Some pictures

(Above) Her first slurpee and Doritos. I guess she liked it!?

(Above) These were dresses we bought for the girls on our first trip in Ethiopia. By chance, Mebira got the yellow one which happens to be her favourite colour. The girls wore these on the first Sunday we went to church. So cute!

(Above) Here they are playing barbies together. Thanks, Heidi Belter - they LOVE them!

(Above) I love her kisses! She's pretty affectionate and gives great hugs and kisses!

(Above) Posing before church again. This was my attempt at doing flat twists at the front. I left the back loose.

(Above) The Schimke girls!

(Above) A new addiction - bead art. She has done close to 10 in the last 3 days.

(Above) This girl has determination. She started out being able to jump twice in a row. She's now up to 25 times without stopping!

(Above) Snuggle time with Dad.

(Above) Our first family portrait!!

Moving along...

Things are still moving along fairly well. I almost feel guilty when I know what other people have to deal with. After the difficulty in our first week home, we've been trucking along quite well. I know that every child grieves in different times and in different ways and our time with her will still come, but until then we are enjoying this peace while it lasts!!

A few thoughts:

• The communication is coming along fairly well. Mebira understands most basic commands now (get dressed, put on pj's, wash your hands, come to the table, clean up, put your shoes on, get your jacket, let's go to the playground, we are walking, etc. etc.) and she is also starting to talk more and more. Some of her favourite words are television (she asks for this every day, but usually says tevelision), more, and I have to say that she is getting very good at saying "please, mommy" and "thank you, mommy". She even remembers to say thank you after each meal more than some other members in my family. It's cute because she will usually say "Say thank you, mommy". We would always teach her by telling her "Say..." so now she thinks that's part of it. :-)
• I'm trying to remember if I posted that we had her skype with a few of her friends from Ethiopia last week. These were friends with whom she was in the orphanage with. I thought she would be so thrilled to talk Amharic to them and finally have someone understand her. I couldn't believe that on the 3 occasions she did this with different friends, she only wanted to speak English. After much encouragement she spoke a little bit with one friend, but by the last one she refused. She told me she only wanted to speak English. Seeing as neither of the girls knew much English, they just repeated what they knew. They have "Hello. How are you?" and "I am fine thank you, how are you?" down very well. They would repeat it over and over and over. Very funny!
• We enjoy going for walks, and as the girls' school is just around the corner we often walk there if we are not on our way somewhere else, in which case we'll take the car. When we go to the girls' school (4 times a day as we get them for lunch) she will always ask if we're taking the car or walking. I will often answer "walk, walk, walk". One day she asked where Daddy is and I said "working". She asked, "walk, walk, walk?" and I said, "No - work". She didn't seem to get it and she said, "Daddy, walk, walk walk". I have a feeling she thinks Daddy leaves in the morning, walks around Edmonton all day and then comes home very tired at night. :-)
• Speaking of Daddy, I feel very bad for him. He is under a lot of pressure and stress at work, and then he feels pressure to be with his dad at the hospital (this isn't from anyone else, he wants to be there for his dad) but then he also feels pressure to be home (and yes, sometimes I help him feel the pressure). I totally feel bad for him because he has so much going on in his life, but it's hard sometimes when our days aren't going so well at home. Our adoption is going great, and so much better than it could be going, but it is still exhausting. I still need to keep a constant eye out for Mebira to ensure she's not getting into something she shouldn't be, to ensure the girls are all playing fairly, to comfort her when she's having a fit, to make sure she is always reassured that we have food and water available to her, etc, etc, etc. She also needs oral medicine twice a day, topical medicine twice a day, oil on her hair and lotion on her body once a day...it's a lot to keep track of with everything else going on. Needless to say that by the evening I am pooped...and even more so if Arvid works all day and then goes to the hospital (which is a good thing) on his way home.
• There are only 3 days left of school. I'm thrilled to not have to rush out of the house anymore, but a little bit nervous about having all 3 girls at home all summer. Having just G&E is no problem, and having just Mebira is working out well, too...but there tend to be more issues and more drama when it's all 3. This is the new normal, though, and I know it will definitely be a memorable summer.

Anyway, I need to sign off now. I will be posting a new post with some pictures soon. You can check out my very amateur attempts at her hair. :-)

2 weeks home

We've been home for 16 days now, and we picked up Mebi nearly 3 weeks ago.

