Greetings, all-
We’re leaping into the 21st century, 7 years late, by starting a blog. We had this recommended to us as a solution to the Internet problems we’ve had since we got here. Hopefully it’ll pan out.
Annette wrote you all recently that I made a quick run back to the States at the end of November. I got fouled up coming back, missed a flight, and ended up spending a day at the airport in Amsterdam and getting home about 12 hours late. I guess Annette said “Doggone it!”, because the night I got home, Mark Jr. opened his dinner prayer with, “Thank you, God, for no more ‘Doggone it’ because Daddy isn’t stuck at the airport in Amsterdam anymore.”
There’s a photo here of Little Mark with an umbrella I brought back for him. He ran out every time it rained for a few days after we gave it to him.
Mark did a great job in his theater debut, his school Christmas pageant in which he was a cow. He crawled onto the stage and sat by the crèche – there’s a photo attached here.
I’m also attaching a photo of Luke’s first painting experience. We’re not sure if he ate more paint that he laid on the paper, but he had a good time.
Luke had his first birthday on 12 December. He seemed to enjoy his big day. Annette made him his own 9-inch cake, and he enjoyed getting into that up to his elbows, literally. We had a family event and grilled burgers and dogs at the house. Mark, Jr and our guests (more on that later) made the cake and ice cream. Mark, Jr says Luke isn’t a little baby anymore, since he’s one year old, but that he’s a “big baby.” We think the big brother is talking about the little one’s size and not his temperament.
The boys met Santa the other day at the Embassy housing compound. True to form, Luke slept right through it, although he got a picture with Santa, and Little Mark cried after about a week of build-up, all aimed at ensuring he was ready to sit on Santa’s lap and say what he wanted for Christmas. There’s a photo here of Luke snoozing and Mark diving off Santa’s lap. After the visits with Santa, we all gathered in the parking lot and watched Santa take off Kenya-style: sitting in a little wagon hitched to a tiny donkey.
I got home from work the other day and Annette told me Mark, Jr. had set off the security alarm at the house. Apparently he went out to say hello to the guard, as is his habit. The guard carries a panic button on his neck, and Mark apparently grabbed the button and activated it before the guard could react. The guard company scrambled a Mobile Response Team, but Annette says they didn’t give the guard too hard of a time. We haven’t spent too much time dwelling on the fact that our three-year-old appears to have outsmarted the guy who’s supposed to be guarding our residence.
I mentioned guests at Luke’s birthday party: many of you know we’ve been thinking about adoption for several years. We’ve gotten the process in motion here in Kenya, and until yesterday, we were looking at adopting a child (note the singular). We’ve been to an orphanage several times and got to know a young guy named Christopher. He’s a little over three years old. The orphanage director suggested he could come over for a day to see how things went, so we decided to have him over for Luke’s birthday. She also suggested he could bring a friend, Daniel, to decrease his anxiety. So, we picked them both up on the morning of Luke’s birthday and brought them back for the day. Daniel got in his car seat and we buckled him in, but Christopher didn’t want any part of it. He apparently hasn’t been out in a couple of years. We finally got him home and they both seemed to have a really good time celebrating Luke’s first birthday.
When we left the orphanage after dropping them back off later that day and as we were pulling away, Annette said something to the effect of, “Life is difficult at times, but it’ll be hard to adopt Chris and leave Daniel.” A few days later, evincing God’s infinite sense of humor, the orphanage director called to say Daniel’s adoption papers had just come through. So, this afternoon I picked up both Chris and Dan to come stay with us for a while. As far as they know, they’re here for Christmas, which is standard procedure at the orphanage, getting the kids into a home for the holidays. But, if things go well, they’ll be here indefinitely. We have many more hurdles to overcome before this is final, but we’re excited. As one of my former bosses said during a State Department budget cut a few years ago, “Even if you’re not Catholic, pray a rosary” for us.
The four boys are all in one bedroom, per Mark, Jr’s request and the orphanage director’s recommendation. It was a madhouse tonight, but we had a ball. Chris and Dan, who have only a little bit of English, seem to be used to calling foreigners “Wogeni”, which means “visitor” in Swahili; I guess this is how they address visitors to the orphanage, most of whom have our skin pigmentation, as our adoption lawyer likes to say. Unfortunately, they’ve walked around our house all day calling Annette and me “Wogeni”. I’m not sure how many more times I’ll have to tell them I live here, so they can stop calling me “visitor.”
This is all coming within a couple of days of my being informed that I have to leave town the morning after Christmas for three days, and then I’ll be out for about four out of the first eight weeks of 2008. Annette says she wants a tiara to cement her status as Queen Bee; I think sainthood may be more appropriate.
Enjoy the photos and Happy Holidays,
Mark (father of two or four children, depending on your perspective)
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