After reading Debbie Allen’s Dancing in the Wings (totally great book about an empowered little girl – yes, it’s in my bookstore!) the girls really really wanted to learn how to dance.  Spice was actually the keenest, which surprised me, becuase she’s the least coordinated of the two. 

So I took them to a class in September at the studio near our house – and knew right away it wasn’t going to work. They just weren’t ready for it. They weren’t capable of following instructions, or being away from Mommy without having complete meltdowns. Plus, it looked kinda boring. 

But scroll forward four months, and now it’s a different story all together.  The girls were enthused and prepared.  We decided purely on the basis of our schedule to go to a studio downtown (still only a 5 min drive) and we hit the jackpot.  Their teacher is awesome – everything is imagination and ponies and coloured slippers.  Well, you can see they enjoy it!

Jrock clipped this out of the paper for me.  Ya think he’s making fun of me?

(Not wanting to risk copyright infringement, I linked to the original on the artist’s blog.) 

We went over to my friend N’s house the other day – funny, we hadn’t seen them since November! and had sandwiches and dress-up.  So nice to catch up; she’s a lovely lady.

When I was there we did N’s younger daughter’s hair too - N, like so many moms, finds her daughter’s hair a bit of a challenge.  I have to say that all the advice I have got makes my life so much easier! I mean, from a friend suggesting I cut the girls’ hair myself (which I did, and had way less tangles!) to on-line buds recommending products, etc.  Anyway, I taught her to do bantu knots. Right on! They looked really cute. (Although her daughter wasn’t that impressed.  Toughcrowd, man! lol) My own girls, you can see that they had free hair for a day or two since we went swimming mid week. Yikes, it is so much more work, I find, to have their hair free than to have it braided… I have no idea what we’re going to do in the summer when we are going to the beach every day.

Anyway, I can’t wait to have lunch again.  Although she’ll have to stock up on liver paté – between N, I and my two rugrats we practically ate them out of house and home.  Yum. Paté.

Ok, so she gave me a heart attack when I went to wake them up a couple days ago.  I looked in her bed, in the bathroon, UNDER the bed, in her sister’s bed…

… when finally I saw her!

Sugar had been there the whole time – just tucked in with the stuffies at the end of her bed.  Good heavens – and I thought I was going to have to send out a search party!

We’ve all been following the terrible news from Haiti, and in the adoption community we’ve definitely been thinking of all the kids and parents caught in the crisis.  We just got word that 80+ of the kids in the latter phase of adoption as flying home RIGHT AWAY, and then rest have also been given the go-ahead fro the Haitian government. Thank goodness!  Read more the details here.

When Jrock asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I said “just get me out of the house, please! Anything – pottery lessons, whatever…”

So he bought me three cooking lessons at Mission Hill, the grand vineyard up top of the hill in Westbank.

My first cooking lesson was themed around the Terrace Restaurant and it featured five favorites from the restaurant last year: Red rock Crab Pappardelle (amazing,) Carmelized Fennel Veloute with Halibut Cheek (decent,) Sloping Wills Pork Tenderloin with glazed Apples (delicious,) Crusted Albocore Tuna with Heirloom Beet Salad (beets mediocre but the tuna, a revelation,) and Vanilla Bean and Chevre Cheesecake.

I thought I would get to chop and stir, but it’s more of a audience type experience, with you eating each course paired with a Mission Hill wine.

Yes – it was fabulous. The food was great! We got all the recipes and lots of neat techniques and tips.  I can’t wait for the next one – “Inspired by Julia Child” – or the last one – “100 Mile Diet.”

Enjoy the dishes below!

You’re probably thinking “well, duh. That’s what you’ve been saying all along.”

Well, in Ethiopian adoption, it’s really common to have one age on paper and your kids be another age. Especially for kids older than 2.  Certainly there is occasionally a little age fudging by birth parents, but much more common is simply not knowing the kid’s birthday.  Birthdays just aren’t important in Ethiopia – only one in three people even has a birth certificate, - it’s kinda culturally irrelevant.

So when we got the proposal for Sugar and Spice, we noticed that they came into the orphanage’s care the same day as their birthday.  Coincidence?  I think not!

Well, turns out that wasn’t the day they came into care anyway – it was four months earlier. We found that out from the orphanage director himself. And we also got some other information on our trip that pointed to them turning four in the fall, not three.

Well, the bone density test came back this week, and it appears that they are three after all.  And that seems to line up with how they act and interact with peers… although they are bright little three year olds (especially Sugar.) So their “birthday” will stay – and they will stay three years old.

Funny how one of those things you take as a certainty born in Canada can be so subjective somewhere else, isn’t it?

