Family Photographs

My bureau keeps coughing up long-lost relatives.

I'll back up.

When my mother went into assisted living, much of her furniture came to us. It is mid-century Danish teak gorgeousness. Our house was built in 1954 and when we did our superficial remodel upon moving in, we styled ourselves "modern". The furniture is perfect. You walk in the door and it's like stepping onto the set of "Mad Men".

My parents had a set of matching dressers in their room when I was growing up. My dad's was thin and tall, much like the man. My mother's, long and low. We didn't acquire these two pieces until fairly recently, when my mom moved from assisted living to a furnished board-and-care.

Though I hold my mother up as the home-organization tree from which my finely-ordered apple dropped, if you opened a drawer in the house I grew up in, you might get a whole lot of crazy. By the time I was packing up her condo just after she was diagnosed with Alzheimers, those drawers were full-on nuts. Her dresser was crammed with old bank statements, silk scarves, opera programs, control-top pantyhose, magnifying lenses, European coins, love letters from my father (that was worth a good cry, snuffling dust in the failing light of a winter afternoon, him dead, her vacant, his twenty-one-year-old words of devotion scrawled across a yellowing page), and finally, family pictures.

I didn't really know my family. Yes, I knew my father, my mother, my brother, my sister. But my mother's parents were dead by the time I was on the scene. My father's parents, somehow, had no interest in meeting me. Might have had something to do with the fact that my mother wasn't French and Catholic, unlike the zillion generations of depressed and depressing French Catholics that made up my father's lineage. I met my father's sister once, when her Navy husband was stationed in California. Aunt Charlotte informed my mother that I was spoiled and my mother should really give me a good smack like Charlotte did with her two-year-old son (the son that, shocking!, became a professional criminal later in life). My mother's brothers were in Michigan and she and I took a trip there once when I was five. For a week.

My mother grew up dirt-poor, downright hungry, in the Depression. Her parents were immigrants from Romania. Her mother died early and her father couldn't speak English, couldn't get a job beyond being a laborer. My father was born into the lower middle-class, a step above my mother. Though his first language was French (my mother's was Romanian), his parents were born in Massachusetts. It was another generation back that had emigrated from Quebec. Regardless, they were both essentially immigrant stock. And like many immigrant children in American, they shed everything they could of their past and sailed full-steam into the future.

My father joined the military at seventeen. By the time they met on a Miami beach when he was twenty-one, he was a pilot in the Air Force. The G.I. bill put him through college when he was in his late twenties. My mother put him through medical school in his early thirties. Soon, they emerged, fully formed, on the West Coast, a doctor and his wife, two beautiful children (the third beautiful child - that'd be me - not yet in the picture), a new house on Mount Tamalpais above the ever-chic Mill Valley.

They lived their upper-middle-class lives, with no connection to their past. When I was packing up the condo, I stayed true to family form and filed all the old pictures away in storage. But here's the thing. Photographs keep appearing in my mother's dresser.

The first time was a year ago, when I was unpacking after our move from San Jose. I accidentally pulled an empty drawer too far and it came out of the dresser completely. With it, apparently stuck for millenia to the bottom of the drawer, came a photograph.

It was a posed family portrait, circa mid-forties. My mother, about fifteen, stands by a grand staircase - certainly not theirs - dressed in some kind of uniform, complete with a stiff nurse-like cap. Was she a candy-stripper? Some kind of war volunteer? At the center of the photo is her father, looking kind and tired, dressed in a shiny three-piece suit and his second wife, Stella, wearing a giant flowered dress, her face set in a smug, double-chinned smirk. Stella was eventually committed to a mental institution. She was a rabid horder and psychotically messy and abusive, screeching and smacking if my mother quietly cleared the sink of it's piles of dishes. I had never before seen a picture of this woman. This woman, who, it must be assumed, had an awful lot to do with my mother's later obsessive need for cleanliness and order and my own inability to sit down to read a book if there's a speck on the floor.

Also featured are my mother's two older brothers, one round and Romanian-looking, the other, surprisingly, a ringer for my dad, clean good looks in a varsity sweater. A little boy stands in the center, my mother's half-brother, Stella's son, sweet, rumpled and big-eared. Off to the side is the infamous cross-dressing uncle, looking creepy as could be. It's said that he lured my grandmother, my mother's mother, Valeria, to the United States, with a promise of work as a seamstress and locked her into a marriage with my grandfather, twenty years her senior and poor.

