Adoption Questions & Info

I seem to be getting a lot of adoption related questions lately. Not here in blog-land, but among my real-life friends. (Not that those of you who I know "virtually" aren't real friends, but you know what I mean.) The questions range from how to choose a country/program, to how long it takes to complete an adoption, to questions about special needs. I am not an expert in any of these topics, but I usually can figure out how to find the answers. I have spent a lot of time (way too much, according to my family) with the online adoption community. I circulate among the blogs, the forums, and the yahoo groups, and especially try to keep up with what is going on in China. These questions are rarely of the "yes/no" variety, and usually lead to very long conversations about different adoption programs, agencies, and the ethics of adoption.

Unless you are completely unfamiliar with international adoption, you are probably aware that there is a slowdown in Chinese adoptions right now. What used to be a wait of 6-12 months for a referral of a healthy Chinese infant is now at about 5 years. That means that the folks who are receiving their referrals right now had their paperwork logged-in to China in June 2006. If you sent in your paperwork right now, the wait is estimated to be about 7-10 years. While I don't fault the people who continue to wait, I could never advise anyone to enter China's non-special needs (NSN) program.

What a lot of people don't realize is that most people entering China's adoption program right now are people who are open to adopting children with special needs. These needs range from mild to severe and could include anything from a birthmark to life-threatening heart conditions, and everything in between. For this program, families can complete an adoption in about one year.

Another thing that even fewer people know is that most of the children waiting to be adopted are boys. Yes, you heard that right, boys from China. I assume that there are pretty much equal numbers of boys and girls who are placed on the special needs list, but the girls are chosen for adoption much faster than the boys, and so the boys tend to wait on the list much longer. Currently there are over 1800 kids on China's waiting child list, and over 1300 of those are boys. That's about 70%!

(And you may not have noticed, but I recently added a section to my sidebar with a list of bloggers who advocate for waiting children. If you spend about 2 minutes on these sites you will see the boy-cuteness everywhere. They include: So They Wait..., Loving the Fatherless, Waiting Children, Still we Wait, Wonderful Waiting Kids, Red Thread Kids, Delilah's Dream, and A Family For Everyone. Not to mention Rainbow Kids, which has a large database of waiting children around the world.)

So, after I information-spew all of this onto my dear ones, I then point them to online resources. First, I point them towards No Hands But Ours. This is a website with a whole lot of information and family stories from people who have adopted kids with special needs. Then, I tell them to visit China Adopt Talk (aka Rumor Queen). Obviously, the primary focus of this forum is China, but there are rooms where you can ask questions about other countries' programs as well. And for a good look at adoption-related issues, I would recommend Grown In My Heart. This website features writers from all sides of the adoption triad - first parents, adoptive parents, and adult adoptees.

(And if you have any other resources out there that I have missed - especially for countries other than China - feel free to leave a comment.)

So, where does that leave us? Well, I've been around all of this long enough to know that I could never know everything there is about adoption. And that there are a lot of controversial issues out there that I didn't even know were controversial five or ten years ago. And that it is really important to hear the voices of first mothers and adoptees, because their experiences are not mine, but they do matter. And that it is important for all adoptive parents to know about attachment issues before the kid comes home. And that it is important to be informed on the issues so that we will make good decisions now and so that we can be prepared to parent adopted kids.

Which means you and I both have a lot of homework to do.

Spring? Is that you?

We have had one of the coldest, snowiest winters ever. I knew when we missed a week of school in December it was going to be bad, and it has been. We missed 13 days of school, plus a delay thrown in for good measure. I don't think I have heard my heat kick off for weeks. (Which makes my electric bill awesome, by the way.)

But this week we have been granted a respite. It has been above freezing for a whole week now, when we have had weeks (months?) of it staying below the dreaded mark. Yesterday, it was a blessed 68 degrees. Heaven.

Honestly, I am not really much of an outdoorsy person. I do like to get out and do a little gardening in my vegetable patch or go for a walk, but overall I prefer my climate controlled home, where I can look out and see the sunshine.

So, why am I so excited to be rid of the cold? Because, warm weather allows me to open the back door, and kick my three children out of my house. I fiercely love my children, but I also fiercely love my alone time. I am desperate for the opportunity to pee by myself. To sit in a house that is silent. Obviously, I wouldn't want silence and being alone all the time (or would I?), but the cold creates so much togetherness that I tend to get a little claustrophobic.

Yesterday, after homework was completed, I sent them packing. Thirty whole minutes passed before one of them came inside or complained or anything.

I know this is probably a brief pause before winter resumes, but I am oh so thankful for it!

Portrait of a Lady

It's me. Can't you tell?

Personally, I think my 4 year old is brilliant and a budding artist.

(And I am really missing my old Adobe program where I could've actually merged the 2 scans together, but I haven't updated it since I got my not-so-new laptop. Oh, well.)

Happy New Year!

Chinese New Year, that is. Happy Year of the Rabbit!

Chinese New Year began on Thursday, and we have spread it out to sufficiently stuff ourselves for an entire week.

On Monday Tim and the kids and I made potstickers to share with friends. Super yum.
On Tuesday I made a beef-broccoli-noodle thing. It was pretty good.
On Friday we went out to a nice Chinese restaurant and had a delicious, and really loooong, meal with another set of friends.

Today we went to a FCC event with Tara and her family, and we did Chinese paper cutting, made paper lanterns, and watched a CNY show. Then we went back to their house and cooked. We made homemade egg rolls, mushu, noodles, and tea eggs. It was all pretty good, but the egg rolls were fabulous. Shout out to Tonggu Momma for her post about CNY recipes and other fun stuff!

I have definitely achieved my one-new-Chinese-recipe-a-year goal this year!

