Because I enjoyed Tess Hudson’s Double Down so well, I wanted to read this one. If you remember, Double Down was a romance about a young woman overcoming her addiction to gambling. There were some darker images in it involving uncovering a mystery about drugging a football player (her new romance) in order [...]

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Continue reading → Invisible Girl, by Tess Hudson

Juno was recommended to me by a friend. I was told I’d like it, but I had my doubts.
First, the subject of adoption, birth mothers, birth fathers, birth family, and desire for a child are close to my heart. I have two bio children and two children adopted from China. [...]

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Continue reading → Juno, some spoilers, maybe

For those of us who wonder what it might be like if our Chinese child were still in China in their first family, here is an interesting article.
I also thought it was interesting that his parents chose the English name for him of: Seven Eleven (not Jack, for example.)
Some of our adopted Chinese children came [...]

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Continue reading → What it’s like to be a teen in China/choosing an English name

This quote came across my computer this morning, and it got me to thinking about how we keep score(s) in life.

Money is a way of keeping score in life, says T. Boone Pickens. But that is just for those who like playing the game. The real goal is to live with grace and dignity. You [...]

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Continue reading → Keeping score in life

Trying to resurrect this conversation:
Just prior to having Chinese New Year dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, our 10 year old said something to the effect:
I’m Chinese, right? [Yes.]
Then she remarked that kids say, That’s your mother?
And I said: And they are surprised that I’m not Chinese, right? [Yes.]
And I asked: And [...]

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Continue reading → Poignant comments by kids

This quote came across my computer today:
“I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.” Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt 1767-1835, German Statesman
I have to say I don’t totally agree with this. [...]

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Continue reading → How we get through hard times

Yesterday, after dinner, I gave my fortune cookie to my youngest, very nearly age 10, but told her I wanted the fortune.
She handed it to me, saying it was a really good one.
Yes, it was, fraught with responsibility, but definitely a keeper:
God will give you everything that you want.
Yikes. Of course, I know that [...]

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Continue reading → Of fortune cookies and adoption and life

This article is very articulate about the problem.
This is a problem not just for China, but for the world.
As a dear Chinese friend of mine said to me many years ago, China is making a mistake sending its best and brightest. I have two Chinese daughters and I wondered at the time [...]

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Continue reading → China’s surplus of sons

…these issues are issues I deal with as an adult adoptee…issues do not stop with childhood/adolescence, no matter what researchers or adoptive parents might think. Because part of opening myself to this list [IAT] is helping adoptive parents to see the ways that adoption shapes/touches/influences even those parts of our lives that seem separate…and to [...]

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Continue reading → How adoption becomes part of the self, even into adulthood

This is a great story about a Chinese adoptee who was chosen to be the voice of Kai-lan. Don’t miss the rest of the story.
Hearing what her adoptive mother has been through and seeing the IHappy license plate brought tears to my eyes.
Karin
Jade-Lianna Peters steps into an audio recording booth at I V Media [...]

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Continue reading → Ni hao, Kai-Lan IHappy

I think it’s important that we think about this and discuss it in some way, even those of us with Chinese children or soon-to-have Chinese children. It’s not unusual for grown Korean adoptees (KADs) to think of themselves as exports…or at least to think of Korean adoption on the whole as an export, and [...]

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Continue reading → The shame of Korea’s orphan exportation

The Washington Post has an article and video about going back to visit China.
Of the families, 4 of the 5 would not be allowed to adopt due to the rules change currently in effect. I believe one of the caregivers is albino. She is in a picture bringing a baby, as [...]

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Continue reading → Going back to visit China as a young teen

I came across this quote after I was thinking about what dreams the older women might have held or what the younger women expected from life. I loved the idea of nourishing and protecting our dreams, nursing them through bad days.
Not every dream comes to fruition effortlessly. Some take a good deal [...]

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Continue reading → Realized and unrealized (yet) dreams

The question was asked of APs something like this: why do you stick around a list that is tough to listen to because the adoptees tell it like it is? Here’s one of the answers, with permission.
OK, here’s my story: I had a conversion experience.
When dd was age three we serendipitously discovered that [...]

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Continue reading → Something about the learning curve for adoptive parents

This is a long article about adoption…how one comes to it…if one can love an adopted child the same or not…
It is disturbing and interesting, sad and hopeful.
Karin

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Continue reading → The nuclear family exploded

‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ the 1946 movie with Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey. I googled ‘what if I had never been born movie’ …up popped this familiar film, with this Plot Outline: “An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would had been like if he never existed.” Clarence [...]

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Continue reading → More on if you could change your past

conversation bit yesterday with dd age 8.5 while talking about China parents.
“you really don’t feel like my real moms”
“I understand why you feel that way. It’s ok to feel what you feel.We want you to know that you do feel like our real daughter”
“You kind of feel like my vice-moms. You know, when the real [...]

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Continue reading → RL conversation with 8.5 yr old

There are many hard truths of adoption, all of which our children own. After all, it is their story. And age appropriately we share with them so they have the knowledge they need to take into the world with them.
And some things may turn out to be unexpectedly difficult or hard for our [...]

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Continue reading → Hard truths of adoption, told softly

The Grocery List
Grocery List:
Butter
Eggs
Milk
Pasta
Sitting, looking at this list
things I need
but can do without
One more thing needs to be added
thing I need
but can’t do without
Are they really selfless
these mothers that never were?
I have another new dog
passed around too many times
in her young life
Jumps at every sound
wary but wanting
the love I can give
Meanwhile,
Loki snuggles on my lap
has [...]

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Continue reading → To show how birthmother thoughts come in the midst of life