Time for a haircut?

He hasn't said his first word yet, but has a way of getting his point across!!

Courage? Patience?

"Hey mommy! Do I look like an adult now?" Glad I had the camera on hand! He was actually pretty serious about the issue, so I had to say yes, with the caveat that he was a little short still, and that adults usually run around the house with clothes on!

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Anyways, recently, I've had a few conversations with people who have offered up their comments on homeschooling. Some are negative. Generally, comments about socialization. I usually respond to those with comments about how if my son was in public school, I'd have to worry about peer pressure and bullying. I assure these usually complete strangers that my son indeed does have many opportunities to be around other children and that it's not an issue. Each choice of schooling has it's challenges.

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With socialization however, I can see why people bring it up. What's flooring me are the pseudo-positive comments, like "you must have so much patience!", "Good for you, that's brave", or the worst "You're amazing, I never could have handled being around my children all the time!".

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Seriously, how do you reply to such things? I don't actually have heaps of patience, though I'm working on it. As for courage, I think it would have taken far more courage to send my son off to school for an entire day! He just spent a day, and ENTIRE, 8hr. day at a friends house recently, and it was hard on me! Many parents find the first day of Kindergarten hard, and I have a good friend who was in a puddle of tears for a couple days after her last child headed off to school and she was home alone. So while taking the responsibility of your child's education is a little nerve-wracking, I can't imagine the other route being any easier. Again, just different challenges.

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So I guess my reply to the first two comments should be that I'm actually an impatient wimp!

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The last comment, well, everyone needs a break from their kids from time to time. But in general, I want my kids around me most of the time. I don't really understand why someone wouldn't! I don't want to miss out on all those precious moments! The ones that come when an imagination has free reign, uninterrupted by the next school bell, or stifled by concern of not being cool. I wonder if I'll feel differently about all this when they're teens though??

Hide and seek has to be one of my kids favorite games at the moment! D has it down pat, other than having very little patience to be found, but E is a funny gal, and thinks she needs to hide to do the counting (she only counts properly up to seven, then is all over the place until it's time to yell 'twenty'). Here, they decided it was a good idea to both hide from mommy! I knew from the giggles where they were, so I grabbed the camera!

Good news on the basement suite, the renters started moving their stuff in today! Different renters than the girls I mentioned last post, who were late on bringing the damage deposit, and so we decided that was a no-go as we don't want difficulties of course! I'm really thinking we've got some great tenants here though. A single mom and her 11 yr old son. She's a very nice lady, and she just loves kids and doesn't mind the noises they produce, which is important around here! When she was unpacking today she had E down there with her, and there were heaps of giggles lofting up the stairs! Her son seems like a quiet and sweet boy, and D is so excited that there is a boy moving in downstairs. He seems to think they'll be part of our family though, which I'll need to talk to him about! He asked today how long till he moves in and is sleeping here, and when I said it would be 9 more days he said that that's how long it took to bring E home from Ethiopia (our trip was 9days). Humm.

Some news on the job front as well. Hubby has a phone interview this coming week, and there is a job fair in Kelowna next week as well! We're also looking into him perhaps working part time, and upgrading his skills in school a bit as it would be beneficial to have Microsoft certification.

Last but not least, here's a sweet photo from this eve. I would have gotten on of E as well, but she was grumpy, and baby J was already asleep!

Still around, just busy!

I just thought I'd better write to give a quick update! Still no jobs for hubby, but we've been keeping really busy with getting the basement suite ready to rent. My Mom came for a week long, um, I'd like to say 'visit', but we just worked a lot! Not much visiting! But the suite is painted, and we have had several people come by to look at it. A couple girls have said they'll be by with a damage deposit and first month's rent for tomorrow, so I hope that happens!

Other than that, we've all been fighting some colds here, but are on the mend. I'm bushed, but will have more to write soon!

Reflections

Reflections

Just over 2 years ago, we brought home our sweet daughter from Ethiopia. I wish I could say it was bliss from the moment we stepped back into Canada, but in reality, they were tough times! It was a big adjustment for all of us, and especially for her of course. Not an easy thing for a toddler to leave all she knows and coming to another country to live with strangers! She did amazingly well though, and has blossomed into a bright and happy child.

