Every year I mean to one of those blog-a-day posts, but get lazy. Someone has been posting their thirty days of Thankfulness and I thought I would give it a shot. If I give up by November 15- it doesn’t’ mean that I am no longer thankful, it just means I am lazy. I may do a photo or just a quick post.

Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday. I love that it is really just about giving thanks for the things in your life. I love that it isn’t really a religious holiday, and that different cultures can celebrate it the way they want. My favorite ever. Also I love sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. Judge me, it’s okay, i am from the midwest.

So here is yesterdays. I am thankful for:
Triple shot lattes
My thursday playmates with Autumn, Mavis and Mezmur (aka Maymez)
and the magical gift box i received from my friends in Durham, that included this hat, and sweater

and a magical pony that we need to feed and take care of for a month

(my grandparents and my dad)

This blog post comes from a burst of multiple thoughts that happened when I was doing dishes in my kitchen today. My friend Ari is going to volunteer in Namibia for a month while her partner Anne, stays home to work. I was daydreaming about my (someday) future trip to Africa. I wondered what it would feel like going alone. I was wondering when I could go back with Davy. Then I was thinking about the idea of bringing Davy back to meet members of her Ethiopian family. I was kind of fantasizing about what that would look like and when or if she would ever be ready. I was thinking about how for me, I want her to see where she came from and how she is loved from the ends of the earth and back again. I was thinking about how some people might feel threatened by that, but that I couldn’t see anything wrong with even more people loving on our girl.

Then I was thinking back to my immediate family. I have one brother. Only one brother. He has never met our girl. He doesn’t live far, it’s not like we don’t really talk (well we don’t REALLY talk) but we do converse. She has been home 488 days and he is too busy. It’s not something I am actively angry about all the time, but it wears on me like a dull ache. I am not really angry for Davy. She doesn’t know any better. I am kind of angry on behalf of my parents. I think they are angry about it too- but I am the one who can say and feel it out loud. Maybe I am being a little protective of them, but I feel like my parents deserve have a witness to the transformative affect Davy has had on their lives. I don’t have any illusions over the fracture of my family, but sometimes it makes me really sad. I just feel like its unresolved business.

That said, I was also thinking about all of the other people in our lives who are family. Our friends Ari and Anne, whom Davy calls the Tantas. They have had a huge impact on Davy’s life. She just loves them to bits. If we have plans with them outside of Davy we have to lie and say we are going to the movies, because if we even mention their names, Davy will say “I want tantas” over and over and over again. THAT is family love. She gets just as excited seeing them as she does any of her grandparents. They are family.

I was also thinking about how when my father married my stepmother 25 years ago, I didn’t ever think I could have any relationship with her. She is so different from my mom. Now I think of her as a trusted friend and often a mentor. She is wonderful with Davy. Funny and sweet. It’s great that I didn’t shut a door 25 years ago so tight that it could never be reopened.

So here is what I think, family is fluid. As long as Andy and I are the consistency in Davy’s life she will always be happy and secure. I think that the others may come and go, its okay. As long as we are mindful about keeping our heart open, the space will get filled.

My Dad and Stepmother live in Las Vegas. Last week we went for our cousins Bar Mitzvah. This is the first of many upcoming Bar and Bat Mitzvahs as all of Davy’s big cousins are turning 13 over the next few years. For those who don’t know what a Bar Mitzvah is its a religious ceremony that commemorates a boy (bar) or girl (bat) coming of age in accordance to Jewish Law. I had one in 1983. It’s really a beautiful ceremony that requires the kid to learn a lot of Hebrew prayer and religious study.

But really most 13 year olds do it for the party. Or at least i did. My party had a theme which was totally embarrassing. That I will not say here on the internet. But it was quite a bash. This party ironically had a 1980’s theme and kind of looked like a Vegas version of my Bat Mitzvah. Which was hilarious.

Davy got dressed up and spend the night shaking her booty. She loved it. Loved it. She got to dance with her Poppa Jack and Grammy and got to eat not one, but two deserts (um thanks dad?).

It was a great week. Davy loves spending time with her grandparents. After the Bar Mitzvah we went on a halloween train ride. She got a giant kick out of it. The adults got train sick.

Tonight was Halloween. Davy was a bunny and I was her carrot. My costume was more abstract then I hoped for, but hey, I put it together at 10 a.m. the day of halloween. Not so bad! Davy kind of hated it the whole trick or treating thing. She was totally freaked out by the costumes, and didn’t quite get that you couldn’t eat all of the candy right away! Poor kid. I am sure next year she will get the hang of it!

This is our second October as a family. What amazes me is that we are starting family traditions. I love that. It warms my heart to even think about this being the second October we have been together. We celebrated October 2012 by making my child carry very very heavy pumpkins and feed animals, we are that kind of family.

And because I am feeling a little nostalgic here is some classic Davy Beach from last years trip to the pumpkin patch. On the count of three AWWWwwwwwwww

I was at work on Saturday and Andy sent me these three photos. They made me laugh so hard I spit tea out of my nose. 

