At the June 1997 Australian Adoption conference in Brisbane, Evelyn Robinson delivered a speech on "Grief Associated with the Loss of Children to Adoption." The speech was taken from Ms. Robinson's essay on "Bereavement and Loss", which was written for her degree in social work. Ms. Robinson also presented the material in August 1998 in Scotland and is currently writing a book on the subject. Much of the text below was taken directly from her work and this particular series was written by a dear friend of mine, Nathalie Troland. Nathalie is a reunited natural mother for 15+... more

Make the tea properly (it's good kung fu!) and you will enjoy it more (I really like the idea of a tea ceremony based on personal emptiness, actually).

Gong fu tea ceremony:

The brewing pot is filled with boiling water. The water is then transferred in turn to the tea pitcher, the aroma cups (if used), and finally to the serving cups...... more

Ok, so you all want details. Let’s see. Her name is Blen, which is an Ethiopian name pronounced “Blaine” that means “My window to the world” or “the window through which I see”, like the “iris” of your eye. Isn’t that beautiful? After emailing back and forth with a wonderful Ethiopian woman, we have learned that there are quite a few “correct” Ethiopian spellings of this name, including Blen, Belen, Bilen, Belane, Belain, etc. We have chosen Belane. I have always wanted to use the name Anna (Josh blames that on “The King and I”) and my aunt Aileen is one of my favorite people... more

The LA Times published a funny, snarky, obnoxious, nasty [fill in your own adjective] article titled How to Shop for Kids the Brangelina Way. It is suppose to be a sarcastic article aimed at Jolie. She made a comment that that she and Pitt are "looking at different countries" for their next adopted child. Of course, she just gave birth. And Brad hasn't adopted her 2 children yet. Jolie is getting way ahead of herself.

This ... more

Go visit Steppin' Heavenward to read about my OTHER sister (Sophie) and her work in Ethiopia. The infant in the very first picture is my daughter over a year ago. The tiny baby you see in the pictures was a very premature baby boy that she took care of while there. He weighed only 2 pounds and they did not expect him to live. But if you go here you can see that baby now! What a miracle!

When people question the despicable practices in Russia and other countries, they are sometimes attacked as anti-adoption. For those who fight to improve bad practices in certain foreign countries, some are inclined to call them anti-adoption. Is it really fair to label people who want to reform adoption either domestically or internationally as anti-adoption? Not to me, it isn’t. But, what about all those poor children in the bleak orphanages of the world that will not be adopted because some “do-gooder” wants to clean up adoption practices in a specific country?... more

Yesterday my 4 year old found my tube of sunless bronzing lotion and asked how the lady got so brown. (You may remember she and I talked about this before.) I told her the lady used the lotion. She said, "You put the lotion on too. Then you can be brown like me."

"You think I should be brown?" I asked.

"Yes, I want you to match with me."

I explained to her that the lotion would only make me a little brown, not a lot, and that both our colors were nice. She looked unconvinced by my reassurrance.

Though I know this type of comment is normal for a child whose parents don't 'match' her, I always feel a little sad when my daughter brings up the fact.... more

I love this news article about Ukraine's World Cup team.

Suddenly, all the old divisions don't seem so important. Ukrainians _ bitterly split over language, politics and whether they belong in the West or with Russia _ have been savoring a rare taste of unity with their country's gritty advancement to the quarterfinals of the World Cup.

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Politicians are salivating over how to capitalize on the unusual sense of unity, but also grumbling that it took a soccer team to do what they could not. For others, it's another... more

You know you are addicted when.....

……… you are on vacation and start dreaming about blogging, the internet and search engines.

when……you are getting web withdrawal.

when…....If you don’t get an uninterrupted hour of surf time you think you’ll go crazy.

It’s not actually quite that bad, but I can see how I would have been on that path. Internet addiction. I haven’t been as active on the web these last couple of weeks as I usually am. I’m on vacation! That is a good thing. Believe me……

There is nothing better for breaking an addiction than just going cold... more

When my reunion with my son began, I did not think about his birth father a great deal. As our reunion progressed however, I began to think of him more often. Initially, I believed that my sole need to contact his was due to the belief that he had a right to know that our son had found me. I discovered later that I needed to contact him for other reasons as well.

Eventually, I felt compelled to contact him to let him know that our son and I had reconnected. Birth dad had found me several years ago prior to this time, so, I knew that he wanted to know about our son. I struggled... more