Adoptive Parenting

Ethiopia continues to work through its past issues and is offering one of the fastest growing adoption program in existence. The past year has shown some difficulties because of the rapid growth. Ethiopia has called upon the help of various governmental agencies to make certain their program is functioning correctly. There is a great interest on the part of prospective adoptive parents for this area. I am not certain if the reason is the incredible need that has been highly published through the media or the fact that many of the well-known actors and actresses have gone this route? The reason does not matter as much as the fact that so many children are getting the chance to realize their dream of… [more]

It has been awhile since I have blogged about Ethiopian adoption and am happy to be back on target. Ethiopian adoption has undergone some recent improvements to their adoption program. This is good news for those who are interested in adoption from this country. In the past, Ethiopian adoption has struggled under fraud and paper mishandling. This caused a major slowdown in the processing of dossiers. The backlog caused from this slowdown has been dealt with and Ethiopia is regaining its lost ground. One of the problems that the Ethiopian adoption program faces is that it has little governmental regulation in place and great need. Those two items coupled can cause trouble. Ethiopia is gaining better control of their program and working a… [more]

Spring is here and summer planning has already started in many of our homes I'm sure.  In my house we start planning camps in February when Girl Scout Camp registration opens. As parents or potential parents of Ethiopian children we have a responsibility to keep some of the culture in our homes.  I truly believe that we owe this education to our children and to their homeland. While I believe that attending activities that embrace our children's heritage I also know (from experience!) that our children don't always embrace our activities!  Last year Mita balked at going to a New Year celebration, so we let her invite a friend. She was much  more willing to go since she didn't have to hang out with… [more]

I love Ethiopia.  I can remember thinking about Ethiopia when I was a girl. The news of the awful famine had a profound effect on me even as a small child.  Then, of course, choosing Ethiopia as the country of our adoption led Hubby and I to learning quite a bit about Ethiopia.  While I will never be a professor of Ethiopia, I still feel apart of this great country.  On a recent min-vacation I took a friend to eat Ethiopian food for the first time.  It was enjoyable to share this food with her and she enjoyed feeling apart of our family.  The kids were not there, but it still felt homey when I was in the restaurant. My previous posts… [more]

Crayons, markers, glue, glitter are all things I try and stay away from. I am a mom who does not like arts and crafts I admit it. I do, however, appreciate art and want my kids to learn by making things and playing with texture, colors and their imaginations. On top of my refrigerator I have all the glue, crayons, markers, tape and scissors my kids need to have some artsy fun. My two home-grown kids have enjoyed making things, drawing pictures and in general making a mess since they could hold a crayon. When we brought Mita and Enu home I noticed that they did not just set down and draw pictures. They looked to see what Meg was doing… [more]

Since school is out and all the summer activities have started (summer school, VBS, Scout Camp, etc.) I have felt like Ethiopia has gone to the wayside lately. We missed our monthly Ethiopian Adoptive Families group this month simply because we had had a long week and the kids needed some down time. I haven't cooked Ethiopian food in a while either. I did add some berbere to spaghetti the other night, when I couldn't find cayenne pepper in my pantry. It had quite a kick to it too! I am extremely happy that I have made reservations at an Ethiopian Culture Camp being put on by AbshiroKids.com this summer. I have talked about some of their products before on this blog… [more]

While I am far from an expert on Ethiopian news, history and culture, I do try and keep up on the basics of what is going on. This is important to me and I believe it will be important to my kids in time. Plus we want to go back in a few years and I want to know how to prepare! I find it easy to celebrate the holidays and the fun activities. We watched the Olympics last summer and cheered as the Ethiopian team walked on the track. I tracked down the Olympic Coca-Cola cans with Amharic writing on it and the kids enjoyed that Coke immensely and they keep a can in their Ethiopian memory baskets. We celebrated… [more]

Today I went to Mita's class and talked about adoption and Ethiopian culture and history. This is a second grade class. I had spoken to Enu's First grade class earlier in the year, but Mita wasn't ready until now. The talk went well. When dealing with kids, I try to be as "unschool" as possible. We were all sitting down on the rug at the same level. The kids had seen me before and felt familiar. I also took a lot of props with me to keep their hands busy. Some of these props were: Baskets and wooden animal carvings we got in Ethiopia, Ethiopian Birr (Ethiopian currency), the Amharic alphabet chart I have, a map and some books… [more]

On April 16th, it will be a year that Mita and Enu came into our lives. Officially our court date was March seventh, but the sixteenth was when I could hold them and hear them say "mom". I have decided to celebrate our year as a complete family by writing this month about what I have learned, what I'm still learning and what I wish I would have done differently. I'll be using all four of my blog topics on Adoptionblogs.com to share. We have decided to call the anniversary "Family Day", as it is simple and to the point. Other families may call this "Gotcha Day" or "Airplane Day". Here are my plans for celebrating our Family Day together… [more]

Over New Years John and I did something we hadn't done in years. We went away overnight, without any kids. My mom graciously agreed to have all ten of our kids over to her house for a New Years sleepover. And John and I took off. We went shopping and out to eat and in honor of the new year we even went dancing. There are more details here, if you are interested. But for now let me just say that it was wonderful, every bit of it. Nevermind that it almost took a crowbar to pry ourselves away from the younger kids as we walked out the door. Nevermind that a large majority of our conversation… [more]