From the International Adoption Clinic in Boston. Please see the abstract and source here.

Since 2000, American families have adopted 1,700 children from Ethiopia. Little is known about the health and development of these children. Patients and Methods Retrospective chart review of the arrival health status of all 50 (26F:24M) children from Ethiopia/Eritrea seen in the International Adoption Clinic.

Prior to adoption, most children resided with relatives; 36% were >18 months old prior to entry into care. More than 50% were true orphans, often due to HIV. Arrival age ranged from 3 months to 15 years (mean +/- SD 4 years +/- 43.8 months). At arrival, growth z scores were near-average (weight -.59, height -.64, head circumference -.09); significantly better than adopted children Guatemala, China, or Russia seen in our clinic. However, some Ethiopian children were significantly growth delayed (WAZ </=-2, 8%, HAZ 12%, HCZ 18%). Age at adoption did not relate to growth delays.

Medical issues on arrival included intestinal parasites (53%, [14% with >/=3 types]), skin infections (45%), dental caries (25%), elevated liver transaminases (20%), latent tuberculosis (18%), and hepatitis B (2%). Age-appropriate vaccines had been administered in 15-77% of children (depending on specific vaccine).

Behavior problems were uncommon. Gross/fine motor and cognitive skills were approximately 86% of expected for age. Age correlated inversely with developmental scores for cognition (r = -.49, P = .003). Five children had age reassignments.

Ethiopian/Eritean adoptees differ from other groups of internationally adopted children: they reside for relatively long periods of time with relatives prior to institutionalization, often have uncertain ages, exhibit few behavioral problems at arrival, have better growth, and may have less severe developmental delays. Whether these differences at arrival predict better outcomes for the Ethiopian/Eritrean children is unknown.

I have quite a few jobs.. some careers, some whims and some small businesses. Jrock and I were talking in the last while about how we’re going to pay the bills while I’m on mat leave.  At least we’ve figured out the part-time work! after that is finished, but the mat leave is quite a challenge.  (Living in Kelowna – not so cheap.)

Anyway, I have a business idea that I want to run by some of you adoptive parents (as you would be my first target market… before I expand and take over the WORLD!) lol. It would work well to do in evenings and weekend afternoons.

I am interested in making cloth dolls with made-to-order features to resemble different members of your family.  So for each 10″ or 14″ doll, you would specify big/small person, skin colour, hair colour and style, and eye colour.  The dolls would be made with cotton, filled with organic wheat (so that you can stick them in the microwave for a minute and heat them up) and be decorated with painted eyes, nose and mouth.  They would wear very simple clothes (a dress for girls, pants and shirt for boys) made of “recycled” fun fabrics. Just like my other businesses, 5% of the proceeds would be donated to charity: probably the Stephen Lewis Foundation in this case.

Here is a very basic sketch of what they would look like… (I sew better than I draw!)

Can you guess which family this is??? Hint: they have a link off my blog

Anyway, the idea is that not only would your kid have a doll that looks like them, but that they could have a family of dolls that looks just like your family.

• So I ask you…  good idea?  Dumb?
• Are the dolls too simple?
• Do you like them filled with wheat or washable, instead?
•  What would you pay for one doll? 
• What would you pay for a family of four dolls? (2 14″ parents and 2 10″ kids, for example.)
• Any other suggestions?

Thanks for your feedback!

Nicky

One of our on-line friends was waiting for a referral (after a very long road of waiting) and received a call when she was in Las Vegas two/three weeks ago!  Jrock has been in Las Vegas all week for a conference, and I couldn’t help but feel we were going to get lucky in Vegas as well   ! Well, he comes back tomorrow but I still have that feelin’ that our referral is going to happen VERY soon….

So I called our agency today, full of optimism.  (Usually I only call when I’m upset and can’t take it any longer.)  I talked to this other case worker, since ours is on vacation, and she was a fountain of information!!! Our usual case worker is nice, but as tight with information as an oyster.  This lady was like, oh, “let’s see here… yes! you are at the top of the list!”

