Yesterday’s Oprah show was about “good news.” She had several different guests on the show, each talking about their good news and how it was received.

One of the “good news” stories was Olympic skier Toby Dawson. Jan and I have both blogged about Toby’s story before. Toby, who was adopted as a small child from South Korea, grew up with his adoptive parents in Vail, Colorado, where very few... more

The BBC and the Antipodean press are reporting on the sentencing of a child trafficking ring in Fujian Province.

There seems to be nothing on this in the American papers, which I personally find a little disturbing. But not as disturbing as the stories themselves:

BBC: Five people in eastern China have been sentenced to between seven years and life in jail for kidnapping and selling children, state media has reported.

The gang kidnapped four children in the city of Longyang in Fujian province... more

My niece was actually diagnosed with childhood epilepsy when she was seven years old. My sister said that in hindsight she really should have been diagnosed much younger. Because when she was about four years old she would sit and stare like she was daydreaming and during these episodes she would usually wet her pants, even though she was completely potty trained. Looking back on those episodes she now feels they were petite mal seizures. Her grand mal seizures started when she was seven years old. Since my sister... more

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Source of Information: Webmd.com

What Is It?

An aftereffect of being traumatized.

What Causes It?

Trauma, such as child abuse or suffering any sort of traumatic event, such as a near-death experience.

What are the Symptoms/Risks?

Children... more

Every 10 minutes in Texas a teenager becomes pregnant. A new proposed bill would attempt to help reduce the epidemic of teenage pregnancies, educate women on sexually transmitted diseases, creating an outreach program to let women know what is available to them in the state, and changing how funds are spent.

This bill would provide the school systems with more funding to alter their sex education classes. The sex education classes would focus more on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and the use of contraception. The bill would also launch... more

Continued from here, where I was just about to list the top ten things for being a good guest:

1) Ask about policy. If hosts prefer you help yourself, do so, so as not to look like you're waiting to be served. If they would rather you not, wait until you are invited to join in meals, drinks and such.

2) Keep your intruder status in mind. Don't hog the hosts' favorite chairs. Don't leave dirty or wet clothes hanging around bathrooms and such. Make yourself as unobtrusive as possible, allowing your hosts to keep some semblance of their home being their own.

3) Clean up your... more

Because of where we live, my family is destined to have guests in our home, and to be guests in others' when we travel to the US. No matter how fond we may be, the old adage that guests are like fish -- both stink after three days -- holds true more often than we'd like.

Since getting to us takes a very long time ... it's usually somewhere around 36 hours of travel time from the States to Seychelles ... people tend to stay a while. Two and three week visits are common. And we certainly don't pop over to California for a long weekend.

It can be a stressful situation for everyone; guests are out of their element, and hosts are being invaded. When kids are involved, the discomfort... more

An FYI: My Internet access has been, shall we say, unreliable lately? That's putting is as nicely as possible. The consequence of this is that I have not been posting as much as usual, my research has been limited, and I have not been using as many images as I normally do. I keep being assured that it will be back to full form 'any minute now'. You'll know when it is, as my blogs will be more frequent, and more interesting.

Conflicts cause orphans. That's not news at all, but it's good to post reminders of how this works from time to time.

Official sources on the Pakistani side of Kashmir are ... more

We just learned the results from the Sensory Profile. Livi is found to have a low sensory registration (she is not bothered by things that bother others- high pain tolerance) sensation seeking and sensory sensitive behaviors. In the tactile department she was found to be mildly defensive, meaning she is bothered by messy hands and the waist band of her clothing. The OT told me that Livi craves sensory input and hops, jumps and bounces to feel her body in relation to her space. Heavy work and Proprioception are the main things we will work on.... we... more

For adoptees from the closed adoption era, there are several ways to learn about what your birth mother's experience might have been like. One of the best ways is to meet and hear stories from other birth mothers from that era. Reading about the era can provide you with insights as well. Chatting on forums like Adoption.com can help as well.

One purpose of learning about birth mothers is to understand how her experience has shaped her. It could offer some idea of how she felt about the child that she relinquished and her reasons for the adoption.... more