came over so Elizabeth and Sarah did a little trick-or-treating...plus Mikias was able to play with his cousins all night.





It was an up and down week for day care. We took Mikias 4 days this week and things improved every day. Actually, today he was there for the entire day and did very well...he even took a nap!! This is a big deal because the caregivers couldn't get him to take a nap there all week until today. He has been fine all week when I drop him off but it seems like he's just so used to having someone give him 100% attention all day (either from Joanna or me), that it was a little hard to adjust at first. Joanna is back to work on Monday so hopefully things continue to improve.


In the last couple days, Mikias has been taking a few small steps on his own. His record is 7 so far, but I'm sure he'll be running all over the house in no time!

Autumn Happenings

I am lagging way behind in providing updates on here. It seems that we've been very busy lately. The last few weekends have been pretty booked up for us. A couple weeks ago, the three of us went up to my grandparents' house (they no longer live there) in Gaylord. It was a very relaxing weekend. It was nice to get away from home for a few days. Basically, we just hung out, played, watched movies, and did some hiking. Every time we go up there I wonder why we don't take the trip more often. There will probably be snow on the ground next time we are there, but I'm happy we were able to enjoy some fall weather too.





Last Saturday, we got together with some of my friends (and their children) and went to a Harvest Festival at a local farm. Although we arrived a little late in the day, we were still able to jump on a hayride and see a lot of the farm animals. I think next year we'll definitely go a lot earlier in the day so we can take advantage of all the activities. It would be cool if we could make this a yearly tradition because it really was a lot of fun.





And then on Sunday we went with Caroline, Rick, their two girls, and the Karwan parents out to a cider mill/apple orchard in Armada that had a lot of activities for kids. Mikias definitely liked hanging out with his cousins. It was amazing how warm of a day it was considering it was mid-October. Overall, this was a very fun (and very long) day.





Needless to say, I think we've fully exposed Mikias to a complete "autumn experience".


In other news, Joanna is about one week away from returning to work. She took Mikias into his daycare on Thursday to try it out while she went to a few meetings at school. Unfortunately, Mikias did not have a very good day. He was fussy the entire time Joanna was gone and the caregivers had a hard time getting him to eat. I'm sure this is just because this is an unfamiliar environment, so hopefully things get better. We plan on taking him a few more times next week for a shorter amount of time to get him more comfortable.

Check out my new top teeth

Reunited

Last week, Thursday, Mikias and I drove across the state to Battle Creek. We met up with other AAI families who are adopting, or have adopted, from Ethiopia. Many of the faces were familiar as we had met some earlier in the year. However, these faces were also all a glow as many of them are now waiting on court dates and the go ahead to bring their children home.

One face in particular was very exciting to see. Seth Kidus, Deanna and James' son, was part of the crowd. It was very fun to watch Mikias and Seth play next to each other. Although they did not run into each other's arms, it was still exciting to know that the two of them have a connection longer than either of our families do with our son. Seth is only 3 weeks older than Mikias and we are hoping that this past meeting is only the beginning of a continuation of a relationship that started many months and miles ago.

In other news, this past weekend, we went down to Fort Wayne to visit Alison and Tom. It was fun watching Mikias interact with their dog, Motts. It was also very funny how the words used to communicate with a dog and a crawling infant can overlap. There were many times where the two of them were crawling around or chasing each other. Good times had by all!

Baptism Day

Mikias was baptized on Sunday. What a great day it was. Everything worked out so wonderfully...from the church service to the family party. It just seemed like everything fell into place perfectly. Most of our family and friends were able to come to the church service. It was very cool to have everyone in church with us. Actually, I think half of the congregation at that service on Sunday morning were there for Mikias. Our friends Heather and Jerome are Mikias' godparents. Both Joanna and I wore the traditional Ethiopian clothing that we purchased in Addis Ababa in June. Mikias also wore a traditional outfit. It was important to us to incorporate the Ethiopian culture in the day's celebration.

