When I was a home visitor for a birth to 3 program. The biggest complaints hands down from Mom’s were regarding eating & sleeping. My daughter is far from a picky eater…but she has her days. In the beginning she would eat anything and everything we put on her plate for the first few months home. She had a voracious appetite and could out eat me. This little 19 lb wonder could easily eat two slices of pizza or an entire breakfast and still want to eat. It amazed me at the way she could eat and she would not turn a thing away and even... more

I get asked, “ so have you started Potty Training yet?” often since Livi turned two and the answer is yes and no. Yes I have started and no she is not ready. I have introduced the potty, we read & watch “ Once upon a Potty” and I put her on it usually twice a day for starters and she is not ready… plain & simple. My Mother's intuition tells me this as well as some signs she is not showing me. I do think she is capable, she understands the concept I just don’t think she is mature enough. She will have a poopy diaper and I will ask “ Did... more

A few days ago I wrote a post about a doctor's response to the fact that my daughter was adopted. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what she was thinking but I judged it to be an initial jolt of shock followed by a settling wave of pity. That bothered me.

In that post I wrote that it seemed the doctor's attitude, or perhaps her engagement with my daughter changed dramatically once that information was revealed. That made me sad. It wasn't that she became rude. It's just that before that bit of information was divulged the doctor and my daughter were yukking it... more

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"Oh no." I thought. "Don't say it. Please, don't say it. Whatever it is that you're thinking right now, please. Just don't say it. Hark back to your bedside manner 101 class, if they even taught you such a thing and figure out how to handle this tactfully. You have no idea the kind of week I've had around all of this very kind of stuff."

Well, folks. She said it.

Her full faced smile turned to a stone faced stare. She let out something that was somewhere in between a gasp and a sigh. Then she... more

Okay, this is a short post. Not even a full post. I'm running around throwing stuff in a bag for my trip to NYC first thing in the morning (see previous post). In between doing what it is that mommies do before they leave to go out of town, even if it is just for overnight, I had to take my youngest daughter to a doctor's appointment. She failed a routine screening at the pediatrician's office just a bit ago, and there were some other subtle concerns that showed up so she was referred on for additional testing.

Cut to the chase for those of you who might be... more

I interrupt this regularly scheduled blog to ask for your advice regarding diaper rash. At the moment we are dealing with a stubborn one and I’m not sure if I should call the pediatrician. The one my girl has is bright red, raw and has open sores- sorry for being so graphic. I have tried special ointment, desitn, two types of balmex, and Johnson’s 3& 1- some are zinc bases, others are like Vaseline. My poor baby is just miserable.

This is a persistent rash and instead if improving it seems to be spreading. We would get an occasional... more

It won't come as any surprise that when the girls returned from their weeklong field trip we were all excited as heck to see each other. Even their brother admitted to being glad that they were coming home. It just wasn't the same without them.

I went to school early on the day that they returned, so that they wouldn't have to get on the school bus lugging their roll-on suitcases with them. Of course, I, also, couldn't wait another minute to see their (hopefully) smiling little faces. I was not dissapointed. They defined the very expression "happy campers."... more

So, as I was saying in my last post, my girls went on a week long sleepaway field trip with the school last week. If I have ever wondered what would it be like to have only one child, I am still wondering. That's because when you have three children and two of them are away for a week...you still have three children. The two who are away still occupy your emotional, mental, and psychological space, even though they are not in your physical space. That's what happened with us.

Every other minute, I was wondering what the girls were doing and hoping that they were enjoying themselves and worrying that they were okay. Nothing about the rhythm of the house was the same. The morning routine,... more

This week the girls were on this incredible, fancy-smancy field trip with their school for a solid week! It was one of those outward bound, adventure, environmental learning, well, here let me let you read how they explain it on their website:

NorthBay is a residential environmental learning center designed to introduce students to the exciting field of environmental science through immersion into that environment, and simultaneously give each student a profound experience in leadership and character development. It offers participation... more

Given our focus today on this nation's tragedy of five years ago, I'd like to raise the question of the impact that the premature death of an adoptive parent may have on an adopted child. I have heard and read numerous statistics about the number of children who lost a parent in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The most consistent number I have seen is five thousand. It is almost impossible to fathom. Five thousand children lost a mother or father on that day. I am uncertain how many children lost both parents.

The loss of a parent... more