Brotherly Love

I always read a book or two to Nathan at bedtime. His favorites are Old Hat, New Hat and There's A Wocket In My Pocket. He laughs at the same parts every night. Tonight, however, he wanted nothing to do with me. He only wanted "WooWoo" to read to him....

Africa Trip Post #3...Our first few days in Lusaka

t's difficult for me to comprehend that we have been home from Zambia for 5 weeks! It's even more difficult for me to comprehend that we've been home for 5 weeks and I've only done 2 posts about our trip! the main reason, I guess, is because I don't want to just slap pictures up and call it a post. I want to, as best I can, describe what we saw and how it impacted us. This was a life changing trip, to say the least. We know that not everyone is able to take a trip like this and so it is important to us that you would get a glimpse of what we experienced and that perhaps it would impact your life as well!

You know how photography is hugely important to me, and I tell alot of my stories through photographs. So the fact that 2 of the 3 places of most impact we visited I was unable to take pictures (and understandably so) also makes this a more difficult task for me, but I'll do my best.

We arrived early Monday morning in Lusaka after and 11+ hour flight from London. It was longer that normal because the typical flight pattern had us flying straight over Libya so we had to detour 500 miles to the west adding about an hour and a half to the flight. After an 8 hour overnight flight from Chicago to London (we each got about 2 hours of sleep), a 5 hour driving tour in London and a 11+ hour overnight flight from London to Lusaka (each slept about an hour), we were beat! Luke and Elise encouraged us to either take a short nap or to stay awake as we could in order to acclimate to the 7 hour time change as quick as possible. I was so excited to be with Elise that there was no way I was going to sleep! We got settled in our room which sweet Macie and Emma had given up (and added sweet signs to welcome us) and then we just hung out and relaxed!

We had brought lots of goodies from family and friends in the states and of course the kids were anxious to dig in to those boxes and suitcases. We actually managed to stay awake until about 8 pm and then we crashed! Elise woke us up at 9am the next morning!

Tuesday Luke had some errands to run around Lusaka and Brian went along with him. I was happy to have the opportunity to just hang out with Elise and the kids! Luke took Brian to a market, and not the market where muzungus (white people) would shop, but a market for the local residents. It was a quick introduction to an unfamiliar culture to say the least!

Wednesday Elise, the three oldest kids and I all went to visit a local orphanage called House of Moses. There were beautiful painted murals on the entrance gate and on a container on the property. These were the only photos I was permitted to take.

House of Moses is a beautiful property and home that is very well taken care of, exceptionally clean and staffed with extremely friendly and welcoming people. Hose of Moses is for children under 2 years of age and is where ChiChi, Luke and Elise's precious adopted son, spent part of his early life. Downstairs there was a large meeting room, a dining room for the staff, a kitchen, several bathrooms, a receiving room (where the new babies who come in spend their first several days as they are assessed by nurses and are determined to be healthy enough to join the rooms with the other children) and a room approximately 20' x 20' where the older children (ages 6mo to 2 years) ate, played and slept. We visited this room first. There are small cribs around the exterior of the room, one right beside the next. Two large shelves of clothing, a changing table and 3 rocking chairs took up the remaining wall space. There were three house mothers in that room caring for 17 babies (if I counted correctly, as some were napping). There is a large area rug in the center of the room where the babies were playing. The 5 of us sat on the rug and loved on and played with these sweet babies for about an hour. After tear-filled good byes to the older babies we went upstairs to visit with the babies under 6 months. There were 10 babies upstairs. Elise and I were both able to feed bottles to premature babies, each weighing around 4 pounds I'm guessing. As difficult as it was to process these babies all being in an orphanage, it was a blessing to see how well cared for and loved they are by the sweet staff. It was an amazing, very moving and emotional experience and many more things I could share, but perhaps another post! here is a video that I found on youtube of House of Moses' 10th birthday celebration in 2008. It does a great job showing the facility, but more importantly just how well these children are cared for!

Make sure you pause the music player on the right hand side before you start the video.

He loves ravioli =)

My baby's first haircut

Brian has been asking me to get Nathan's hair cut for about 6 months. I've refused...up until this week. I finally bit the bullet and made the appointment and then immediately called Alysia, one of my closest girlfriends to see if she would come with me. I needed her there for 3 reasons.

1. To help watch Emily

2. For moral support

3. To take photos

I have been dreading it all week. I LOVE the way his whispy hair curls up around his face and at the nape of his neck. And I knew that when it was cut those would be gone forever! It's like the baby-ness would just be cut right off of him. Seriously it was breaking my heart.

I took the opportunity this morning to take lots of pictures of those curls, even though he wasn't totally cooperative. I also asked Emily to take a few of the two of us (I'm pretty impressed with her skills!) Our originally scheduled plans were cancelled so we headed to a park to hang out and have lunch before the dreaded appointment.

"No, I do not want to leave the park to go get my hair cut!"

I had totally anticipated that he would freak out and need to sit on my lap (thus needing an extra adult to help with photography and Emily), so the first surprise was that he was totally a big boy and sat in the chair all by himself! He did not like the drape however (I can't blame it since it was brown with pink polka dots). He also wasn't really fond of the squirt bottle.

(is it just me or does he look a little like Donald Trump in this photo???)

I took Nate to the sweet lady who does my hair...she's awesome!!! (Tammy at Imagine Salon if you need someone!)

Happy to have a yummy sucker for being a big boy!

Such a big, grown up little boy!

My favorite photo of the day!

No matter what your hair looks like, you'll always be my baby sweet boy!