Just last week, as I was storing winter clothes and bringing summer clothes out of bins, a drawer in that very same dresser wouldn't close completely. I pulled it out to extract the pair of leggings that had been stuck behind it, to find, along with the leggings, a bank statement from 1981 and a manila folder.

I set the folder on the dresser, knowing it might hold a surprise from my unknown past, a long-dead someone reaching a skeletal finger to find me. I took a breath and opened it. There were five photographs. One three-by-five sepia portrait of a young couple I didn't recognize, peering solemnly into the camera. As I turned it over, I realized it was indeed a postcard. On the left were words that I could only recognize as Romanian, having seen letters arrive in a similar script for my mother when I was a kid. I could make out the word Bucarest, the city my mother's people came from and what could be names, "Elenoi si Surel Dron". It was addressed to Dan Belgoir. My grandfather, Dan Balger. Here before me was his original Romanian surname, a name that had been bastardized at Ellis Island, a name that my mother had never known. A name that, until this instant, had been lost.

The other four pictures were different prints of the same image. My father, probably in his early fifties, sits in his red winged armchair, his eyes downcast at something he must be reading. I believe, actually, that I took this photograph. I vaguely remember taking a summer photography class after my freshman year of high school. These four prints, each having sat in the developer a different length of time, were my homework.

It was good to see my father's handsome face again. His cleft chin that I see echoed in Lana, the slant of his cheekbones that I now see in myself. But as I gazed at this picture, standing beside the dresser, summer and winter clothes in untidy piles around me, what I could see, even more clearly with the wisdom of time, was his disregard for me. His teenage daughter stood above him, not a foot away, taking his picture, certainly on a weekend because he was never home during a weekday, and he continued reading his medical journal. In the crease between his eyebrows, I could see his irritation at my attempted interruption. All this picture says to me is "Go away - I'm busy." Really, the story of my life with him. It's difficult to admit because I loved him so, I miss him still and I know that he deeply loved me. And, to be fair, how many times have I attempted to escape to a quiet corner of the house away from the noise and demands of my kids? Though mine are little and loud and many and one would have to think that one bookish fourteen-year-old girl wouldn't have the same effect. But perhaps he was still so busy striving for greatness, still so busy actively forgetting where he came from, that there was little space for anything else.

There are mysteries in these photographs. Family I've never seen, shades of a relationship I had forgotten or wished to forget. It's a little magical, that dresser. Will a snap-shot of an illegitimate half-sister fall out of a drawer next? Or a grainy picture of Mihiretu's birth mother? Our history keeps on unfolding itself, long after the players are gone.

The "Me, Too"

"You know what's amazing?" Ben said tonight as he was ferrying the dinner dishes into the kitchen.

"What?" I said from my position at the sink, pink gloves up to the elbows in soapy water.

"How many people, when I tell them that we've adopted from Ethiopia, say 'You know,'" and here his voiced deepened with gravity, his face drawn long and ardent, "I'm considering doing the same thing.'"

I set the pot I was scrubbing down into the sink, struck with the realization. "Oh my god," I said. "You're totally right!"

It is incredible how many people, strangers generally, who, when they see a picture of our family or spot Mihiretu on the playground, divulge that they, too, might just adopt a child from Ethiopia. I want to say it's like thirty percent. I love to talk about adoption, both the general idea and our specific experience. I want as many people as possible to adopt if they think it's a fit for their family. I want to be a sounding board for anyone considering the idea. That said, most of the people who tell me they're considering the concept, while well-meaning and perhaps even earnest, are also aware it's a really right-sounding thing to say.

I was sitting at the local ballet studio a few years ago waiting for my little ballerinas to finish class, when I got talking to the mom next to me. One thing led to another and soon I confessed that we were in the process of adopting a child from Africa.

"Oh, I want to do that!" she said, her eyes wide and bright.

She told me that she and her husband have donated a "great deal" of money to the many needs of Africa. She said that they were debating whether to have another biological child or adopt. I, new to this game, immediately met her enthusiasm with my own. I offered the names of the agencies we were using, the details of the process, what I knew of the orphanages in Ethiopia.

"Well," she said, after the chitty-chat had gone back and forth for a good long time. "On the other side of the argument - you know, we got this dog from the pound once -"

Here she seemed to stumble, her confident, breezy stream of talk slightly stymied by this less attractive point.

