I’ve recently been knocked down but not out, as I suspect one of my sons stole my laptop which was chock full of what powers my life; both personal and financial. I’ve been blue about it, angry and resentful, looking much like my grandson's expression here, and I almost quit on my blogs once again. Slamming around my house, muttering and furious, it’s taken me eight days to calm down.

I just couldn’t figure if God was trying to tell me something or not, but then I get so many emails telling me that my odd life gives them hope which makes me want to continue writing.... more

This time a year ago, at 6 a.m., I was still sound asleep which is an extreme rarity for a fifty something year old woman. My sleep was then facilitated by a great deal of morphine as I’d been cut open about a foot long in my abdominal area. Our month of Hell, described here, I just reread it and found it hilarious now although I'd cried a great deal during that time.

I’d awakened sometime that morning, in the surgical ward, to discover my elderly mother asleep in a chair next to... more

Even if I only had two kids or just a dozen children, I’d shop entirely at yard sales. I get down on myself for not sorting my trash enough, for not having more bins for milk cartons, cereal boxes, glass jars, and tin cans to recycle, when in reality I pre-cycle by not buying drink bottles and excess stuff, but I could do way better than I’m doing right now. That’s one of my next goals as I reclaim my life once again now that my children are older and allegedly less demanding.

Now yard sales…let me tell you about my adventures each Saturday. I feel as if I’m flying under the radar of our capitalistic economy, purchasing at pennies on the dollar what others have discarded, thereby... more

I have some kids who soothe my soul, more than half of them perhaps, and the rest dearly want to do so…to be so…they just don’t know how, and subsequently spend a great deal of misdirected time and energy trying to prove to themselves that I’m just not worth it.

Or their own tenuous sense of self-worth, even a feeling of deeply held worthlessness that stems from many years of parental neglect and abuse, forcing us adoptive parents to learn new ways both of parenting and of relating to children who do not desire to respond to our entreaties of love.

Try all you want folks, I tell my children, but you’re not pushing me away. I’m just putting on airs for you readers, usually... more

I personally have a deeply driven sense of need within me to help others, as if should I not do so, my life would then seem meaningless. I truly feel this way. Flipping through a news magazine at the dentist’s office this week I was appalled by a picture of a young injured girl in Baghdad, one eye either completely destroyed or bandaged beyond redemption.

I forced myself to stare at her and to think of how petty I’d been that morning when I’d run out of my favorite Light Plain Soymilk. I’d literally felt sorry for me, poor old me having to endure the skim milk carton that had been left out all morning while I dressed and fed the kids.

This girl in this photo stood in the... more

There is almost no way possible way to adopt from the foster care system, to adopt older children and/or sibling groups, and not become a naïve parent to “troubled children.”

Adjustment Conduct Disorder seems to be the new catchphrase and I had a caseworker tell me this week that it encompasses all kids from the system. It’s a big DUH since these children were removed from families that perpetuated criminal abuse and neglect, then were bounced through the foster care system, experiencing multiple... more

I think today I will write about the isolation that adoptive parents face. As Julie steeled herself for remarks that were sure to come, so too do we find ourselves figuratively battening down the hatches with each new onslaught of issues that seem to slam us at regular intervals, sometimes wave after wave of them.

Yesterday when our therapist arrived I had so many different examples to tell her that I forced myself to narrow it down only to the few children that she’d get to... more

Nothing like sitting here in a thunderstorm and having our cable TV and internet knocked out. Usually our electricity also goes as we live down a dirt road and when it goes, our well won’t pump and at least twenty children then automatically feel an overwhelming need to go to the bathroom. And not to pee.

We’d had supper on the table at 4:30 after picking up kids from ecology club and art club, getting a high school daughter to her hamburger flipping job and picking the last one up from cheerleading practice while scrambling to get three teams of 10 kids ready for their soccer games.... more

Even in spite of rages from my children who are angry at the way the world once treated them or in the face of uncommon emotional battles, I still try my best to have that old attitude of gratitude.

I’ve been reading, Thanks by Robert A. Emmons which is about the new science of gratitude making one happier, and today I came across Deborah Norville’s new book Thank You Power: Making the Science of Gratitude Work for you.

Maybe... more

I receive emails from folks, over the years, expressing their interest in having a large family. More than an interest really, I hear of deep dreams and strong desires to accomplish this in their lives.

No one, including me I suppose, has a specific number of children in mind. I truly didn’t set out to become this large, and I believe that I knew when to stop adopting. I have room in my house now for more children, as so many of mine are grown, but I don’t feel called to add to my family anymore.

I’m often asked for advice regarding how to prepare for this type of... more