Chickens & Eggs

The updates we have received on Little Brother since our referral have been surprisingly informative; unusually so, according to my adoptive-mom-friends. Maybe it’s a China thing? Most of my closest friends have adopted (or are adopting) from African nations, and every country differs greatly as far as their adoption process, in general. From who qualifies to adopt, to how long the process takes, how many times you travel to each respective country, and how long you stay… if you are considering adoption, the first decision you should probably make is where to adopt from.

Included in both of the thorough reports we have gotten on our little guy were food preferences. Fortunately for him- and us- we eat/prepare homeade Asian food about 95% of the time in our home, so I haven’t been too worried. Imagine my surprise and joy in reading that on the top of his list of favorite foods is eggs! Just like his Daddy. Handsome Hubs would claim his favorite food is sushi (too bad we reside in land-locked Montana…), but I would beg to differ. If I didn’t prepare his breakfast for him every most mornings, he would probably consume upwards of six eggs a day.

I capitalized on his affinity for eggs last spring and he obliged me by building a chicken coop in our backyard. We trooped down to the local farm store and “adopted” (Kidding. Friends, stop saying you adopted your pets. This can be confusing and offensive to adopted children.) four darling baby chicks that have now grown into consistently laying hens. We selected cold-hearty breeds that lay year-round (most breeds of chicken take a winter sabbatical) and collect four eggs every day now.

We actually included a photo of our chickens in the album we compiled & sent Little Brother with mandarin captions, hopefully he his nannies will understand and explain. The captions read both “our pets” and “eggs”. They really are like pets to us now. They’re dumb as doornails, but definitely have personalities. Benedict is our alpha chicken, where she goes the others go. That whole “pecking order” thing? Yeah, that’s real. If I need to catch them for some reason I just grab her and the others quickly follow. Omlette is our naughty chicken, a fiesty red-head and our resident escape artist. Dynamite is our sweet chicken. She has “fancy feet” (feathers on them) and knows she’s pretty. She loves being handled and is just a sweetheart of a chicken if ever there was one. Sophia is our scaredy-chicken, she’s as timid as a squirrel and the poor girl should probably be on anti-anxiety meds, though that would defeat the whole “organic, no hormones/antibiotic” thing that inspired our urban farm.

Omelette, the naughty chicken. Look at that guilty face.

I can’t wait to serve eggs to Little Brother– preparing food for loved ones is such an innately nurturing act. I’ll confess I’ve been having strange re-occurring dreams of breast-feeding this poor little tike (don’t worry, I WILL NOT be trying it!) and was initially horrified. “Welcome to America…” Um, no. But after pondering the dreams I think it’s only natural that as I mentally prepare to bond with this new child of ours I revert back to how I bonded with our other children. AGAIN: Not trying it.

Our creeptastic chickens watching me carve up a roasted chicken for dinner through the kitchen window.

Still, I’m a wee bit nervous about what else we should/shouldn’t feed him. I have to break out the old baby books to refresh on which foods to wait to introduce due to allergy-risk (I have inexplicably forgotten everything) and be extra careful with his open palate since food is commonly trapped in clefts and can cause irritation/infection.

What are your favorite go-to toddler-friendly snacks?