"Well, the dog wasn't good. It was a mutt, you know, which was great, except that - well, it just didn't work out." She leaned in confidentially. "We had to take him back. And then we got a pure-bred - our dog, Lucky - and it was a WORLD of difference."

"Not that," she eyed my frozen grin. "Not that I'm comparing a child with a dog."

No, I thought, a headache beginning to pound in my temples, my jaw clenched. Of course you're not.

I somehow exited the conversation with my new friend and managed to avoid her for the rest of the class term. A year or so later I ran into her at the market. Mihiretu was seated in my cart, reaching for every can, every apple. She was serenely caressing her rounded belly.

"We didn't end up going in that direction," she said, with a lift of her chin at Mihiretu and a self-satified smile. "But what a cute boy you have! I love his hair!"

She reached out to touch his curls and simultaneously, Mihiretu, perhaps in self-defense, pulled a bottle of olive oil from the shelf and it crashed to the floor between us. She swept back her skirt to avoid the splash, her smile hardening on her face.

"Okay," she said, backing down the aisle. "Good luck!"

I don't know if she meant with the spill or my son. What I do know is that sometimes people are full of shit.

The Bunny

Our house backs up to open space which makes for a lot of wildlife. We see hawks, deer, wild turkey by the bushel, and even the occasional coyote or bobcat. Ben and I woke the other morning to the distant scream of a mountain lion. That's better than coffee for getting the blood pumping. You should try it.

In amongst these creatures, is the quiet and elusive jack rabbit. Often, when the kids are making me apeshit on a Saturday morning, I'll send them out on the hill to look for bunnies. We know the warrens are there, the bunnies are less reliable.

Usually, a bunny sighting happens about once every month or so, a rate akin to spotting a celebrity in L.A. For the past few weeks though, virtually every morning, we've seen a bunny, we assume the same bunny, somewhere close to our house. Sometimes he's down by the trailer, sometimes near the chicken coop and often camped out by the great oak that reaches over the living-room. Generally, he's with his two friends, the deer and the turkey. Always a single deer, always a single turkey, though those animals usually travel in groups. It is, it goes without saying, mysterious. Ben and I have been joking that this bunny is our spirit animal.

This morning, the bunny was settled for a good hour just outside the living-room windows. He stayed while Mihiretu performed his routine seven a.m. joyful whoop up and down the hall. He weathered the frantic few moments of the feeding, clothing, combing, shoeing and backpacking of Mae before she spilled out the front door at eight. He even remained zen during the shoving and screaming match (performed on bar stools) between the invincible Lana and the undefeated Mihiretu.

As he stayed and stayed, I suggested that perhaps we should give him a name. "Tip Top" was Lana's suggestion. Predictably, "Butt" was Mihiretu's.

The truly amazing moment was when Mihiretu opened the window not four feet from the bunny and hollered at top Mihiretu volume (on a whole different scale than other voices, his goes to eleven) and the rabbit merely turned one long ear towards the barrage of sound.

If we did indeed have spirit animals, Ben might be an otter, basking in the waves on his back, cleverly working a clam shell open, I, perhaps, a preening peacock, fanning colorful feathers, Mae undoubtably a horse running free, mane streaming behind her, Lana, a sly kitty-cat in the window, sleek and aloof, and Mihiretu a road-runner, moving fast and beeping loud. Put all those animals together and what do you have? A zoo, I suppose. Where in there, I wonder, is this placid jack rabbit, fast and shy and silent? Maybe that furry little guy knows something I don't. Could there be some soft, quiet, peaceful undercurrent that calls him to our record-high decibel house? It might just be he's a little masochistic and neurotic, a fuzzy Woody Allen. Or a flunkie Easter bunny, looking for entertainment while his cousins are frantic with colored eggs and beribboned baskets. Whoever he is, I like him.

The Drama of the Faht

Mihiretu, like four-year-old boys all over the globe, is obsessed with bodily functions, particularly those that happen south of the belly-button. The phenomenon he likes best, it probably goes without saying, is farting. It is, as he's taken to saying lately about almost everything, his "fav-it".

If that boy smells something even a little bit funky, his nose is immediately in the air and the interrogation begins.

"You faht, Mama?" he'll ask, eyeing me suspiciously.

Generally, the answer is no.

"What tha 'tink?" he'll insist, waving his fingers in front of his wrinkled nose. "You faht, Lana?"