Yahoo!  We’re at the top of the list.

So I can’t wait for that phone call / email…

 (And I can’t help but wonder if it’s possible to switch case workers.  As nice as the other one is, info is more valuable to me at this point than politeness!)

By the way, any psychos out there reading my blog, don’t try robbing me in the middle of the night tonite because my husband is gone… I keep a hatchet under the bed when he’s away.  I kid you not.  Plus I’m the dangerous one anyway.  The few times we’ve heard suspicious noises in the night, he’s poked me and whispered “you go look!” and I’ve ventured out with a kitchen knife or blunt instrument.  Long and short, I wouldn’t plan on trying anything….   Plus, you’ve seen my ferocious dogs…

There are definitely some advantages of living in Kelowna… man, it’s only mid-February and Spring is on the way! 

The first evidence: tulips – I think? or maybe irises – popping up in the side garden of the house.

The second evidence – that warm breeze coming across the lake… Hamish and Maggie and I were out walking on the beach two days ago, and it was just wonderful air and light.  I also found the bird sanctuary about 7 blocks form our house – I had no idea it was there!  So I left the dogs at the entrance and checked it out.

Happy Spring!

Our house is finally at the point where we can have people over!  It’s still not all finished, but as of Friday at about 5:10pm, I have a fully functioning kitchen.

We invited some friends over, and I had a vague hope that the oven would be in by then.  On Thursday, the plumber came and moved the in-the-way gas line.  On Friday when our temporary Argentinian exchange student came home, we attempted to install the oven.  To say it was a tight squeeze is the understatement of the year! but we got it in and I had it all wired by 5:10.  Just in time to run to the store, buy some oven-able meat, get home, and have the guests arrive at 6:30.

I really enjoy cooking and had a helpful Argentinean sous-chef, so we had a great meal (mango and chicken satay on a salad with pear and cointreau cheddar to start; cold-sliced roasted tenderloin with Bearnaise sauce, savory roasted vegetable, and wild rice with shitake mushrooms; and creme caramel and winter apple cider for dessert…) and great company.  We met K & S at a trans-racial adoption seminar.  They are adopting a little girl from China!

Here’s to many more dinner parties!

I got these photos via email… it’s interesting on so many (cultural, health, economic, political, etc.) levels…

(if anyone knows where this came from originally, please let me know.)

Germany : The Melander family of Bargteheide

Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States : The Revis family of North Carolina

Food expenditure for one week $341.98

Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09  

Poland : The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna

Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27  

Egypt : The Ahmed family of Cairo

Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53  

Ecuador : The Ayme family of Tingo

Food expenditure for one week: $31.55

Bhutan : The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village

Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03

Chad : The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp

Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23  

I’ve really tried to keep our kids in mind while we’ve been renovating our house – places to play, to run, to sleep, to craft, etc. But there is one area that I hadn’t child proofed – our living room and the hall entry. In fact, I bought some *expensive wallpaper for the little wallway entry (not used every day, mind you!) with the “we’ll teach the kids to mind” sort of philosophy.

Well, we ended up inheriting a teenage exchange student for the week from Argentina – a really sweet kid but not too self-aware. He came in this morning with his snowboard, and rubbing up against the wall, I could HEAR the wallpaper crackling. It was like chills up my spine. (If you are not laughing already, go ahead, you have my permission!)

So as soon as he left for school, I rushed out to the paint store and purchase wallpaper corners for the entry-way. If it can’t stand up to a teenager for 2 minutes, it won’t stand up to two little kids!

Hmmmm…. my poor wallpaper.

I’d better never see any crayons in the remote vicinity!!

In the last week we’ve had some news concerning the referral wait. 

First, our agency emailed with up-to-date wait times.  Our particular request (one child under 1 and one child under 4) changed from an estimate of 2-6 months to, now, 6-10 months.  Needless to say, I was somewhat aghast. Jrock was steady, since he had always thought our referral would be later, but I was pretty shaken.

