Note: I have about two dozen posts on my blogger dashboard marked as "draft" from the last four months. I started them in a burst of optimism, but was always called away by one disaster or another and never managed to complete any of them. I'm going to try to salvage some of them now, although by now they are several months out of date, and not one of them are well written. Still, hopefully even messy and fragmented posts might help out those who are just about to pick up their children.
One of the biggest issues we have dealt with, with Eyoel and Zelakesh, is food. If you've done any digging at all into the world of older child adoption, you'll know that this is a hot topic! I'm far from an expert, but I'll tell you about our experience.
To begin with, the quantities of food that these kids consume are absolutely staggering. Zelakesh (5) eats about twice the amount of food that Mr. Gwen consumes, and Eyoel (7) eats about three times that. It's incredible. They just seem to have hollow legs! Here's our schedule:
7:30 am: pre-breakfast (toast with peanut butter, tea)
9:00 am: breakfast (omelette, toast, tea)
10:30 am: snack
12:00 pm: lunch
2:00 pm: snack
4:00 pm: snack
6:00 pm: dinner
7:30 pm: snack
It's downright exhausting! I do hold onto the hope that it won't always be this way, but right now we're just letting it happen. Children who have known hunger tend to not recognize the feelings of being full, so that's something that our children will eventually need to learn. But at this point, I just think they're making up for lost time!
1. Bread, bread, bread. It is the staff of life. My kids devour, absolutely devour bread. When they first came into our care, they were accustomed to eating huge slabs of white bread with cups and cups of heavily sugared tea. Thankfully they've gotten used to home-baked whole grain bread, but it hasn't been without its struggles. I would suggest to you, if you're bringing home older children, that you either learn to make bread, or start filling your freezer now. My two children eat an entire loaf of bread for their pre-breakfast, plus more bread mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I'm baking five loaves of bread every other day, and that barely keeps up to the demand.
2. Black Tea. Darjeeling, orange pekoe, Ceylon, English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Assam... they drink it all. While we were in Ethiopia, we didn't protest when Zenabah (the lovely and talented cook at the KVI Guest House) stirred three or four heaping spoons of sugar into their demitasse cups. They were clearly accustomed to this much sugar in their tea, and it wasn't a hill that we were going to die on. The first morning in Canada, I started rationing the sugar to 2 tsp per cup, and decreased it slightly each day. By the end of the second week, there was a limit of 1/8 tsp per cup, and although they still ask for more (and sneak sugar from the sugar bowl if I leave it on the table), they are content. Also, at first the children would guzzle pots and pots and pots of tea, but as I cut down on the sugar, they cut down on the quantities. After about a month, I started limiting tea according to the time of day -- none after 2:00.
3. Eggs. We can't get enough of them. Eyoel and Zelakesh began their new life in Canada by consuming four or five eggs per day (each). If I'd let them have unlimited quantities, I can only guess how many they would have eaten! We made an eight-egg omelette every morning for a few weeks, then I cut it back to a six egg omelette five days a week. Currently (four months in) I make a six-egg omelette about three days per week.
We are so blessed to have a friend of ours, who keeps chickens, supply us with three dozen eggs per week, absolutely free. The eggs are lovely, with deep golden yolks, and I feel so good knowing that her chickens are fed no antibiotics, are totally free-range, etc. If we were buying free-range organic eggs from the grocery store, I think we would have had to take out a second mortgage to cover the cost!
4. Meat. We were expecting meat-crazy children, but we haven't experienced that. The children definitely want to have meat for at least one meal per day, but they don't scream for steak first thing in the morning. However, Eyoel has told us many times that he had no meat when he lived in Wolayta, and there wasn't much meat in KVI. Meat, for Ethiopian children, equals security and prosperity. We are careful to always offer meat for at least one meal per day, and the children seem happy.
As to quantity, though... wow. Zelakesh isn't crazy about lots of meat, as long as she gets some. Eyoel, however, could easily eat a 10 oz. steak every day if he was allowed. And he is not happy if he sees that someone else at the table got more meat on their plate than he did.
5. Traditional Food. Don't underestimate the importance of serving traditional Ethiopian food. During the first few weeks, I made sure that we had injera and wats at least once per week. Lately, (after four months) we're down to serving traditional food every ten to fourteen days. But I can't stress enough that the children need traditional food.
When we're having a downright rotten day, when everything has gone wrong and I have a splitting headache by 10:00 am, I know that we need injera. The children are so, so comforted by a big huge plate of injera and wat, even if it's just a quick batch of Mesir Wat and maybe a little Shiro Wat. They scoop it up with their fingers, always offering bites to the rest of us and each other, and invariably their minds drift back to Ethiopia. We have the best conversations, and they share feelings and memories, after a meal of traditional foods. If you've adopted older children, traditional food is a great way to offer both comfort and an opportunity to share memories of the past.
One of the biggest issues we have dealt with, with Eyoel and Zelakesh, is food. If you've done any digging at all into the world of older child adoption, you'll know that this is a hot topic! I'm far from an expert, but I'll tell you about our experience.
