(Part 1) Brian warned me in comments on the previous post that I was asking for trouble to bring up the contentious naming issue. Being a stubborn first-born, here I go anyway. One of the delights of having a blog is getting to state your own opinion. Feel free to disagree but, y'know, respectfully.

With each of our adopted children we kept their name from their country of birth as their middle name and gave them a name of our choice as their first name. That way we got the pleasure of naming/claiming the child, and child got an 'American' name for general use. Yet down the road they still have the option... more

Looking back through my archives, I was shocked to discover I haven't once covered the naming issue. Could this really be true? This is a hot topic among families.

There are several ways to handle the issue of naming a child born in another country. Some folks opt to totally rename the child and not keep any part of the name from the child's country of origin. Some choose to keep their child's entire Ethiopian name and just add the new family's name onto the end. This is most commonly done with an older child who is already very used to be called a particular name.

Others choose the middle road and keep part of the child's Ethiopian name, either as the first or middle name.... more

As I mentioned before, just before Christmas I brought my four year old in to the salon to get her hair professionally braided for the first time. I wasn't sure how long the hairdo would last, because she has soft relatively loose curls that don't tend to hold braids. it looked awesome over Christmas and was so easy.

But for the past few days, the fuzz at the hairline has been more and more obvious to me. I didn't want to take out her 3 week old hairdo - the hairdresser thought it would last at least 4 weeks - but I didn't want it to look scruffy either.

I decided to take out the two... more

Just visited Erin's blog, where she addresses an issue that I have often faced with my girls, the comment, "She doesn't look African- she has such fine features!"

My first Ethiopian daughter got this comment quite a bit right after she came home- she also had many people raving about how beautiful she is - like they thought African people aren't beautiful. (Hard for me to fathom. Just look around. There is beauty everywhere.)

... more

When families are considering transracial adoption, they often wonder how people will accept the new look of their family. They wonder how it feels to be stared at in the grocery store. Will they be constantly fielding adoption-related questions? Is it possible to ever just be anonymous again?

STRANGERS

Our family has gradually gotten more and more note-worthy. When we brought our first Korean son home, I noticed an increase in interest and comments. However, the comments were just as likely about our family size as they were about his adoption status. He was our fifth child, and that size of family definitely generates curiosity. Our Ethiopian girls... more

As a young couple, one of the hardest things about Christmas for my husband and me was finding time for our own private celebration of Christmas, just us and our children. We are blessed to have both sides of our family all close by, and at Christmas time everyone wants a piece of us. (In the nicest way possible, of course.) Adding to the challenge is the fact that my husband works at a hospital, so about half the time he has to work on Christmas Day.

Over the years we tried many things, but nothing worked well.

Opening gifts on Christmas morning before we went to church was too... more

Wednesday was my 4-1/2 year old's long-awaited appointment at a local hair salon to get her hair braided for Christmas. My daughter wanted to have her hair braided and is very tolerant of having her hair done by me. Still, this was a new thing, and on the way there, I wondered if she'd get tired of sitting still, or if the beautician might be in a hurry, or a little bit less gentle than I am. I wanted the experience to be good, and I hoped age 4 was not way too soon to do this.

As it turned out, I had no reason to worry. Shari has a lot of experience with little... more

An internet friend named Jan cracked me up with this joking poem she wrote about the job of keeping up with THREE heads of African hair. If you're feeling a little worn out keeping up with your child's hair, you may chuckle too.

*****

What was she thinking, adopting three kids? Three heads of hair is more, what it is

Three very beautiful African American girls. Three heads overflowing with mountains of curls

Combing the hair she gives a frustrated yank, I wish someone would run me over with a tank.

My life is consumed by hair, hair, hair, hair She already had one, then adopted a pair

Now it’s washing, conditioning, combing... more

The other day I mentioned a dress-up box as a nice Christmas gift for a child. I thought you might like to hear some of the other items that have been long-time favorite toys at our house during 20 years of raising children.

LEGOS Legos can't be beat! The original small size works for children above age 5 or so. For the under-5 set you can get the larger size of Legos, called Duplos. New this year is an even-bigger kind of Lego called Quatro for the youngest of toddlers. Over the years we have developed a huge stash of the Duplo size of Legos. We keep them in... more

If you're like me, you're probably crazy busy with getting ready for Christmas. Are you also still wondering what to get some of the children on your Christmas list? Here's an idea I had years ago that turned out to be one of our children's favorite toys of all times.

One Christmas I asked all the grandmas and older aunties for donations of old finery to help fill a dressup box for my little children. Each person just donated a few things, but between them all we got so many fun things: beaded purses, long gloves, beaded necklaces, gold heels, old prom dresses, shawls, Easter... more