A "Funny" for the day

Things have not been nearly as smooth as I was expecting coming home with another kiddo...though I have never doubted God's blessing of little Levi to us OR God's will for this adoption. Three kids three and under is hard and that is all there is to it. Juliana was so kind to sit with me, sitting with Levi, while Levi screamed his head off until he puked this afternoon after naptime. I still don't know for sure what he was screaming about, but now he is happy, in clean clothes and rolling around on the floor like his usual happy self. As I was changing Levi's clothes the following conversation ensued:

Me: Good job, Levi! You're not screaming anymore!

Juliana: (in an announcer-type voice) Yeah, good job, little boy! You are a credit to your community!

Me: (laughing hilariously) Where in the world did you hear that from? Did you hear that from Daddy?

Juliana: (laughing hilariously) I don't know. Go ask your dad!

We are still here : )

Slowly, but surely, we are settling into our new life with Levi Dereje. This morning we have a doctors appointment for him. He is napping right now and as soon as he wakes up we will give him a bath, a rub down with baby oil, and get him ready for the day. Things are going as smoothly as we could have hoped for :) I look forward to getting his nose congestion and icky diapers cleared up soon. Craig and I are both still working on physically recovering from the trip. I have had two newborns at home and the sleep deprivation from those times pales in comparison to the sleep deprivation after this trip. We literally went 43 hours with maybe 2 or 3 hours sleep on the way home. At the care center, Levi always slept on his tummy and was not too keen on falling asleep in our arms on the plane. Bummer at the time, but since he didn't sleep on the plane much he fell right to sleep when we got home and is already on a perfect sleeping schedule for us now. Yay!

Juliana and Evan are doing well with their new brother. Since he is napping well we are able to give them some of their usual mommy and daddy time. When Levi is awake they enjoy bringing him toys and talking to him. He smiles a lot at them...well, he smiles a lot at anyone who talks to him!

This trip was quite an adventure for us. In many ways I feel as though I am a different person from the one that left here two weeks ago. This, in God's wisdom, is a good thing. There is so much for me to think and pray through after being immersed in what is truly a different world as well as processing (for lack of a better word) the emotions of our meeting with Levi's birth family.

We are home

It is 7 am and Levi Dereje and I are up after sleeping much of the night - Yay! He did not sleep much of the trip home...and neither did we, so we were all ready to hit the beds when we got home at midnight last night. This may have been a blessing in disguise because if Dereje were on his normal schedule he would have been awake all night and ready to go to sleep late morning. I will post pictures today after Craig gets up and can help me find the flash drive. Our kodak camera died on us midway during the trip, but before it did we had transferred some pictures to our flash drive. One of the families from our travel group had an amazing camera, took tons of pictures, and offered to send them to us after we all get home and settled. So generous!

This was a trip of a lifetime and we are loving little Levi Dereje Merrihew! He is generally a happy baby, except when you don't feed him fast enough! Juliana was ecstatic to meet him yesterday at the airport and kept hugging/smothering him and saying "Awwwwww". Evan, on the other hand, was not so interested in his new bro :) I look forward to seeing what a few days of having him home will be like from Juliana and Evan's perspectives. Sorry I don't have pics yet. As soon as I find that tiny little flash drive in our sea of luggage I will get them posted.

An email from Erin

We are LOVING this little guy, Dereje. He is so very cuddly! He knows his name, Dereje (da-ray-jay), so that is what we have been calling him (as opposed to Levi, which we have been calling him for months). He has the most beautiful long curly eye-lashes! It seems that everyone notices them. We were able to get him to smile today and giggle just a little bit. I was able to feed him for the first time today and after I fed him he fell asleep in my arms - so sweet! We won’t get to see him again until Monday, but on Monday we get to bring him to the hotel to be with us for the day. We are so looking forward to it!
We have had a chance to play with and hold many of the other kiddos. If you are a Holt parent we probably loved on your little one today! It has been amazing to watch the nannies taking care of the kids. They do such a good job of loving each one. This morning the babies were getting some sun as the nannies changed their clothes. Each one would get rubbed down with skin moisturizer and laid down on a blanket. I watched as a nanny did this for one little one and as she did it I could hear her very softly talking, almost in a whisper. I have a hunch that she was praying over that little one. When they are talking to the kids they are very animated and loud and this was quite different. The care center is amazingly clean.
Internet has been hard to come by. Tonight we are at the Hilton for dinner and internet usage. I don’t know if I will be able to send another update before we leave or not. I already have 3 pages of journaling so there will definitely be much about our trip that I will post after we get home.
Tomorrow we will go to church in the morning and then to the National Museum in the afternoon. The care center is closed on Sundays so that the nannies can have a break from all of us crazy parents J I may not be able to post again until we get home. If you are family reading this, know that we love you all and will be very glad to be back home again and introduce you to our sweet Levi Dereje!

HE'S HERE (or rather, THERE)!!!!!

(A quick introduction of sorts - my name is Michelle and I am a good friend of Erin's. She asked me to update the blog while they're in Ethiopia, as internet access is spotty at best.)

CRAIG AND ERIN HAVE MET LEVI FACE-TO-FACE! When Erin called this morning she was so overwhelmed that all she could do was cry. She said Levi is BEAUTIFUL (but I think we knew that already). She said he seems pretty laid back, simply content to lay in her arms (YAY!!) and look around. They did get him to smile once, which I'm pretty sure made her day. :o) They are looking forward to spending more time with Levi tomorrow morning then shopping in the afternoon.

In other news, Erin wanted me to tell everybody one little interesting bit of information: they only have electricity in Addis Ababa at night; weird, huh? In the middle of the night, when everybody is sleeping and nobody really needs electricity...although they did find it useful LAST night, as their bodies still thought they were in Nebraska so they were wide awake!

Craig and Erin are praising the Lord for His goodness and grace to them in giving Levi to them...and them to Levi! Truly our God does care for the orphan!