My Heart is STILL in Colombia!

It’s true.  We have been home from Cali, Colombia for 23 months with our little Colombian princess.  The adoption journey has had bumps and twists that we didn’t expect, but it has been so wonderful and rewarding.

Tomorrow is GOTCHA DAY number two!

TWO YEARS!!!  Hard to believe it has gone by so fast.  Sometimes our month in Colombia seems like forever ago… and sometimes it seems like last week.  I miss the lush greenness of Cali, the vast array of mystery fruits that were scrumptiously yummy, the glimpses of the Andes when the fog lifted, the bamboo forest we drove by to our villa, the coconut ice cream bars, the afternoon rain showers, the neighborhood boys who would come and ask,  “Is Austin Rick’s son?”, the sweet smell of the flowers, arepas filled white cheese, the stickiness of the night air and the pee-po pee-po LOUD evening serenade of the coqui frogs.

People often ask “Why Colombia?”  Quite a few factors lead us to the beautiful and tropical South American country.

1.) My husband, Rick, went to Valledupar, Colombia for a summer to build a church when he was 17-years-old.  He grew to love the warm-hearted people and the countryside teeming with unknown vegetation, never imagining that he would return to meet his daughter twenty-something years later.

2.) We have three bio kids who do not look like Rick AT ALL.  Ok, one does a little, but I was expecting little chubby, black-haired Indian babies when I married a Cree Indian.  Didn’t happen.  The Irish and Finnish genes dominated and we got two blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids and another slightly darker. So, when we had chosen an adoption agency, I looked through the pages for the countries they worked in….   I held up the two pages and announced to Rick, “El Salvador and Colombia are where the kids look like you.”  “Colombia,” he replied.  And it was a done deal.

3.) Not that I was anywhere near proficient, but I thoroughly enjoyed taking Spanish… back in the day.  Larisa also had Spanish courses and was mastering her second language quite nicely.  So a country in South America seemed familiar… somehow.  (Not distant in my mind, like, say, Kazakhstan… or China.) I related to Ellie from the movie UP…. her dream was to visit South America.  She tore pictures right out of a library book of the fascinating country.

I am as American as you could get.  I LOVE my country… the anthem brings me to tears.  Studying and teaching the history of our great land is a deep passion of mine.  But I have to say that my heart beats in thirds… a third for the USA, a third for Canada, where I spent my college years and the first 10 years of marriage, and now a third for Colombia where I fell in love with my daughter’s people and homeland.  My heart is still in Colombia. <3

Me and Bob Barker are like this X!

That was my fingers crossed, in case you were wondering about the X.  You remember from The Price is Right…. at the end of every show when Bob looks into the camera and says….

Well, we took Bob’s advice… against Ringo’s wishes.  There will be no baby wiener dogs sired from this house anymore.  I made the appointment for a Saturday morning… when I was out of town.  (See?  I’m the nice mom AND the smart mom!)  I left detailed instructions and came home to Mr. Weeney wearing the cone of shame.  He was a little whiny, but not bad.  Pain medicine in peanut butter was a slam dunk of a hit!  Come to find out, he also had baby teeth that were four months late in falling out so those were pulled too.  Rough day in doggy land.  Both ends.

Ringo is very loving… but not so bright.  Today was day #6 with the cone of shame and he is still running to the doggy door only to be stopped dead in his tracks by the cone that doesn’t fit through the door.  And to make matters worse, yesterday was his first birthday.  Nora asked if she could make him a puppy cake.  So sweet, but no.  She did pick out a chewy, noise-making stuffed raccoon for Ringo.  But it terrified the dog!  Made us all laugh.  Our other dog, Trixie, loved the raccoon and claimed the birthday gift as her own.

(Side note:  never in my first 35 years did I ever imagine that I would be a dog owner…. or blog the words “our OTHER dog”.  Inconceivable!)

And so, Ringo continues to slam the backs of our legs for four more days of doggy cone duty.  Never a dull moment in this house.

At least he can hold his chewy rawhide bone.

Another Badge! YES!

