In the midst of renovations, adoption updates and home-schooling, we decided this year is actually the best time to take the boys back to Guatemala for their first birth-country return trip. They’re old enough that they’ll remember it, we’re hoping our next adoption will complete in the next year (meaning we’ll need to be at home with a strict routine again for a while, while we and the newbies adjust to one another), and we don’t want to let too much time lapse before we re-connect with the people we (sort of) know there.
So that’s the boys’ “big” birthday item from us up there in the picture: Read the rest of this entry
Just one week ago, I was chuckling at another blogger’s humorous list of “You Know You’ve Adopted Internationally When…” and her item #4:
“you stop and pay attention whenever you hear your child’s birth country mentioned on the television or in a public place,
even if they’re just talking about the weather there.”
It’s the truth in our house! I even have Guatemala City programed into my iPhone’s weather app, and the twins check the weather there every day, right after checking our local weather to see if they can wear shorts or not. But this last week takes all the humor out of ”just talking about the weather there.” Read the rest of this entry
The boys and I picked up a couple friends from the Hispanic group we’re in on Sunday nights and took them hiking at Patapsco Valley State Park, this afternoon. And besides being an excellent friendship-builder, this afternoon also proved to be one of expanding our Spanish by immersion.
Stand-out words of the day: former slur terms that are now used as national identification slang (often with pride) by the various people of Central America.
Happy to share. Read the rest of this entry
Were they to read that heading, BOTH of the twins would protest that they’re not babies. But they can’t read much yet; nor are they allowed on the Internet by themselves for blog perusal or any other activity. So “yea!” for me; I can get away with it this one last time.
Today is our kids’ 3rd “Gotcha Day.” For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the third anniversary of when we “got” them, the day we first met our sons.
January 22, 2007. Even when I’m old and senile, I’m pretty sure I will not forget that day. Two little men came toddling into the lobby of our hotel in Guatemala City, clutching their foster mom’s hands with one hand and photos of us in their other.
Tiny two and a half year olds (the size of one year olds by U.S. growth chart standards). Huge brown eyes, chubby cheeks, dark brown hair, bow-shaped lips.
Read the rest of this entry
Haiti is (justifiably) getting the lion’s share of news coverage right now. But Guatemala and El Salvador were also shaken by an earthquake on Monday – a magnitude 5.8 according to the U.S. Geological Survey . With its epicenter located in the ocean to the south of Guatemala City and west of San Salvador, the quake rocked rural areas in both countries.
(photo credit U.S. Geological Survey) Read the rest of this entry