Her Eyes

Have you ever experienced something so unbelievable that you had to pinch yourself to believe it was real? For some reason, I have been having a lot of those moments lately. The day before Thanksgiving I had one of those moments. I experienced something so fulfilling and so heartwarming, yet at the same time so surreal. And it was incredible.

When I was volunteering in Ethiopia I connected with many of the children, but there was one little girl in particular with whom I bonded very strongly. She was a toddler, a few months shy of two, and bonding with her was something you wouldn't expect. To begin with, as you can imagine, there was a language barrier. She spoke Amharic, I English, so we were not able to exchange words. In addition, there were few toys in the orphanage so we weren't able to play together. Instead, I would dress her, do her hair or sit with her while she ate her food. I would smile at her and give her kisses and hugs. Sometimes we would just sit together on the stoop and look out into the courtyard. Most of the time she would sit on my lap and we would play hand games and communicate with each other with our eyes and our smiles. I spent many, many hours looking into the eyes of this little girl.

After a couple of weeks we had truly bonded. When I would go onto the Wanna House compound (where the babies and toddlers lived) she would come running over to me with a huge smile and I would sweep her up into my arms and cover her with kisses. Man, I loved that little girl. If she hadn't already been matched with a family I would have brought her home. I knew she had bonded with me, too, when she would start to cry when I had to leave for the day. Here are a couple of photos of us hanging out together in the orphanage.

The last day I was in Ethiopia I went to spend some one on one time with R. She was sleepy as it was her naptime but the caregivers knew I was leaving and they didn't say anything. She sat with me as I tried not to cry.

I knew I was going to miss her so much and not knowing where she was going or how was she was going to be with her new family was very, very difficult. I don't know if she understood what was happening or she was just tired, but her reaction that last day made it much more difficult. I gave her one last kiss and put her down in her crib and walked away. I never thought I'd see her again.

When I got back to the States, I thought about R. a lot. I often wondered how she was doing and if she was happy with her new family. Sometimes I literally ached thinking about it, I missed her so much. After a few months I posted about her on my blog and to my amazement I got this comment:

"Oh my gosh- I just stumbled across your blog and you are holding my daughter at Wanna!!!! She's a real cutie, isn't she :) We brought home R. and her brother M. in September. I would love to know if you have any more pictures of the kids, so please email me if you're willing to share. Thank you!"

It was R's mother! At first I was worried that she would be mad that I had posted a photo of her daughter but also so excited!! I could find out where she was living and how she was doing. Well, she wasn't mad and we sent a few emails back and forth, I sent her the photos I had of R. and best part of all I found out she had a blog! It was so wonderful to know that I could now see her daughter growing up by a click of the mouse. I thought it couldn't get any better than that.

Well, let me tell you, it got better than that! A few weeks ago I got an email from R's mother saying the whole family was going to be in DC for Thanksgiving and did I want to join them for dinner! Did I?! I couldn't believe my good fortune. I was so overwhelmed that they would contact me and extend the invitation and I was so excited! We met at an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner and I found myself staring into the eyes of that same little girl. The same little girl who I now know is happy and healthy and thriving and loved. It was such a joy. I felt like my heart would burst. Little R, now 3, is just as delightful and sweet as I remembered her and I honestly feel that once she looked into my eyes that she remembered me, too. It was such a special evening.

one of the most joyful moments I have had in a long, long time

planting a kiss on her cheek once again!

Calming Down...

Today was a crazy day. First of all, it was St. Patrick's Day. My kids were off the chain! They came dressed in all shades of green and were SO excited to bring the leprechaun catchers they had created to school. We did some projects and then went on a leprechaun hunt. I added to the hype by turning over some chairs in the classroom and tossing some glitter around while they were at art. They were totally convinced a leprechaun had been in our classroom. It was SO cute! One of the best parts of teaching (other than snow days and you know I love my snow days!) is that kids can really take your mind off your stress. This morning I was still fuming about the whole homestudy thing but forgot all about it until I left work at 4:30 this afternoon. I love that my kiddos can give me some joy during the day! Here are a couple of them at the end of the day still looking for that tricky leprechaun!


When I left work I tried my social worker again. He claims my homestudy was sent to CIS today.
I hope so. He said a copy was sent to me. If I don't get it by Friday I am going to raise all hell cause I also just learned that it's approximately a nine week turnaround to get the I171H. I can pretty much kiss a summer court date good-bye. As eager as I was to get in before the courts closed, deep down I knew that wasn't really likely. I am still hopeful I can get my bambino in 2009 but I am not sure. Thanks for the supportive comments on the last post. Several people did say that it I need to just trust the timing because my daughter will come to me at the perfect time, and I believe that to be true.

