Perspective

Since Pete is still in Germany, Nick went to spend this last weekend at Grandma's house to make life a little easier for mom. It's funny how after getting used to taking care of three children, two seems like a breeze! We were looking for something fun to do on Saturday so I put out a bunch of paints and had the kids strip down so they could just have fun with their art and not worry about making a mess.

I don't know what I like more about this picture. Noah, demonstrating the effectiveness of the Asian squat, or that Aliyah is still wearing her necklace :)

Of course it evolved into painting themselves. Who woulda thought!

Then on Sunday we went cherry picking before going over to Grandma's to pick up Nick.

Nick had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa's. Nick's birthday present from them was to take the train up to Sacramento to visit the train museum and have a crab lunch on the water. Little boy heaven (at least for this little boy!) And, Grandma and Grandpa got the whole kid experience. I sent Nick off on Friday with both of his front teeth...

And when I picked him up he only had one! Luckily the tooth fairy found him at Grandma and Grandpa's.

While we were having our weekend fun, Pete was touring around Frankfurt visiting all of our old favorite places from when we were there on assignment ten years ago. He was sending me pictures throughout the day so I felt like I was experiencing it with him. Now we are just excited for him to come home in a few more days!

Fathers Day

We were blessed with picture perfect weather for Fathers Day so we decided to check out a nearby swimming spot that our friend had recommended. The kids had a blast playing in the water and sand and there was a lot of shade nearby for our picnic lunch. After swimming for a few hours we went home and watched the A's/Giants game while Aliyah took a nap. It was a great way to spend Fathers Day, and I hate to complain. but there was one minor (ok, kinda major) problem that kept our day from being perfect. We didn't have a dad to celebrate it with! That's right, Pete had to travel to Germany for work and missed all of the fun. The kids agreed though that we should basically have a repeat of the day when dad gets back.

Oh, and I did drink a beer while I watched the baseball game with the boys. I kinda felt like a stand in dad and it was my way of honoring Pete (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

Picnic Weekend

We had a busy but very fun weekend. On Saturday we met up with our Ethiopian playgroup and enjoyed meeting a new family who lives in our area and has two Ethiopian children. The moms and youngest kids try to get together about once a month but this was the first time that the dads and all of the older siblings were able to come and join in the fun. It was great to see how much all of the older children looked out for all of the younger Ethiopian kids, not just their own siblings. We feel so fortunate to know these wonderful families.

Then on Sunday we had a big picnic with my extended family. It's been quite awhile since all of the aunts, uncles and cousins have gotten together and we were blessed with a beautiful sunny day (finally!) Of course we waited until after lunch, baseball, frisbee, tree climbing and general playgroup merriment to try to take a big cousin photo. Grandma was happy to have so much of her family there, including two all the way from Hawaii!

Warm Soup on a Cold Day

When the weather is cold or we are sick, Pete and I crave Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup). Yesterday was a cold, overcast day and I woke up with a sore throat so we walked over to our favorite Pho place for lunch. Aliyah dove right in like a pro. She wanted to use chopsticks like the rest of us but then when she realized they were slowing her down she went back to her fork.

When Pete and I first moved to our town there weren't any Vietnamese restaurants around and now that are many to choose from. We can only cross our fingers and hope that some Ethiopian restaurants open up near us soon.

Hair Care

These are the products we use to keep Aliyah's curls tight and from getting too dry. It's definitely a huge learning curve for us! I'd never heard of hair butter or hair milk but we are learning through trial and error (and lots of reading other blogs!) what works best.

Bath Time

When Aliyah still had Giardia and her mollescums, we tried very hard to keep these infections from spreading to the boys which included making sure she used separate towels and never having the kids take a bath together. Last night I got ready to give Aliyah a bath and next thing I know, Noah is taking off his clothes and saying that he needs a bath also. Actually wanting to take a bath is not a usual thing in our household so I was happy that I was able to tell him that he was welcome to join in with Aliyah. They had so much fun playing and squirting each other. I couldn't find the camera, hence the grainy phone pictures, but we are so happy to have these infections behind us!

Tantrums

It would be very easy to spoil an adopted child. In Aliyah's case, she had 16 months in two different orphanages where her basic needs for food and shelter were met but may of her other needs were often unmet due to sheer numbers of children vs caregivers. When we were at the transition home we were amazed by how quiet it was. There were forty children at this home and it was quiet. If a child cries and nobody attends to their needs then the child will eventually learn to not cry. On our first trip to Ethiopia, Aliyah was non responsive to our attempts to interact with her for the first three days. Twice she cried but the only sign was a tear falling from her eye, she didn't make a sound.

So now we are home and we can meet her needs. So you could see that it would be very easy to spoil her and for the first few months that is exactly what we did. But then we realized that it would be easy to go too far. We have other responsibilities as her parents to set guidelines for expected behavior. Yes, we will pick you up when you want to be held and we will read you another bedtime story. But no, you can't hit your sibling or rip pages out of a book. So now we have tantrums. On a typical day I would say she has between 2-4 tantrums and when she gets going, she doesn't stop! When she has these tantrums we just hold her and try to comfort her until she calms down. We are trying to find that balance between her feeling loved and secure and not leading her to believe that the world revolves around her. Our social worker complemented us on recognizing this early on but it's definitely easier said than done.

We try to look at it that it's a good sign that she feels comfortable enough with us to act like this. She hasn't cried at school yet. We went through something similar with Noah where he would never act out at school and then would have a meltdown on the way home. It's good that Aliyah is bonded enough to know that she can show her emotions and we will still love her unconditionally. Now that all sounds honky-dory but it's a little harder to have that "gee isn't this so great" perspective when you are holding a child who is wailing on and on for 15 minutes.

I love how she gets both the furrowed brow AND the pouty lip. I showed her this picture this morning and she laughed and said "Aliyah cries" and then proceeded to reenact this event from yesterday.