More Than Four Sides

Category: Adoption

  • No “umm hmmmm”, no “ah haa”

    When I don’t understand what a child says, or an adult, for that matter…I tend to use the auditory placeholder “umm hmmmm” or “ah haaa” as a way of giving myself time/space to figure out where the conversation is going. 5yo S, in his year of language acquisition, never seemed to mind this verbal tick…

  • Second ECC Carnival

    The end of January marked one year of our new family, so, since then, we have been experiencing “seconds” – second Purim, second Passover, and today, our second ECC carnival. Last year, J was not really aware of what was going on, and S was into the activities, but was not really on board with…

  • Immigration

    I was listening to a recent Intelligence Squared debate titled “Don’t Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses” and it got me thinking about the immigrants in my family, the most near of which are my father (born in Sri Lanka, and came to the U.S. as a graduate student), and our kids…

  • Ghosts…

    My father died when I was 19 years old, half a world away, and I was left bereft, and disbelieving.  Over the years, I have had many occasions of struggle and feeling beat down, and, in those times, especially in the early years after his death, I wished that he would appear to me in…

  • Kindergarten orientation

    How fun! And we wouldn’t even have known about it except that our dear friends the Schwartz’s were notified because their youngest is entering Kindergarten next fall (but not attending the local elementary school). Even though we have tried to alert the county to the presence of our prospective students in their cachement area, we…

  • “In Ah-meri-cah…”

    We started hearing this introduction to observations by S, which we soon figured out were actually memories of his life in Africa! I think he must have heard something along the lines of “You’re going to America with your new family” while at the orphanage, and he interpreted that to mean that “America” means “place…

  • Skin

    No, this isn’t a reflection on skin color, but on skin smoothness. When we first brought the boys home, and put them in the bathtub for the first time, I was struck by all the scars they had all over their bodies.  It hadn’t been so noticeable before, when they had clothes on, but on…

  • How old are you?

    In the developed world, we place such emphasis on our date of birth – we read horoscopes, and throw huge parties to celebrate each passing year. So, it comes as a bit of a shock to realize that for many people in places like rural east Africa, children are born, and no one records the…

  • He’s my brother?

    Over a year into our journey as a family, and our home is filled with happy noises of both of them playing together. S will frequently give “horsey” rides to J, or carry him piggy-back, and mostly they play really nicely together. Yes, there are arguments and bickering, but there’s also huge love and devotion,…

  • Language acquisition

    It is always fascinating to watch a child learn language, and many academic disciplines have extensively studied the systematic way that children learn to communicate. I wish I had documented the process with our boys better – it has been a fascinating process to watch. It’s been a two-fold experience, given that S had already…