Gift Giving

I haven't gotten around to decorating yet and it's almost December. Ack! Must get crackin'!! I have been thinking about Christmas gifts and traditions quite a bit this week, though, and I am trying to come up with some to be unique for my family.

One idea about presents that I like is this:

something you want
something you need
something to wear and
something to read

I like that idea. Only four gifts is totally manageable now and if I ever get the four kid family I want (an older son, a boy the same age as Naomi so I can have twins and an infant girl--not kidding!!) keeping it limited to sixteen gifts it will keep me from going broke at the holiday season--not to mention my kids will know what to expect. I will do stockings as well with fruit, nuts, candy, maybe small toys.

I also read how a lot of people give their kids new pajamas which they wear to bed on Xmas eve. I like that idea as well, though she already has about 8 pairs of pajamas right now so that doesn't make sense. Maybe the Xmas eve gift will be given in the morning and will be the fancy dress to wear to church. Not sure.

I want to do some baking with her and make a gingerbread house. I want to hang all sorts of decorations, have an Open House and go caroling. I want to introduce her to candy canes. I also want to do some crafts and read some books about the Christmas story and about Santa. She has no idea, of course, about any of this but it will be fun for me. Truth to tell, the whole Santa thing drives me crazy.. the whole deception piece and my recollection of being absolutely crestfallen when I found out the truth (from a classmate in Kindergarten in early December.. so sad! I only got about 2 Christmases of understanding what was going on and believing) makes me question whether or not to do it. I guess I will (and get a photo with him), but it bothers me so much more than the Easter bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Maybe Santa will only do the stockings and no gifts? Someone please tell me how you handle Santa in your households and what do you do about gifts?

OK, gotta run! I want to at least pull out the decorations so I can start tomorrow.

p.s. I made it through NaBloPoMo! So proud of myself and love all the memories that I recorded! I am inspired to post more often. Man, this is going to make a great book!

The Program

I forgot to show you the program I created for her dedication:

front cover


inside left


inside right

More Baptism Weekend Photos

One thing I noticed was Almi was much happier and less clingy on this trip than the last trip we took, the one to Martha's Vineyard. I was able to explain to her that we were going to "drive and drive and drive and go to Grandma and Grandpa's house" and I think she understood. Each day she asked me, "Beep beep?" meaning 'Are we going in the car?' (which I think was her way of asking if we were leaving) and I would tell her "no, not yet". Since we pray for all of these family members each night and talk to many of them on the phone regularly, I think she really remembered them and she had a ball playing with her cousins. We both had a great time!

Uncle C! I remember you!

Wednesday dinner at Aunt B and Uncle Otey's

Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Cousins
I captured this picture right after I got her dressed for her baptism. Love it.

The Christmas Season is Here

How is it that Christmas is only 4 weeks away?! I have so many thoughts swirling in my head about the holiday and what traditions I want to do with my daughter. I can't believe that this year--finally--I will get to celebrate with my own child! I am so excited I can hardly stand it!

We got home from Pittsburgh this afternoon and one of the first things I did was put on the all-Christmas-music-all-the-time radio station. This will be on at home and in the car for the next month! I have also been contemplating all the Xmas decorations to put up and when to buy my first Xmas tree! Remember this shot from last year?

Well, that stocking gets to be filled this year! Squeal!


I have been thinking a lot about gifts, too. I hate the idea of having her get a bunch of plastic toys and making my house more cluttered. For sure though she will be getting an Elmo doll. She LOVES Elmo. I would also love to make her a wooden play kitchen. One with a sink, oven, fridge and real sewn curtains. Maybe I can find one in a thrift store? Other ideas that I shared with family are a doctor's kit (she always has me lie down to be her patient), those adoption books I blogged about, dress up clothes with jewelry and a stroller for her babies.

Oh, this is going to be so much fun!! For those of you reading this who are still waiting to bring your child home, don't worry--your time is coming. Look back in the archives for depressing Christmas posts of 2007, 2008 and 2009. Trust me, I've been there. Hang in there!