So, I came home and made some dinner. The old me would have eaten a pint of Ben and Jerry's to self-soothe (ok, who am I kidding? the new me could easily do that, too) but tonight I decided to just cook a quick healthy meal and focus on other things. Rachel posted an easy recipe and I tried it tonight. I sauteed some garlic in olive oil, added black beans and tomatoes, and salt to taste.


I, then, added some sliced avocado and ate it with tortilla chips and an O'Doul's. Pretty darn tasty.


And then I topped off the whole meal with a homemade vegan brownie. The surprise ingredient is zucchini! I was a bit unsure of how they would taste but they are really good! They are more the consistently of cake than brownies but trust me, I know my chocolate desserts, and they are great. Honestly, I can't see ever making my child brownies from a mix when these are so much healthier and can give her a serving of vegetables as well. Try them. I highly recommend!

ZUCCHINI BROWNIES

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups shredded zucchini

ICING
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup butter
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla until well blended. Combine the flour, 1/2 cup cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Fold in the zucchini. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until brownies spring back when gently touched.
To make the frosting, melt together the 6 tablespoons of cocoa and butter; set aside to cool. In a medium bowl, blend together the confectioners’ sugar, milk and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in the cocoa mixture. Spread over cooled brownies before cutting into squares.

(I didn't make the frosting as it's not vegan, but I posted it as it was part of the recipe)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is a big deal in kindergarten & my room parent went all out. She came in the night before to decorate the classroom. They were so excited to have huge, festive balloons tied to their chairs. Then she planned all these fun games which the kids loved. They passed out cards and ate candy and laughed and danced and were wild. But the biggest hit by far (ok, maybe only for me) was the chocolate fountain! O.M.G. Yum. My daughter would love to have that. Yeah, ok me. :-)



Meanwhile, tonight I have a date. A second date. The first date didn't knock my socks off and tonight's date is on Valentine's Day. We'll soon see if that was a good idea!

It's also my parent's 56th wedding anniversary! We should all be so lucky. Love you guys!


And finally, in case anybody needs the recipe for a happy marriage, check out this short video I shot at Xmas:

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

So I am finished with my HS, but I can't send it off to CIS because my SW wants to "have a serious discussion" about my request to change it from one child to two. Apparently he has some ideas about single women parenting more than one child. I explained to him that I don't intend on being referred two, but if I discover my daughter has a sibling and the family asks me to adopt both, I want to have that option. I just sent him a link to this article (click here) about singles with more than one child and how full and happy and well adjusted and normal these families are. Gosh, I wonder how he feels about Nadya Suleman!

Rediet - pt. III

The last day...

My kiddos

My kindergartners are so cute. Yes, they will test a sistah’s patience sometimes :) but mostly they are a lot of fun to be with each day. I have a great job! Here are a few (non-identifying so not the most interesting) shots of them from the past few days.










NaBloPoMo #19 theme:thankful

The Little Soul, Tatiana

My little neighbor got Christened today. It was a lovely service and I, as the Godmother, was proud and thankful to be there to celebrate with her and her family. The sermon, coincidentally enough, centered around being thankful. We were reminded that the apostle Paul said to be "thankful in all things". Because we can not control our external circumstances (life, death, the stock market, health, love, livelihood, etc.) we need to remain thankful for everything God has given us, regardless of circumstance. I have a lot of growth to do in that area (lol) but it was good to hear! Anyway, Tatiana was an absolute angel; it was a beautiful day.


NaBloPoMo #7 theme:thankful

Even Kindergarteners Know...LOL!

My Students

dang i miss these girls!

Hanging out with Tefera reminded me of how much I miss the kids in ET. I keep up with a couple of other volunteers and we often say how much we miss Ethiopia and the amazing kids we had the incredible opportunity to get to know. Here are two of the amazing girls I met expressing their opinion about me being single..hahaha. Man, I miss them so much!!!

interviews...

Sent off six more resumes and had two more interviews.

