He was 97 years old.

It was a few years ago that I started considering every visit a gift.  I really got to know my Grandpa as an adult – we didn’t see a lot of them growing up, as we lived so far away.  But when I went to university just a few hours away, I started making the trip and getting to know he and Gramma better.

He was a dreamer.  A man with wild ideas and a person who tried on many different identities.  He was a farmer, a vaccum-cleaner salesman, a builder, and always really wanted to be an architect. When he was in his late 80s, with a Grade 8 education, he decided to become a writer, learned how to use a computer, and published a book.  He was a true romantic – he thought that every man in his family was a hero and every woman a kind and beautiful soul.  He was a man deeply rooted in his faith, but impatient with others of other beliefs.  A Polish patriot who had never lived there, he read all he could about his roots. He had great hair, and wore dapper hats. He was kind and open.  My best memory of him was when I was going off to live in Germany, and would be meeting and be hosted by old men he had fought a war against.  I asked him how he felt about this, and he simply said with a smile that was why they fought a war in the first place – so their children could live in peace in each others’ home. He called my children treasures, and truly loved and was in love with his wife even as the many many years went by. He could harmonize to any tune, and was prouder of few things than the music he had played.  His best legacy is his children and his grandchildren, who are all good people.

That’s a short summation of a very full and very long life.

We’re off to his funeral in a day so I’m signing out for a week or so…

Back to Ethiopia:

The Merkado is the shopping place that all the guide books tell you about and tell you to be wary in.  Personally, I don’t like pickpockets, and I had my arms and hands full with two little girls.  So in Ethiopia we steered pretty clear of the huge Addis market.

That said, there are dozens of places to shop across the city.  There are the malls, of course… the malls on Bole Road are great for getting kids/baby stuff, but be prepared to pay almost western prices.  They are also good for buying silver jewelry, which is really high quality.  Don’t bother going to the silver shops Kidslink takes you to as their selection is poor; but the stuff in the malls runs the gamit and is very reasonable. Other than that, I don’t recommend malls. 

Some of my favorite places to go were the “Shiro” (sp?) market, which is also known as the Entoto market at the base of Entoto Mountain.  It’s the textiles/clothing market  but there’s a random assortment of gifts as well. We got a collection of musical instruments for the kids there, horns and drums and the like.

There are several pottery places, with cheap! pottery. But be aware that most sun-fire their stuff so you shouldn’t use put any fluids in them and drink them, or serve food in the bowls.  Only if it’s kilm-fired.

A place the Kidslink people take you to is the “Former Firewood Carrier’s Weaving Cooperative”… it’s actually really easy to find yourself.  Just get dropped at the base of the Entoto market, walk 5 minutes up and you will see a sign pointing you left to a side street.  Voila.  This place is great because it provides skilled employment for people that would otherwise be doing back-breaking labour.  Plus the scarves they sell there are CHEAP! and really lovely. 

Another fun place is the kids toy store.  It’s another co-op employing mentally-disabled adults.  They make all these lovely wooden toys, hand-sewn stuffies… it’s wonderful. I forget what it’s called but it’s in the Lonely Planet guidebook, I think. There’s a great coffee shop that caters to foreigners in the postal district.  Then there are the leather (jackets etc.) shops around the stadium… etc.

And never dismiss where the locals shop – the small scale markets (although not the shipping container clothing ones!) near the university and other places.  And there are spice stores and supermarkets… even art galleries.  We came home with a lovely painting by the reknowned Ethiopian artist Soloman and we got it in the Makush gallery on Bole just steps from the guesthouse.  And it’s really lovely.

And if you have ANY shopping guilt at all, remember 1. you are supporting local industry! and 2. your home SHOULD have a bizillion souvenirs of Ethiopia… it’s a tangible way for your kids (if you are an adoptive parents) to experience their home country culture.

Should I even tell you what we bought home?  Here’s my best remembered list: drums, horns, twine toys, wood puzzles, traditional outfits, Ethio lego, shoes, Tshirts, a huge injera basket, injera basket toys, music CDs, spices, shiro powder, pottery bowls and sculptures, scarves, coffee beans, leather belts, stone carvings, baskets, silver jewelry, snack food, books for kids and for us, christmas ornaments, a big painting… etc.

A month ago I hinted in a post that I was researching Amharic fonts… well today I put it into use and got my first ever and probably last ever tattoo. 