If you've been reading our blog, you'll remember that the first week home was very tough. She was pushing the limits and fighting us on everything. I'm happy to report that the last 8 days have been amazing. I'm not naive enough to think that this will last forever, but it's quite a nice streak we're on. She is generally happy, eats well, plays well and is even obeying pretty well. Now, she's not perfect, just like none of the rest of us are, but I'd say I don't notice much difference between her behaviour and that of our bio kids when they were that age...which is amazing since she's been through so much. Of course there are little things like bedtime that went easier with them, but we're working on it and if that's the worst of our troubles right now we have nothing to complain about.

I'm also happy to report that we have completed the last of our stool samples today. YAH! It's funny how you hear things before you adopt and you just can't imagine how that will work when you actually have to do it. The stool samples went off without a hitch (nothing like bribing with a candy...now she wants to give stool samples every day! :-) ) and the doctor's appointment went well last week also. The only one that we had a bit of a fight on (and I can't blame her at all!) was the bloodwork. She is being tested for so many different things, and they had to take soooo many vials of blood. Luckily Arvid was there to help - we had one nurse taking blood, one holding her arm, Arvid held her body and I tried to distract her with books, sucker, gum, whatever worked. It was not my favourite time (she was screaming and crying so hard and so scared) but she didn't end up "de-attaching" from us at all...she just kept telling us about her "koosil" (owie) and we kept kissing her and hugging her and telling her how well she did.

The girls are all still playing really well together. It is so neat to see the changes that I never expected. I think Mebira has G wrapped around her little finger. Before this, G didn't like going outside, and didn't like kisses. Now she lets Mebira give her a full-on kiss on the mouth (and sometimes it's even wet!!), and G will go outside with her anytime she wants. E is also a great big sister...she's probably struggling the most since she was the baby before Mebira came along. If anyone has any advice on how to best deal with this I would appreciate it!

Until later...

Details on Mebira's Past

I totally understand the curiosity that occurs when adopting a child. Almost always the first question we get asked is "What happened to her parents?". I'm sure I have asked that question to numerous adoptive parents myself before we adopted.

As you probably know, we are letting Mebira tell her story if and when she's ready, and to whom she wants to tell it.

An adoption organization, Rainbow Kids, (and my friend Laura) posted this and I thought it was so good that I wanted to share it with you. It describes in more detail some of the struggles we have, and why we have chosen to keep many details in her life private:

Privacy Matters in Adoption
June 01,2011 / Elisabeth O'Toole
The following excerpt is from the book: In on it: What adoptive parents would like you to know about adoption

When my husband and I were in the process of completing our first adoption, an established adoptive family invited us to their house to talk with us and answer some of our questions about adoption. Feeling all flush with adoption information and maybe wanting to demonstrate just how ready I felt I was to become part of the adoption community, I asked what I thought was an insider's question. I asked, in front of their 6-yer-old child, what they knew about his birthmother. Looking back, I see just how gracious his mother was. She glanced at her son, who appeared to be occupied with his cars (though now that I've watched my own son look busy while eavesdropping, I realize that this boy was completely tuned in to our conversation), and said to me, "You know, that's not something we talk about outside of our family." Of course it wasn't. I was breaching the boy's privacy. I could still kick myself for asking that question. I wish I'd known better. But karma being what it is, I've now had plenty of opportunities to try to respond graciously to other people's personal questions about my children.

People sometimes ask adoptive parents questions of a far more intimate nature than they'd ask a biological parent. From an adoptive parents' point of view, "What do you know about the birthmother?" is a question just as presumptuous as asking a biological parent, "What did you use to get pregnant?" People who were adopted do not forgo their right to the same level of privacy as others. An adoptive child has no less of a right to privacy about his personal information than any grown-up or non-adoptive child.

That said there is valid confusion about what is private adoption information and what is okay to ask about. The not-very-satisfying answer is that boundaries around privacy are likely different for every family and will differ from person to person.

Adoptive parents struggle with the public/private nature of adoption all the time. They are challenged to balance their family's sometimes obvious public status as an adoptive family with the privacy of the family's individuals. Most adoptive families are proud of their families and want to present a positive attitude about adoption to others, particularly their children. The precarious task for adoptive parents is to be open enough about adoption that their children don't see adoption as a secret or as something to be ashamed of, while at the same time taking care not to compromise the right to privacy of everyone involved. So, even as they're trying to protect their children's privacy, adoptive parents are also trying to normalize adoption for their children and for others around them.