And so it'll go until finally, under pressure, somebody will fess up, if only for the sake of changing the subject. Mihiretu will then insist that the offender say excuse me, something he's not in the practice of doing himself.

The other day we were having a visit with extended family and friends. A senior member of the group, whose identity I'll protect, happened to let one slip as he crossed the room, a practice Ben calls "crop-dusting". You could almost see Mihiretu's ears pivot on his head.

"You faht?" he asked, delighted, as he pointed a finger vibrating with joy at his elder.

The kind man in question chuckled, shook his head and said, "Well, I guess I did."

"He fahted!" Mihiretu gleefully announced to the assembled crowd. "Tha guy fahted!"

"Everyone farts," I said, pulling him on to my lap, resisting the urge to clap one hand over his grin.

"You faht," he said, turning to me.

"I fart," I said, all eyes on me. Hi, I'm Liz and I faht. Hi Liz!

Then Mihiretu performed his latest trick. His body tensed and then I felt and heard a Bronx cheer from below. Mihiretu looked up at me proudly.

"I faht," he confided.

I can't speak to his genetic lineage, but adoptively speaking, he comes from a long line of flatulators. My father was in the habit of lifting one cheek at dinner and letting one rip, the presence of my teenage girlfriends not withstanding. "You want me to explode?" he'd ask grumpily when I protested. I didn't dare say that, yes, an explosion, however gory, might be preferable to the mortification caused by the symphony that accompanied every meal.

In the first days of my marriage to Ben, though we had been living in sin up to that point, I declared that he must step outside the marital bedroom if he felt bubbles coming on, a rule long since repealed. The thought of spending the rest of my life in a stink not of my own making was enough to make me tearful. Clearly I was not used to the idea of marriage.

The other day, at our gathering, dessert was served. It seemed we had made it past the hot topic of farting.

Just then someone's rubber sole made a sound against the wood floor.

"Gan-ma," he crowed, rounding on Ben's mom. "You faht?"

Then, brown eyes narrowing, "You didn' say 'cu me."

Dat Mama

I was in a bathroom stall with Mihiretu the other day, waiting to wipe his butt.

Happily, Mihiretu's is the only ass I'm wiping these days, beyond my own. The girls, too, until they were five or so, required both my presence and assistance with defecation. And somehow they, like their brother, generally felt the urge when a grimy, public restroom was the only available facility. I have spent far too much of the past eight years watching children poo in disgusting places.

However, they tend to talk on the toilet. I've gotten more insight into my children's psyches in the bathroom then probably any other place.

The other day, while I stood crammed into the stall at the park, mouth-breathing, toilet paper already wadded in hand, Mihiretu and I somehow got on the topic of babies growing in mamas' bellies. It's not the first time it's come up and, as in the past, I explained the phenomenon in general and then addressed Mihiretu's specific experience, which of course is where his interest lies. I said that while his sisters grew in my tummy, he had another mama. It was in her belly that he grew and she was his mama when he was a baby, when he lived in Ethiopia. Then he came here and I got to be his mama. I have yet to broach the idea of her death. How do you explain that to a four-year-old?

"What she like?" he asked, brow furrowed, hands gripping the hem of his shirt, elbows on knees.

"Well," I said, navigating carefully, "I never knew her."

He looked at me doubtfully.

"But she looooved you." I said. "She nursed you," I held an imaginary baby Mihiretu in my arms and rocked him back and forth, "and she held you..."

His eyebrows lowered menacingly. "I like dat mama," he said. "I no like you."

"Well," I said, "I can see that. I sure love you, though."

"I no like you!" he insisted, leaning forward precariously.

"Okay, honey," I said, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder. "You done pooping?"

"No!" he said, shrugging away from my hand, his lower lip jutting.

He, like the girls did in their day, likes to hold me captive in the stinky bathroom. Even if he's long done with his business, he likes to hang around, either to witness my misery or to keep my focus on him, or, probably, both. I have to create incentives to move the show along.

"Your new friend's out there waiting for you," I said. "You want to get on top of the monkey bars with him again?"

He gave it some thought, twirling his shirt hem around one finger.

"Ohhh-kay," he said finally, clearly doing me a big favor. I was allowed to wipe him, pull up his pants and wash his hands. Lucky me.

