More Than Four Sides

Category: Adoption

  • Chanukah – 2011, Day 1

    Having a holiday start on a Tuesday night is less than ideal in our home.  My clinic is on Tuesday afternoons, and, this particular month, December, I happen to always be “on-service” on the inpatient ward, which has two consequences – a full morning, and the possibility of going back to the wards after clinic,…

  • Raising book-lovers, part two

    So, after my most recent post, S has not played around with sacrificing his bedtime book, but tonight was J’s turn.  They were in the bathtub together, as usual, and had been in long enough, but J was unwilling to get out, despite the increasing chilliness of the water.  So, after a couple of tries…

  • Raising book-lovers

    The boys went to the library today, and brought home a dozen books between them. We will certainly be reading them all, but not tonight. I’m not sure what got into S, but he was really acting out, and finally I gave him an ultimatum that I never thought I’d hear myself utter – “That’s…

  • I want S’s dirt!!!

    We are so deep in the throws of 3yo angst – it’s actually funny! You just have to laugh, or you’d cry… When I got home tonight, I found Dad was at the end of his rope, and clearly 3yo J had been screaming in the car on their way home. So we tried to…

  • First week of school

    This week, S started kindergarten, which meant that J was at preschool WITHOUT his big brother. And, for me, the worst part was that I had to attend a course that had me out of the house each day before the boys had even finished their breakfasts, and I ended up missing this momentous week.…

  • Bringing our kids to the mikveh…

    No matter how much I know…I can still get blind-sided! Approximately 20 years ago, I went to the mikveh, after a year-long course of study with Rabbi Sheldon Lewis, of Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, CA.  I had no idea what to expect, and I was totally unaware of the tradition of turning a convert “away” before…

  • Sleep

    Every parent deals with sleep, at some time or another. I’ve been going through our photos documenting this past 1 1/2 year experience with our boys, and a pair of photos taken on our first day home brought the whole “sleep” story of the past year back to my mind. Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead…

  • “I’m a baby”…”I’m a Big Boy!”

    We are at a cusp of identity with J – he has been talking for about 6 months, maybe a little longer. Until very recently, if you asked him, “Are you a big boy?”, he would reply “I’m a baby!”. But just yesterday, he has started to deny the title “Baby”, and is claiming “Big…

  • Who is a Jew?

    At the end of this month, we will bring our boys to the mikveh, meet with the Bet Din, and, assuming all goes as planned, each boy will go into the mikveh (with my dear husband, who will be immersing for the first time himself), emerging from their immersion as Jews. This act will complete…

  • Learning to manage one’s emotions

    There are many things I am noticing as a parent now, that I don’t think I had the perspective or time to notice the first time I parented a small child, nearly 30 years ago.  One of those things, that I’m peculiarly attuned to at the moment is the development, in our boys, of the…