School Age

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]

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]

An issue that adoptive families often face when their children begin school is the dreaded family tree project. Typically a school will send home a request for family information so that each child can construct his or her own genealogy, or family tree. When a child has been adopted domestically and knows or has contact with some of his birth family, many families choose to add the known birth family into the family tree, right along with the adoptive parents. Many parents of internationally adopted children, however, know nothing about the child's birth family, and can be filled with angst over this assignment, especially if the assignment raises questions in the child's mind. I will always remember a comment on this topic, made… [more]

I stumble out groggily to the living room, intent on coffee and few minutes of quiet email before breakfast. The 6 youngest are already up, watching kids' shows on PBS. When my (home from Ethiopia in August) 12 year old spots me, she says, "Mom-- fire!" and then turns her attention back to the TV. I understand that she is not yet speaking in complete sentences, but her imperious tone grates on my tired self. "What?!?" I say in a disbelieving tone. Still staring at the TV, she repeats herself. "Make fire! I'm cold." She curls her 12 year old self into a more comfortable ball in the recliner and tucks the pillows around herself. "You need to be nice to mom. I think you mean… [more]

Almost every parent has to come up with consequences when kids do not cooperate, and parents of newly arrived children are no exception. During the first couple months of homeschooling this year, we've dealt with our fair share of attitudes and non-compliance during school time, enough that my 15 year old son sagely observed, "The honeymoon ends a lot quicker when you're homeschooling, doesn't it?" No kidding. It is only natural that kids will test the limits in a new situation. That's what kids do. We are still working out the kinks in our own situation, and I am in no way implying that we have it all figured out. But here are some things that I've found are helpful in encouraging good behavior from new… [more]

One of the things that I didn't give a lot of thought to before our girls came home was the issue of contact with family and friends. I assumed I'd be glad to have the girls keep in touch with any extended family, and I thought it would be neat if they could speak with friends on the phone from time to time. When our girls got home, I was thrilled when they received their first call from a Layla House friend. Their faces glowed, and it was such fun to hear them chattering away in Amharic. What a great way to keep their language! What I didn't fully comprehend was how many friends they have. Our phone was ringing nearly every day for them… [more]

I find that I am feeling constrained in my blogging lately. I could be sharing the blow-by-blow daily minutia of older-child adjustment, and there are times every day where I begin mentally composing a story. However I am very concerned that as I write I not take away my children’s dignity or their privacy. I certainly would not want everyone and their neighbor to know every time I descend into the pits of unhappiness, (yes, indeed I do at times.) I fear that if I blogged everything about my girls there might be a time (not too distant from now) when they might get curious about the writing I do, and be embarrassed by what I have disclosed. Somehow it feels different to… [more]

When parents think of adopting older kids, they often feel sad at the realization that they will miss so much of the child's life. They won't get to see their first steps or hear their first words. However, I've discovered that 'firsts' are actually some of the neatest things about adopting older kids. Yesterday we went to the fair with our whole crew, and our new girls had a day full of firsts. Of course there was the food. Blooming onions were a hit with the younger girl, but not the older. Both girls loved the snow cones. And once they got over the initial strangeness of cotton candy, they both loved that too. We spent quite awhile in the small… [more]

You have three days before you travel to the other side of the world to bring home two school-aged girls who are total strangers, and yet they are your children. You exist in a whirl of things you need to do before you can finally leave. You're not only preparing for a trip halfway across the world but you're preparing to bring two children home! There are too many things to do. There are things to do at home for your other children and their caregivers. There are things to buy, and never all at the same store. There are things to scrub, with each clean item bringing to mind another to scrub. There are things to bag and never enough bags. There are… [more]