Another update from Addis
Etta “is now at the care center. She is a smiley beautiful little baby. I loved on her and got you some more pictures.” Yay! What am I going to do with a smiley, happy baby? I’ve never had one of those before. Wait. Maybe Oscar was a smiley, happy baby before I got him and I turned him into someone not so happy for that first year. I probably should not go down that path, right?
We spent most of the weekend packing. Well, other than the twelve hours I spent working (first time in a long time I had to spend such a concentrated portion of the weekend toiling away on something other than scrubbing floors or finding creative ways to humor my toddler). And when I say “we,” I mean I packed and Oscar tried to unpack everything. And when I say “tried,” I mean did. I bought some of those huge containers of chewable vitamins and Oscar took each and every. single. one of them out to play, signing “eat” to me. As if he didn’t have a nice big container of them all his own in the kitchen that we had opened earlier in the day. All of Etta’s things are packed, as are our orphanage donations, I’m just having a difficult time figuring out what to pack for myself.
The weather reports I see all forecast days in the 70s, but my iPhone weather app has been saying it’s 85-91 in Addis when I check during the daytime there over the past week. Friends who have returned recently talk about it being hot, but some of them are from places where the weather quite cold now. I would err on the side of overpacking (which is not a challenge for me, believe me), but I’m going to be pushing 50 pounds on both of my pieces of luggage. I’m betting I’ll hit the weight limit on the carry on as well. I am incapable of minimalism. Eventually I will thrown in a few pairs of jeans and cargo pants, with a number of t-shirts and call it a day, but apparently I’m not there yet. I suspect there is some part of me that is dreaming that I will pull together the perfect ensemble that will put Etta immediately at ease, happy that this stylish woman is to be her mom. Even I am laughing at that one, as are my parents, who witnessed via Skype yesterday young Oscar spending a few minutes examining my hair and noting for all that my roots might not be the precise same color as the rest of my hair. Even without words he made himself very clear.
Current goal is to have both bags zipped up by Saturday morning, which will be one week before I’m supposed to depart.
I didn’t say I wasn’t going to count down at all. I’m just not going to do it every single day (at least not yet).
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Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