Pressing the font stencil on.

It’s to commemorate my kids.  I never got a tattoo before because I couldn’t think of anything that permanent I wanted to celebrate.  Well, kids are about as permanent as it gets.

I have a huge fear of needles. Serious. So I did a lot of breathing exercises.

Such fine work – the guy is really good. It DID hurt though, for the few of you readers who don't have tattoos.

So, in case you are wondering, it’s the Amharic word for “family.” Thanks to my awesome friend T who spent the day with me in Vernon and cheered me on, my husband who, despite not liking tattoos, supported me, and our Ethio friends M&G, who checked the word and made sure I wasn’t putting “cheeseburger” or something else ridiculous on my arm.  Better to triple-check these things, you know.

I was pretty lightheaded after, and had to sit there for 15 minutes sucking on a red lollipop to get my bloodsugar levels back.

It’ll be a few weeks before it looks totally normal, but here’s a freshly un-bandaged view.

"Family"

PS: thanks to L&B for the referral.  Troy at Freedom Tattoo was a consumate professional and I felt like I was in great hands.

The girls have really grown since we got them – in size, and in nature.  They are up to a 7 shoe size, and almost always size three tops… but the pants!  Wow, there’s a trouble. They broke through the knees of three pairs of jeans, leaving us with two decent pairs.  So we went jeans shopping… five hours over two days later (thank goodness they like to shop!) we found two pairs of jeans, and one pair of shorts that fit.  All the size 2s are too huge on the waist, even with the elastic buttons.  The two we did get are cinched up size 2s – but at $25 a pop (Mexx and Polo – I know, I know! but they fit!) yikes.  Our girls are so petite.

The funny thing was the shorts though.  We found them in Winners and I thought they were a size 3.  They were fleece-lined and I thought “what cute little lederhosen-like shorts – they’d be awesome over tights.”  So Sugar tried them on and they fit like a dream.  I had them all the way to the till before I realized they weren’t size 3 shorts… they are 3-6 month old pants.  Good heavens.  They must be saggy in the bum for diapers or something.  But what the heck – we bought them anyway.

So you can see them on our models.  It is amazing.  In four? months they have grown from baby/toddlers who acted and talked like baby toddlers (and were treated more like big babies in ET – they were the smallest in the older kids home) to preschoolers, in thought processing, language, emotional control, artistic ability and even physicality.  Pretty astounding.

I guess you have to have your posse around when you have breakfast.  It makes it a whole lot more fun!  Look – it’s like a party in the kitchen.

For your personal amusement, I’ll list out the “babies’” names from back to front.  Some of you might recognize a few! Hana, Eskedar, Ava, Mihiret, Sylvie, Jessie, Jenny, and Jordanos.

It is interesting to note that in a three year old’s view colours and hairstyles have little to no significance in naming your “babies” after people you know… it’s more about the feeling you get from the doll and the feelings you have associated with the people.  Now, can’t we learn something from three year olds?!

PS: All but the “twins” I got for a grand total of $5 from a second hand store. Pretty darn good buy, I say. [ed] Ooops, and a couple came from Grannie’s second hand store too. They’re not all shown!

The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on ‘donating a mammogram’ for free (pink window in the middle).

This doesn’t cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here’s the web site! www.thebreastcancersite.com Please just click. (No log-in or anything!)

And it’s time for fall activities – hikes, cracking nuts, crunching leaves, making birdfeeders, and getting the most of sunny days before the winter rolls in.

Enjoy the pictures from the last week or so.

Me and some Master's students from Princeton out on the town.

The electric Mini – giving test drives to the conference participants. Forgot my Drivers Licence though!

Overcast but warm on the UCLA grounds.

The nightlife in Westwood.

Last weekend I flew away for four days to Los Angeles.  Yeah!  It was so nice to get away and be my usual professional self – to stay up late, talk business, and not clean up after anyone.  Not that I didn’t miss the kids… BUT I definitely needed a break.  I think I’d lost a bit of myself over the past few months and even though I was nervous to put my heels back on, so to speak, it sure felt good to do so.

I was at the Opportunity Green conference, which is the premier sustainable business conference in North America.  There were amazing people there, and I had a great time getting ideas and chatting with people, for example: Adam Lowry, who owns co-founded Method Products. For several reaosns, I found the conference insightfuland inspirational – from the volunteering to professional work I do – and lots of ideas and affirmations for Jrock and I’s new business, which will be run as a model for sustainble business.

