Laughter and Bonding

A little over a week in and I can still say we’ve had pretty smooth sailing. As I listened to the 5 kids laugh until they cried last night in the back of the van, I realized how blessed we are to have kids with such great senses of humor. I’m going to go out […]

{#49} Profiles should come with grains of salt

If you expect a referral profile to set your mind at ease about who your are bringing into your home, don’t.  Whether your referral profile was 3 pages or 300, it is just that–a paper representative of a human being.  It does not do him or her justice.  I know a lot of families spend days […]

{#48} Reread after the fact

If you haven’t done so, I highly recommend reading whatever you read before your child came home again…after the fact. We’re in the middle of 7 weeks of homework for an upcoming training and I just reread a book that I’ve always believed in, The Connected Child: Bring hope and healing to your adoptive family. […]

{#47} It's not about us

January’s Christianity Today ran an article, “Open Arm, Closed Doors” (pages 15-17) that is just one of a slew of recent publications to bring attention to the dramatic decrease in international adoptions over the past few years.  Usually such articles briefly mention that slow downs are due to new regulations that aim to crack down on […]

Decoding Ty

Five years ago, even though we didn’t know it, our bouncy, pouncy, Ty-ger of a child entered the world albeit 15 weeks early.  He joined our family at 2 1/2 years old and our lives haven’t been the same. Unlike our other two, he didn’t respond to cause-effect discipline or intuitively learn anything.  We still […]

{#46} I wish kids didn't have ages

Because November is National Adoption Month, I’d be remiss in not blogging about it or at least giving an update on Ty (and our current adoption process). On paper, Ty’s almost 5.  There’s one camp that see him as 5 and expect him to act that way.  They lay out how he should be acting based […]

{#45} What to expect at your home study interview

Our long home study interview was today.  Each agency and country is different, but this will be 2 of 4 (our orientation meeting at our agency counted as #1). Again, since each agency and country is different, your interview will probably look a little bit different but this is how ours went today. Our social […]

{#44} The strong-willed child from the hard place

This is kind of a post-in-progress.  We find ourselves with a strong-willed child from a hard place in our home.  I’m hoping there are more of you out there. For our purposes, I’m going to define the key words like this: Strong-willed: Thrives on conflict.  Has difficulty obeying right away…ever.  Always fights to be “right.” […]