Oh, and if you are wondering where the pictures are for all of this fun, they are a bit lacking this year because I have somehow managed to lose my camera. I can't for the life of me figure out where I have left it. This is par for the course for me. In the last month I have managed to lose my glasses, my wallet, a pair of earrings, my favorite Burt's Bees lip color, and my favorite nail clippers, in addition to the camera. Everything has turned up except for the camera. I am still hoping.

In the meantime, Tara and John took a ton of pictures of today, so maybe they will show up somewhere?

Why do I have to know that?

Will is in kindergarten and is learning to read. He has been sounding out basic sound patterns for about a year. Words that rhyme with his name were the first ones he learned - pill, dill, bill, fill... you get the idea. His opinion was that his name was cool, and rhyming was cool, so therefore these words were worth learning. But he hasn't been very interested in the rest of the words, although he has slowly picked up most basic patterns. He loves books, and often brings me a book to read. He reads the first page himself, then gets frustrated and/or bored, and asks me to read the rest of it to him. Patience is not his strong suit.

So I was pleased when his teacher finally started sending home books for him to read for homework, knowing that she was now reinforcing what I had been working on with him at home.

Last week we sat down to read one such book, entitled I Like Noise. It featured Mr. N, who likes noise. (Riveting, I know, but he likes them so I am cool with it. Plus, I loved the Letter People when I was a kindergartner, thanks to Ms. Carolyn.) One page said, "I hear a telephone," and there was a picture of Mr. N and his telephone. When Will got to this page he said, "I hear a phone." I told him to back up and read the word again - sound out the first few letters. He sounded out "tele" and realized his mistake.

He then looked at me with a frown on his face and said (remember, you have say it without the R sound), "Why in the world do they think I need to know the word "telephone"? I am only in kindergarten!"

Apparently learning new things isn't a big priority right now. Just recess and the bus. We will have to work on that too.

A Wee Trip

I am once again behind on blogging and picture posting, but it is for a very good reason.

A few months ago Tim and I started talking about taking a little trip. We were thinking of a long weekend in New York or something because we hadn't been on a vacation alone since Kate NaNa has been home. We love love love to travel together, so we really were hoping to steal away, with a little (ok, a lot) of help from Mimi, Arlie, Daddy John, and Jee.

But the more we talked about it, we realized that it is cold in New York. And snowy. And that is what we are trying to escape here.

So we decided to go somewhere we have never been, and we went south instead. To the Caribbean. Eighty-five and sunny, baby. Oh yeah. We were on a cruise that stopped at Roatan, Honduras, and Cozumel, Mexico. We laid by the pool and ate like piggies (although not at the same time).

Roatan is this little island that the big hotels and chain stores haven't discovered yet. We rented a scooter and buzzed around the island, seeing sights like this.

And then we sat on a beach and looked at sights like this.

I totally wanted to just miss the boat and stay for a week.

But the next day we were in Mexico, although we never actually set foot on Cozumel. We got off the ship, got onto a ferry that took us to the mainland, and then a bus that went to the Tulum Mayan ruins.

I know I'm a big nerd, but I love stuff like this. Especially when there is a great beach on the other side of that temple, where we ate lunch and swam in the surf. I love vacation.

We also got to spend a little time with my grandmother in Florida, which was a total treat even if it was really cold there.

Now, we are back to reality. Snow and sleet (which means snow days for the kids), bad colds, and work. But that sunshine is keeping me going. Surely spring is just around the corner!

Booooooored

My kids have been out of school since Tuesday because of snow. This is on top of the week or so they missed before Christmas for snow. Our roads have been fairly clear (i.e., we aren't entirely trapped in our home), but I am still starting to go a little stir crazy, and I'm not the only one. Yesterday, if my children merely bumped into each other, it resulted in much weeping and gnashing of teeth. We are all pretty sick of looking at each other.

So this morning I called a dear friend who works in the school system. He and his wife don't have kids yet, and he offered to hang out with my kids in the event that I needed a little break. I am definitely there. Break, please!

While I was talking to him, he said that he was glad I had called because he was starting to get a little bored. When I hear people say this it always makes me smile a little.

Bored. I hear that word a lot from my kids, and it rarely produces a smile. Usually when they come in with that whiny voice, declaring, "I'm booooooored.....I don't know what to dooooooooo....." I just want to hit someone. But I refrain. Instead, I launch into my pre-manufactured speech:

Oh, you're bored? Poor thing. I feel like this is my fault. I let you watch entirely too much TV yesterday. If I hadn't let you watch television, you wouldn't have forgotten how to entertain yourself, and you wouldn't be bored now. So, tell you what, I won't let you watch TV anymore since it apparently steals your creativity. Also, feel free to go clean your room, fold the towels, or wash the dishes if you are out of things to do. And then we can bag up all of your "boring" toys and give them to a family whose kids would enjoy them more. What do you think about that?

You can imagine the eye rolling that occurs after this. I think Will was the youngest person I ever met capable of recognizing sarcasm. When he was about four years old he would cock his head to the side and say, "Mommy, was that a sarcasm?" Yes, baby, very good.

Anyway, I remember boredom. In college or when Tim and I were newlyweds, I can remember saying things like, I'm bored. Let's go into town and rent a movie or go out to eat or go the mall or whatever I thought sounded like a good solution to not having anything to do.

I don't think I have been bored one second since Ben was born. I'm not saying that my children are entertaining. They are, but that isn't my point. My point is that there is always something to do - change a diaper, prepare a meal, clean the floors... I could go on here, but you get the idea. When I actually do have a free moment, I am more than happy to sit with my nothingness and just veg. Not that I actually remember that happening in the last 8 years.

I wonder if boredom returns after the children fly the coop. (Today it feels more like a coop than a nest.) Not that I want to be bored again. I just want the freedom to be bored if I feel like it.