Well we have now hit the ten month mark and we still have NO idea when to expect our wait to end! I am now starting to struggle with the wait times and wonder when the referral will come. I think the not having any idea is the hardest part.
Let's all think positive thoughts and hope and pray for a referral by Christmas!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Happy New Year!
As Ethiopia still follows the julian calendar today is New Years 2001....Last year we celebrated the millenium with the Ethiopian community, but this year it slipped by and we did not even make it out to Selam. Maybe this weekend we will try to go there to celebrate.
Ethiopian New Year (Enkutatash)
Ethiopia still retains the Julian calendar, in which the year is divided into 12 months of 30 days each and a 13th month of 5 days and 6 days in leap year. The Ethiopian calendar is 8 years behind the Gregorian calendar from January to September and 7 years behind between September 11 and January 8.
Enkutatash means the "gift of jewels". When the famous Queen of Sheba returned from her expensive jaunt to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem, her chiefs welcomed her bolts by replenishing her treasury with inku or jewels. The spring festival has been celebrated since this early times and as the rains come to their abrupt end, dancing and singing can be heard at every village in the green countryside.
But Enkutatash is not exclusively a religious holiday. Today's Enkutatash is also the season for exchanging formal new year greetings and cards among the urban sophisticated - in lieu or the traditional bouquet of flowers.
Ethiopian New Year (Enkutatash)
Ethiopia still retains the Julian calendar, in which the year is divided into 12 months of 30 days each and a 13th month of 5 days and 6 days in leap year. The Ethiopian calendar is 8 years behind the Gregorian calendar from January to September and 7 years behind between September 11 and January 8.
Enkutatash means the "gift of jewels". When the famous Queen of Sheba returned from her expensive jaunt to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem, her chiefs welcomed her bolts by replenishing her treasury with inku or jewels. The spring festival has been celebrated since this early times and as the rains come to their abrupt end, dancing and singing can be heard at every village in the green countryside.
But Enkutatash is not exclusively a religious holiday. Today's Enkutatash is also the season for exchanging formal new year greetings and cards among the urban sophisticated - in lieu or the traditional bouquet of flowers.
Monday, September 8, 2008
EI Benefits for Adoptive Parents Letter Campaign
Currently in Canada Adoptive parents are eligible for only 35 weeks while birthparents are eligible for the full year.
The Adoption Council of Canada is challenging the Gov't of Canada, so check out this site, do the right thing and use the sample letter to write your MP!
http://adoption.ca/EI%20Benefit.htm
Thank you for your support!
The Adoption Council of Canada is challenging the Gov't of Canada, so check out this site, do the right thing and use the sample letter to write your MP!
http://adoption.ca/EI%20Benefit.htm
Thank you for your support!
Friday, September 5, 2008
Very nice poem, I hope I can live up to it!
ADOPTIVE MOTHERS
Being an adoptive mother is not for every woman. She must possess not only the natural mother instinct but an understanding and appreciation of the situation that brought a child into her arms making her a mother. The adoptive family comes to be by choices made, choices made by the first parents and by the adoptive parents. This bond the adoptive mother has with her child grows over time, like the child did within his first mother’s womb.
Day by day, touch by touch, with each tear, kiss and memory made they become a family. Adoptive mothers have that special knack to let love grow.
Adoptive mothers know that she’s a mender of wounds, not just of the physical skinned knees with a band-aid and a kiss, but of the heart. She gives love, acceptance, and permission to ask and talk about the day he was born and of his first parents.
Adoptive mothers are embracers, not only of the child with many hugs and kisses, but of the child’s heritage and history. She embraces the facts of her child’s past with strength for herself and the child. She’s not only a memory maker planning family vacations, activities, and birthday parties, but also a memory keeper.
She’s a tier of shoelaces and of hearts. She weaves lives together into a tapestry of a new family, with many different brightly colored threads showcasing their individualities and family origins. Together they create one unit attached to each other.
Adoptive mothers are experts at finding lost objects, but understand and validate the profound, deep loss left by adoption. She allows the tears to fall and grief to be felt, allowing the mourning of the mom not there. She is secure in knowing that she’s not a replacement, but a finisher of a race for someone who, for whatever reason, could not run any longer.
This role is not for the weak of spirit, or the easily wounded. Loving a child not born to her but calling him her own, but this is what she does, it is her calling…..She is a mother.
Being an adoptive mother is not for every woman. She must possess not only the natural mother instinct but an understanding and appreciation of the situation that brought a child into her arms making her a mother. The adoptive family comes to be by choices made, choices made by the first parents and by the adoptive parents. This bond the adoptive mother has with her child grows over time, like the child did within his first mother’s womb.
Day by day, touch by touch, with each tear, kiss and memory made they become a family. Adoptive mothers have that special knack to let love grow.
Adoptive mothers know that she’s a mender of wounds, not just of the physical skinned knees with a band-aid and a kiss, but of the heart. She gives love, acceptance, and permission to ask and talk about the day he was born and of his first parents.
Adoptive mothers are embracers, not only of the child with many hugs and kisses, but of the child’s heritage and history. She embraces the facts of her child’s past with strength for herself and the child. She’s not only a memory maker planning family vacations, activities, and birthday parties, but also a memory keeper.
She’s a tier of shoelaces and of hearts. She weaves lives together into a tapestry of a new family, with many different brightly colored threads showcasing their individualities and family origins. Together they create one unit attached to each other.
Adoptive mothers are experts at finding lost objects, but understand and validate the profound, deep loss left by adoption. She allows the tears to fall and grief to be felt, allowing the mourning of the mom not there. She is secure in knowing that she’s not a replacement, but a finisher of a race for someone who, for whatever reason, could not run any longer.
This role is not for the weak of spirit, or the easily wounded. Loving a child not born to her but calling him her own, but this is what she does, it is her calling…..She is a mother.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
First day of preschool!
Our little boy is gettig soooo big. Today was his first day of Preschool. He was a little nervous about going, but once his little friend Lexie showed up he was relaxed and ready to go! He is one of the younger kids in the class (again), but there are 6 boys and 4 girls so he is not surrounded by girls like he usually is. I think it will be good for him.
Here are a couple of pictures of Cohen before dad took him to preschool. They take the supplies back and forth in an icecream pail........I guess it works, and it is probably easier for them to find stuff in. He is always dumping his whole backpack out just to find 1 thing!
After supper tonight we all walked (Cohen road his bike) to the library for some new reading material. I think I have memorized the 3 CARS books already that he got last week for his birthday. He loves books!
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