It is so important for triad members to forgive themselves. There is a tendency in most if not all triad members to hold ourselves more accountable than we do others. Perhaps you may be one of the individuals who can justify forgiving others but yet you find no justification for forgiving yourself for an equal or lesser offense. You may feel that forgiving yourself is not even a consideration because you think you must hold yourself in constant remembrance, and this lets you not forget. You may feel that there is a price that must be paid.

There... more

....continued from previous, links below....

Hubby got the phone call that would change our lives.

Richard, called my husband before our caseworker could have made it to the highway.

Hi, I’m Richard, I’m fifty nine and I’ve just adopted a two year old from foster care.

Hubby spent about an hour talking with Richard. He asked all kinds of specifics:

Don’t you want to retire?

What are you going to do when your two year old is twelve and you are sixty nine?

Can... more

Well it is another cool Michigan morning and all of our children at our school elementary are off to the ballet.

What a beautiful way to begin the day. All of the children are full of excitement and whispers well ok ....except for the boys (grin). It is nice to know the children will get a taste of the fine arts in life this morning.

My little one is far from a beautiful dancer. She is more into frogs and rocks at this point in life. Give her a pair of jeans and a cool shirt and she is happy and content.

However she does allow... more

When I was a home visitor I used a curriculum with teen Mom’s called “ What’s your parenting style”. It encouraged Mom’s to look at how they were raised, what they liked about their parents style of parenting, what they didn’t like, what qualities they hoped to ditch and what would they keep. We learn to parent from our parents so this is a helpful exercise. Many of my teen Moms would respond with “ I’m not going to be anything like my Mom” and then a year later they admit to being exactly like their parents.

This will come... more

Another Friday, another post about what's up in Cambodia ...

The US is giving Cambodia pats on the back for being a, "steadfast ally in the war on terror," acknowledging that this very poor country has, " worked hard to root out militancy since the September 11 attacks."

"Over the past five years Cambodia has made great strides in securing its borders and rooting out terrorists that seek to use this country as a base of operations,"... more

Yes, yet more money being tossed to the winds in efforts to find out stuff we all already know. At least this time, it's private money being tossed by Johnson & Johnson, who will no doubt use the information for future marketing plans.

"JOHNSON'S(R) has been valued and trusted as a partner for more than100 years. We help parents navigate the most challenging transition in life. We reassure. We help parents... more

Post Adoption Search & Support of Delmarva will co-sponsor the fifth annual Voices of Adoption program in conjunction with faculty from the Communications & Theatre Arts Department of Salisbury University. The presentation will take place October 25, 2006 at, 7 p.m. at the Asbury United Methodist Church at the corner of located at Camden Ave. and Dogwood Dr. in Salisbury, MD.

This year's planned program theme is “From the Book” and it will involve short readings that are no more than three minutes long from adoption literature. The reading will... more

Question four of the matching article asked:

Does the family have specific experience with needs similar to those of the child?

Two kinds of needs should be considered… physical needs and emotional needs. Parents who are already parenting a child with special needs are sometimes interested in parenting additional children with those identified special needs.

It is perhaps easier to identify and... more

It is incredibly frustrating to admit in the midst of all the crises we've had in 2006 how much stuff has gotten swept aside. You know, the normal everyday stuff that normal everyday people do normally every day?

Here's a few examples:

-- Poor KayKay needs me to call and order more contact lenses. The last time she needed an order, it took me so long that she had to wear her glasses to school for about a week! This constitutes a crisis if you're in high school!

-- Poor Super Dad can NEVER get a phone message from me.... more

The more I talk to both birth and adoptive parents about ethical issues in adoption, the more I realize how unaware so many people are of what the issues even include. Below I include my personal list of some ethical issues currently under consideration and links to a wide variety of articles about ethics in adoption:

1. Pre-birth matching and the possibility of coercion and/or pressure,along with the undue risks that this practice creates for adoptive parents as well; 2. Adoption advertising, when, where and what form it should take; 3. Regulation... more