Virtually every time we've talked about Mihiretu's birth mom, he's insisted that he prefers her, that "udder mama". I don't know how deep that goes. Is it simply a way to reject me, thereby protecting himself from being hurt again? Does he on some level remember her? He was under two when she died and he seems to remember nothing else about Ethiopia but he must still mourn her, at least subconsciously.

I do know this: at two, my girls knew their mama. We knew every cell of each other. If I had disappeared at that point - and I can't even write that without a wave of heartbreak for what, thank god, didn't happen - they would carry me on with them. And, no matter how loving the home they ended up in, I would always be mama number one.

I wish I had known Mihiretu's birth mother. Because I know him so well, because I love him so much, it seems like I do know her. He was loved, deeply loved before he came to us. He might be a porcupine of defenses but underneath is a boy that knows what it is to be cherished. She is my sister-mother, in a way. I'm picking up where she had to leave off. Together we're fostering the best little person we can. I imagine her, a tall, slender, sloe-eyed ghost, standing alongside me as we watch him scamper off to conquer the monkey bars.

I feel such anguish for him. For her. That they didn't get to be together. That through the violent inequity between the developing world and the developed, through something as simple as a lack of clean water, their little family was ripped apart.

I get it, I have to say. I get that he likes "dat mama", that instead of this strange white woman that often doesn't understand him, verbally and psychically, he could have the mother he was born to. The mother that cradled him as a peaceful infant, that marveled over his perfect fingers and toes. A mother who, undoubtably, was overcome with a surge of the purest, most complete love when she first held him, as I did when I first held Mae and Lana.

My own mother was my first great love. There was no better place than in her lap, thumb in my mouth, letting the sound of her voice, her laughter, roll over me. I think back to that mother, "dat mama", so different than the mother I know now, the mother that doesn't remember my name. The only thing she does remember is that she loves me. Everything else has burned away and what's left is the essential precipitate of love. I appreciate that love. I don't know what I'll do when it's gone. But I desperately miss that "udder mama", the one that knew me so deeply.

I don't know who's in charge. I don't know who dreamed up Alzheimers or dysentery. I do know that Mihiretu mourns his mama and so do I. Our "udder mamas" are gone. We don't have them but we do have each other. That'll have to do.

Fast Shoes

Mihiretu, like the rest of the family, has a thing for shoes. He, unlike, say, me, prefers his shoes fast.

For a good month now, Mihiretu has been fixated on acquiring a pair of Crocs. Red Crocs. Because I don't want him wearing Crocs in the rain, I've been telling him that stores don't sell Crocs until the warm weather comes. True, at least partially, if we're talking brick-and-mortar, not so true if we're talking the world wide web.

Yesterday I was online searching for a new pair of sneakers for Lana (the old ones, which are thrashed but still fit, suddenly felt "weird" so Ben cut out the offending tag on the tongue but now they feel "weirder") when Mihiretu twirled into the office. When he saw shoes up on the screen, he saw his opening.

"Cocs!" he shouted. "Wed Cocs!"

Ben, who was perusing his computer across the desk, opened the Crocs page. Soon he had found a pair that had an adjustable strap in the back - much better for running. He showed them to Mihiretu.

"Dey fas?" He eyed the shoes doubtfully.

"Oh, yeah," said Ben. "These babies are fast."

"Baby?" Mihiretu asked, tilting his head in confusion.

"No babies." Ben said. "They're fast."

And so the fast shoes were ordered. Little did we know that was only the beginning of the conversation.

Every half-hour for the last two days, Mihiretu has said, "When my fas shoes come? Afa sool?"

To which we've answered, "Yes, honey. They'll probably come after school. In a few days."

When he's upset, the fast shoes are his default cause of misery. "I wan my fas shoes!" he'll bellow, tears streaming down his face, even if the problem really lies with Ben not relinquishing the last Hot Tamale in the box.

Yesterday afternoon, Mihiretu accompanied me to the video store. On our way out he spied the shoe store next door. He pulled me inside. I pointed him towards the kid's shoes, assuring him that while he could look we weren't buying a pair today.

He found a pair of Keens, a much better fast shoe, truth be told, than the Crocs. Remembering a heavily discounted pair of Keens I had spotted on a website, I agreed to let him try them on, to get the correct fit on the sly. Bad non-local-buying mommy.

His foot was measured and placed in the shoe. He surveyed it for a moment.

"Dis fas?" he asked the salesperson.

The guy looked at me helplessly.

