We’ve had a number of questions about our little Deuce, and thought we’d clear a few things up. First of all, both “ray-mie” and “remmie” are correct pronunciations of his name; one is English and one is French. We use the first as there’s a lot of French flying around our house, but take your pick! We love both.
Second, Remy is half Haitian, half African American. He was born in Florida; this was a domestic adoption. I watched him come into this world after spending half a day with his birthmom as she progressed in labor. That day remains one of the wonders of my life.
Third of all, he’s black. We’re learning how to keep his skin and hair as fabulous-looking as his pout, but we were a bit intimidated about messing it up. Thanks to our volunteering friends who we kind of worship (Aji! Theia!), we’re getting a lot of useful tips. So far, we mix a little olive oil with Aquaphor for his skin and apply it right after baths and in the mornings, and we rub a drop or two of oil into his scalp when it looks dry. We’d love to figure out how to maintain his tiny curls that appear after a bath, but we’re not that good yet.
We welcome advice and are more than willing to talk about it. We don’t want people to dance around the topic. This is like adoption; if you ask polite questions that respect our kids, we welcome the conversation. For example, everyone wants to stroke his hair because it’s so thick – but they stroke front to back. Back to front feels more comfortable for him. We’re learning and sharing, so dive right in!
Other than that, our biggest challenge has been getting Tess used to Remy! Some dear friends in France kindly gave us a few baby dolls, so we’ve been trying to help her mirror our caring for her brother. Lets just say we get her set up to feed her baby and she plucks the doll’s bottle out of its mouth and sticks it in her own. Sigh.
Still, she’s almost crawling, and while she’s not entirely ecstatic about a sibling yet, moments arise where I see the possibilities occur to her. Bath time, family weekend snuggle time, stroller time…the smile moments multiply along with her teeth, so we’re keeping faith. 🙂
Our family time wraps up this weekend, and Dave goes back to work Monday. I’ll have the kids by myself for a week – eek! I’m already applauding all moms home raising kids full-time. Still, I feel lucky to get a concentrated chunk of time with them. My return to work will come fast and so will missing them all day. I Iove work, and already know I’m going back. Still, this little baby moon feels so good, especially since I didn’t get to take a full leave with Tess – so this is for both of them. I swore that my family gets everything for a few weeks, and in some ways it’s hard to keep that promise, even though in others it’s easy. So we revel in the yelps of happiness, the burps and baby smells, and survive the wee hours of
fire alarm
crying from Remy and Tess’ incessant and unbelievably high-pitched screaming. Woo! I look forward to the day when we’re done with that.