My mom plays bridge with a soon-to-be granny, whose son is adopting from El Salvador. She connected me with him, and he asked if I would (via the Ethio Adoption grapvine) see if there is anyone else out there adopting or who has adopted from El Salvador.

So… know anyone adopting from El Salvador?  Or who has in the past?

If so, please leave a comment with your email and I’ll pass their info on; or you can leave me the family’s info as a comment and I’ll delete the info before I allow the comment.  I think this couple would appreciate some “community.” Thanks!

I was compiling some video clips for my relatives today, and I just can’t believe how far along the girls’ language has come. Some people are also surprised at the things we talk about – and most of the time they start the conversation. 

Like today when we were driving past the hospital, Spice says “I want work here!”… and hence this discussion an hour later on the deck. (They’re stuffing their faces with salsa and tortillas, but you get the idea.)

I guess every family has their own customs about eating, and family traditions.  In my family, for example, we always used chopsticks growing up for Chinese food, and then sushi when it came en vogue. It actually started when my dad was in uni and her had a Chinese roommate – and only a wooden spoon and chopsticks to eat with for a year. when I went to Japan as a 15 year old, my host mom told me I had better chopstick manners than her daughter! Anyway, so when our local sushi hole-in-the-wall restaurant offered us specially cobbled-together trainer chopsticks for the girls, we said “sure!” and they’ve been practicing with asian food ever since.

People often comment that the girls will eat anything – that’s not true, of course.  But another family tradition is to try a lot of different food.  My sis and I started making family meals at the ripe old age of 12 and never looked back, experimenting with all sorts of flavours and combinations – some successful, some not! In fact, I think food has opened our eyes to more than flavors. It really is a cultural bridge, too. I remember shen we were teens/preteens my dad telling about this restaurant he really liked in Vancouver (he used to travel tons when we were young) and how the man he took there was a little shocked that there were justmale couples eating supper – but gosh, it has the best ribeye, so why not!

 I digress – but when the girls first came to Canada they wouldn’t eat any fruits of vegetables, period.  BUT, they have really expanded their pallets.  Their all time favorite food (just like their dad) is now Indian – we are lucky to have a fab Indian family restaurant just 3/4 blocks form our house.  Here you can see them scarfing some Tom Ka Gai (Thai lemmongrass/coconut soup with chili oil on top) from another favorite haunt downtown.

Honestly, some of the Canadian stand-bys (pancakes below) were a tougher sell – just because our food is so sweet (oh, they didn’t eat any sugar either, when they came to Canada) and so foreign! I mean, where are the spices?  The onions? They tried a knife for the first time today, though – I thought they are ready for it, and it’ll be great when we don’t have to cut their food so much when we are out in restaurants, etc. Hey – maybe that’s why we like Indian and Japanese so much! No fork or knife involved!

The girls just love reading – and they pay such close attention.  I think we’ve read this one two or three times, and she gets the jist of the story just fine.

PS: the battery charger arrived! So expect better newer fantasticer pics soon!

We had to keep it under tight wraps since October, but as of last month, it’s public knowledge.  My Best Friend (since grade 4/5, so she retails the title even into adulthood) is preggers with twins!  We’re so very happy for her and her hubby.  And it’ll be so nice to have someone else “in the family” with twins.  Although, I have to admit that when she told me, I just laughed and cackled and howled some expletives:  “Twins!?! %^$%! !!” 

Twins are something. Ok, so we’ve never known anything else.  But we did choose to have two kids at once, whereas it’s more of a surprise for people giving birth to twins.  And twins themselves are something special.  They aren’t any more alike (at least ours aren’t) than any other two siblings, BUT – they have a connection that is incredibly strong. 

From the parenting end, there is no trial run child.  I mean, you jump with two feet into each developmental phase and it’s full steam ahead with twins.  It’s great that they have each other to play with! so that helps when they get older. The downsides are that you need two of lots of expesive things, there are no such things as hand-me-downs, and no older sibling help.  It’s pretty intense, especially at first.  And again, we got the girls when they were three – we never did diapers or nursing.  Yikes – they are going to have her hands full!

So two cheers for my BF, due in April/June (Twins typically arrive early.):
Hip hip horay! hip hip horay! 
Double the fun! Double the fun!

He may be a rooky, but he did a great job!!!

Jrock helped me do hair for the first time today – yipee!  He did twists all over Sugar’s head.  No braiding experience required, right?  After the initial part he was all on his own.  It cut the braiding time almost in half, which was so nice.  He’s always washed their hair and sprayed / picked it in the morning, but this is a whole new step.

The battery charger is still “in the mail”, so here are some vid shots!