An important reason that parents try to control the dissemination of their children’s information has to do with the fact that the child himself, particularly a young child, often does not yet know all of his own personal information. Parents are responsible for safeguarding facts about the child's life for the child until he or she is of an appropriate age to hear it. If the child's information becomes too commonly known, adoptive parents risk the child hearing things before he or she is ready. One adoptive mother tells of her daughter learning she had biological siblings in a very abrupt way, when another sibling used it to wound her in an argument. The parent had intended to discuss this under gentler circumstances, and when she felt her daughter was ready to hear it. This mother wished she'd been more careful about sharing her daughter's personal information with others, even within her own family.

Privacy Plans
Until the child is old enough to manage his own personal information, it is your loved ones' very important responsibility to maintain and protect the child's privacy on his behalf. Adoptive parents need to actively think through what information is 'in-house,' and what information is for public consumption. One family kept two photo albums of their new son. One, the "public" album, remained on the coffee table for viewing by all of the visitors coming to see their child. It documented bath times and park visits and other images typical of any new family. Another "private" album was for just the immediate family and included things like pictures of the child's foster family, the first meeting between the parents and child, and other very personal moments in the inception of this new family.

I suggest that new adoptive parents, including those still in the adoption process, develop for themselves what I call the Privacy Plan. They decide what information is off-limits (e.g. birthparent information, certain details about early living conditions, specific reasons the child was available for adoption) and have a plan for responding to inappropriate questions. For example, when someone asks me what I "know about" my child's birthmother or for some other information about his personal history, I’ve developed a standard reply: "That’s not my information to share." I try to keep it simple; I say it lightly and move on. People usually get the idea pretty quickly. They don't mean to overstep. Often they've just never thought of it that way before.

Some parents will be comfortable sharing some of the intimate information about their children with those close to them. Some may, in fact, share more than you might want to know about a child's personal history. Not every adoptive parent has developed boundaries about their child's privacy nor has it occurred to them to do so. But I've long been guided by the experience of one adult adoptee who recalled how much it bothered her to hear her mother talk about her adoption with strangers who approached them when they were out in public (grocery stores again). She felt that her private life was being discussed casually with people she didn't even know. But until she was old enough to articulate her own feelings, her mother was unaware that she was compromising her daughter's privacy.

Sometimes an adoptive family will encounter someone who really presses them for information, who feels they have the right to know all about a child's personal history, often because the child is now a relative. Know that, in general, unless it's a health issue or some other aspect of background that impacts how you interact with the child at present, you are probably not entitled to detailed information about the child's background before the time that the child entered the family. Much of a child's personal information can wait until such time as the child can choose to share it himself.

So where is the middle ground? The fact of an adoption is not something to be ignored or treated as a secret. Family and friends will have questions. Following are a few rules of thumb to follow when it comes to asking questions about a child and his adoption:

For Friends and Family, a few suggestions:

Not in front of the child
Critically, no matter what adoption questions you have, try not to ask them in front of the child. It's a recurring complaint among adoptive parents that people ask inappropriate questions in front of their children (as in me asking about the birthmother in front of the child). Even if you feel assured that any question you have is legitimate, the parents will thank you for asking it out of the child's presence. Remember that even a child's adoptive status is not a matter for casual conversation (i.e., "Was he adopted?"). In fact, many adoptive parents, though they may make significant eye contact or vague comments indicating a mutual recognition when they encounter other apparently adoptive families, say they try to respect the privacy of their children and other adoptive children and don't comment on or question their apparent connection with strangers.

Ask yourself: Why do you want to know?
There's an important new person in the life of your loved ones and you want to know everything about them. But before you ask a question about the child, in order to determine whether it may be relevant, one strategy is to ask yourself, "Why do I want to know this?" If you don't have a good answer, maybe it's not information you need to have. Ask yourself if you should know about things like the existence of siblings or the role of the birthfather before the child is able to know and understand it himself. Remember that it's the child's information first, even if he doesn't yet know all of it.

