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It is amazing how the word mom means so many different things to different people.  I wish life were more simple, but it is not and in fact it seems to be getting more complicated all the time. I choose to write about this subject under the category of Transracial adoption because the fact that we are obviously different does make the "mom title" very important. Mita especially is confused as to "who" I am and will often say step mom or refer to her Ethiopian mom as her "real" mom.  I have to admit that the step mom thing bothered me quite a bit.  Not that I am against step parenting, but to me a step mom is someone who chooses to… [more]

Enu threw a raging fit the other day.  The worst one ever regarding physical abuse (to me).  After all was calm and Hubby had come home to help me, we discussed what caused the outburst, what we did right and no so right.  It seems a tad bit humerous that I had been bitten and spat upon twice and yet we were excited over two things.  One was that it had been three months since her last outburst (the longest period of calm she has ever had) and two was that it was short lived (about 25 minutes) and she rebounding very quickly. Parents of older adopted children can see why we are so happy about the above mentioned fit.  My mom, however… [more]

Mita's First Pumpkin

Mita and Enu have been home now for a year and a half...probably longer, I just stopped counting after a while.  It really seems like they have always been here for the most part.  Tonight, however, an unexpected invitation for a slumber party threw me into shock.  Mita has only spent the night at her Grandma's and Grammy's houses.  We have had a couple of overnighters with friends staying here, but never at a friend's house.

We were trick-or-treating (all treats with no tricks thankfully!) and ran into one of Mita's friends and her mom.  The look on Mita's face was pure excitement!  She was thrilled to be asked to spend the night with… [more]

Two years ago if you would have asked me if we were going to adopt children with special needs, I would have felt bad for saying no, and gone over our reasons why we were not adopting special needs children.  Like many people I saw special  needs children as kids with chronic conditions like Cerebral Palsy, deafness, blindness or in a wheelchair.  We knew at that time of our lives we were not able to handle  the extra time and money that a speical needs adoption can bring. The joke was on us I guess.  I have realized that older children have special needs of their own.  Our darling girls are physically well, but have emotional needs that require time, money and sometimes a… [more]

When adopting an older child or older children you must prepare for kids who may or may not have had the same hygiene training as we are used to.  I have touched on this before in the following posts: Bathroom Stratagies Part one and two. Since I wrote the above posts I have had some more experience with this fun, fun, fun subject. While visiting our therapist last week I was venting on the lack of toilet paper use with Mita and Enu.  She suggested that I start providing the girls with the flushable wet wipes that toddlers use.  As we have an old house with an old plumbing system and I don't want to push it much (flushable doesn't always mean flushable), but I… [more]

The other night my Hubby and I had dinner with some friends.  These friends also invited another one of their friends who is a reporter for our local paper.  Said writer is extremely nice and we have met her before.  She wants to do a piece on our adoptive family.  I baulked at first, not wanting attention (I seem to draw enough without trying to!).  We eventually agreed as I thought it would be a good way to promote adoption and adoption reform in November as well as educate during National Adoption Month. She only has 500 words and there is so much to talk about with adoption I will be interested to read the final outcome.  I talked about older child adoption, transracial adoption… [more]

I have a paranoid side to me that I don't like to admit, but I do. I cannot help but wonder sometimes if the attention we get or that the girls get is because of us or because we promote the diversity that everyone seems to  be craving these days. In the last month we have had our two brown daughers published in a local activities brochure and the paper.  This, of course, is fun for all of us and in general we like it.  I cannot help but wonder in the back of my brain if my girls were picked because they are cute (they are) and it was a good picture (they were) or because they give our primarily white community some color. Does it matter? Yes it does. … [more]

I have written a lot about preparing your immediate family and your home for the adoption of an older child.  This of course should be the priority in your preparations, but it is also important to prepare your extended family:  Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, close friends.   Even if your adoption news has been celebrated and welcome in your extended family, there are still some basic knowledge tidbits that should be discussed BEFORE your child or children come home. There are several ways to go about this education process.  You can decide what works best with your family.  If you are a touchy/feeling family who gathers frequently a small get together may suffice.  A more standoffish or subdued family may need more one on one converstaion.  A large family or a family separated… [more]

Just the other day I was reading a post on my agency's Yahoo group.  The family posting had had their 8 year old from Ethiopia home for two weeks.  They were so excited about how well everything was going, that they were attaching, had no behavior issues and the child was going to start school in two weeks. My personal reaction was STOP! RETHINK ALL THAT YOU HAVE READ AND LEARNED!  Our agency does a great job in preparing parents about adopting older children as that is where they put their emphasis at.  I think as waiting parents we prepare but have a secret dream that our adoption will be easy. The child will be grateful, a delight and our family will go… [more]

I'm hoping my Hubby doesn't read this post as his version of organization is much different than mine.  In short, his is perfectly alphabetized and neat and my version is a bit more relaxed shall we say!  I have to shout out to the world that I did not loose one piece of paper work on our paper chase and we completed our paper work in an appropriate time.  The agreement between hubby and I was that I would do all the paperwork and research on the adoption while he worked on getting used to his new job position.  Whenever he wanted a receipt or a piece of information and tried to get it himself he was lost...but I knew where it… [more]