We are moving into some of the hottest days of summer. Everyone is trying to get in a few last days of vacation before the kids start back to school.

Staying cool and enjoying life is a good way to top off the hot summer days.

Everyone may want to get in some school shopping. Pick up those summer sales on school supplies and new out fits. Get the back packs all ready for that smooth return to school year activities.

Some of the most pleasant times I had with my kids were shopping for school supplies and getting them ready to catch... more

Today is my birthday, so I'll not be spending too much time at the computer, but did want to post the results of yesterday's election here in Seychelles.

The early final numbers look like this:

SPPF: 32119 votes and 53.83%

SNP: 25682 votes and 45.81%

Broulle: 200 votes and 0.36%

The district-to-district breakdown is not yet complete, but I have seen that in Au Cap, a village on the other side of the island, there was a ten vote difference between SNP and SPPF. Every vote really does count in a democracy.

So,... more

Continued from here:

But even if kids do develop an effective relationship with a washing machine while getting a degree, it doesn't necessarily mean they're ready for the world. It may not sound like good biology, but Helicopters beget Boomerangs.

Does any of this ring a bell?

Justin Clark lives in a million dollar waterfront home rent free.... more

As I research sensory integration disorder (SID) or sensory processing disorder (SPD), I discover that my 3rd grade teacher was wrong – we don’t have 5 senses (taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight). We likely have 9 (and one of them isn’t the 6th sense – ESP). They are as follows:

1. Sight/vision 2. Hearing/audition 3. Taste/gestation 4. Smell/olfaction 5. Touch/tactition – sense of pressure perception, generally to the skin 6. Thermoception - the sense of heat and absence of cold 7. Nociception... more

One of the reasons I started the “LuLu says” category was to relate stories of our dear daughter and her incredible ability to “wow” us and to "entertain" us in various unique ways. One of those ways is the descriptive word usages she makes up. Here’s a glossary of the latest – with definitions supplied by LuLu:

Criminaling. This is the act of doing something that the police would arrest you for. Any type of crime, but especially killing, because that’s a big no-no.

Lousy. Word that describes... more

State run intermediary programs seem to vary greatly from state to state. Some allow only adopted persons to search, and others allow other birth family members to search as well. These programs are generally administered by different governmental agencies or courts. Some adoption agencies have intermediaries. The training that intermediaries receive varies from state to state.

To determine if the state that you want to search in has a confidential intermediary program, click here. This adoption.com site can help in this... more

I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now. Patrick Swayze and his wife of 31 years are considering adopting. It’s been in the news, and other blogs have been reporting it, but I wanted to muse about it a bit as well because they are, or will be, older parents.

Will that make them good parents though?

"We are still thinking of adopting, but you have to consider the child and not yourself. Living on a ranch teaches you a great deal about the cycle of life and, if you adopt a child, you have to be certain it is for the right reason."

The... more

So, I was going to write up this whole thing on explaining the custom of giving a Jewish child a Hebrew name, but About.com did a decent job. An excerpt is below. I will also add this - Hebrew names, like much of our tradition that we still follow, are all parts of the string that binds us together. Us being all Jews today, and also keeps alive the connection to our ancestors. Whatever our philosophy or our level of observance, certain things connect us all as one people.

Certain religious rituals require Hebrew names. Hebrew names are used for calling people to the Torah. Certain prayers, such... more

I sat there reading page after page of Michael Trouts words for "A Child's Point of View." Adopting.org was kind enough to get permission to place the dialog on their web site.

By the time I got to the second page. I had all of these emotions welling up inside of me. It was as if I had raised this child myself. As a matter of fact I had raised almost 4 of them.

Each child of course a little different. But deep down inside they were a reflection of this child that Michael Trout described in his attempt to make us understand how the child feels.

I had my toilets clogged, I dealt with child masturbation, I dealt with other parents who my child had... more

Families that have no other children who adopt older children, especially if the parents have not even been foster parents before, often have very little understanding of the loss and trauma issues that accompany their new family member(s). Actually, I shouldn’t limit that to families who have no other children. My husband and I had two birth children and had adopted one child at age 21 months when we adopted our son as a 9 year old… and we had NO idea what we were getting. We, like so many people I speak to or correspond with, thought he... more