The first was for a second grade position at a private school. I drove up and knew it wasn't going to pay well. The school is located in an economically depressed area and the campus was very small, the buildings shabby. Paint was peeling off the sides of the buildings, lawn neglected. I almost wanted to cancel right there and not waste my time but I was there so I went in. My wishful thinking also had me trying to rationalize that since school had already started on Tuesday and they were in need of another teacher that perhaps they would offer me decent money out of desperation. Ha! Not. About 8 min into the interview she interrupted me and said, "Look, I'd love to have you but I need to let you know up front that the most I could pay you would be $30,000." (she was serious) It's sad; it's a 100% African-American school that's been around for 54 years and that's all they can pay their teachers? How on earth can they attract talented, committed teachers?? If they've been around for 54 years you would think they would have s figured out how to do some serious fundraising, have partnerships and sponsors, receive grants and have auctions. She said the tuition hadn't been raised in years to make it affordable for the community ($6,000/year) but I would think if they could raise tuition and fundraise, they might be able to attract more qualified teachers, beautify the campus, strengthen the programs, offer financial aid and perhaps attract families outside of the immediate area who would be able to pay the full tuition. Hell, what do I know, that's not my area of expertise but those kids deserve so much more and it seems so doable. Well, I can' t help them out so I crossed that school off my list.

Later on in the day I went to my second interview. It was for a Kindergarten job in one of my former districts. I liked the school when I finally arrived. It was far. I have never commuted more than 30 minutes in my entire working career so the hour drive wasn't fun, but I left there with a good feeling about the place. The vice principal called me to schedule the interview so I thought it was just going to be the two of us in the room, like my morning interview. One on one interviews like that don't make me nervous --if for a teaching job. I usually feel pretty confident and can answer the questions pretty well. Well, the principal came to get me in the reception area (where I was waiting with another woman who was obviously the next candidate) and led me down a quiet hallway. As he put his hand on the knob he said, "We are all kind of crammed into this little space. I have a group of people helping me with this process." Did he ever! I walked into a little room, about 14x14, with a large conference table taking up the majority of the space. Every seat of the conference table was taken (except for mine) with a total of ten people in the room: the principal, vice principal, reading specialist, some other support person and six Kindergarten teachers! There went my sense of calm! I was so nervous, but they looked like a friendly bunch and I felt prepared and within a couple of minutes I was at ease. It was actually fun--for an interview! We were all laughing and joking and I felt quite comfortable with the staff. I think it went pretty well. I asked how they imagined this transition was going to go (school started last week) and he said the person hired would get a nice classroom near to the other K teachers. One of the present K teachers would move to another part of the building to make the transition easier on the new hire, which I liked. Also, apparently the district will allocate a day for a new hire to prepare the classroom and lessons but he was going to advocate for two days; and he said he would ask the current teachers to do most of the decorating of the new room so it looks like the other K classes. That's great cause I really don't have many K materials. It was very well thought out to make the transition for the new hire as smooth as possible.

So different from an experience I once had in California. I was teaching Kindergarten and due to enrollment, our school had to make a K/1 combination class in October. I was a brand new teacher to the district but my principal still wanted me to teach the class--not relevant to her that I would then have to learn two new curricula. On top of that she told me this on a Friday afternoon and expected me to be ready by Monday--in a different classroom! When I asked her when this was supposed to get done, she said, "You better speak to the custodians about their schedules cause you are going to have busy weekend I guess." Nice.

Anyway, at the Kindergarten job they said that the district would allow them to hire in the next week or two, which is exactly what I heard from the other three schools where I left my resume. The other three are all also Kindergarten positions. One is 20 minutes from my house and a good friend of mine teachers K there. One is down the street from my old school and has an initiative in place to study the achievement gap. That would be very interesting. The third is a quick ten minutes from my house. I think I might prefer any of those to commuting an hour, though a good fit depends on so many other factors so not necessarily. What I really hope is to get offers from at least two so I have options.


My second grade class in Long Beach.

Babysitting

I finally figured out how to upload video. Here's my little neighbor at my house. So cute!!



(Now if I could only figure out how to upload video from my computer--in Quicktime-- to Youtube. Anyone know how that's done?? Maybe it would be quicker. Posting this took hours for it to upload!)

** update ~ I figured it out. Hopefully posting from Youtube is quicker. I'll try and see.

My little neighbor

Too cute! I am so lovin' this kid!!

Babysitting

I babysat for my adorable neighbor again last night. Look at this adorable bee!! Isn't she just the cutest!? She is now six months old and so much fun. She and I had fun together playing with her toys and singing but mostly just hanging out on my bed and relaxing. She was cooing and rolling around and just so darn cute! The sweetest part though was when her mother came to pick her up. She was all smiles then! She laughed out loud, she was so happy to see her. I can only imagine how rewarding that is as mom...
Sweet!