Enjoy some of the pictures – LA wasn’t at all as I imagined it.  I t was so spread out, and for sure lower-key.  But great food and lots of really interesting people.

Meanwhile, back home Daddy and the girls spent the “three sleeps” together… they went out for nachos at our Ethiopian friends’ house, raked leaves, walked the dogs and – big surprise – watched football. Which Sugar now says is better than Dora but I think she’s just trying to impress Daddy.

One of our strategies as new parents is to simplify and make life a little easier.  So, despite being on EI, (which came through this week!  yahoo!) we pay for a housekeeper each week, and also have a food delivery service.

OK, so the housekeeper is a luxury! but I think the grocery delivery actually SAVES us money. 

We subscribe to Urban Harvest, which is a local green grocery delivery service.  All the fruits and vegetables are local and/or certified organic… you pick and choose what you want in your box each week from a wide variety of yummy choices.  Or if you don’t pick a sleelection just shows up. Then Tuesday night we get a knock at the door and voila! there is the food.  You can also add in local organic dairy, bread honey and a few other products as well.  Best of all, you place your order each week and pay on-line.  Pretty cool, eh? All for $33 a week. PLUS, we know we are supporting local farmers, cutting down on carbon (we only grocery shop once every two weeks now), using less packaging and giving our kids the best possible produce we can get.

Lots of communities have these services… if you’ve ever thought about it, but weren’t sure if it is worth it – give it a try! 

Vancouver: www.greenearthorganics.com www.organicsathome.com www.spud.ca
Calgary: www.freshorganics.ca www.spud.ca
Edmonton, Okotoks, High River, and Airdrie: www.freshorganics.ca

It’s true that most of Addis Ababa is a metropolis, full of highrises, malls, slums, gravel streets, red dust and goats.  But there is another side – and if you travel to Ethiopia in the off season, you can see the lush parks and trees.  The following pictures are from Bihere Tsige Recreation Centre – it’s a big park and although it’s much different from the gardens you would expect in North America, it’s a wonderful place to see birds, and let the kids just run and run. 

We visited with our friend from Ghana, M, and her little girl R.  We hung out quite a bit in Ethiopia and I think M enjoyed this side trip as much as we did.  Apparently Accra is a lot more lush and much less poor than Addis and she really appreciated the break from the city grime too.  If you are going to Addis with kids, make sure you check the Bihere Tsige park out… It’s just 15 minutes by cab from the Weygoss, just off the Debra Zeight road.

The Adoptive Families Assoc. of BC organizes an annual Fall Family Get-together, and this is the first time we went… about 140 people! but we only knew four families… so there are lots of people with kids from BC and different countries.

We went on a couple of hay rides, ate hotdogs, and the girls played in a big vat of corn.  Enjoy the pictures!

We did hair yesterday and I thought I would share, since I’ve never done these styles before.  Sugar has flat twists – which were really quite easy to do.  It’s a common hairstyle seen in Ethiopia, and even in their Oromo tribe, which is neat.  Spice has twists too – apparently you call them Senegalese twists?  And they turned out well too.  Took a little longer, but not as long as braiding pieces, that’s for sure.  The flat twists were faster than the 6 piece braiding I usually do.  And then Mommy got a beauty shot too!

When Jrock ad  set out on our “Adoption Journey” we started going to seminars, doing our homestudy homework, and I read a ton of books on parenting.  We had a lot of discussions, mostly in our car on long trips, about our approach as parents and how we were going to handle certain situations.  We decided that attachment parenting, or our version thereof, would be the bet fit for us, our kids, and the way our family came together – adoption.  In a nutshell, for those who don’t know, attachment parenting is based on the following premises:

• When children as babies and very young, they attach to their caregivers and learn to trust as the caregivers meet their needs in a consistent way – ie: cry/food; cry/cuddles.
• If children have stable, nurturing relationship(s) with their primary caregiver(s), they learn to connect, reciprocate, and essentially, to love.  These early interactions in the first few years of life set the stage for self-assured kids, then adults, who are able to interact with others and form positive relationships.
• Kids who are adopted have always, at one level or another, had these relationships disappear.  And the more a kid is moved from caregiver to caregiver, the less stable her base and the weaker her ability to attach/trust/love. In many cases, reactive attachment disorder can occur where the child is indiscriminately affectionate, (like crawling all over or kissing complete strangers,) and unable to reciprocate true love or affection.
• Attachment parenting focuses less on behavioral training and much more on cultivating strong bonds between the parents and their children.  Through eye contact, nurturing, touch, responding to needs, positive discipline with logical and natural consequences, we try to repair the damage of multiple caregivers and, over time, develop a sense of permanency and belonging in the family. Obviously, physical discipline, and physical or emotional isolation don’t have a place in attachment parenting.