Afterwards, we had everyone back to our house for lunch. Luckily, we had very good weather on Sunday so everyone was able to hang out in the backyard and enjoy the afternoon. We were able to have Ethiopian food (injera, etc.) for lunch thanks to the Blue Nile in Ferndale. Joanna talked to the cook there and, even though they don't typically do catering or carry-out, the cook went out of his way to make a bunch of food for us. It was awesome. When we went to pick up the food on Saturday I thought that there was no way we'd be able to eat all the injera (there was a huge pile of it). But, all of our family and friends really seemed to enjoy the food because we didn't have much left at the end of the day. Of course there were a few leftovers but Joanna and I have already finished that off. We also had special cupcakes made for the occasion with the Ethiopian flag colors.

For most of the day we just hung out with everyone and watched all the kids play in our backyard. Overall, we were so happy with how everything went.

Not too much new in our world. Mikias is still crawling all over the place and occasionally takes a stroll using his "walker". I've been negligent in getting gates put up, so he is really requiring a lot of attention when he explores things on his own. He's had a runny nose all week. We thought it was because he was teething, but then I got a runny nose too...and I'm pretty sure I'm not teething. So, we've both got mild colds. Joanna has been able to avoid it so far.

Other than that, we're doing some prepping for Mikias' baptism on Sunday. We're planning on having all of our family for lunch after church. Luckily, it's going to be a nice day. We don't have a good cold-weather party house. Not enough room inside. One of these days I'll get to finishing the basement and the problem will be solved.

A few weeks ago, a reporter from our local paper came out to interview us about the adoption process. Our adoption agency was in touch with them. With November being National Adoption Month, the agency wanted to see if the paper would be interested in doing a story on us. The article was just published last week. It's ok...although I'm not thrilled about being quoted in reference to Angelina Jolie and Madonna. Of all the things they asked about, they choose to put this in the story! Oh well...here's the article.

Parents Choose Adoption Option - Oxford Leader

On the move in a whole new way

Just wanted to share a quick video of Mikias from today. He's really progressing fast! He just crawled for the first time a few weeks ago. He went back and forth across the room like this quite a few times.

Mikias' teeth have really been bothering him for the past week too. He's getting close to breaking through a few more. He has been waking up a lot in the middle of the night so I think he's in a bit of pain...nothing some Tylenol can't help. Hopefully, that will be over in a few days.

A Night Out

This past weekend we finally took our parents to The Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant in Ferndale, to thank them for all of their help since we've been home from Ethiopia. Actually, our intention was to do this before we traveled in June, but things got too crazy and we never made it. On Saturday we went and everyone really enjoyed the food and atmosphere. Joanna and I had gone to this same place on New Years Eve this past year, but this time we noticed so many little things around the restaurant that reminded us of our trip. Unfortunately, the owners were in Ethiopia for the millennium celebration so we weren't able to talk to them. My aunt and uncle babysat Mikias so it was good to have an adult outing. Overall, it was a very fun time.

Here is Mikias' latest trick. He's certainly keeping us busy now!

Happy New Year - Y2K all over again

Today the McKinney Family welcomed Ethiopia to the year 2000! Who knew we would celebrate the millennium with our son.

Yahoo.com Story

Wikipedia - Ethiopian New Year

On the move

This past weekend we took the long trip down to West Virginia to see my grandma and introduce her to Mikias. Actually, we were long overdue for a visit down there anyways and luckily we didn't have any plans for the weekend. I don't think I've ever seen my grandma so excited about something before. I think she was anticipating our arrival all last week and went out of her way to make sure we had everything for Mikias once we arrived. Joanna and I were a bit concerned about the long drive (6 hours), but we tried to time our drives with Mikias' naps and that seemed to work well. Joanna did spend some time in the back seat entertaining him for a while.

It was a very relaxing weekend. We took a few walks and did a bit of swimming (especially Mikias!). Other than that, we just hung out, played, and napped all day long. It was kind of nice not having all the "responsibilities" of home hanging over our heads.

