Ewedeshalu

We changed sleeping arrangements tonight and all slept better, Mekdes and I slept together in the big bed with Greg and Ella sleeping in a twin and toddler bed we moved into the room.  I slept till Mekdes fell out of the bed around 5, she let me scoop her up and kiss her and then wrap my arms around her as she fell back to sleep.  I, then being awake, went into the living room area outside of our room to read my Bible.  When I came back into the room an hr later Mekdes said "mommy!" and reached out her arms so I layed next to her and she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek. Ella joined us on my other side and I layed there in utter joy being snuggled by both of my girls.  I have to make sure that if I kiss one of the girls on the forehead I'd turn and kiss the other.  Trying to keep all affection evenly distributed.
 
Mid morning we were out for a walk and Mekdes looked at me and said "I love you"  in clear english and totally unsolicited. We've been saying "ewedeshalu" (I love you in Amharic) to her and occasionally she'll say it back to us.  I really don't expect her to in any way have love for us, we are still strangers to her, so all of her warmth to us bring a dose of extra joy & surprise.
 
She can be a bit cold to Greg, which is hard to see, but we know her father died of maleria when she was very little so she may not have had much exposure to men. 
We have been studying Amharic with a tutor and Ethiopian student at  WWU every other week for months.  Greg loves learning languages and done an incredible job learning Amharic, he's working on sentance structure and tenses, and can read words in the Amharic alphabet.  I've been memorizing phrases. All of this has been extreemly helpful in our comunication with her, here and during the court visit.  Greg is downstairs right now helping her use the leapster by translating game instructions. 
 
Mekdes has been looking in books and pointing to pictures saying "mommy, daddy, Mekdes, Ella, Biniyam" as she points to either people or animals in the pictures.  I love how she is seing us a unit/family.  This led to lots of laughter last night between her and Greg.  Greg would say "Mekdes is a cat" and she'd laugh and say "daddy is a table" back and forth, very cute. 
 
Time for lunch, Birtukan (or rather Mimi and Ganet) have prepared a wonderful Ethiopian feast, will be the first Ethiopian food I've eaten since being here