Adoption
Choose Wisely
My dad used to be a divorce lawyer and this was his motto: “Love is grand, divorce is one hundred grand. Choose wisely.” Choosing a mate is not the same as choosing a friend. You’re allowed to have more than one friend and if you read my last entry “The Friend Philosophy,” you know I don’t believe in expecting one…
Read MoreDoes Standing Up For Someone Else Mean That You Care More, Or Less?
If you look in your backyard, you’ll probably see big, thick wires that are horizontally connected to poles. I have no idea what they are called, I think they‘re called “electrical wires.” Anyway, some years ago I was delivering food for Meals On Wheels in downtown Detroit with a bunch of my friends and we…
Read MoreSleep Training & Night Terrors
My husband and I have a daughter who was adopted from China when she was 11 months old. I call her “Sweet Pea.” Most children adopted from China have experienced the loss of their birthmothers and suffered from physical abandonment, multiple caretakers and varying degrees of deprivation and/or neglect. Before the adoption was finalized, we did our due…
Read MoreThe Real Good Days
I recently walked into a conversation and one of the women was saying that the day she gave birth was the best day of her life. Well, it wasn’t for me. It sucked. I was in labor for 16 hours and the pain was unbearable. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain but at one point,…
Read MoreBackstory: Part 2
If you haven’t read Part 1 of “Backstory,” you might want to read that first so you know what the hell I’m talking about: ********** Cody left. It was time to go. Camp prep waits for no one and it was imperative that my husband be there. Tis the season. We may not have had…
Read MoreBackstory: Our Road To Adoption
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When my husband, Cody, and I first decided to start a family, our intention was to have one and adopt one. In that order. Adoption was not a back up plan, it was part of the plan. Once we made our decision, I was ready to go. That’s how I am. Give me the green light and I’m off and running.
After three months, I wasn‘t pregnant. [Side note: I am aware that it’s no longer politically correct to phrase it like that. I believe that the current correct terminology is to say: After three months, WE weren’t pregnant, but I won’t say it like that because it wasn’t we, it was ME. When I see a man waddling around in an overpriced empire waist pregnancy top with boobs the size of a cantaloupes, a stomach the size of a basketball and an ass the size of a Rhode Island, I’ll be happy to refer to getting pregnant as we, but until then, it was me].
Read MoreHappy Mother’s Day
Today is Mother’s Day. It’s a very special day in which we honor mothers, grandmothers and stepmothers–unless you’re a wicked stepmother and then you don’t get honored, but you do get representation in almost every Disney movie.
On this day, I’d like to take a moment to wish one mother in particular a very Happy Mother’s Day: Sweet Pea’s birth mother. (Sorry, mom, I know you thought it was going to be you. You’re good too. Bang up job on both of your kids, really nice work).
I don’t know the circumstances surrounding Sweet Pea’s birth mother’s decision to give up her daughter. Maybe she was waiting for a son. Maybe she already had a child and the one child rule in China prevented her from having another. Maybe she wasn’t married. I don’t know. I just know that a very selfless mother in a country very far away brought my child into this world and I imagine this day can’t be easy for her.
Read MoreIt Takes A Village (3 Parenting Tips That Might Help)
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child.” It’s an old African proverb. (Did you think Hillary Clinton was the first one to say it? I did too. We’re both wrong.) As a parent, I am all about the “village” mentality. I’m always gathering parental information from others, and if I feel…
Read MoreWhen They’re Yours
When I was 12 or 13 years old, I used to babysit. It wasn‘t my thing. The kids smelled like playground, their hands were grubby and they wanted me to “play.” I wasn’t into it. I used to change the clocks and announce “Time for bed!” an hour or so earlier than I was supposed…
Read MoreWe Don’t Care If You Stare (My Top 10 List of Annoying Questions and Comments for Adoptive Families)
My free time is much more limited now than it used to be, but I still subscribe to quite a few magazines. People magazine is not one of them so if I see it lying around somewhere, I will pick it up. (I like the paparazzi pictures.) I have noticed when celebrities are photographed with one or more of their kids, if one of the kids…
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