Perspective...

Four

Four seasons, The Four Tops, The Final Four, four wheelin', Four Corners, Connect Four, four of a kind, Fantastic Four, The Fab Four, Four score and seven years ago, four eyes.  Oh, and four official months on the wait list!

Pot Luck

You might recall that, several weeks ago, I started a Yahoo Group for Ethiopian adoption families in Pennsylvania.  Yesterday, we attended our first pot luck get together in Honeybrook, PA!  There were about 5 families there, some who'd completed their adoption and some (like us) in process.  We had good food, good conversation and an opportunity to glean some valuable information.  We also had the chance to drink our coffee out of a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony set that one family brought home from Ethiopia.  If you'd like to watch an actual coffee ceremony, click here.  It was great to connect with these people and to meet their absolutely delightful Ethiopian children, ages 2 to 11.  As a group, we decided to schedule monthly get-togethers, and we are hoping more families will be able to join us.  Mark and I are are excited to have this connection with other families, for our sake and for that of our future child(ren).    

Ouch!

Preparing for travel means familiarizing ourselves with Ethiopian customs and accommodations.  It means looking into inflatable neck pillows, ear plugs and melatonin.  It also means shots.  Gladney recommends (but does not require) certain vaccinations for travel and, after consulting our very good infection control nurse friend and the CDC, we opted for most of them.  The last thing we need is to pick up an illness in Ethiopia and bring it back along with our child(ren).  Hepatitis A and B, Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Meningitis, Malaria, Polio and Tetanus boosters and routine vaccinations (with appropriate boosters) are all recommended.  Yesterday I opted for a delightful blend of Tetanus, Meningitis and Hepatitis A.  Today I can barely use my arms.  I'll go back in for round two shortly.  Mark will start his soon.  If our travel never comes to fruition, we will be the two most prepared people on our block if there should ever be an outbreak of developing nation diseases in Selinsgrove.