Well, that’s the short version.  But anyway, the point of this post is that attachment parenting is HARD.  When our kids cry out in their beds or at night, we go to them… there is no “crying it out”, because that really isn’t appropriate for kids that have been abandoned, is it?  But that can be a ton of going to them, settling them back i, and then trying to go back to sleep. (No, we don’t co-sleep.  Their toenails are too scratchy and they jump around like acrobats.) We often don’t much sleep.

It means a lot of things that are difficult.  Like telling your relatives/friends who do and will have great relationships with the kids that they can’t comfort them or cuddle the girls or pick them up.  This is HARD to do… but you know that they need to attach to you as parents first.  Sugar especially does quite a bit of indiscriminate affection stuff, like batting her eyelashes at men who look dad-age and friendly.  She’ll climb in someone’s lap after she has known them for 2 minutes – and she really isn’t that friendly.  People don’t know she is “using” them and “daddy shopping.” They don’t get it and and it’s hard to say “please don’t let her climb on you.”

We’ve noticed Sugar is also avoiding our eye contact more over the past few weeks, and even sometimes our touch, like a shoulder caress or a kiss on the cheek.  Part of it is that she’s not mushy like Spice, but it’s more than just that. It’s her not trusting us.  And there is an obvious connection between Mommy being away at meetings at bedtime and Daddy working long hours, and her capacity to trust us coming back.  So we try to play games like “dips” (they love this!) where we they sit on our laps facing us and we dip them way back, and then when they come up to face us they give us a kiss or make eye contact (which we reward with a big smile.)  But it’s slow going, for sure.

Other abandonment things that the girls do (and I’m grouping i the big moves form the orphanage and the transition home in with abandonment, since they left everyone and everything behind each time): When Mommy or Daddy or someone else is going to sleep, they ask if they will wake up.  Every day, and I mean every time, Jrock goes to work, they ask if he is coming back.  Same with me going to a meeting or shopping. They constantly have to be reassured.  And other things, like when we said Gramma was sick one night so she couldn’t Skype, they asked right away if Gramma was going to die.  Lept right to it.  They have very little sense of permanency.

But probably the hardest part of attachment parenting is the CONSTANT neediness.  And yes, before you say it, we have been teaching them to play more independently, so now they will do playdough for like 1 1/2 hours at a go.  But during that time, they will often need to say hi, or remain within visible range.  And even though they now have learned to dress themselves, go to the bathroom be themselves, wipe their own noses, etc… they restarted asking for help all the time.  I was having a hard time with this, since I know they can do it, but they’d demand “Mommy do it!” like 3 year old tyrants over the last week or so.  It was driving me crazy and I felt hostage.  So after a good talk with Jrock and a good cry, we decided we would have zero tolerance for bossiness, (so they have to ask in a nice voice and say please, or I will ignore their request,) but if they ask, I will still wipe, hold the kleenex, put the pants on, etc.  It’s the nurturing, right, not the actual activity.  Now after four days of me meeting every *polite request, they are starting to be more independent again.  But I expect this will not be the only time we float between independence and dependence.  

Tests of trust and permanancy will likely continue in some form throughout their lives at various stages. I think this will be the most taxing on us as parents.

So it would be a lot easier to leave them cry at night.  Or give them time outs in another room. (They “time in” right beside me.) Or tell them “wipe your own butt.” Or get offended when they spurn a cuddle. Or let them crawl all over family members and friends.  But that’s not the way we’ve chosen to raise our kids. 

I am not posting this for the big sympathy plea – but just to give the parents who have chose this way (which I truly do think is the best approach for adopted kids, especially older ones) an acknowledgment of hard work and a dose of encouragement.  Lots of people don’t understand… but usually, they don’t have kids with abandonment/attachment issues. So stick to your guns, get some sleep, and don’t beat yourself up if you fall a bit off the wagon.  Climb back on – because as my Mom’s fav parenting author said: “Kids are worth i!”