Almi's Baptism

On Thanksgiving day, surrounded by family, I dedicated Almi back to God. It was a wonderful service and I loved having it in the intimacy of my parent's living room. It was perfect. Let the pictures tell the story:



Highlights:

* having my cousin Chaz officiating
* doing a Ring Shout*
* having so many family members there to celebrate with us
* both of us wearing beautiful Ethiopian dresses I personally selected when traveling
* Almi clasping her hands in prayer
* being photographed with the 100yr old family Christening gown
* the informality of it which allowed for unique moments such as:
- Almi going up and down on a stool saying "up, down, up down"
- her impromptu playing of the piano
- when my dad said his prayer for her she shouted something back to him
- when we broke out into the spiritual, Amen! Almi sang and danced with us
- seeing her go back to the Holy water after the service and putting more and more on her forehead (and some on mine)
- feeling the Love in the room: love of tradition, love of family, love of God

* A Ring Shout is a religious ritual performed by African slaves. They would stand in a circle and sing, dance, stomp, clap or speak in whatever way the Spirit moved them. For our service, we went around in a circle with each person sharing a few words about Almi. I started with a few words that were given to me in Addis from her Ethiopian mother, then family shared and concluded with me fighting back tears as I read a letter I had written just for my sweet girl. It was very special and made our first Thanksgiving together very, very memorable indeed.

Reading to a Friend

Being Thankful 2010

What are you thankful for this year?

My blessings this year are huge. Clearly, the most obvious one is I became a mother. This was a lifelong dream of mine and I got really, really lucky with my daughter. She is the light of my life and I am grateful.

But to be honest, this has been a rough year in a lot of ways.

The year started out with me working in a very unpleasant job situation.
I took off 2 months to bond with my daughter and it was unpaid.
Being a mother is exhausting and stressful and I worry about her all the time.
I dated someone for while who I thought had great long-term potential only to discover that he was not at all who he portrayed himself to be, which only continues to deepen my bitterness at being single. Where, pray tell, are the good men?! Am I truly destined to be single?
I live with constant, albeit manageable, pain and exhaustion. My doctor is confused since I test negative for everything.
I am far from family and have very little support.
In a nutshell, my house/relationships/health/future feel like they're in a constant state of chaos.


But I am slowly recovering and focusing on the good.


I got a new job. I'm still underpaid but I am happy there.
I put in a rental unit and expect it to be rented in the new year.
I wouldn't trade those two months with my daughter for anything. I believe they did wonders for our attachment.
I love being a mother.
God will bring me the right man for me at His time.
I am managing my health. If nothing else, I am being a good role model for my daughter.
I have made the decision to be responsible and make whatever makes sense financially for my family. If that means moving across the world to a country where I can afford live-in help, then so be it.


This Thanksgiving I will be surrounded by family. I will give thanks for them for they are truly wonderful in so many ways. I will thank God for being alive to experience all life has to offer. I will express thanks for my nice home, my job, my friends, my talents, my opportunities, my future. And I am beyond grateful for my daughter. She is amazing.

This Thanksgiving after dinner with family, in the intimacy of my parents living room, my cousin Chaz will lead our family in my daughter's baby dedication. It will be an time to formally declare that I am going to raise my daughter with a love of God and ask for His wisdom and grace in guiding me in this awesome responsibility. She is a gift and a child of God and that night I will be giving that gift back to God. One of the requests of her Ethiopian mom was that she be raised with a "fear of God." I am honored and grateful to be her mother and will do my best to raise her as she and He would see fit.

My house, the chaos, exhaustion, men, money.. yes, all are stressful and need my attention but for the rest of the year I am going to try to focus on my daughter and the joy this little girl brings me.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Performance

Her daycare planned a lunch and invited the parents. I had no idea there was also going to be a performance! They sang two songs. One was called I'm a Little Turkey. I don't know all the lyrics but the last line they said with their hands joined in prayer was, "please don't eat me on Thanksgiving Day". They were SO adorable and she did a great job! She participated and smiled and was just ridiculously cute. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera but I asked another parent to take a few pics of my pumpkin and thankfully she agreed.


Aw, my little turkey! Cutie pie.