Don’t take boundaries personally
Do try not to take it personally if you're told, hopefully graciously, that certain information is off-limits to you. You don't mean to intrude. But parents have to let you know where their boundaries stand. It's part of their responsibility to the child. If you have questions, consider framing them so that they show you to recognize there are boundaries around some information: "Please let me know if I’m overstepping, but I wondered…"

All of the child’s information is precious
Finally, it's helpful if those who hold any private information about the child are careful not to treat it casually. It's not fodder for small talk; rather it's precious and should be treated as such. Sometimes you will have the opportunity to discuss the child's adoption with someone who doesn't know the family or the child. Remember that you show respect for the child and for adoption by preserving the child's privacy, even when you don’t have to. When it comes to protecting a child’s privacy, you can provide tremendous support to your loved ones: by understanding what information is personal, by respecting the family’s boundaries, and by protecting information on behalf of the child.

What you can do:

• Understand the child’s right to own his own personal history, some of which he may not even yet know himself.
• Differentiate between secrets and privacy. Adoption is not a secret. But some information about an adoption will remain private. Recognize what information is and is not necessary for you to know about a child’s background.
• Understand the parents’ responsibility to protect their child’s privacy until such time as the child can do so for himself. Don’t take it personally when they enforce boundaries around information.
• Refrain from asking about the child’s personal history in front of the child.
• Demonstrate respect for the practice of adoption by maintaining the privacy of others, even when you don’t have to. Avoid sharing the family’s personal information, even with people who don’t know the family.

For more information you can visit www.inonadoption.com

2 weeks and 1 day

We have now been with Mebira for 2 weeks and 1 day. This week so far has gone so much better and I'm LOVING it! She seems to understand most of the rules now, and is actually generally abiding by them! She also doesn't run away when I say no to something, and she is being much more affectionate, offering up spontaneous hugs and kisses.

We had her international adoption appointment yesterday. She has scalp fungus (very common in kids from Ethiopia) which we're treating with a topical cream, and now we get to get a ton of blood work done on her, stool samples, urine analysis and immunizations. It's not going to be fun, I'm sure, but it's ultimately for her benefit.

We went out for Ethiopian food last night after her appointment. She seemed to enjoy it, but refused to talk to the Ethiopians there. She wouldn't even look at them. I don't know if she was afraid she would be taken back to Ethiopia, or what was going on, but in any case she didn't want anything to do with them. We told her we were going to an Ethiopian restaurant, and I think she thought we were in Ethiopia...she was probably wondering why we went on two long flights home when we could have just driven for 30 minutes to the north side. :-)

The sleeping is still going OK. We've still kept the girls separated, and I still sit with her at night until she falls asleep. I generally rub her back with one hand and do my Beth Moore bible study with my other hand. At first I was dreading that time, but it's actually nice now. The only problem is that I would like to work out or go for a walk at night, but once I've sat with her until she falls asleep I am totally done. I'm generally very active in the summer and my clothes are all one size smaller in the summer than winter...but since we've been home I'm just not able to keep up with exercising. I hope to get back into it again but am trying to cut myself some slack since there is only so much I can do! So if you see me squeezed into a pair of shorts, just bear with me. :-)

Mebira is such a girly girl. She loves playing with dolls, dressing up her Barbies and she's totally into Princesses. We have some princess books and princess things, but the girls don't give it much attention. It's amazing how those princess things just draw Mebira like a magnet. She tries to name them every few hours...she's got Cinderella and Snow White perfect, and is working hard on Jasmine, Belle, Mulan, Aurora, etc. :-)

Anyway, we're going to have supper soon. Thanks for taking the time to read this...I'm always humbled and touched by the thought that people read this in the midst of their own chaos. Don't forget to post the odd time - I LOVE comments! :-)

Novelty wearing off

Well, I can say that the novelty has officially worn off. The girls are starting to get irritated by some things now, and although I think she's still adorably cute, her defiance is starting to get a bit old. On the bright side, I am starting to feel like she is mine, and I really am starting to love her like my own.

But I am struggling in some areas - I can't leave her alone anywhere for fear of her getting into stuff and I'm tired of being "on" all the time. She hasn't been settling well at night so we've moved the girls out of her room so they can all have a break, and I've sat with her until she falls asleep. It worked out great last night...but means I'm sitting in that room until she's asleep and means even less down time for me. I guess I'll have lots of blogging time now. :-) She is still really testing. Most of the time she plays so well, but any time she needs correction, she will automatically keep doing it. It's so frustrating. If I say no to something, she'll immediately do it again and look at me while she does it. Every time. I think she has maybe only obeyed once. We just do continual redirection or time ins, but I am missing the almost immediate obedience we have with G&E...and I wonder if we'll ever get there with her.

