This jar.

I have this thing for storing food in glass jars. I’m not sure why. Other glass jar people seem to have obvious and honorable reasons. My sister is health-conscious and cares for the earth better than anyone else I know. She buys in bulk online from fair-trade suppliers, and distributes smaller amounts into glass jars—coffee, coconut flour, garbanzo beans, dehydrated green beans that she has miraculously trained her toddler to enjoy. 

My pretty sister Rebecca singing at my brother Jeff's outdoor wedding last month.

My mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago and purged her kitchen of toxins. She stopped eating sugar and flour and started eating purely organic. She pitched all her plastic containers and switched to glass. Honestly, her pantry could be in a magazine. We visited her a couple weeks ago in her new house, where she had only lived for a couple weeks, and two of my kids toured the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards and exclaiming over how neat and organized it was. “Look, Mom!” (at the spice drawer). “Are we in heaven?” (about the cupboard with plates and bowls). “We should do this in our kitchen!”  

That's my mother-in-law Evelyn on the right, looking sweet and calm and collected, as always. We visited David's family in NC a couple weeks ago, and his parents treated everyone to delicious dinner at a Peruvian restaurant!

So I don’t know. Maybe I like glass jars because I want to be more health-conscious and earth-conscious like my sister Rebecca and more organized and Betty Crocker-ish like my mother-in-law Evelyn. In any case, the Mother Of All My Glass Jars is this one. 

This jar.

I think it held pickles in its former life. I first used it for flour. That was back when we lived at the end of a dead-end gravel road in the country and I used to bake bread. 

Then for a while I used it to store sugar. (Also during the gravel road, house in the country, excessive amounts of free time, baking days.)

From time to time, this jar holds coconut-almond granola. This is my favorite thing to see packed in the jar. This stuff is like a macaroon in a bowl.

For a while I kept dried beans in the jar, but that didn’t last long because when I need beans, I need them like, now, not in 13 hours. So the rarely used beans just monopolized valuable jar space.

When I had to stop eating gluten (*cue forlorn violin soundtrack), I hunted for baking alternatives and kept gluten-free flour in the jar.

Then for a couple years—the year we lived in Peru and the year after we got back and lived in a teeny tiny row house with a teeny tiny kitchen—the jar stayed packed away in storage.

These days the jar holds, as you can see in the photo, white rice. In our life B.K. (Before Kids) we ate rice maybe twice a month, white rice almost never. Now this entire jar of rice (about 7-8 pounds) might last about two weeks in our house. The kids adore white rice and they are used to eating it all the time. For breakfast they love arroz con huevo (rice with egg) or arroz con atun (rice with tunafish). They’ll eat arroz con palta (rice with avocado) anytime. Instructions: mash avocado, mix with rice, squeeze lime on top. I’m sure I could fix arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) for dinner every single night and no one would complain. We’ve been trying to convince them to take their lunch to school instead of eating the disgusting cafeteria food, but they aren’t really getting into the PB&J sandwich thing. But this morning, they all packed leftover chicken and rice into plastic containers and left happy as… well, happy as Peruvians with white rice!

Alfredo and Joseph at my brother Jeff's outdoor wedding last month. Running around like crazy men turned out to be a pretty good option to keep warm!

Most of us just huddled together and kept refilling our mugs with hot cider and coffee.

So I don’t particularly like the kids eating all that starch and empty carbs. But they’re missing Peru and going through immense changes, and the rice is comforting. (God knows my comfort foods of choice are far worse!) So for now it’s okay.

In the story of our life this jar is telling, this is the Rice Chapter.

It's also the Meeting Tons of New People Chapter...

Road trip! Breaking in the minivan.

Visiting some very special friends in Michigan. They scored serious cool points by having a convertible.

Thanks to our friend Gabrielle for treating the kids to their first rock climbing adventure.

Meeting Grandmom.

Meeting cousin Nori. The waitress at the Peruvian restaurant thought we had adopted five kids (she counted Nori!).

Meeting Uncle Stephen and Aunt Jessica.

Meeting PopPop.

A quick stop at Niagara Falls on our way to Chicago.

Homeschool...? Or not.

Once upon a time, we had the idea to homeschool our kids, at least for the first semester or so while we're adjusting as a family and while they're learning English.

