A couple of months ago I wrote the post Preperation 101 Must Have Thick Skin. This evening was a long one for my family. I thought of the prior post as my seven year old was yelling "I hate You." and "You are not my mom anymore". The worst was, "No one loves me." The funniest was, "You don't love me, your husband either." Maybe funny isn't the right word, but humor is a must or crazyness will follow quickly.

So what caused this outrage? I'm still not sure. Enu has been wanting to have a friend over lately and Mita has a friend over tommorow. As I actually had the phone in my hand... more

Riding in a car is what most of us do daily, if not for hours a day. We really don't think about driving habits or car manners much, until someone (or several some-ones)cause a ruckus and throw things out of the normal.

When Preparing for Mita and Enu, I realized that it was probable that they had never used a seat belt or a car seat. Mita and Enu had lived their entire lives in Addis Ababa and their dad was a taxi driver for most of that time. While some kids from rural areas may have never been in a car until they went to the children's home, I knew my kids would be... more

When my girls first came home I avoided all shopping with them. It was several weeks before they saw the inside of a store and months before I did any major shopping with them. The first time I took them to Wal-Mart was to spend some gift cards that were given to them from friends. I initially didn't want to take them shopping, but they were having such a hard time with the "things" that their sisters had and they didn't. I thought I would take them and let them pick out their own stuff and not hand me downs others had picked out for them.

This trip was comical... more

As I mentioned in last week's post, bathrooms are for more than just potties. Brushing teeth, washing, drying and styling hair, showers/baths, and washing of the hands are all big bathroom activities that can take some time and patience.

When adopting older kids it would be helpful to know what their bathing habits were from before. Your child may not have ever seen or been in a bathtub before. Showers can seem like a dark and lonely place to spend time in as well. If your child had to carry the water for the family, chances are they did not bath regularly. A lot of developing... more

When preparing for bringing my Ethiopian girls home my mantra was,"Prepare for the worst, hope for the best and expect nothing." This is a good way to prepare yourself and I encourage anyone adopting older children to not expect anything at all.

After just a few weeks the girls' progress just blew us away. They picked up on English very well and have higher reading profeciency than many of their peers at school who have always lived here. They fit in socially very well and have friends, participate with others and just amaze me continually.

Somewhere along... more

I must admit that the title of this might turn some people off a bit, but I have to state that bathroom issues are something you need to prepare for! As always, I must state that my experience is with International Adoption. I have read enough on domestic adoption though to realize that some of the things I am going to talk about can apply to all adoptions involving older kids.

With infants we know that there will be diapers and potty training. We expect to have to teach are kids the basics and we teach them the bathroom habits and manners that we use in our home.

When... more

When bringing a new child into the home our first reaction seems to be - Buy! We want to get nice, new clothes, toys, bedspreads and bath towels with cartoons on them. None of these things are inherently bad, but we must consider what is best for our kids.

Most of our older kids have had very little of their own and may have never had anything brand new at all. Like toddlers it takes time for them to learn how to take care of things. Start small with a couple outfits in the closet, some socks and underwear in the drawers and a doll or Mp3 player depending on the age of your child.... more

I have been thinking on writing about organization, routines and rules for older kids for a while now. To be honest, it is something I struggle with and do not feel like I am qualified to write about it. I do want parents to be as prepared as possible though and hopefully you can glean some insight from my mistakes.

Of course, my experience is with international older child adoption, but I really think that these ideas could easily fit into domestic older child adoption as well. All kids need structure, continuety of care and routine. Their personal past experience and personality... more

Today was a great day. I write so often about bad days, or trying days I feel I need to let you all know that we have good days too! Today I went with Enu's first grade class to the zoo. We had so many parent volunteers that I was only in charge of Enu (smart teacher!) and got to spend the entire time concentrating on her, yet watching her interact with her peers.

She is so happy and friendly and makes people laugh so easily. Her smile is contagious and charming. She isn't perfect as she whined about having to walk and was grumpy because most of her friend's cameras had a view... more

I am seeing a behavior pattern in one of my children lately that is really hard to figure out. I don't feel like I should even write which kiddo it is, because I feel so bad about it and am having a hard time working through my feelings.

I'm sure when you have more than one child, that at least one of them will be an instigator. The child who pushes everyone's buttons just to see them yell. Everyone can be getting along well and when the instigator shows up the room is quickly full of yelling and complaining. This is one of my kids right now. Every room she walks... more