Attachment is going fairly well, though. She is starting to ask to be lifted up, or has given me spontaneous hugs and kisses. She also asked to sit on my lap last night during the movie. She enjoys positive reinforcement - she loves to colour and then call me and show me her work. On Friday I had to tidy up some rooms on the main floor while she was watching a show. After a few minutes I heard "Mommy, nay!", which means "Mommy, come!" She didn't have anything to show me, she just wanted me near. Sometimes she'll look up when she's playing and we'll smile at each other. From the reading I've done, those are all good signs (I hope!).

The language has definitely been an adjustment but we are managing OK. She is starting to try more English words, and often now answers with "yes" or "no" instead of "ow" or "aye". She says some of the basics (more, thank you, please, yellow, banana, blue, pink, orange, house, the alphabet, numbers 1-15) and understands quite a few others (playground, school, sit, various body parts, etc.). Between her limited English and our limited Amharic we are getting by. I studied quite a bit before we got her...but I wish I had spent less time on the terms of endearment and affection and more time learning the boundary words. You only need to learn one or two terms of endearment (I love you and beautiful and good job goes a long way) but there are so many boundary terms (wait, stop, come, sit down, don't touch that, etc.) that you need each day!

I am so thankful we're sleeping great each night. Once she's asleep, she's out hard. I've been sleeping a good 8-9 hours a night (don't call after 9:30...I'm fast asleep!) but am still finding that I'm so tired during the day. Things are going so well and I am truly thankful because it could be so much worse, but I think the emotional adjustment is a lot to deal with and it
wears me out. We've never had much drama in our house, and it feels like there are either shrieks of laughter or shrieks of crying every few minutes now.

Anyway, I may go outside for a few minutes and soak up the sun. I'll see if G can keep an eye on Mebira...as an alternative to cleaning her room she'd probably love it. :-)

A few more days under our belts

Things are coming along nicely in the Schimke household. 2 days ago we had a pretty good day with minimal meltdowns. She did run off a bit, but didn't have any big cries and was easily distracted. Yesterday was an amazing day with no meltdowns or battles at all. Well, she had the usual 4-year old kid battles, but nothing extraordinary for a kid that age. I was amazed that we went about 36 hours with mostly peace and fun in our house.

A few more things we've learned about her:

• Her favourite colour (it seems) is yellow. She will often pick out yellow things first, and when we took her to the scarf place in Addis, with the choice of hundreds of scarves, she picked out a pure yellow one.
• She is very funny. Her sense of humour is coming out a lot now. She loves to talk gibberish really loud, and Elizabeth can't stop laughing when she does that. When she asks for something, like water, she'll say "Wuha"...and we'll say "Say 'Wuha, please Mommy". She LOVES to switch up our names and say "Wuha, please Daddy" instead of Mommy, or vice versa and giggles. She also loves to play hide and seek or hide things, and giggles when we find her/it, and she loves to be tickled.
• She loves the playground. She is amazingly agile and I can actually sit and watch her now and not be terrified that she is going to fall off something and hurt herself. We've gone almost every day to the playground, and it has been so nice to sit and enjoy the sun while she runs around.
• She keeps begging to watch Shrek and Elf. I think they watched both of those in the orphanage. She pronounces it like "Shrrrr-ek", like it's too syllables. It's probably not the most ideal activity for a 4 year old, but I think we may watch Shrek tomorrow night as a family just for fun.
• The food has been going down mostly pretty well. Bananas are a favourite treat and good bedtime snacks. She loves blackberries, is OK with strawberries, enjoys cereal or bread for breakfast, and pasta for lunch or supper. She also tolerates cheese quesedillas and loves butter chicken with naan bread. She's mostly just drinking milk and water, but did have a bit of 7Up which she loved.
• It's been so fun doing first activities with her. Yesterday she had her first slurpee (she loved it), and a popsicle today (she loved it, too) and tomorrow I'd like to try an ice cream cone. Don't judge me for the unhealthy food, but the weather is so nice it's so fun to go out and have some icy stuff to cool us down. Plus, it's so fun to see her reaction to things. I can't imagine that she would have ever had anything frozen in her life. She looks at the ice in drinks for quite a long time and is suspect of it.

Anyway, Arvid is home and I'm going to go for a walk...by myself. This will be the first time I've left Mebira for anything longer than a shower in 11 days. I am soooo looking forward to it!