One balmy afternoon as we were lounging in the villa in Cali, Colombia, our guide showed up to take the “boys” out on the town for go-cart driving and other frivolity that boys would eat up.  Our little Colombian princess had been with us for about a week at that point.  She was sitting on our guide’s lap when miniscule white bugs were discovered in her luscious black hair.  My failing eyesight had not detected them.  Maybe this is why it’s good for “older” parents to adopt… they can’t see what’s REALLY happening in their care!  I ran for my reading glasses!

My only experience with lice was in 1991 when I was substitute teaching in Fort Vermilion, Alberta.  It was a kindergarten class, that I had completely under my superb control, when the school nurse made a surprise visit to check for the little white bugs on the heads of my pupils.  Eight of the kids left the room after the inspection and I continued to scratch my head the rest of the day.  Just the thought makes my head itch!

Fast-forward to 2010 in Cali when one of MY children is bug-laden.  Immediately I ran to the little grocery store in our compound and asked for lice shampoo.  A small single-use packet was produced and purchased… and I didn’t scratch my head once while in the store.  By this time, our boys were on their way into the city and realization hit that we should all be checked for BUGS in our HAIR!  Thankfully, our sweet cook was more than willing to search through our heads AND apply the insecticide shampoo to the little princess.  Lo and behold, some of the critters had made the jump to my scalp as well!  This took me several hours to come to grips with.  I could not understand how little creatures could be living on my head AND I DIDN’T NOTICE!!!  I notice everything… well, except lice living with me.  Back to the store I went, somewhat humbled at the thought of asking for MORE lice shampoo.  The teller actually laughed….. LAUGHED!  I told him in my lame Spanish (translated back to lame English for your enjoyment) “NO, the laugh!” 

As my new daughter was having the rather nice-smelling shampoo rubbed into her head, I was on google looking up lice statistics, translating them into Spanish for the aid of my self-image.  I kept reading lines to our cook like “The term ‘head lice’ is searched globally by Google users 450,000 times in a month.”  That made me feel better because I was in good company!  “Lice are attracted to CLEAN hair which is why they are more common in girls than boys.”  “Every year, between 6 and 12 million people worldwide get head lice.”  See, how can that many people be wrong!?!  Later, our guide in Bogota explained that ALL the kids have lice and need to be treated! 

Finally it was my turn to have a thorough scalp massage (albeit with insecticide!) and sit for ten minutes while the death cream did its duty.  My older daughter was mortified that I would make a note on facebook as to our daily adventure.  She was obviously my daughter because she had also wrongly associated head lice with dirty people.  It’s not true!  I read the clean hair preference to her again.  Didn’t help.  She was horrified that her friends might find out her family had bugs on their brains.  Flabbergastedly, she asked, “Why do you want people to know about this?” In the spirit of adventure from the movie UP! I explained that on the scout sash of my life, I just earned my Lice Badge!  Just like Russell earning his Assisting the Elderly badge.  She was still not impressed!  Hey, another day…. another bit of drama!

Ironically, our little Colombiana never wants to use my hairbrush because she thinks it’s dirty because there is hair stuck in it.  Sheesh!

Earth Day (well, sort of)

We finally got to the theater to see the movie Earth…. with my keys firmly in my hot little hand.  The movie was not what I expected, but the photography was amazing.  My four year old nephew was with his family, who was with us, and he made it quite entertaining, as most four year olds would.  His mother and I thought the chase scenes and shark-eating-seal scenes might be a bit to dramatic for him.  Not so.  We looked over at him as a cheetah caught a deer and his eyes were as big as saucers and he said under his breath, to no one in particular, “Awwwwwesooooome!”  So much for the timid little, soft-hearted four year old.

The boys said that they would rather see another movie.  Homeschool mom said, “This is school.  We can stay home and do more math, or go see Earth.”  They decided Earth was now viewer worthy.  A friend on facebook suggested X-men instead of Earth.  I explained that this was SCHOOL.  He suggested I call it Culinary Arts….  oh boy.

I’m looking forward to the flick UP!  It looks hilarious and Pixar always puts on a really good shew.