2010 ~ To Tell The Truth - Please Stand Up

Thursday, December 23, 2010

It Was a Very Long Line

Today at the pharmacy I was about to get in line at the counter when I saw an older man with a cane hobbling along. I said for him to go ahead and get in front of me. It was very busy and I figured we would be waiting a while. He said I didn’t have to let him go in front. Of cores I don’t, but some day some one will do the same for me I say. We stood in line and chatted. He asked about my Bluetooth earpiece and whether I could just listen or whether people could hear me when I talked into it. I told him that they could and that I walk around all day looking like a crazy bag lady talking to myself, minus the...

Stuff Amélie Says

Yesterday Amélie (5) insisted she wanted chocolate milk. She did not drink it, so we put it in the fridge and gave it to her at dinner tonight. "Excuse Me! Why can't you solve the mystery? I decided I do not like chocolate milk!" she says. Are there any mysteries you just can’t sol...

What If

I saw a couple of posts last week about by adoptees, like these by Amanda and Von about what might have been. Based on this quote by B.J. Lifton Amanda had post on her blog: "Those adoptees already in Reunion need help in integrating their two selves—the one who grew up adopted and the alternate one who might have been" (Lifton, 2010, p. 8). Even though I do not have two separate families that I could contemplate what life would be like with one compared to the other, it did make me stop and think about the “what could have beens” in my life. I am certainly not discounting all of the wonderful people I had in my life instead; my nanny, my foster parents, teachers, social workers, surrogate parents, staff, the Word Family, and my friends have all been a tremendous blessing in my life, but...

Random Chatter

I’d like to take a moment and thank everyone for stopping by and reading Anastasia from Sweet Butter Bliss’s guest post yesterday. I would also thank those of you who stopped by her site and read mine, I appreciate the support! I spent yesterday “preparing” for today’s colonoscopy, so fun…I am, at the moment no longer full of crap I am pretty sure I am not full of anything at all, and still a little loopy from the meds. It wasn’t fun but it wasn’t so bad…so if you need one get one. CoCo continues to pee on the potty. Every time she starts to pee she starts giggling her little head off, I wish I thought it were that fun to pee! Sadly I am not the only one blogging about pee and potty… The Good Lord Giveth and the Good Lord Taketh Away... It made my day...

Show Some Restraint

When Anastasia from Sweet Butter Bliss heard about the death of a Child due to restraint in a Texas Residential Treatment Center (RTC), she asked me to do a guest post for her blog on what it is like for the kid being restrained. My gut reaction was “I still have a very hard time talking about that…" (That must mean it is something I need talk about.) So I agreed, and asked her for a trade. I would do a guest post for her on being restrained (here) as a child and she would do one for me as someone who has to be willing to restrain a child as part of her job. Here is what Anastasia has to say: I work at...

Princess CoCo

I have been a very naughty blogger! If I’m lucky I might get a little spanky, LOL. I have been a slave to Princess CoCo of the Pee-Pot and her porcelain throne! First we get MRI results, and then she commences to decide to finally learn to crawl (after walking) at almost 3 years old. Now this… The other day she says “I have to go potty.”“Oh yeah...I’ll be there in a minute” “No, RIGHT NOW” (yep she learned that phrase from me. I end every statement to her 12 year-old sister with… “Right Now”)Ok, I drop what I am doing and I kid you not, I put that kid on the potty and she pees!About an hour latter she says “I have to pee” and...

Will You Wednesday: Children Aren't Puppies (revisited)

She is right, there really are NO words! Will You Wednesday: Children Aren't Puppies (revisited)...

Lesson Learned

The other day I was talking to my mother about one of my posts, and we got on the subject of one of my biggest pet peeves in the adoption (foster care) world… “Your mommy loved you so much she gave you away…” “The most loving thing a mother can do for a child is to give them away…” (Every time some one says or writes such nonsense it truly pisses me off. Let me tell you as the one on the giving away end it doesn’t feel very loving at all. It feels like awful, overwhelming rejection! It doesn’t look loving on the receiving end either it looks selfish.) It is funny sometimes I can "get" and understand my mother’s adoption...

At Least she's Got A Pot To......

