Boppie

Today I am thankful for Metti, AKA, Boppie. Yes, she’s not here right now, she’s still in Ethiopia getting married, but having dealt with another aide for the past 3 weeks has shown me how lucky we are to have Metti. In the 3 years she’s worked for us I could count on one hand the number of times she’s been late, and every time she would call to let us know what was going on. She has never…NEVER just not shown up for work (unfortunately I can’t say that about our other aide). If she’s going to be out for any reason she would give us plenty of notice, if possible. If she’s sick then she always called in plenty of time for me to take the day off work.

I have mentioned it before and I’ll say it again…having a complete stranger come into your house day after day to care for your infant child is very scary. Before Metti arrived I kept having flashbacks to every 20/20 show where they “out” people who abuse those who are disabled. I had nightmares of Ella getting beaten and abused by someone on a power trip. For weeks I prayed that God would send the right person to care for Ella. I’ll never forget opening the door on Metti’s first day and I instantly felt relief. I just knew it was all going to be ok. I stayed home the first day to show her the ropes, then Joe studied from home for the next several weeks, that way if anything happened he was close enough to take care of it.

Metti is now a member of the family. She knows more about us than probably our own mothers know, and that’s pretty scary…for both us and her! I am able to understand about 99% of what she says (the first few weeks were rough) and I love that she calls our parents Ms. GiGi, Ms. Grammy Janet, and Mr. Paw Paw...never by their first names. I loved that she was hysterical crying on her last day because she was going to miss Ella so much, and I love that she called the other day (yes, from Ethiopia) and the first thing she said was "Can I talk to Ella?" Most importantly, I love that she loves Ella with all her heart and only wants to see her grow into the beautiful, strong, smart girl that God intended her to be.