We are done with Homecoming week and have moved on to Halloween. I was just telling Nick this has been the quietest and least stressful Halloween on record. Why, I don’t know...maybe it’s because my older kids have chosen to sit out this year so I am only focusing on Sam and Noah. Sam is fine being a Clone Warrior again this year and Noah is basically happy being whatever as long as he is being something. He’s settled on Superman...you can check out the pictures on the album page.
We have come up with a nickname for our ‘twins’... Oscar and Felix. The revelation came to Jeff and I last weekend when we were carving pumpkins. Sam patiently sat criss-cross apple sauce carefully picking the pumpkin scum off of his Jack O Lantern with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Noah....well Noah not only scooped the pumpkin scum out with both arms buried to the elbow inside his Jack O Lantern but once he had the scum out on the ground he began doing a dance on the guts as if he were making pumpkin wine with his stomping. Guts were ooozing between his toes...seeds squirting from his heels...and a smile beyond wide crossed his face. At the end of the carving he happily turned his carved pumpkin upside down, the opening resting on his head, as if he was ready to deliver it to market. Every day is a new and fun day with Noah. : > )
Last Saturday we had a “Noah Moment of Perspective” in regards to Hannah’s homecoming evening. Noah’s reaction was a moment I will never forget. It is a reminder of how far apart our cultures really are. He walked in the room where all the girls were dressed up and just whispered to me, "beautiful girls." Then when the boys showed up he just stood silently in the wings watching as they exchanged corsages and boutonnieres. I could tell his mind was racing with thoughts. When everyone started filing out to the front yard for pictures Noah began to panic...he ran to me and started crying, "Hannah. Go. Boy." I think he really thought this was some ceremony where we were passing Hannah on to Ryan's family. Think about it...my mom, the elder, came in from out of town.... flowing dresses...fancy hair...the exchange of flowers....an American experience he has never witnessed. The only thing in his mind that was missing was a cow to pass on to Ryan’s family. So Hannah knelt down to Noah and talked to him, comforted him, told him she'd be back later, gave him big hugs, and told him she loves him. He calmed down enough for me to go outside with the rest of the mom’s for pictures. I'm in the middle of snapping pictures of the kids when I hear a drum beat behind me. He's gone inside and found the Ethiopian drum I brought home and is enthusiastically pounding the drum to a rhythmic beat...constant...over and over...for the next 15 minutes or so while pictures are being taken. Finally the kids are ready to file into the van. Wide eyed he watches as Hannah is climbing into the van and then turns his head into me and starts sobbing again. He thought she was leaving our home...for good. We brought him back inside and calmed him down again for the evening. You can only imagine his thrill when Hannah walked out of her bedroom Sunday morning. She smiled a good morning smile to him and he jumped into her arms and wouldn't let go. So my moment of perspective... how flowers, beautiful dresses, and fancy hair within two completely different cultures can have such different meanings in the eyes of a six year old little boy...and also how amazing it is that in just one months time this little boy has fallen so in love with his big sister that the thought of her not in his life brought him to genuine tears. Pretty cool....
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