Happy Birthday, Caleb!

This post should more appropriately be titled “Daddy and Caleb Are Boys” as it seems that birthdays in our home have taken on a whole new meaning.

As you may have read in an earlier post, we decided to celebrate the childrens’ birthdays, which were 2 weeks apart, on one day in-between both birthdays. The combination of an entirely new concept (they don’t celebrate birthdays in Ethiopia), gaps in the language, and gifts that could/would be attached to a specific child (rather than communal) made us decide it was best to kick this first birthday year off without much tradition.

(I should also add that we were initially incorrect about *exactly* when Caleb’s birthday was. We read “6-10-07″ as June 10th…when it was actually, October 6th. Hence, this post–now not quite accurate Oh, and in that post we mention that his birthday was the same as my Mom’s…no longer true of course. But it IS the same as our sweet niece, Mimi.).

We still wanted to make the individual day special for each child — with special prayers, birthday songs and cards. We just left the presents and “cake” (e.g. banana bread) for the joint gig.

Well, the morning of Caleb’s birthday, just before we went in to wish him Happy Birthday, we learned that my father passed away. Since the child didn’t really know one day from the next anyways, we figured we wouldn’t add to his current birthday-confusion by having “mommy twying” (crying) all day be associated with his birthday. Instead, we celebrated it the next day. (I suppose all of this only adds to my grand plan to have a few birthday weeks each year, rather than just one day to celebrate me ).

Now, I can barely keep up with all the clauses and addendums we made to our birthday plan, so I can’t blame the kid for seeing birthdays as some sort of gender assertion day. Each time we said “Happy Birthday, Caleb” or sang Happy Birthday, he quickly responded “Daddy and Caleb are boys.” Maybe if he had siblings whose first language was English they would make up for the obvious gaps his parents are creating in explaining these seemingly weird traditions.

I only hope we can get our act together by Thanksgiving or Christmas.

But for now, we’ll assume this isn’t some indication of a larger schism in his thinking about life and the world.

As for my little guy, we’ve probably seen the most change in him — out of the two — since we’ve brought him home. And while I couldn’t imagine loving him more than when I first set eyes on his picture, he has certainly managed to steal more of my heart each day as he is getting more and more comfortable being in mommy’s arms.

In the Bible, God Himself describes Caleb as one who “has a different spirit in him, and has followed Me fully.” I see even the beginning seeds of this namesake in my own little Caleb–who pages through his bible with wonder and asks us many times throughout the day to “salut” (pray). His sister’s larger-than-life personality (that can tend to take up a room and then some) doesn’t threaten him …he just sits back and laughs at “goofy” (as we affectionately call her) as if to say it’s your time to shine, sis.

Amidst scores of birthday gifts (not even from us), by far his favorite birthday treat was a card that said “Happy Birthday” from my friend Erica and her daughter Madelyn, complete with childrens’ chicken-scratch. He carried it around all morning singing “da da da da” (he’s even composing music at a young age) as if he’d been given a life-size firetruck.

So, although a little late, here’s to the other of the little brown people who have rocked our world.

We love you, Caleb!