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the doddsunturn family the doddsunturn family blog archive 2011 37 october 1 happy birthday bedilu august 3 july 5 june 5 may 5 april 2 march 7 february 4 january 5 2009 12 december 1 september 2 august 3 july 3 june 1 may 2 2008 3 december 1 october 1 july 1 contributors bekah chaatie monday october 17 2011 happy birthday bedilu happy birthday bedilu one year ago 10 17 10 you were born 10 months ago 12 17 10 we learned that you would be our son 6 months ago 4 17 11 we met you in ethiopia 3 months ago 7 17 11 we brought you home and today we celebrate your first birthday together it s been two months since our last post and so much has happened mostly we try to be present and appreciate every single moment of every single day we re loving being parents as exhausting as it can be but sometimes something has to give and lately it s been keeping up to date on the blog we ve had all intentions of chronicling the major mile stones and letting people know that it ain t over yet we still have paperwork here are some milestones worth noting you sat up on your own two days after we took you into our care you transitioned from commando style crawling pulling self forward on belly using forearms perpendicular to trunk to crawling on hands and knees in august you started standing up on your own in september you got your first tooth last week it s just a little white breaking through the gum but it counts you met your aunt katie end of august who came out to meet you from nj you and she hung out while mom and dad had their first date night in awhile you met your lolo and lola over labor day weekend you met your tita suerissa and uncle k2 keith two weeks ago auntie liza babysat for the first time and mom and dad went out to see a movie you took your first step yesterday it wasn t big but you stood up on your own took a step and then boom on your butt to all who continue to check the blog thank you more photos and stories to come really posted by chaatie at 10 36 pm 4 comments wednesday august 17 2011 smile for the camera i know it s what you ve all been waiting for pictures like any new parent we ve been taking tons of pictures and capturing a bit of video here and there it s been fun but the trick is finding the time to download the pix and then of course print or upload we sent a few pix to lola and lolo my parents and to grandpa and grandma bek s parents bedilu is a happy baby and he s pretty photogenic too posted by chaatie at 3 37 pm 3 comments monday august 8 2011 thoughts and more images from ethiopia first trip we ve been home with baby b for 3 weeks now and are having so much fun with him we re finally over the jetlag and now just exhausted from the sleep deprivation that comes with parenthood we ve had some wonderful help from dear friends and family with a few meals which has been a godsend i don t think we would ve eaten otherwise and it s been great introducing bedilu to family and friends he s gorgeous happy open healthy and loves people we feel very blessed and there s no doubt amongst any of us though i can t quite speak for bedilu that we were destined to be together that this is our family and was always meant to be my heart has never felt so full before all the difficult waiting paperwork unknowns and hoops now seem like a distant past and yet i will never forget all that we went through to be united with our boy i think it really deserves much more expression than this blog has given it but it wasn t an easy thing to write about and i think it will become more approachable with some space i do intend to write much more about it someday ideally in book form i m feeling very moved to help all other people i encounter that are trying to adopt adoptive parents have so few rights and support that i feel we need to advocate for each other i randomly met a woman in a store the other day who had a failed fost adopt situation after having the foster child in her home with her and her husband from the child s birth to 9 mos old the birth mother a drug addict and on her 8th child that has gone through the foster care system regained custody of her daughter and needless to say this woman was devastated my heart was breaking for her i got her email and sent her a bunch of info in hopes that she doesn t give up perseverance has paid off for us in a huge way so i want to encourage others to keep trying if it s something they really want anyway i know you re probably surprised that i m not goo goo ga ga ing over bedilu in this post and telling you more about what he s like what the experience having him home has been like so far and posting pictures of him but this is just what ended up coming out tonight we have a whole lifetime ahead of us to tell you about him right i can t seem to get these beautiful images out of my mind from our first trip so just wanted to share a few more pictures these are from our trek in the mountains and we stayed in these tukuls huts in small villages this photo is of a well known church ceiling in the city of gondar and i just loved it traditional ethiopian coffee ceremony two other couples adopting that we met in addis and really connected with posted by bekah at 6 17 pm no comments monday august 1 2011 diddy for bedilu a couple of days after returning home with bedilu i grabbed my ukulele and wrote him this little diddy bekah caught the moment on her iphone posted by chaatie at 7 44 pm 1 comment thursday july 21 2011 pooper trooper before we left for ethiopia bek and i had dinner with our friends adrienne and darren whose baby boy henry was born on the very same day as bedilu i asked adrienne what is the one thing that darren does that makes her life easier as a new mom i immediately regretted it darren changes all the diapers inevitably despite all the best intensions more parenting responsibility falls on the mother probably because things just occur to moms more than they do for dads adrienne said it is such a relief to know that that is one thing she doesn t have to worry about or even negotiate it s darren s deal and that s that adrienne and darren got that piece of advice wisdom from their midwife so they were dropping knowledge on me like a soiled diaper so in good humor and good spirit we made a ceremony of it darren knighted me in the first order of pooper troopers posted by chaatie at 1 11 pm 5 comments monday july 18 2011 home at last just a quick note to let you know that we are home safely after a very long journey thanks to all for your love and support and the comments on our blog we re totally jet lagged and off schedule as you might imagine ethiopia is 10 hrs ahead of california here s a pic from sfo where we were warmly greeted by some close friends including cork beer roo di little ansel and jill who picked us up in my car bek and i big had some woozy vertigo after the long travel and little sleep so thanks jill for getting us home safely and thanks jill and to cork mike and ruby for the yummee meals to go oh and another wonderful surprise greeted us when we got home welcome bedilu from the fines more to come about how we are and the journey but for now sleep posted by chaatie at 2 42 am 8 comments tuesday july 12 2011 rainy season the weather now is so different from our first trip it s rainy season now and they can be torrential though this is summer the weather is surprisingly cool i guess the rains bring relief from the heat but it wasn t even ever that super hot when we were here in april i guess it s the elevation with the rains came blackouts we had power outages for a few hours in the late evening good thing we brought headlamps but being in the dark made us tired and everyone went to bed early i forgot to mention that bedilu has a chest cold you can actually feel some knocking around in his lungs apparently it is not uncommon this time of year as several other of the babies also have the chest cold poor baby b but he s still a happy fellow we got to hang with him at the guest house for a an hour and half yesterday afternoon he was awesome for the first 40 mins super vocal and active then he started getting fussy feed time we got to try spoon feeding him again this time with a little less success than earlier in the day but we managed and made a little bit of a mess after taking him back to the care center bek and i were exhausted and we know this is only a taste of what is to come so with the black out we went to bed early today we are going to do a little morning excursion by hired car to putajira the halfway point between addis and hosanna the town where bedilu is from it ll give us a chance to show bruce some of the countryside we ll have lunch and turn around then this afternoon we are meeting up with our local friend liwam he is the best friend of our across the street neighbor s brother yes they are ethiopian we hope he ll be able to show us this hospital that bekah wants to see she can chime in on that in a later post we ll probably grab coffee too maybe dinner then tonight we are going to get ourselves ready for the big day tomorrow we ll take bedilu into care and custody embassy and goodbye ceremonies love from ethiopia chaatie bek posted by chaatie at 9 36 pm 7 comments older posts home subscribe to posts atom