Compliments of Freeze.com (clip art)

I walked into your bedroom You were snuggled in your bed Dressed in your pajamas. Warm and cozy and well fed.

I thought of how I rocked you. As I sang you off to sleep. You are a precious baby. Having you made life complete.

The room is painted for you. Decorated to reflect our child. Colorful and amazing. But heart warming, meek and mild.

I stand here and adore you. As you play within your dreams. I ponder what lies before you.... more

Going to church is an adventure in emotions for me. For the past seven years attending church with LuLu has been more than an adventure. But it never ceases to amaze me what God has in store for us each Sunday.

Today was no exception. As is often the case on Sundays, LuLu awoke in a bad mood, grumbling about everything but not really upset about anything in particular. I herded her and her sister through breakfast and into Sunday clothes and piled them in the car, apprehensive that we would actually make it through the service, since I could see a meltdown... more

Sam has a good ear. He picks up subtle differences in tone, learns tunes, does about a zillion different animals sounds and can tell exactly who's on the other end of the phone after just a word or two. He knows that some of the cartoons he sees are in French and a lot of the people around us speak Creole.

He understands quite a bit of Creole, but communicates mainly in English. He's manufactured a few words of his own, building them from bits of other languages and incorporating them into our family-speak. For example, he's taken the French/Creole word 'sorti' and combined... more

When it comes to parenting, it is more often than not, that one parent has the burden of doing more than his or her fair share of the discipline, when it comes to the child or children in the home. Many times this is simply due to one parent being at home with the children more than the other parent. And while the numbers of stay at home fathers are on an incline, more often than not it is the mother of the family who is at home with the children more, and who ends up having to do a lot more of the discipline and consequence giving when it comes to the children.

This... more

Here’s a question that seems to come up a lot on adoption boards and email groups often. How important is it for a child that was adopted transracially to have a sibling of the same race as them?

Is it valuable for example, for an Asian girl, with white parents and white brothers, to have sibling who is also Asian?

This is a question that my husband and I gave a lot of thought with our first adoption, because at that point, we honestly believed that our family would be complete when our daughter came home from Vietnam. (Ha! If we only knew!!) I knew that I could do a good job raising our Vietnamese daughter. I knew I could teach her to be proud of who she was and where she... more

Seems I've become a little distracted by all the interesting and, at times, controversial/provocative posts I've been reading lately. I sit down prepared to publish a post on a chosen topic and then I read through the other blogs and my plans completely go out the window.

I left a comment for Nancy at Reactive Attachment Disorder Blog mentioning that I might be suffering with Blogger Identity Disorder. I feel like I'm still searching for my own idendity. My Blog is supposed to be about Adoptive Parenting, but, I feel like everything I read is about Adoptive Parenting. I look back at the list of topics I submitted to Adoption.com... more

Part 4 of 4

In the previous three posts, I addressed questions first/birth parents ask when meeting prospective adoptive parents: How do you define open adoption? What is your commitment to openness, and why? Are you willing to sign an agreement to that effect, and to seek mediation if things break down? In an open adoption, what will we call... more

Mo, our Korean Adoption blogger, posted a very thought-provoking item on whether white adoptive parents can/should wear han-bok, Korean traditional dress or dress up their Korean children in it.

Let me start by immediately veering off this subject. My husband is a professor and teaches (among other things) Native American history. The Native student group here honored all his work and advocacy by presenting him with a special gift (a... more

Now I am slowly, but SURELY learning about the emotional "roller coaster ride" that a hopeful adoptive parent goes through waiting for their child to get here.

Everyone ALWAYS says "take care of yourself...not much longer and you will not be able to do so anymore". That's all well and good, but my husband and I have PASSED that 2 months ago. *smiles*

Well, as you know, we were CRUSHED to receive news that the group of 4 children we were hoping for and had even MET were not selected for our family.

That day, I told my husband (Tony), I will NEVER... more

Stephanie, Beth and I were at lunch yesterday, prior to seeing the highly intellectual movie Aquamarine… My cell phone rang, and it was the Navy recruiter’s office. Seems Amy wanted to talk to me… she had just signed up for the Navy. Wow. Double wow. She had to go to work right after she left the recruiter’s office, so she said she would see us after work and tell us more.

I called the recruiter to see if there were any Navy stores around where I could purchase something to give her. He said he could get her... more