First Conference

I had my first parent/teacher conference on Friday. It was supposed to be a 15 minute conference but I held her captive for 45 minutes getting every detail I possibly could about my child. :)

She said Almi is popular and smart and happy! Wow. Does it get any better than that? She said she is the second smartest in the class but also the second youngest. She picks up concepts quickly for her age, with only 2-3 exposures. They have been working on letters A-F, numbers 1-6, circle, oval, triangle, rectangle, square, star and the colors pink, red, yellow, brown, blue, green. They also work on fine motor skills like coloring and cutting. She said overall her progress is excellent. I am so proud of her! One funny anecdote, they are learning the letters in their name and she said she put NAOMI in front of her and asked her to identify the letters. She said Almi said, "M-A-oval-M-I" How cute is that?! She said she plays alone but also with other children. She is no longer stealing kids' food or taking food out of the trashcan. She is really focused when they are learning new things, scrunching her face up and concentrating hard. She likes listening to stories and is very affectionate. Here is a quote her teacher said (you know during the conference I was frantically scribbling things down!) "Naomi is playful and funloving. She is happy. Every day she surprises me (with what she has learned). I'm so happy."

She had three concerns: The first one is biting. She said she gets frustrated when kids take her things (still working on sharing) and twice Ms. Edse caught her about to bite a child. This needs to be nipped in the bud and her teacher is working on it, thankfully, because she can get kicked out for biting! Another concern she had was she said it appears to her that one of Almi's legs is kind of bent in. Although she runs without falling, she said she noticed it when she runs. I hadn't noticed but I am going to look into that. Her other concern is speech! Just like her doctor, she said she is concerned about it-- and not in the learning a second language way. She said it appears to be more of an issue with articulation. Interesting. That's two professionals who have expressed concerns about that (her teacher and her pediatrician) so I am now certainly going to look into that. She said in her opinion two years old is too young for speech therapy and for the most part she is able to understand her because she is with her every day (me as well) but it is definitely something I should watch.

As I have mentioned before, her teacher is Ethiopian. We briefly touched on her adoption and I shared a bit of her history and spoke about all the orphaned children in Ethiopia and her teacher started crying! She is such a sweet person and clearly cares for my daughter. We are very blessed.

My Budding Photographer

I couldn't capture it, but she was also mimicking me by crouching down while she pretended to get the perfect shot. Too funny!

Adoption Books

Though I regularly add Ethiopia in our prayers at night, I am otherwise not very good at keeping Ethiopia alive in our home. Sure, we listen to Ethiopian music or watch videos from time to time and we eat Ethiopian food occasionally but I need to be better at keeping her connected to her country and culture. Now that she is getting older, I feel it is becoming more and more important. With talk of Ethiopia comes the natural progression of talking about adoption.

For a two year old (almost 2½ yr. old - gasp!) I think the best way is through books. Surprisingly, I realized that with all the books I have picked up for her I do not have any related to adoption. I looked on Amazon the other day for suggestions and these titles look good. Family, if you are reading, these would be good Christmas gifts for Almi (along with a really good quality black coat in size 3T!) :-D



Have you read any of these?
Are they any good?
Age-appropriate?
Are there any other ones you can recommend?

Thanks!

Green Spaghetti

The other night when I was driving home I was trying to think of a really quick dinner I could prepare. I failed at spaghetti a couple of weeks ago, meaning she refused to eat it. I wondered if it was too spicy but since I hadn't tried it I didn't know so I just threw it in the freezer to bring out another night. Since I am SO sick of cooking, I decided tonight was the night.

After school I left her at daycare and ran to the Safeway and picked up some spinach and ground turkey to create something more tasty so she would eat it. My plan was to hide the spinach in the spaghetti since she's become your typical American toddler and refusing vegetables. When I got home I defrosted the left over spaghetti, browned the turkey and added the spinach. I threw it in the Vitamix while I reheated her leftover pasta that I had frozen. I thought I was being pretty clever to hide the spinach in the spaghetti until I realized that using a whole bag of spinach is clearly not the proportion one should use to disguise something.


Yes, the sauce really did look that gross. "Oh no!" I thought as I left on the stove and went to retrieve her from daycare "there is no way she is going to eat green spaghetti. What a waste."

When we got home I crossed my fingers and served her up some green spaghetti. I could not believe it. She LOVED it!! When I set it down in front of her she said, "Yay!!" And after her first bite she said, "Yummy!" Funny girl. It was pretty good actually, oddly enough.


She ate FOUR bowls of the stuff! And a graham cracker for dessert.