I finished Davy’s first sweater of the year. She is such a whirling dervish of movement that I haven’t been able get a photo that really shows it off. So here is just a regular photo of it.

More photos of the pumpkin patch to come… I gotta go get the girl!

Families

Today a family I have never met in person are with their sons in the Congo. Getting ready to start their forever with them.

Today my friend Rebecca announced to the world that she was chosen by a birth mother as her adoption match.

Today I had a long and wonderful conversation about parenthood with an inspiring friend. We met when I was living in North Carolina and used to have “sessions”. We talked for 2 hours. Her kid was napping, mind was at daycare, it was such an unadulterated pleasure.

Today I am thinking about my friend Marie and the baby growing in her belly.

Today I am thinking about Maja and how she saw the face of her son in Ethiopia for the first time. The thought of it still give me goosebumps.

Today I am also thinking about my friends who are still waiting. Still wanting to be whole as a family.

Two nights ago Davy, Andy and I went for dinner. Afterwords we decided on getting some ice cream. It was a cool fall night and the idea of ice cream sounded delicious and a little naughyt. When we were walking to the ice cream place Davy grabbed both of our hands. We flung her into the air. She didn’t want that. We bounced her up and down, she didn’t want that either. We asked her what she wanted and she said “I want to run”. So the three of us ran down the street laughing and making jack asses out of ourselves. Our beautiful girl and her chubby parents, running down the street. That was one of the sweetest moments of my life.

I turned a very dull brown sweater shirt into a tribute to fall. I am very pleased with myself although the toddler was NOT being corporative during the photo shoot. It could be that it was 75 degrees outside.

Davy and I spent a week in Michigan visiting family.We went for two reasons. First it was Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year. I love that the Jewish New Year falls so close to the Ethiopian New Year. It makes early fall seem even more special and serendipitous. The second reason we went to Michigan is that most of my family hasn’t met her so my Dad and Stepmom wanted to throw a giant party in her honor. It was really terrific watching Davy meet friends and family. I found it pretty poignant for her to meet some of my parents’ friends who have known me my entire life. I jokingly referred to it as her “toddler cotillion” because there were more people at this party than were at mine and Andy’s wedding – like double the amount. My stepmom even had party favors, cookies with “Davy” printed on them in icing. Do you want one? We brought fifty home.

I am deeply ambivalent about the town I grew up in – who isn’t I guess? I left home at 17 and never returned. I grew up in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a white, upper-middle class, suburban…and mostly Jewish suburb of Detroit. From the time I could pretty much think for myself, I very much wanted to get the hell out of there. It is a perfectly fine place to raise a family, just not mine, and it gives me the willies going home. It brings me back to being a chubby, acerbic, smart ass 12 year old feeling very alone in a world full of Jewish American princes and princesses.

It also gave me whiffs of my past life that filled me with sadness… Seeing the house I grew up in… Driving past the nursing home where both of my grandparents died… Visiting my grandfather’s 93-year old best friend, riddled with cancer… The look of happiness and gratitude when his wife realized who I was – we made her so happy visiting her on Rosh Hashanah…

Bitterness and sweetness – a strange way to start the New Year.

Michigan for ME is never the place I would raise my kids; it’s not even a place I willingly go for vacations. It’s a place I visit, to see old friends and the people who I love. It is not a place that defines me anymore, instead it’s just somewhere I lived for a while and that we go back to from time to time. I am adult enough to understand that “being from there” and rejecting it is what used to define me (in my 20s), but now in my 40s, its just one place out of many that I have lived.



For Davy, on the other hand, Michigan is a magical place. She got to hang out with two of her favorite people on the planet, her Papa Jack and Grammy Adela. She had toys to play with and a nearby lake to explore while sticking things in the mud. And she got to meet her new BFFs, her cousins Abby and Matthew. Abby, age 8, would pick Davy up and move her around like an interactive doll. And Davy didn’t seem to mind in the least, but definitely gave Abby a run for her money in terms of sass and attitude. She even got to hang out with her glamorous cousins, Jordyn and Jonah.


While back there, I got to meet my friend Cheryl (who I have known since kindergarten) for apple cider with our kids. I was telling her about the party and how anxious it made me. Cheryl commented that it didn’t seem like me to even agree to it. I laughed and said that I was more mature now. After all, it is good for my kid, so I can deal with the three hours of my life.

Also, Davy handled the whole week, like a champion. She did have her moments at the party, but, of course, loved the attention. And she LOVED going to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah. She danced to the music and at some point wondered up to the Bimah during services and spent a several minutes being entertained by a very young woman rabbi.

After my weeklong trepidatious walk down memory lane, I had a minor parenting epiphany. I realized that all of my Michigan angst was really just MY shit and it isn’t fair for me to put it on Davy. She had an awesome time. When she is an adult it’s totally her prerogative to hate the town that she grew up in. Hell, it’s a rite of passage we all have to go through.

Wow that’s pretty mature of me, huh?