To begin with, the quantities of food that these kids consume are absolutely staggering. Zelakesh (5) eats about twice the amount of food that Mr. Gwen consumes, and Eyoel (7) eats about three times that. It's incredible. They just seem to have hollow legs! Here's our schedule:
7:30 am: pre-breakfast (toast with peanut butter, tea)
9:00 am: breakfast (omelette, toast, tea)
10:30 am: snack
12:00 pm: lunch
2:00 pm: snack
4:00 pm: snack
6:00 pm: dinner
7:30 pm: snack
It's downright exhausting! I do hold onto the hope that it won't always be this way, but right now we're just letting it happen. Children who have known hunger tend to not recognize the feelings of being full, so that's something that our children will eventually need to learn. But at this point, I just think they're making up for lost time!
1. Bread, bread, bread. It is the staff of life. My kids devour, absolutely devour bread. When they first came into our care, they were accustomed to eating huge slabs of white bread with cups and cups of heavily sugared tea. Thankfully they've gotten used to home-baked whole grain bread, but it hasn't been without its struggles. I would suggest to you, if you're bringing home older children, that you either learn to make bread, or start filling your freezer now. My two children eat an entire loaf of bread for their pre-breakfast, plus more bread mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I'm baking five loaves of bread every other day, and that barely keeps up to the demand.
2. Black Tea. Darjeeling, orange pekoe, Ceylon, English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Assam... they drink it all. While we were in Ethiopia, we didn't protest when Zenabah (the lovely and talented cook at the KVI Guest House) stirred three or four heaping spoons of sugar into their demitasse cups. They were clearly accustomed to this much sugar in their tea, and it wasn't a hill that we were going to die on. The first morning in Canada, I started rationing the sugar to 2 tsp per cup, and decreased it slightly each day. By the end of the second week, there was a limit of 1/8 tsp per cup, and although they still ask for more (and sneak sugar from the sugar bowl if I leave it on the table), they are content. Also, at first the children would guzzle pots and pots and pots of tea, but as I cut down on the sugar, they cut down on the quantities. After about a month, I started limiting tea according to the time of day -- none after 2:00.
3. Eggs. We can't get enough of them. Eyoel and Zelakesh began their new life in Canada by consuming four or five eggs per day (each). If I'd let them have unlimited quantities, I can only guess how many they would have eaten! We made an eight-egg omelette every morning for a few weeks, then I cut it back to a six egg omelette five days a week. Currently (four months in) I make a six-egg omelette about three days per week. We are so blessed to have a friend of ours, who keeps chickens, supply us with three dozen eggs per week, absolutely free. The eggs are lovely, with deep golden yolks, and I feel so good knowing that her chickens are fed no antibiotics, are totally free-range, etc. If we were buying free-range organic eggs from the grocery store, I think we would have had to take out a second mortgage to cover the cost!
4. Meat. We were expecting meat-crazy children, but we haven't experienced that. The children definitely want to have meat for at least one meal per day, but they don't scream for steak first thing in the morning. However, Eyoel has told us many times that he had no meat when he lived in Wolayta, and there wasn't much meat in KVI. Meat, for Ethiopian children, equals security and prosperity. We are careful to always offer meat for at least one meal per day, and the children seem happy.As to quantity, though... wow. Zelakesh isn't crazy about lots of meat, as long as she gets some. Eyoel, however, could easily eat a 10 oz. steak every day if he was allowed. And he is not happy if he sees that someone else at the table got more meat on their plate than he did.
5. Traditional Food. Don't underestimate the importance of serving traditional Ethiopian food. During the first few weeks, I made sure that we had injera and wats at least once per week. Lately, (after four months) we're down to serving traditional food every ten to fourteen days. But I can't stress enough that the children need traditional food. When we're having a downright rotten day, when everything has gone wrong and I have a splitting headache by 10:00 am, I know that we need injera. The children are so, so comforted by a big huge plate of injera and wat, even if it's just a quick batch of Mesir Wat and maybe a little Shiro Wat. They scoop it up with their fingers, always offering bites to the rest of us and each other, and invariably their minds drift back to Ethiopia. We have the best conversations, and they share feelings and memories, after a meal of traditional foods. If you've adopted older children, traditional food is a great way to offer both comfort and an opportunity to share memories of the past.
5 comments:
Great post, Gwen. Love the pictures you added, too. The amount of food they eat is amazing! We thought Mebira ate a lot, but she is slowing down more and although she eats twice as much as our other girls combined, that's not saying much. :-)
It is a full time job feeding Mekuria too! He is super picky. He wouldn't eat meat at first (never had it before maybe?) Now he likes ground beef and weird processed meat like sandwich ham or pepperoni. But only in small doses.
I think he would be happy on a egg and banana diet!!
You are so right about the traditional food. I honestly think one of the most important things waiting parents can do is to learn to cook the traditional food from their child's country. There's just no reason not to provide them with that comfort.
(just have to add, my word verification is "dorking". Hee.)
Bread, Eggs, Traditional Food, and to a slightly lesser degree, Meat...yes, those all sound familiar. THe kids would love to have tea, but I've just outright stopped it altogether...and they don't seem to miss it at all.
In the 8 days we've been home with the kids, we've gone through a flat of 36 eggs, plus 16 additional eggs. It's incredible how much they love them. We've had traditional food 3x in the past week, and regularity of snacks and meals is super important - the kitchen seems to be where I spend a whole lot of time! They are already slowing down in their eating, which I'm thankful for, and they push away food now b/c they're full - I'm glad.
Anyway, great post about food issues - so much to relate to!
Blessings Gwen...and thanks for the supportive and encouraging emails of late - they have been much, much appreciated, even though I haven't responded to the last!!
Ruth
All I can think of is . . . hobbits.
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