CoCo is a good Momma I think Mad’s cough is finely calming down a bit. She started antagonizing her little sisters yesterday so I packed her up some cough drops, gave her some codeine and dropped her 12 year-old butt off at the bus stop…hey at least I waited for the bus to get there before I gave her the boot! (All day I was waiting for a call and lecture from the school…something like ‘WTF were you thinking sending her here with the plague’ but alas, they kept her. –Thank God!) The first blog I ever read was this post Cerebral Palsy Baby in January 2009, just after bringing CoCo home from a 3 day stay at the hospital...

I got a comment today that said “I’m sorry your experience sucked”; I thought it was cute and sweet. …But, for me it was not the foster care experience that sucked, it was the fact that I was there at all was that sucked.Not that I am saying it was like going to a 7 year sleep away camp filled with fun activities…oh, maybe it was JUST like a 7 year sleep away camp. And the best thing about it for my parents it was FREE. Good thing they wised up and learned how to use the system between the years they sent my sister to boarding school and me to foster care. Imagine all the extras they were able to afford for them selves...

What about U.S.?

Another illuminating post by Malinda AdoptionTalk: "Get out of my way, I'm entitled to adopt!" "Those 100,000+ foster kids are waiting for ya'll to get as excited about adopting them as ya'll are about protecting your rights to adopt ANYONE but them! Um, yeah, as an American Foster Care Alumni, I definitely would have preferred my life in foster care over being shipped out of my country, no matter how much junk my new family could have bought me or how much they loved me. I'm so glad you asked since US foster kids seem to be the last thing on the majority of perspective adoptive parents minds!" "Another thought: I wonder if the 100,000+ children eligible for adoption in the American foster care system would recommend permanent foster care as preferable to adoption." a commenter asked",...

I Owe You Nothing

“I owe you nothing! …You did what you were supposed to do!” I love this scene from guess who’s coming to dinner, I can so totally relate. Except for that in my case my parents DID NOT do what they were supposed to do, but expect the gratitude any way. Oh, well... I am catching up on some reading, I thought this was an interesting post Adopted children as emotional assets by O Solo M...

Good Bye National Adoption Awareness Month

This has been one long month! I had no idea going into National Adoption Awareness Month that it was going to be so looong! Race, religion, genocide, human trafficking, pre-birth matching, pass out cards, 40% off clearance sales, Hague Convention, zealots… The message I would like to get out is that there are 1400,000 kids in the foster care system that need permanent homes. They need support, time, honesty and respect. All kids come with some issues, but the ones foster kids come with are no more insurmountable than their international counterparts and apparently more attractive competition by any means. I have read a lot of great posts this month and I would like to thank al of my readers and my fellow post a day bloggers: The Daily BastardetteReal...

What in God's Name?

So how is it that well meaning people get it so twisted up? We have private adoption agencies offering up black children for adoption at a 40% discount, or as commenter Maryann pointed out 3/5 of the value of white children. (Anyone remember that from your High School History Class?). We apparently have some people who feel like they are “forced” to adopt internationally because they can’t afford a domestic white child and do not want to adopt a lower cost black child. Some believe and I fear that what we have are some “racists” adopting cheaper black children.” It has been my observation that people who hold...

Q & A Gym Mom to Gym Mom / Coach

This was a great question I got from one of my readers, it could have been written by me 10 years ago! I decided to reprint it (with permission) because I think so many of us as parents have been in this spot ourselves. Thanks for the great question. Hi !Here is my situation. L is my gymnast. Always has been very good motor skills, very, very physical and utterly fearless. She tried gymnastics starting last spring. It was a class where the parent was the spotter, which made me more relaxed. It also meant I could help her to remain focused. I didn't really have to say much to do that, but I think my just being there did. This fall they decided to move her up to a new level because she is ability wise beyond that class she was in. but this...

Race, Religion, Foster Care, Adoption, and Cultural Genocide 2

The way I understand the evolution of lower adoption fees for black children is that initially it was meant to encourage black families to adopt black child with the assumption that adoption fees were prohibitive for blacks. Some may find that racist and offensive with in it’s self. My experience tells me that there is more “adoption”, foster care, and kinship care going on in the black community informally than the record may show. As the same (black) family that took me in and “adopted” me as a teen and young adult had also taken in and raised a boy from down the street. A good friend of mine lived with a woman...