And Then There Were FIVE!

Ta-da!  Baby Jos is now 6 months old!  The months since my last post have flown by in almost a blur – a busy, fun, stressful, joyful, painful, contented blur. 

Jos (full name: Josef) was born in Wisconsin on December 1, 2011.  The little sweetheart/stinker surprised us by being 3 weeks early (note to What to Expect: one’s water CAN break in the middle of the night while in bed) and by turning breech, which meant he was born via an unscheduled c-section without his father, who was stuck in Burundi with his brothers.  The biggest surprise, though, was that Jos was born with Down syndrome.  I wasn’t sure I was even going to share that in this blog since it feels at once so immensely personal and so superfluous.  It’s an important adjustment for our family, but not yet so important for him.  We love him just the same, and he coos and rolls and loves us back.

It’s hard to describe how heavy the shock of that news was so I’m not going to really try.  Not now, maybe in a different post.  We’re all immensely grateful that so far he doesn’t have any of the health issues that often accompany Down Syndrome, which is probably one reason it wasn’t noticed in any of my ultrasounds.  (They were done in Europe and the US, in case you’re wondering.)  He’s flourishing in Burundi, where he gets gobs of attention from his brothers, parents, friends, and our staff, who were over the moon with happiness when he came “home.”  Jan and I were especially touched that Roger, Francoise, Ignace, Christian and Adelin got together and surprised us with a bouquet of flowers and welcome banner for Jos.  Considering how hard it can sometimes be for them to pay school fees for all the kids they support, this went way beyond thoughtful.

"A new birth is a miracle.  It is a source of joy for his friends. - Ignace, Roger, Christian, Adelin, Francoise"

Welcome Home, Jos!  Sign made by our good friend Marieke.  

What's life like for Jos in Burundi?  

Well, for one, he loves the weather in Bujumbura – but who wouldn’t?  I get emails from home – “it’s so cold, we’re shoveling another foot of snow tonight” or “it’s so hot, they’re predicting over 100 degrees for three days this week” and meanwhile it stays a lovely 75 – 85 degrees here with very little humidity.  This must be the best climate ever - he never needs anything warmer than one layer and gets to nurse outside with the Congo mountains in the distance!  (Ok, he doesn't do that everyday - this was at an Easter Egg Hunt party...)

He has his own mosquito net, with his crib and nursing station under it.  It feels like our own private island and I love our conversations and cuddling under it.  (I also love all the reading I’ve managed to do during my hours in this tent – from The Hunger Games to the Economist.  I’m not going to say which I enjoyed more because that would be embarrassing.  Oh, wait.  I guess I just did…)

Brother Wim visiting Jos in his crib

Turns out that caring for a baby in Africa isn’t that different from caring for a baby elsewhere, except when it comes to really specific things like hiccups...

Burundian cure for the hiccups: lick a small piece of paper and put it on baby's forehead.  Yeah, it worked.

I think it's just adorable how Francoise carried him one day, but babies with Down Syndrome have very sensitive hips so she can't do this anymore and we're not using the Ergo for now (except for this one really fun walk with Papa, Bas and Wim in our neighborhood).

He likes hanging out with Bas and Wim and me on weekend mornings while we play games, like my new addiction: Blokus!

Reading with Wim is AWESOME.  

Especially on THE Wisconsin Blanket.

 All my boys love to hang on the couch.  It's fun until the big ones turn into cheetahs and start leaping around...

Being a FAMILY OF FIVE is great.  Yeah, it’s a bit hectic at times (imagine: one boy who desperately needs help folding a paper airplane, the other who needs to be wiped, and the third who urgently wants to nurse), but it’s mostly just sweeter than sweet.  Their little faces light up when the other ones smile, they genuinely like being together, and they don’t stop making us laugh (or roll our eyes, which usually also leads to laughing once everyone’s in bed). 

  

It’s all good.  Thank goodness.