Then we tried it.

Some of it was great. For instance:

1.)  Hanging out together all day = lots of family bonding
2.)  1-to-2 teacher-student ratio = plenty of one-on-one attention and accommodations for different learning styles

Some of it was not so great. Such as:

1.)  Hanging out together all day = everyone driving everyone else crazy. There is such thing as too much of a good thing...
2.)  Parents/teachers who quickly felt overwhelmed and under-prepared to teach four students with four different learning styles, all at different levels and needing all the high school subjects ... who don't speak English yet.

A couple weeks ago, Alfredo told me he wanted to go to school. My mental image of Philly public schools involved armed police officers, drug dealers in hoodies and utter chaos in the classrooms. On the other hand, it was clear to me that homeschool most likely isn't the best option for us after all, at least not for all four at this point in our lives. So with mixed feelings, I called the public schools in our neighborhood. The secretary at the high school invited us to come on over right then, so all six of us walked over and were blown away by how kind and welcoming they were. (Shout out to my pessimist friends and father: sure enough, when you begin with low expectations, you leave room to be pleasantly surprised.)

The school is 55% English Language Learners. In the classroom we observed there were at least a dozen different countries represented. The teachers and the secretaries were great. The principal was great. He came to the U.S. from Cambodia at age 13, never having been in school before and not knowing a word of English. He was a student at the school, then a teacher, then the assistant principal and now the principal. His English teacher then is now his secretary.

Yes, there was a metal detector and yes, we smelled pot in the hallway by the boys' bathroom while the principal was giving us a tour, and yes, some of the students are 3x the size of our little Peruvian kids ... but overall, it seems like it could be a great fit for the kids. The school is well equipped to teach kids with no or little English, and everyone assures us that there are very few of the typical problems with bullying, drugs, etc. among the students in the ELL program. Those problems happen primarily among the 45% of the school who are South Philly kids (so they say). So for the majority of the day, our kids will be tucked away with other newcomers to the country, learning more than we could teach them at home (hopefully!) and making friends (hopefully!).

Today was Day 1. Theoretically, now would be the time I'd be catching up on a ton of work that's overdue. But instead I'm blogging about the kids, wondering how they are doing in school right now, and planning what I'll make for a snack when they get home.

Stephanie: Excited and nervous. Had her notebooks and pens ready yesterday. Made herself a schedule for the week and set her alarm for 5:00 a.m. so she'd have plenty of time to get ready.

Alfredo: Bouncing off the walls excited. Could not sit still during breakfast. Danced or ran most of the way to school.

Joseph: Nervous and reluctant. Held my hand on the walk to school. I'm sure that won't last long, but I'll enjoy it while it does.

Ivone: Nervous, reluctant, excited. She was 1 1/2 years away from graduating in Peru, so she is not at all pleased about being put back a couple grades.

Feeling confident.

Feeling... not so confident. But hopeful.

are we parents yet?

Today I was on the phone with American Airlines today making changes to our airline tickets (the tickets that some awesome friends BOUGHT FOR US using their airline miles... that's right, all 6 tickets). I mentioned to the customer service rep that we are doing an adoption. Later in the conversation she said, "Oh, I don't have the name of the infant here."

The infant...? The infant...? The...

"Oh! No... We're not adopting an infant. We are adopting four teenagers."

Sometimes I wish I could be inside people's heads when I say that. But it's probably better I'm not. 

Anyway, then I had to correct myself: "Actually we've already adopted them."

*gulp*

So yes, it's 100% official.... at least on paper. But I sure don't feel like a parent. It feels like we are long-term babysitters. I assume that will change at some point, but right now when I hear someone say "Mom," it feels like they're talking to someone else. I'm more comfortable with "Hermana Karen," which is what they called me when we were volunteering at the orphanage and some of them are still calling me.

We got four of these this morning!

I read an insightful article the other day that a friend posted on FB. If you're wondering what we're feeling and experiencing, read this: "Adoption Is Not Love." Or at least read this, which pretty much sums it up:

"The adoption process can be long and grueling and hard and painful, but it isn’t really love. Much like a wedding, adopting an orphan isn’t loving them, it’s just making the decision to start loving them. Adoptive parents aren’t great because they made it through a home study, got on an airplane and signed a few papers. They are great when, after months and years of hard stuff, they still choose to love this child they brought home."

