Silly Eirena

Me to Dr. Daddy: did you ever eat salt with your oranges?
Dr. Daddy: no, I'm not weird like that
Eirena to Dr. Daddy: are you kidding me?

love that girl!

The Snack Box

A common tip for parents of children adopted from poverty where lack of food was likely is to create a steady source of food for the child. There are a myriad of ways of implementing this from having a bowl of fruit always out to letting the child carry a packet of crackers in his pocket all the time. It is meant to be an assurance that there always will be food- just in case and also to nip behavior problems that might stem from feeling a bit peckish.
We always have fruit in the house and the kids could always ask for a piece of fruit if they were feeling snackish, but they rarely did. We did not give Adisu a personal snack item to carry around for a variety of reasons.
But things change and now we find ourselves at a stage of giving both Eirena and Adisu a snack box. They don't have to ask to eat from it (but they do need to sit up at the table so as not to create a trail of crumbs and vermin). It has simple (boring) snacks in it like banana chips, puffed millet and roasted edamame.
So far Adisu is eating from it about every two hours. It is hard to say whether he is testing its constant availability or feeling a void. (I'm pretty sure he isn't eating out of physical hunger.) Eirena is less interested (as we expected). One night she picked her way through her dinner and then ravaged her snacks but most of the time she is pretty happy just waiting for dinner.
I'm not entirely sure what success or failure looks like with the snack box. I certainly don't expect it to cure all behavior problems but it will be good if Adisu learns to trust a little more through it. Learning self- regulation with food would be good too.
Adoption tends to take your "normal" life and turn it upside down and you end up doing things you never thought you would need to do. This is just a minor example of a change we've made because of adoption.

Oh Yum! Oh Dear!

So for Christmas, Dr. Daddy got me this book. We tried a recipe today to make pita bread to go with our hummus and tabbouleh.
Dr. Daddy said, "oh boy! there is just nothing like warm pita bread fresh out of the oven."
It was a success!
Perhaps too much of a success because now we have to exert extreme self control to not eat a pound of bread each night. And there are a lot of really yummy looking recipes to try out. Good thing it is healthy bread!

Perhaps this is similar to how the Easter Bunny came about?

Christmas night we were eating our dinner. Eirena pipes up, "I'm going to have Baby Jesus."
"oh, is your name Mary?" I ask.
"No," says she (in her 'silly mommy' voice). "I'm just Uncle Wiggily the bunny rabbit."
Clearly.

Bowling without balls

Eirena has a bit of a coordination problem, especially with regards to balls. As a baby she was never that intrigued by them and now it takes significant cajoling to get her to play with a ball. (And the results are rather comedic to watch. ) So how does one bowl without a ball?
With a dart gun of course! Eirena was shooting Nerf darts at barn animals (toys) trying to knock them over. It is easy to get the little ones, but she was having trouble knocking Mama Cow down. So I suggested she get the bowling pins out. She lined those up, shot them with the darts and bam! over they went, much to her delight. If we can't work on eye-hand coordination with a ball, maybe we can do it with a gun. (Ahem. )

our silly boy

Eskil has made up a new game at the dinner table called "tick, tock". As you can hear, it is very popular with his siblings.

Helpful

Eirena and Eskil were outside this afternoon. I was bringing in the trash cans from off the street and noticed Eskil had acquired a stick.
I asked Eirena, "oh did you give Eskil a stick to play with?"
"No", she replied, "a stick to eat."
What a thoughtful big sister.

FOUR?!

How could she possibly be four already?

Ce n'est pas possible!
Eirena is a fun loving little girl.
A free spirit with a good dose of mischief.
She's smart and loves to learn. And she keeps me on my toes!

Celebrating her birthday -
between general busyness and me getting the flu, we didn't have much a party for her, but we did take her ice skating in the morning and then she got what she requested-
a Thomas cake.
Not too bad for a pair of amateurs, eh?
(I think the eyes look a little creepy and don't look at the ugly cookie sheet)


opening presents

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EIRENA!

St. Nicholas Day

Our family celebrates St. Nicholas Day on the 6th of December. That is when we have our stocking presents. Here are some pictures from last night:

Eskil got to go first

No one can resist a Matthew Van Fleet book!

Next up, Adisu

He's working on one of his Perler bead projects today

Then it was Eirena's turn

both older kids got gold coins to represent the gold in the stocking
Eirena made the connection immediately

modeling the socks she got in her stocking

you know he's a geologist when...
he's happy to get coal in his stocking
(anthracite has cool looking crystals)

Eirena was quite happy to help Dr. Daddy get his See's candy out of his stocking

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Slaying the fierce tiger

The brave warrior attacks the fierce tiger, delivering a strong blow to the flank.
Was it enough to slay the wild beast?

The ever faithful assistant examines the still animal for signs of life.

Victory! success!
The fierce tiger has been slain.
The brave lad is a hero.