More Than Four Sides

Category: outside the US

  • “Chickpeas Butter Mushroom”

    “Chickpeas Butter Mushroom”: My Recipe!. This recipe looks wonderfully yummy!  It’s posted on a blog that I follow – I don’t know Vikram, but he seems quite a talented guy. I’m hosting a big party for Hanukkah this Sunday, and I am considering including some international flavours in the menu. This may be a part…

  • Sharing our culture

    We have been bringing the kids to Dessie Restaurant in Wheaton, MD since the first week of their arrival in the US. We used to stop there at least once monthly, sometimes twice, but we suddenly realized that it had been months since we had been there. We don’t go out to eat all that…

  • Thats What You Get For Wearing Crocs

    Thats What You Get For Wearing Crocs. I saw this on Facebook yesterday, shared by a friend who spends a lot of time in the sun, and it reminded me of a thought that has been rolling around in my head for awhile (ever since shortly after we returned from Ethiopia with the boys). We…

  • Why Are American Kids So Spoiled? : The New Yorker

    Why Are American Kids So Spoiled? : The New Yorker. this book review hits so close to home!! Madeline Levine, a psychologist who lives outside San Francisco, specializes in treating young adults. In “Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success” (HarperCollins), she argues that we do too much for our kids because we overestimate…

  • Away from boys, #3

    I flew to London for a 4-day weekend (thanks to frequent flyer miles!). I’m on the first leg of my return, writing this post. As always, we prepped the boys starting a couple of days ahead. This trip would be the longest I’ve been away – each trip has incrementally been slightly longer. I left…

  • Reminder of the past…

    Today, we went to my cousin’s home to attend a ceremony in honor of her husband, who passed away much too early, several years ago.  She is my second cousin on my father’s side, and we met about a dozen years ago or more, after having lived within 3 miles of one another for several…

  • 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…

  • “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…