I am so incredibly blessed by Elias. Everything about him is wonderful, and not just mildly wonderful: really really wonderful. I suppose a blog is an introvert's way of shouting this to the world.
No, I don't have anything in particular to illustrate this today, just feeling a little overwhelmed by his presence in my life. I was able to upload a couple YouTube video clips, 2 from today, 2 from a while back, for those of you who are sadly bereft of opportunities to see him in person.
Today Elias took a really long nap--hope he's not getting my nasty cold. I finally woke him after 4pm to go to the Kidlinks Africa festival at Capitol Brewery, a fundraiser for S.Africa, for mostly HIV kids. It was pretty good. Elias wore his Ethiopian adoption ceremony outfit (after over a year, it now fits), although we just missed the childrens' costume contest where he'd surely have taken the "most
international" award. Made him a little easier to keep track of, too! He alternated between having fun and disengaging a bit. At our own little table on a deck in back he practiced his yelling (but fortunately not screeching, a new practice reportedly encouraged by a friend in daycare). When another few families with Ethiopian kids about the same age joined us, Elias, then the others, went to play in a corner. I think they wanted to see what Elias was up to, but Elias was really just trying to get away from them to some degree. He is definitely not standoffish with 10 year old boys, though. When a band
started performing, he chose a boy to chum up to, and at one point when he sat down, Elias just plopped himself right onto his lap and settled there. This isn't the first time this has happened. When I thanked the boy afterwards for being such a good temporary big brother, he said how surprised he was when he did that. I'm surprised how willing and "motherly" these little boys have always been when Elias attaches himself to them; that wasn't my picture of boys that age. Then again, perhaps Elias is just an astute judge of character.
My favorite things at AfricaFest were the African dancing and having real Ethiopian food. Elias liked the dancing but wasn't crazy about injera and wat this time. He LOVED, however, being allowed to climb around in a real police car. The officer assured me he couldn't hurt anything in there, but he did, to her surprise, find something that he was able to turn off or mess up somehow. 
He really likes police cars and police officers. A Madison officer is usually there after church to direct traffic. Upon sighting him every week Elias yells "It's a police man, Mommy! He's helping all the cars! He's helping, Mommy!"