"Oh yeah," I said. "Those are REALLY fast."

"I go ow-si?" he asked, his eyes sparkling with half hope, half mischief.

"Oh, well, no, we can't take them outside unless we own them," I said. "But you could run in here and try them out."

He read my face to make sure I wasn't pulling his leg - generally I discourage running indoors. When he saw that I was earnest, he tore around the small store, a new shoe on one foot, an old shoe on the other, the graying lady browsing walking shoes wedging herself against the display to avoid being run over.

"Dees fas!" he declared, a bit out of breath.

Somehow I managed to get him out of the store, telling him (and, effectively, the salesman) that because they were so expensive we'd have to check in with Dad.

I checked the sale website when I got home and, sadly, the Keens in his size were sold out. We focused again on the Crocs that were coming his way.

He woke this morning groggily inquiring after his fast shoes. "Afa sool?" he asked, half-awake.

Again, snuggling in with him under his covers, I said that they'd probably arrive later in the week.

As the morning unfolded and Mihiretu and Lana got into their usual push and pull, he started yelling about his fast shoes, demanding that they arrive that instant. To which Ben picked up the phone.

"Who are you calling?" I asked, disentangling Lana from Mihiretu.

"1-800-FAST-SHOES", he said, putting the phone to his ear without dialing.

"Hi," he said. "I'm calling about Mihiretu Capron's fast shoes?"

"You better spell that," I said.

"M-I-H-I-R-E-T-U?" Ben said, loudly. "C-A-P-R-O-N? No, N as in Nancy."

Lana and Mihiretu had forgotten their fight. Mae, half-way through a bowl of cereal, set her spoon down.

"Oh, you drive the truck? You have Mihiretu's fast shoes right there?"

He put his hand on the receiver and stage-whispered "I'm talking to the driver!"

"Salt Lake City?" he said, again speaking into the phone.

"That's a long way away," I said, wiping down the counter.

"May I ask your name? Bill? Well, hi, Bill, I'm Ben. We're wondering if you have any idea when the fast shoes might arrive."

He paused, his body at attention.

"Oh, no, no offense meant, Bill. I'm sure you're getting them here as fast as you can. A few days, you say?"

"He might run into snow going over the Sierras," I said, remembering the five to seven working day window I'd been given on the website.

"Oh, yeah, there might be snow? That'd make it more like Friday?"

"Tha too long!" Mihiretu bellowed in anguish.

"Well, that was Mihiretu, Bill. You won't bring fast shoes to kids that yell? Only to kids that behave themselves? I can certainly understand that, Bill. We really do appreciate the work you're doing."

Ben's forehead furrowed in anxiety. This Bill was a hard man to placate.

"And you know when kids are being helpful? And when they're not? You won't bring fast shoes to kids that aren't being nice?"

I guess what they say about the UPS man being the brown santa is true in more ways than I imagined.

By the time Ben got off the phone with Bill, it was clear to the whole family that we better watch what we said about shoe delivery, not only the fast shoes but also Lana's sneakers and Mae's flip-flops which comprised the rest of our order.

Later, when Mihiretu was in a tizzy about having to put his socks on for school, he landed, once more, on his fast shoe complaint.

"Wha abou my fas-" he began. Then remembering how sensitive Bill was to criticism, he closed his mouth with a bang of teeth. I was then allowed to put on his socks.

Home Depot

We bought ourselves a camper trailer. It's a Traveleer circa 1952. No, it's not an Airstream. It's what's lovingly referred to as the "canned ham" style, thus named because it resembles, well, a canned ham. It's not in perfect condition; it's evident it has sixty years on it, in the form of peeling maple veneer walls, a floor you can see through and a musty scent. But it is a thing of quality. It has wood cabinets, a boothed dinette, an adorable, teensy, 50's stove, an old steel refrigerator that actually works, and lots of potential.

My handy guy has turned his mechanical attention to our little blue and white trailer. He's on a break from work and over the past week he has replaced the failing floor with sturdy sheets of blond maple. He has installed tail-lights on the back and hooked them successfully to the minivan. He's even rigged the van with a hefty hitch. All this work, of course, has required materials. So Ben has been spending an inordinate amount of time at Home Depot.

