I thought I could calm down by now, blogging on my personal blog about a youtube video someone had sent me. It was a San Antonio news special detailing the use of psychotropic drugs in the Texas foster care system, something I’m very well acquainted with having adopted five large sibling groups from Texas over nearly a twenty year time period.

Julie also recently explored this area of... more

As a part of my ongoing effort to help provide Ethiopian adoptees with a fuller picture of the positive aspects of Ethiopia, here is another installment in my series about notable Ethiopians.

Addisu Gessese is the manager for the music giant Ziggy Marley and has held concerts all over the world. He was in charge of the Africa United music concert at Meskal Square in Addis in 2005, and took the concert all over Africa.

Addisu left Ethiopia in 1972 when he was 18, and has lived in the U.S. for 30 years. Along with his work in the music industry, Addisu has a long history of investing in Ethiopia. He built over 20 schools in Oromia region with money he had raised. He plans... more

This Sunday afternoon, we're packing the family into the van and heading over to the home of a perfect stranger. Well, maybe not entirely a stranger-- two of my sisters have met her, and I have heard from several other people that she is a very nice person.

I am incredibly eager to meet this gal, because she is only the second Ethiopian adult I have the privilege to know in our area. The first one has since moved away. There are other Ethiopians in our area, I'm told -- well, three or four dozen at minimum, and probably more. But I must not be living in the right part of this valley, because I haven't run into them. And so I am delighted that this woman would like to meet our... more

Yesterday my mom hopped a flight back to Colorado a few hours before Beth and I flew to Tampa for the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) conference. Mom and I had been together for over a week. All in all we did OK with that much togetherness.

She listened more attentively and was less surprised about the prospect of us adding another child than I thought she would be. She says nothing surprises her any more. Touché!

Mom ended up being witness to one of Beth’s... more

All this talk about what to call the various moms in our children’s lives reminded me of how many crazy ways I’ve been asked about how LuLu got into our family.

Because she’s Chinese, it is very apparent that she does not look like us. We have been stared at, talked down to, asked all kinds of inappropriate and nosey questions.

“Is she yours?” is the most common one.

“Where’s she from?” is another subtle way of asking us if she’s adopted.

But when someone asks about how much she cost, it still gets me.

I... more

NPR is running a series called "Adoption in America" during Morning Edition this week, and yesterday's interview was especially interesting.

It was a profile of Susan Soon-keum Cox, who was adopted from Korea herself in 1956 and is now a vice president of Holt International, which (if you haven't run into the name yet) is a modern adoption colossus.

I can't really do justice to her story in a short summary, so I encourage you to head over to the NPR site to listen to her tell it, or at... more

If you are adopting a teenager or you already have, you need to be prepared to speak openly about sex and sexually transmitted diseases. You need to know about the potential risk of disease, so you can share this information with your teenager. That is because teenagers in foster care are more likely to be sexually active than their peers are and less likely to use protection. While they may want to please you, chances are they will not stop this risky behavior just because you adopted them.

Approximately 6.2... more

Where is it? Yaroslavl Oblast is located in western Russian about equidistant from Moscow and St. Petersburg. It borders the Tver, Moscow, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Kostroma and Vologda Oblasts. It is in the same time zone as Moscow.

What's the biggest city? Yaroslavl, whose population was recently estimated at 613,088 out of a total of 1.4 million for... more

If you have adopted a child from the foster care system, then chances are your child has one or more siblings, somewhere. Sometimes you know where those siblings are, and then you can help to foster a sibling relationship. Younger siblings often emulate older siblings, and that part of the sibling relationship seems to happen even when they live in different families.

Older siblings can be a source of encouragement and unconditional love for your child. Unfortunately, once they get to those later teen years,... more

In my last post, Parenting an Only Child: Benefits, I discussed the benefits of parenting an only child. In this post, I will discuss the challenges.

Although there is a lot to recommend having an only child, there are also some challenges. I have found ways to overcome most of these challenges, so I do not believe my son will regret growing up without a sibling.

Vacations and Holidays

Vacations... more