Once our girls had their hair braided, we headed back to the guesthouse to a lunch of leftover injera and wat from the previous evening. (Those guesthouse cooks serve generous portions!) After lunch, John went on a hunt for 'plasta' (tape) and got the beach balls patched up so the younger girls could play some more soccer in the courtyard. Our 11 year old opted to hang out on her bunk bed writing more letters to her friends.

Soon it was time to change into the beautiful new dresses, and head over to Layla House. Since the weather was looking threatening, we were thankful for the offer of a ride from Nate, our AAI 'helper'. Rain was sputtering when we arrived at Layla. We hurried... more

Friday morning found me fussing over hair. Our agency had arranged for us to meet with our girls' uncle who had traveled all the way from Harar to meet us, and I wanted them to look nice. But the meeting time -- 9:30 AM -- had me in a bit of a time crunch. Now with four Ethiopian girls, hair dominates my life in a whole new way.

A couple evenings earlier, three of my girls ALL decided they wanted their hair done and proceeded to unbraid--at 8 PM, no less. I had a moment of pure panic at the sight of three heads of hair all loose at once, and so close to bedtime. The younger of our new girls has soft, loosely curled hair like my little girls -- a familiar challenge. My older daughter... more

After Kidane Mehret, our next mission was to find traditional dresses for all 4 of our Ethiopian daughters. Dawit drove us to a row of little shops near the U.S. embassy, and very kindly walked into the various stores with us translating and helping us bargain.

Three of the four girls stated a preference for pink, which several shops did not have. But eventually we ended up with a lovely blue and gold dress for the 11 year old, and pink and gold ones for the younger three girls. The older girls’ dresses were 160 birr each (around $16) and the little girls dresses were about 40 birr... more

During the night it rained heavily-- so LOUD-- but in the morning it was sunny and gorgeous, albeit with many mud puddles everywhere. The road in front of the guesthouse is currently under construction, and is full of mud. We hung around at the guesthouse in the morning playing soccer and getting showers.

Around noon our driver, Dawit, picked us up. We began our errands with lunch at Metro Pizza, not far from AHOPE in the Mekanissa area of town. Here they cook the pizza in a really cool-looking brick oven. When I took the girls over to get a closer look at it, our elder daughter had her first embarrassed-by-mom... more

Wednesday morning we made instant oatmeal for breakfast before going shopping. Upon seeing the oatmeal, my 9 year old said, "No eat." And didn't. Fortunately we also had rolls and juice to offer, which went over just fine. Around 10:00 our very nice driver Dawit came in his van to take us on a few errands.

First on the agenda was new shoes for our girls. We opted to go to a 'no-bargaining' place on Churchill Road where we spent about $13 a pair for silver tennis shoes for the 11 and 9 year olds. Next came Bibles. We were hoping to find them Amharic-English Bibles,... more

Our taxi stops at a busy intersection in Addis, and a little boy selling tissues sends me scrambling for the granola bars to which I’d rubber-banded a few birr, and upon getting the treat he gives a whoop and starts to leave but then comes back to ask for the tissues back, and this show of chutzpah provokes a grin from both me and a respectable-looking lady walking by, and he waves whooping across the street at friends and suddenly the window (open a foot) seems open way too wide because within seconds there are half a dozen hands reaching in and I give out my last two granola bars and hold my hands apart to show I have no more, but a keen-eyed dirty-faced urchin sees the corner of more birr... more

As our new 11-year-old carried her 2-year-old sister proudly off to find our other new daughter, I was overjoyed to see she seemed so glad to have a little sister. We soon arrived at the right classroom, and upon our older daughter's call, out came our other daughter. She was even tinier-- 58 lbs at age 9, fitting perfectly into size 7 slim clothing.

She came for a hug with a shy but radiant smile, and curved her body responsively into mine at my tearful hug. Then she moved around to greet our 5 and 2 year olds joyfully, and then get a hug from dad. Her smile shone, and as we walked off to see their bedrooms, I walked between them to be touching them both. It was surreal to be... more

At 5 am the chanting from the mosque woke us up. Our 2 year old said, "I don't like that man. He's mean." We tried to convince her it was okay, but she didn't think any reason was good enough to talk that loud that early in the morning. Daddy agreed.

We were so awake that we decided to just get baths and breakfast and dress. Our agency's guesthouse provides breakfast fixings, so we made scrambled eggs and rolls for breakfast, and got everyone dressed. By 8 AM both the 2 and 5 year olds were melting down, and I was wondering how on earth they would ever be ok when it was time to meet our new girls. I laid them both back down to sleep some more.

At 9:00 Nate, our... more

We made it to Ethiopia!!! The trip began in our airport at home with our two year old whining and refusing to walk or cooperate or even ride in the stroller. All she wanted was mom to carry her. John and I kept looking at each other shaking our heads and wondering what we were getting into. She shaped up after a trip to McDonald’s for some breakfast food. I think the two strawberries she ate for breakfast at home just didn’t cut it! The flight to San Francisco was blessedly short. The girls were both entertained by looking out the window and getting snacks and playing with the goodies in their fanny packs. The girls' fanny packs were perhaps the best things we packed for... more

New to this blog? Here's a bit of info to help you get the most out of it.

I've been writing here about Ethiopian adoption since February 2006. Since I add something new every day, there's a lot here. Thankfully there are some very helpful 'Category' headings in the right hand sidebar.

Here you'll find a list of general topics that I most often write about. Clicking on any of those words will pull up all the posts that I have written about that topic.

New readers might enjoy:

'Getting Started' - a primer on paperwork involved and steps to take in adopting from Ethiopia.

'Food/Recipes'-... more