Watching baby J grow through infancy has been a continual reminder of so many precious moments I've missed with E. I wish I could know what she weighed at birth, how old she was when she first smiled, and crawled. I wish I could have seen her first steps. It's made me treasure what I've gotten to experience of her childhood all the more.

I did have the painful joy of watching some of her early days through pictures as she grew up in the orphanage. She was brought there at about 7 months of age. This is the first picture I saw of my darling daughter. My first thought when my husband surprised me with the photo was that it was an advertisement for Ethiopian adoption - she was just too adorable!

As the months passed, we received several more pictures (I think if you click on them, you can see them bigger). Here she is wearing a little outfit we sent for her. A couple months later, a friend who went to pick up her son from the same orphanage told me she had started walking! At least I know that she started walking when she was about 12 months old! These occasional photos and tidbits of news were like finding tiny pieces of gold in a murky stream. The eight months we waited to pick her up were brutal!

Another friend who went to pick up her child did something just amazing for us. Along with taking several new pics of E, she also took a video of her walking! What a treasure!

Of course it didn't compare to seeing the real thing, which didn't happen for a couple months after. We finally met our daughter on December 25, 2007. At the orphanage when we met her, it wasn't too difficult to make her smile. She loved to play peekaboo - or as they say in Ethiopia - 'aieeeeee!'

While we were in Ethiopia, we had the amazing privilege of meeting with some of E's birth family, and even seeing her grandma's home where she was born.

So while I grieve the moments I missed with my daughter, we treasure the amazing journey that brought her to us, and celebrate each moment that we have with her now (well, except for those whiny and otherwise unmentionable ones that come with the toddler years that in times of reminscing we tend to blissfully ignore!).

The photo on the right about 2 weeks after she came home, and the one below from about a year ago.

Isn't she sweet!!!

A couple steps caught on video!

A short video catching some of those first steps. Sorry for the nasty quality. The lighting wasn't good, and I taped it using my camera as figuring out how to get movie from the video camera onto the computer is far beyond me. You'll just have to believe me that he's able to take several steps consecutively than I got on tape! Maybe it's something to do with the ear to ear grin on my face when I see him walk, but he always laughs and falls down especially when I've got the camera!

D's been quite the helper with his little brother lately. He gave me a bit of a surprise today, telling me he knows how babies are made. News to me, as we've not gone there yet! When I asked him how, I was relieved by his answer. "You take some bones and glue them together, put some skin on, and drop eyeballs in!"

Whew :)

Baby J walked for mommy :) The next morning after I missed his initial show, he did a few steps. He finds it quite funny that he's walking, and starts to laugh after he takes a couple steps, which of course makes him fall! Making progress though - he took a good 5 steps this evening!

My first post on this blog was about us waging a war on his night waking. I wish I could claim victory, but alas, we all got sick and I just can't let a sick baby cry very much. Once he's cleared up, which always takes a while as he struggles with fluid in his ears, we'll be trying again. I can't really complain too much as he only usually wakes up once a night, but it needs to end because he's not the only one who's waking me. E sometimes has bad dreams and needs me, and she also has this strange habit of needing to come and inform me when she wakes up to use the potty.

And then there is the stupid cat. If I put him outside, at some point in the night he scratches at my window to come in. If I leave him inside, he scratches at the carpet under my door to go out. Of course I jump to do his majesty's bidding, because I don't want the house wrecked. I think I need to start locking the cat in the shed outside at night.

On another topic, while our family still remains in the ranks of the unemployed, we're tending towards taking a lesser paying job in town and looking at other ways of making ends meet in order to avoid moving. Even though I'd love to be closer to my family, the cons of moving seem to outweigh the pros. Current options are:
-rent out our basement
-take in a couple international students
-do some after-school daycare
-I could start working evenings/weekends

Of course nothing is decided until there is some sort of job offer on the table, so we're still in wait-and-see mode here.