We all have our Home Depot stories. I've had a salesperson (and I use that term loosely) literally run away down the paint aisle when it was clear I had a question. The benefit of the place is that it is giant; it has lots of products. The downfall is it's impenetrability. Where might the washers be found to fix my dripping faucet? Okay, I found a hundred square feet of washers. Which one might be the washer to fit my Kohler Coralais single-handle pull-out spray kitchen faucet? One could ponder for hours.

One day last week, Ben ventured into Home Depot (known by my kids as "The Big Store") with Mihiretu in tow. Let it be said that Mihiretu in a store is a catastrophe waiting to happen. That boy is meant to be outside. Confine him indoors on an adult errand and you (and all innocent bystanders) will leave deaf and loony.

Ben was waiting in the returns line. It was a rainy Tuesday and Home Depot was (shocking!) understaffed. Five soggy men, including my own, stood silently, miserably, in cue. Mihiretu was hopping a giant roll of outdoor carpet. He'd jump, shrieking happily, and crash noisily on the other side.

Marin County, it's been said many times, is liberal. Home Depot, even the Marin branch, is not. Here you have the contractors, the DIYers, the manly men. What they made of a lunatic Ethiopian boy with a white guy in clogs is anyone's guess.

Ben, certain his grumpy compatriots would not save his spot, shout-whispered for Mihiretu to stop. Mihiretu, after one last terrific leap, wandered towards a display of indoor plants. Ben, distracted momentarily as he moved forward in line, looked up and found no boy. Soon, however, a mop of curls rose from among the plant containers. Merry, almond eyes peered at him from a jungle of palms. Suddenly, the jungle was moving, Mihiretu with it. As the plants slid into the checkout area, Ben saw that they were on a cart, a cart that was piloted by his son. More shout-whispers from Ben and the cart was abandoned diagonally, halfway between aisle and checkout stand, and Mihiretu, reluctantly, was at Ben's side, just as his transaction was finally completed. Ben scooped him up, to much earsplitting protest.

"Wanna shoulder-ride, Mihiretu?" Ben asked, in a last ditch effort to contain him. Every kid in our family loves shoulder-rides from Dad. Generally, when we're all together, I have a no-shoulder-ride rule, because a battle invariably ensues.

Mihiretu, happily perched on Ben's shoulders, small brown fingers attempting to pull Ben's very short hair, shrieks of joy echoing through the warehouse, was content. And so, working fast, Ben trundled his cart through the store, in search of Liquid Nails (you heard right, Liquid Nails, ladies and gentlemen). As Ben stood before the wall of glue, attempting to discern which particular kind of Liquid Nails fit the bill, Mihiretu quieted. Soon, as Ben held two bottles of glue in his hands, weighing their merits, he felt Mihiretu's chin rest on his head, Mihiretu's fingers loosen from his scalp and a small palm ooze slowly over his eye. Ben cocked his head to get a look at his passenger. His eyes were half-open, he listed to one side.

"You tired, buddy?" Ben asked.

Mihiretu's mouth pulled into a vague half-smile, which, when combined with the droopy eyes and the off-kilter posture, made him appear to be the littlest drunk in Marin.

Ben gently laid Mihiretu in the giant, as yet empty shopping cart. He placed Mihiretu's folded sweatshirt beneath his brown curls and spread his own over him like a blanket. Mihiretu's eyes closed completely and, head cocked askew on his neck, his mouth hung open in slumber.

Grateful for the silence, tucking the Liquid Nails in under Mihiretu's sneakered feet, Ben rolled the cart towards floor mats. Soon, the cart parked, he was halfway down the aisle, peacefully puzzling over his choices in the shriek-less quiet. A brawny middle-aged man, beer-bellied, wearing scuffed steel-toed boots and a Carhart jacket fraying at the cuffs, rounded the corner from the other direction. Ben glanced his way just in time to see him stop short in front of the cart, scratching his belly uncertainly. For all intents and purposes, this looked like a comatose - or worse - black child placed in the cart for purchase, with no discernible parent present. Now on which aisle can you find those?

Ben said later that as strange as the scene might have appeared to that guy, for Ben it was actually a good moment. Mihiretu was serenely asleep. Ben was happily perusing the Big Store. All was well. Did it look weird? Did Ben care? We Caprons are past the point of worrying how we appear to the outside world. Sometimes, most times, we are a tornado of seeming chaos, but sometimes, maybe even most times, we're doing okay. We're doing our very best to put one foot in front of the other. If we have strange looking shoes, so be it. And, hey, we've got a trailer. We're taking this circus on the road.