By: Jillian Lauren

On Sunday Tariku was reunited with one of his oldest friends, also his namesake. We were graced with a visit from the Caldes, the wonderful family of little miss Lula Tarikie- Tariku’s buddy from the care center in Ethiopia. Tariku had a big time romancing Lula, playing drums for a family Rock Band face-off and then chasing Lula’s older brothers around the backyard for the rest of the evening.

We shared one of the most difficult, amazing and profoundly emotional experiences of our lives with the Caldes. It felt like such a great chapter of the story to just share a meal and relax in our backyard while the kids, now so healthy and joyful, played together.

By: Jillian Lauren

but that never stopped me before. Here is the comment I posted as a response to the “Celebrity Adoptions and the Real World” piece in the Times. I tried not to post, I really did. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. People who have no idea what adoption is about or what it entails sure seem to have a lot of opinions, so I thought I’d weigh in with mine…

Anyone who thinks that international adoption is a trendy choice popularized by publicity-hungry celebrities, has clearly never been anywhere near the adoption process. It would take the most dedicated fashionista on earth to brave the monolithic towers of paperwork, the emotional roller coaster, the eternal waiting lists and the social worker who basically moves in with you for six months.

And anyone who thinks a child is better off in an orphanage in the developing country in which they were born than in a loving home somewhere else has never visited such an orphanage.

There are four million orphans in Ethiopia- the country where my beautiful son was born. Four million. There are ethical and legal avenues to both international and domestic adoption and there are, unfortunately, unethical and illegal ways to accomplish the same. But the answer isn’t to deny homes to children in need of them. The answer is to apply the Hague standards with uncompromising rigor.

As another adoptive mother pointed out, there is an erroneous assumption being bandied about in many of these posts regarding the altruistic intentions of adoptive families. Adoption isn’t a humanitarian act; it is simply one of many valid ways to create a family. Adoption is in no way a solution to the problems that have created an orphan crisis, but it is a solution for my husband and myself and it is a solution for our son.

There are pros and cons to both domestic and international adoption, and families make decisions based on a large number of factors that are not the business of anyone else but that particular family. The “why don’t you give some needy American kid a home?” argument is simplistic at best and demonstrates real ignorance of the choices involved.

Celebrities are people with the right to create their families in any lawful way they choose. Why should anyone who is not their social worker or their adoption agency make assumptions about their intentions ?

JILLIAN LAUREN

By: Jillian Lauren

Of the myriad wondrous and magical things about Tariku, near the top of the list is his amenability to my choice in hats.

T-Bone’s birthday was the Mount Royal social event of the year. The mini-monarch seems to love parties and to thrive in social situations, particularly when he’s the center of attention. All the neighbors flocked to smooch the king. They had to arm wrestle his grandparents to get near him, but they’re a burly crowd and everyone got a proper audience.

My neighborhood makes me feel like I’m in the opening scene of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure- where Pee-Wee is riding his shiny red bike down the street and all his neighbors are waving to him from their florescent green front lawns. Eagle Rock is this idyllic little corner of the world sandwiched between about sixty freeways. On our block, a grab bag of weirdos and totally normal folks and sweet grandmas and zombie-obsessed rockers and hairdressers and artists and mortgage brokers all bond in a common obsession for old-fashioned neighborly kindness. I am here to tell you that there are still people in LA who hang out together on their front lawns in the early evening and show up at each other’s kids’ birthday parties. It’s so transgressive. I love it.

Jillian Lauren

By: Jillian Lauren

Friday will be Tariku’s first birthday. I bought him a tiny crown for the occasion. My parents and my aunt are coming into town and it will be the first time that we’re going to experiment a little bit with letting other people hold him. Until now, only Scott or I have been holding and nurturing him, in order to promote attachment. While I don’t anticipate any problems, it’s important to be conscientious about attachment when you’re adopting a child who’s been in an institution. We’ve been rewarded for our efforts. I almost cried the first time T and I were in a group and he crawled away from me, turned, made eye contact, and crawled back. For the rest of the parents in the room this would have been commonplace, so no one had any idea what a remarkable thing had just occurred. The attachment process isn’t just one-sided. We fall more in love with T every day.

His favorite place to hang out lately…

Jillian Lauren

By: Jillian Lauren

The thrill of this last month-and-a-half has been the progression of my communication with T. There are still moments where I feel lost and clueless, but far more often are the moments when I know we’re getting each other. For instance, the food thing. I was initially feeding him rice cereal and pureed carrots and stuff like that, trying to keep it simple and to add one food at a time, etc, etc. He wasn’t having it. In Ethiopia, they were feeding him things like sausage and onion soup, so I think he was probably just bored with my bland if lovingly prepared and organic creations. One day I was wearing him in the Ergo and walking around the Americana (I used to make fun of people who brought babies to malls as an activity- no longer), when I gave up on my eternal fucking diet and bought myself a chicken sausage sandwich. T kept trying to eat it, so I started feeding him little bits of the roll and then eventually little bits of the sausage and he was the happiest baby on the block. A nearby mother actually asked in horror, “He eats that? Isn’t it spicy for him?” Man, people are nosy when you have a baby.

So now Tariku has gone from eating carrot puree to eating, well, everything. And he’s gained about five pounds. We’re calling him our little chunk of love.

T’s favorite things are Brown Bear, banging on things, eating chicken sausage, standing up, looking out the window, Bob Marley, bath time and, most, most of all, his doggies. Doggy is his first word of English. He uses it for anything he really likes.

Jillian Lauren

By: Jillian Lauren

Parents and children shared a final lunch at the guesthouse before heading to the airport to board planes bound for destination cities scattered all over the US. Our friend Karin introduced me to the idea of spoons as mealtime toys. Brilliant. Here, the little friends pose for a final picture together.

I can’t imagine what it will be like for these babies to leave everything they’ve known. Yet again.

I will tell Tariku that he has landed in the right place. We are a family with Gypsy souls and wherever we set up our camp is home. We traveled a long way to find each other and we’re not about to stop moving now. Next Shriner adventure…the tour bus. Maybe at some of the stops along the next tour, Tariku will find friends we met in Ethiopia waiting to greet us.