All in the family

Published 5:12 pm Thursday, July 31, 2008

EDMONDS

With 16 kids living in the Hehn household, you wouldn’t expect dinner to be an orderly affair.

Somehow, it is.

Julie and Rich Hehn have 27 children, 24 of them adopted. Sixteen now live at home — all but one from Ethiopia.

Before dinner Monday, July 28, Workeneh, 18, a young man in an apron, calmly kept watch over steaming pots on the stove while Amelework, 16, Belaynesh, 14, and Tamenech, 21, rolled flat breads. Ethiopian music played softly in the background. The kitchen was calm, even as younger children filed in to visit.

Rich introduced Semira. “She’s five,” he said.

“Dad, she’s six!” said Tariku, 7.

“Too many birthdays,” Rich said.

Julie approached Tariku and bent over to examine the chunky belt that held his shorts up.

“I like the belt!” she said.

Usually, the children take turns making dinner — they just step forward to do so. There’s no official system, and Julie “doesn’t cook.” If she cooks, it’s Prego and the garlic bread is burned, she explained.

“On my way home, they’ll call and say, ‘We’re having pasta for dinner, can you pick up the bread,’” Julie said. “I get home and the table is set.”

Julie’s first husband died years ago, leaving her with 11 children, eight of them adopted. The first man she brought home as a date after her husband’s death was Rich, and she expected him to be scared silly by her household.

Instead, he was impressed. Before they went out for the night, Julie called down the stairs and asked who was going to do the dishes. Three or four voices piped up, “I will!”

“(Rich) was shocked,” Hehn said. “He said in his (childhood) family all you’d hear would be the back door slamming.”

Dinner Monday was spicy lentils and onions, chicken stew, potato, cabbage and carrots and beef, sitting in pots on the long, narrow table next to the kitchen.

Workeneh served dishes and monitored the table, still wearing his apron.

“Do you need a bigger spoon?” he said, watching one child struggle to get the meat out of a dish.

The children seemed attuned to each other’s needs. An older child wiped Semira’s arm when it grazed the plate and emerged orange.

Tariku asked Julie for a fork.

“Are you Ethiopian?” Julie joked. Ethiopians usually scoop food up with flat bread.

“It’s for Rahel,” said Tariku.

Rahel, 4, the youngest of the bunch, was working her way through a boiled egg.

When Rahel came to the Hehn household last year, she was near death because of her celiac’s disease, and her belly was large for need of food.

“These kids have dealt with hunger a lot,” Julie said. In Ethiopia, some people only eat every other day. An orphanage isn’t high on the hierarchy when it comes to who gets fed, Julie said.

Some children who’ve been at the Hehn’s only a year will eat five or seven apples a day unless you stop them because they aren’t used to getting enough to eat, Julie said.

Many of the children, used to living in orphanages, also have a mind set of sharing, Julie said.

For example, the house has eight bedrooms, but only two bathrooms.

“Never once have I heard, ‘Mom, they’re taking too long!’” Julie said.

Her teenage daughters share clothes and jewelry.

“I was like, ‘Do you realize this doesn’t happen in the U.S.?!’” Julie said.

After dinner Monday, five of the boys played basketball outside while two children washed dishes and Rich and Julie sat on the porch.

People often ask them how they can afford this, Julie said.

“It always works,” she said. “If I could figure it out…”

Julie is a kindergarten teacher at Edmonds Elementary School and Rich is an elementary school librarian for Lockwood Elementary in the Northshore School District.

The two own Stella Mia restaurant in Bothell and just bought another restaurant in downtown Edmonds. They use a lot of hand me downs.

Another question the Hehn’s hear: “Why do this?”

“When people ask me why I do this I always say it’s connected to how I was adopted,” Julie said. “When a child is presented to us…”

Some of the adoptions the Hehns sought out. With others, they got calls from agencies: a family who’d adopted a child could no longer continue to care for them, could the Hehn’s take them in?

“They feed me,” Julie said. “I love the interactions.”

Though it looks effortless, Julie and Rich carry on a stream of chatter, praise, thanks and a few admonishments with the children. Their parenting style comes from years of school teaching, they say. Julie used to work as a school behavior specialist, and is well acquainted with child psychology.

At one point during dinner, the noise level was rising. And rising.

“Too loud, too loud, too loud!” she said firmly. “Boys and girls, it’s a little loud.”

Within moments, things got quiet again and subdued chatter progressed as before.

A while later, Julie turned around, warmth in her eyes.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she said.