Yesterday I received our Ethiopia dossier packet in the mail at about 11:00, and from the moment I opened the envelope, I went full steam ahead with my work! The older kids were busy working on their schoolwork, and I told the younger ones that today would be our “off” day (they do school 4 days a week and we have a floating day off) and that they would get to play. There were no complaints there, so I camped out at the kitchen table with my computer, my adoption binder, the new packet, and a pen. I made copies, wrote letters, adeptly printed notarial blocks onto copies of birth and marriage certificates (OK, so I wasted about 20 sheets of paper before I got it right), and filled out our... more

A friend of mine with a locked online journal (meaning, I can't link to the post) recently had a dream about adoption. I don't often dream about adoption. However, I don't usually dream about the things that are currently going on in my life; I dream about past issues that have (or sometimes have not) been resolved, high school and things in the future. (Also tornadoes.)

This friend of mine is an everyday mother to a son born around the same time as our Nicholas. To paraphrase her dream, she basically dreamt that she replied to an... more

Ok…seriously…what kind of baby crack is in these DVDs? I am amazed and fascinated and just a little bit disturbed by how much Ella is captivated by the Baby Einstein DVDs. The person/people who created the series must have done some serious research to find out exactly what babies respond to and how to hold their attention. Judging from the extreme popularity of the Baby Einstein name, all different kinds of babies and parents love them.

We have the Baby Van Gogh, Baby Galileo and Baby Mozart (and I really want the Baby Shakespeare,... more

Over on Nancy’s Reactive Attachment Disorder blog, she and her readers have been pondering how mental illness is related to adoption, and to what extent people tend to accept that adopted and foster children are more prone to mental illness. For me it’s an age-old and apparent argument with lots of catches in it.

The obvious truth is that children from backgrounds of neglect and abuse (research says neglect is worse) run a much higher risk of mental illnesses. Couple this with the fact that many children relinquished to foster care or for adoption often have parents with mental... more

So you finally have your child home. Finally the paperwork is all behind you, right? Wrong. There are several things that still need to be done. First on the list are the reports you agreed to supply to the Ethiopian government to let them know that your child is well and thriving.

Family Reports

One of the things that you commit to when you adopt a child from Ethiopia is to provide the Ethiopian government with regular updates about your child. Your letters need to be written 3 months after homecoming, 6 months after homecoming, and then on the yearly anniversary... more

This may be off topic (not if your child’s special needs is seasonal allergies), but here in the Garden of Eden things are as they are every spring…gorgeous. The azaleas are in full bloom, along with the dogwoods, and the cherry trees. The daffodils have faded, but the lilies and the irises are due any day now.

And…there’s a bright golden haze on the meadow…and the sidewalk, and my car, and the mailbox, and the trash can (see picture). This yellow/green dust is tree pollen. This phenomenon is a Southern one at it’s finest. And this year... more

Third Mom wrote an Open Mike post in which she asked: Is A Woman Ever Too Young to Parent. After a series of comments, she wrote a follow up post regarding the question at hand which included her beliefs on what to do with very young teen pregnancy.

It's a touchy subject, at best. Even I, a first mother who has placed a child... more

Today is my husband’s 40th birthday. I can say that, since I am younger than he is.

We do not have big plans for the day, but will be celebrating with the kids. I will travel to Sammy’s treatment foster home this afternoon to pick him for the weekend.

Birthdays ARE a big deal at our house. Much like our kids, my birthday was never celebrated, so I made a vow that my family would remember their birthdays. Most years it’s a simple family celebration.

We do have some traditions that are a must. The... more

You may (or may not) have noticed that I have been doing some technical housekeeping around this blog. I have been adding and deleting categories, creating sub categories and moving posts around in an attempt to make information and specific posts somewhat easier to find on here.

I have broken down the "Big Issues" category into subcategories of "Being a Transracial Family", "Ethical Issues", "General Adoption Issues", "Health Issues", "Racial Issues" and "The Media."

I have broken down the "Resources" cateogry into "Articles to Read",... more

March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb and, this year, will end without the re-accreditation of adoption agencies working in Russia.

As many of you already know, last Thursday, March 22, Russia's Ministry of Education, which oversees the adoption process for both foreign and domestic adoptions, asked all foreign adoption agencies for additional paperwork. I've spent the last week trying to get some clarity on what happened, and I'm now ready to pass it on.

Many, many of us had hoped that March 30 would be the day on which the 55... more