While we were there, Mikias decided he would crawl for the first time! He has been on the verge of crawling for about a week now, but he finally figure everything out and crawled across my grandma's kitchen. Needless to say, we really need to a little baby-proofing around our house now that he is out exploring everything.

These kids go way back

Tomorrow is travel day to Ethiopia! Not for us of course...but for the Norris family. We met Deanna and James back in May at a dinner for families adopting from Ethiopia. At the time we had both just recently received our referrals. So, now, after a long summer of waiting, Deanna , James, and their daughter Taylor are leaving tomorrow to pick up Kidus.


Kidus and Mikias go way back. From what we understand, they both started out at the Adera Orphanage in Debre Zeit and then were brought at the same time to the Adera Orphanage in Addis Ababa. We actually had the pleasure of meeting Kidus when we picked up Mikias in June. The picture below is of Mikias and Kidus hanging out in Addis.






We actually were able to get together with the Norris family this past weekend. I hope we were helpful in answering some questions they had about travel. It's so exciting that the next time we see them we'll be able to reunite the two boys. We wish them the safest of travels and hope that they enjoy the experience of Ethiopia.




We know that so many people enjoyed reading this blog while we were in Ethiopia. Here's a link to the Norris' blog. Hopefully, they'll also be updating this during their trip.

http://deanna-norris.blogspot.com/

How did August 10th become August 20th?

WOW! The days are moving along! It is hard to believe that the summer of 07 is almost over. Sigh!

The McKinney family is moving along just as quick as the summer. We have been enjoying our days together and most recently had a "welcome shower" for Mikias. Yes, the celebration continues. Benjamin's parents and Aunt put together a nice gathering in honor of Mikias' arrival. It was fun to have Mikias at a baby shower for him. He was passed around, hugged, kissed and loved the whole time. He received many nice gifts which included his entire winter wardrobe. Did I say how cute these little boys clothes are? We really appreciated the effort put in by Benjamin's family for this day. It was, yet again, another day to remember.

This past weekend we took a short, but much needed, family vacation. Being that our first trip of the summer involved getting our family, this one was much more relaxing. We spent the weekend Up North at Benjamin's grandparents house on Heart Lake in Waters. We hung out around the house, took a family nap, read, played basketball, went to the park and Ben & Mikias took a dip in the lake. Mikias loved the water. He laughed and splashed the whole time. It was so much fun!

For the past 11 days Benjamin was on a road trip for work. During this time Mikias and I packed our days. This was my strategy for "dealing with" the absence of Benjamin. We visited cousins Elizabeth & Sarah, played with friends Ethan and Caleb and had a slumber party with pals Collin and Rylie. We had frequent visits with both Grandmas and Grandpas. We saw great-grandparents. We hung out with my friends. We went to church just the two of us. We went out to lunch. We shopped at Target (more than once). Today we went to a park where approximately 50 parents and students met Mikias. So, although it was difficult not having Benjamin here, we did well and I gained some valuable confidence along the way. Attached are some snapshots that capture the week.

In other Mikias news, Benjamin and I are just amazed how far Mikias has come since bringing him home almost 2 months ago. When he first came home we weren't even able to put him down by himself and now he is at the point of almost crawling. He is just working on getting that last leg out from underneath him. The newness hasn't worn off one bit. We still find ourselves saying "he is so damn cute". At the same time we are eager for the nights in which he makes it all the way through asleep. In the meantime, we just enjoy!

The following are links to a few stories that our adoption agency covered on our experience should you be interested. The Ethiopia program has gained substantial interest and we are fortunate to be able to help others as they begin their process. We are scheduled to speak at an informational meeting at the end of August. It is amazing what doors open when you open your life.


http://www.adoptionassociates.net/international/ethiopia/ethiopia_stories/benjamin_and_joanna/

http://www.adoptionassociates.net/newsletters/2007/08/international_adoption/