So, we've decided to start loving these four kids. We're taking it one day at a time and trusting the love is going to keep growing as we play card games and make meals and remind them to brush their teeth and persuade them to read a book instead of watching TV and take trips together and tell them stories at night and help them (I hope) overcome some of their emotional baggage.

So this morning we picked up the kids' Peruvian passports, each with a freshly stamped immigrant visa. We also got a big packet of paperwork for each kid that we're not allowed to open until we're at immigrations. Of course we're all curious what's inside... and a little nervous about how long it's going to take the immigration officer to review it all since we only have a 2-hour layover. But in any case, we're coming home!

When we told the kids today about our travel plans, there was a range of reactions from each of them. For one of the girls, it was like we pushed a button and her eyes immediately filled with tears. One of the boys started cheering and jumping around. As you think of us, please pray for these kiddos. They have a lot of changes ahead.

Here are some photos from the last few days in Lima.

With our friend Jaime from Lima

A big group of school kids wanting to practice their English.

Dorking around in the house.

Lima has the most amazing park with tons of elaborate fountains.

 

 

 

It's almost never sunny in Lima now (winter time) but we had a gorgeous sunny day on Sunday and spent a few hours at the beach. So fun!

highs and lows

Today it's been exactly one month since we arrived in Peru. Everything is finished for the adoption in Peru; now we're working on stuff to bring our four sweet little immigrants into the U.S. The Consulate is here in the capital city, Lima, so here we are. We expect we'll need another week or so to finish up everything to get passports and visas for the kids, and hopefully we can head home early next week.

Here are a few highs and lows from the past few days...

VACCINATIONS.  :(
We were under the impression that vaccinations were optional, but we were mistaken. Certain vaccines are required for immigrants into the U.S. (of which we have four). The orphanage directors searched their health records and didn't have anything for any of our kids, so unfortunately they each had to get SEVEN shots in the same day... probably shots they've already had but just don't have records for. Poor them!

Joseph is usually fearless, the first one of the kids to jump into something new. But not at the doctor's office...

I've been talking to the kids about collecting some small souvenirs to remember their life in Peru. The day after the vaccines, one of the boys told me he had his souvenir for Lima ... his bloody band-aids which were stuck to the wall in his bedroom. Umm... Life with boys.

THE BEACH! :)
We rented a great apartment a block from the ocean. It's winter here in Lima (low 60s and cloudy/rainy) so no one is swimming... except our boys. Still, it's fun to be able to see the water from our balcony and walk by the water.

HEAD LICE.  :(
During a checkup at the doctor's office we learned that some of our kids had little friends in their hair. But at least the girls had fun washing their hair with the special lice-killing shampoo, which happened to be extra sudsy. 

FAMILY TIME. :)
The kids don't always get along. There is plenty of punching, jabbing, teasing, poking, prodding, whining, complaining, and all the rest. It's bringing back memories of my own childhood with 6 siblings. My older brother would jab me in that hollow part of the upper arm over and over until my arm lost feeling and I barely had sufficient energy to run and tattle on him. Ah, the good ol' days... But the majority of the time they really get along pretty well -- especially Joseph and Ivone. I love watching them together!

A chocolate bar with "The Misti," one of the three volcanoes you can see from Arequipa. It was a gift from a friend of the orphanage, but it turned into a recycled birthday gift from the kids to me. :)

Stephanie, the fashionista. She loves feather earrings!

EXERCISE.  :)
It's been a fun surprise that the boys like exercising. And the other day, David pulled out that magical phrase that works on all boys, young and old" "I'll time ya." For the last three days in a row, we've gone out and timed them running laps -- 100 meters or so on flat ground, then down a steep staircase, across a road another 100 meters and up another steep staircase. They race against their own time and against us. They're pretty fast! Alfredo and David are going head-to-head. I'm hoping they want to do CrossFit with us when we get home.

The sweaty runners after their race.

The other day when we got back from running with the boys, the girls had set the table, made dinner (omelets) and had music playing. They were so happy ... and so was I!