In my quest to provide my Punkin with some background about his life and my family I have decided to make a scrap book for him. So what kind of pictures am I putting in it?

I have been taking pictures of crazy every day things like his uncle at work across the street from my parents. There are going to pictures of me and my brother’s at my middle brother’s college graduation. Pictures of me and dad together at a photo shoot with his cannon. My mom and I at the school where she teaches and I graduated. There will be pictures of the my dad’s farm buildings. Pictures of my house and my parents house will be included. I’ve got some pictures of my parents’ cats to include and my... more

Every adoption is different. The circumstances surrounding the decision to relinquish your child to adoption all are different but there are common feelings and emotions that run through all adoptions. During the closed adoption era natural mothers may have felt powerless and lack monetary and emotional support. Years after the adoption they may still feel the social stigma. For many it was that shame that prompted parents to place their pregnant daughters in maternity homes to hide the pregnancy.

I have met natural mothers who gave birth in an ugly... more

I mentioned before that at the beginning of June my sister Rebekah went on a mission trip to Ethiopia. She and her group were able to visit several orphanages, including my daughters' orphanage, Kidane Mehret.

They delivered supplies and played with the little ones and visited with the adults. At one point they were able to take a 4 ½ hour mule ride to the top of a very tall, (11,000+ ft) mountain. They hiked for about an hour on the roughest part that the mules couldn’t even get up. She says the view was amazing.

On the way down the mountain they were followed by a nine... more

What is it with men dealing with girls’ clothing?

I mean, is it really that hard? We were getting Anna out of the bath today and I asked my husband to get some clothes for her. He came back a few minutes later and asked if a shirt he was holding for her was clean and okay to wear. I answered that it was clean, but that it was my shirt. Um, how did he not see that?

When we first got married, one of the things that stick out in my mind about our first few months together is doing laundry. I hear that this is the same experience for a lot of people. My husband – who is freakish for safety pinning his socks together before they get thrown in the wash, and likes his shirts folded... more

When we were in Russia adopting Little J we had the pleasure of being driven through Moscow, taking the subway to various destinations, being driven around Voronezh (a small city), and being driven in the country. We also took an overnight train to Voronezh. We did not have the pleasure of flying on Aeroflot or Siberian Airlines (bummer!) so I can't report on the pleasure of that experience, but there are stories all over the web about that.

As for driving around Russia: forget seatbelts, forget lines painted on the road, and if you are a pedestrian, WATCH OUT.

Road signs... more

Today is my boy's 4th birthday. Happy birthday, Little J!

He did not want a party. Instead, we are going to a water park next week. Grandma and Grandpa are coming over tonight to celebrate with us. Little J requested a chocolate cake with green chocolate frosting and a tractor on top. Luckily I am not a traditionalist when it comes to cake. He really wanted a grocery store cake but I don't do grocery store cakes...so he'll have to get a cake full of mommy love.

We got him sensory-related presents: a hop ball for balance, stretchy bands (like the kind you use in exercise class)... more

Prior blog on this subject is located here. I saw an article last week, which flashed me back to November 2004 when my daughter was diagnosed with Dyslexia.

I was enraged that my daughter had to endure some really sucky life experiences... because of her language based learning disability (dyslexia). It wasn't something that she could make better by trying harder.

I was angry with myself and... more

I am very surprised that more people aren't adopting from Haiti. From what I've been able to find out, Haiti is one of the simpler and least expensive countries to adopt from and there are many children who need homes ranging from infants to older children. In some cases and with some agencies the adoptive parents do not even need to travel to the country, but if they do the time in-country can be as little as 2 days. Children are adopted from orphanages, so if an older child is adopted there will probably be developmental delays because of institutionalization (depending on how long the... more

As if China's oh, no bird flu here, just a bit of violent sneezing, ignore that dead man on the stretcher thing wasn't bad enough, there's a new development in the story.

Someone posed as the scientist publishing the whistle-blowing paper to try to have it withdrawn from publication. Using an official email address.

As in, "Hi, New England Journal of Medicine? Yes, I'm that whistle-blowing fellow. Could I please have that whistle back?... more

As Beth and I processed her true feelings and the origins of those feelings, I told her we could handle anything if we had two things going for us. One was she had to be real, and the second one was that we loved each other. I had already told her several times in the course of this conversation how much I loved her and how thankful I was that she was in my life. I asked her if she loved me, and with tears pouring down her face, she nodded.

One of the last things I pointed out to her was how... more