Emailing with our agency rep, we learned that siblings only come into the transition home every couple of weeks (some weeks, a few groups, other times, it can be weeks in between siblings coming in.)  That news actually helped give us some sense of timing and how there are probably (my guesstimate) only 1-3 sibling referrals every month.

The third bit of news was good – the one family with a similar request that I know of received their referral.  We were very happy for them, (they had a long bumpy road,) but also happy for us to be a little closer ourselves…

Anyway, with the ups and downs, I thought a little retail therapy was due today.  So I hit the second hand stores – I got all these groovy girls and baby toys for $27! good deal – even Jrock had to admit.  He likes the dolls, too.

All the groovy girls were from the same family at the consignment store, so obviously some other mom has the same doll philosophy as me!

A very super happy loving laughing full-of-hugs birthday wish to my husband – who as of today, is firmly planted in his thirties!

I had a cake made for him by an amazing cake artist – you might recognize our animal babies – Hamish, Vega, Haatim, and Maggie. We surprised him at work for lunch today!

We all are so happy that we found him this great, loving, accepting, funny, playful, serious, interesting, intelligent, strong, practical man.  You make our family complete!

A photo ode to my husband (yes, I know it’s indulgent, but it’s my blog!):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/v2U5ERSr0WM]

Ok, so I was out shopping the other day, and decided to go into Toys ‘R’ Us and stare at all the baby stuff that I can’t buy because I don’t know how old my kids are.  This is just one of the lame activities expecting adopting mothers do – besides blogging and checking my email every 20 seconds.

Anyway, I decided to check out the dolls (’cause chances are that I will have a girl… ) and was just standing there is the doll aisle, looking around.  Then I noticed.  Do you see?

All white kids.  And if you go down the aisle to the ones with hair – they were all blond.  There was, like, one doll with brown hair. But seriously – all 100% pink skinned dolls. 

Now Kelowna is not an especially ethnically diverse community, but there are 900+ East Indian, 660+ Chinese, 575+ Japanese people living here, according to the 2006 census. But not one Asian baby doll in the store.

And even as a pink-skinned brown-haired little girl, I wanted dolls that looked a little different than I did.

So I have two things to say.

#1 – It would be conducive to promoting acceptance and multi-culturalism among little girls (who grow up sooner or later!) if there were a mix of dolls available at the store.

#2 – I am so glad for ebay.  Because there I can get a mix of dolls, and books with African or black girls and boys in them… and Asian kids and red-haired white kids, etc. 

And fro the record, I’m not talking about tokenism here… what I’m trying to say is that our family and friends are a mix of people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and I want my kids to see themselves (and our family and friends) in the book heros and doll-friends that they have.  It’s good for their healthy self-image. 

Anyway, enough said.  Here’s the cabbage patch I ordered the next day on ebay!

P.S. for parents: February is Black History Month in the US, so there are tons of great kids book lots (with black and African kids as the characters) for sale on ebay right now! (Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.  Now you’re going to bid against me!)

This is not good – I need this guy for heavy lifting!

Jrock was playing hockey on Friday and out on the center-ice, reaching for the puck, he was slammed by another player on his side.  Youch! So his side was all messed up.  (He looks very brave in this picture, but he’s been groaning and holding his side for 2 days.) And being the sensible soul that he is (note sarcasm), once hit, he went into the locker room, changed, drove home, and waited on the couch until I got home form the movie after midnight.  THEN I took him to the hospital.

Diagnosis: really bruised ribs.

Treatment: Morphine, sympathy, and additional Superbowl couch time!

Ok, so now my husband is even starting to get antsy.  A couple nights this past week, he’s said “I think it’s tonite!  check the email!” but then, no.  No referral.  Guess he doesn’t have woman’s intuition…

But when Jrock is getting antsy – you know we’re due.  Any day now.  Any day….