Controlled chaos and differing agendas

It seems that this is REALLY happening. I found a pretty neat-looking backpack on sale (half-off) yesterday at Kohl's and since mine broke in China last year, I now have a new carry-on. We are strictly limited I'm told to the 15# though. I plan to take the laptop and CD player and simply activities for the boys on the trip back because I'm not sure how much shopping there is to do in Addis Ababa for play dough, coloring books, stickers, etc.


It seems that wherever I start to concentrate it isn't the activity that Marty had in mind to accomplish and vice versa. Its really quite funny. We had some time this morning where the girls joined us in bed (or should I say the girls and I climbed in with Marty once we realized he was awake). The windows were up as they have been just about all week and it was nice to giggle and simply enjoy.

I tend to swing between resignation as to my limitations and frustration that I'm not further along in preparation for the trip as well as cleaning.

Then I look at my girls. Julia put this crazy wig on that she found downstairs. Precious, huh? I need to face it that at this point in my life I'm never going to be accused of being a Stepford wife.

BUT, we have fun. We applied tattoos today (three to each arm). We bought a single piece of cake and split it four ways. Why? One woman at WalMart is hearing impaired and saw Julia sign and was so enthralled with her. Cookie and cake are similar if not exactly the same and while Julia was thrilled with her cookie, she was asking for a CAKE. I guess I'm thinking . . . hehe - I'm buttering them up so that they won't forget I can be the fun/indulgent Mama too. Heck, I've got Mary Romer and Uncle Craig to compete with - I have to stack the deck somehow!

Oh well. I need to accept that I won't get it all done. I probably never will. We'll do what we can and make sure to take the time to make memories. I know that although they are looking forward to finally having the boys home it's going to be difficult to share the attention/spotlight.

And one more story! We frequent WalMart as it is the closest, most convenient shop-all store here. Currently they have these banner/pictures that hang from the ceiling advertising the back to school supplies and such. One such is a very stunning young man standing by a locker who is as Mary would say "brown". I was engrossed in looking at travel supplies and mentally going over my list and Julia begins excitedly . . . "Mama! Mama!" I survey quickly to check Mary's location (usually the source of Julia's excitement) and she is right nearby and not distracted by any item that Julia may be jealous of her access to. I then look at Julia in the basket to see what has her so worked up. "Mama, PAUL!" as she points with pure delight at the hanging banner.

So Mary thinks that any dark-skinned person is Ethiopian and Julia is now seeing her big brother in advertisements. Just goes to show you how terribly handsome he is that he is confused with a model in his youngest sister's eyes, doesn't it?