I was allowed a special visitation today with a locked up child of mine as it was a birthday. So heartsick am I, so broken hearted over the entire ordeal that I just don’t write about it yet. Ask me in a few years when I’ve learned to live with it and maybe I’ll share these experiences, but not now with this knife in my heart.

I wanted to really feel bad about this, I held back my tears and so we had a nice visit. This is my second kid to be in this particular facility and I’m embarrassed about that, although on every level I know that their anger... more

A dentist once told me, “If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll not be able to care for your children.”

The Bible tells us we are to ‘die to self,’ to care more about others and somewhere I need to find my balance.

It’s a real big duh to think that 39 children can be a demanding experience. Never overwhelming, yet I’m always trying to think ahead and to plan, to make sure we have enough groceries, meals planned, clothes washed, agenda books signed and all the other demands of daily life.

As such I may never get bored and I’m also never... more

We have a wonderful family therapist that comes to our house thereby helping to reduce my children’s inbred fear of professionals. So many social workers have marched through their lives that they are hesitant to trust anymore and also tired of talking about their past.

Their past made them what they are today – children deeply in need of therapy as is evidenced by their behaviors.

Today Dr. Mandy told me of a recent study she’d read explaining that children are behaving worse now than years ago and subsequently therapists are not lasting as long in this profession... more

A totally tough element in the equation of the adoption of older children is how tough it is to get them through school. Long range plans seem to not compute, deferred gratification is an elusive concept when they simply do not want to go to school.

School is very hard for one thing. My children’s track record for school attendance was horrible during foster care and even worse when they were still living in the difficult circumstances into which they were born.

They were moved from foster home to foster home and through various shelters; never staying long... more

I’ve certainly been angry before but I’ve never raged. I didn’t even know that people raged until I’d lived with ragers. The phenomenon is shocking; it’s a full blown temper tantrum with kicking, screaming, punching and hitting for hours at a time.

My first rager was barely three years old. Non-verbal due to a mild case of cerebral palsy, very developmentally delayed, he’d get... more

I kind of snapped today, a small implosion where I physically made an attempt to remove myself from my grown kid’s dramas. I know that this is part and parcel of the adoption of older children; that they tend to constantly recreate the chaos and confusion that they’ve always found comfort in during their early lives. It was all they knew. A peaceful lifestyle and a quiet coexistence alarms them, happiness confuses them and they think, on some level that they don’t deserve a good life and all too often do all they can to sabotage their own success.

Now... more

Are you happy right now? If so, can you put it into words? If not, can you describe what happiness would look like to you? Would you know if you were happy? Do you know when you aren’t happy?

It’s taken me fifty something years to begin to figure out what happiness looks like for me. I believe I’m happy because I’m doing what I want to do, I’m living where I want to live with the folks I want to live with. I love my church and my community, my friends and my family and I love what seems to be the main objective or purpose in my life.

I need to teach my children... more

My “nice” posts get little if any response yet my grittier reports of problems and challenges all seem to ring true in all y’all’s families as well.

I’ve recently read several studies and descriptions on children who’ve disrupted from their placements as well as equally scary behaviors and characteristics in children waiting for families.

An adoption recruiter in one state told me that most of the waiting older children now have some horrifying diagnoses, almost sociopathic in nature. There seems to be an overload of physically aggressive behaviors and anti-social... more

Putting out a minimum of posts lately is not due to any lack of ideas or material. Living with my children gives me enough to write about for decades to come, and then I’ll write about everything else that I never had time to blog.

In sixth grade I clearly remember a teacher threatening my friends and I with, “If y’all don’t stop talking I’ll have you write 500 page essays!”

I recall then thinking something along the lines of, “Have at it Miss Turner, I could write 1000 words before you even cross the classroom.” Verbosity is not a problem. Fortunately I didn’t... more

My resentment level has lately grown huge, way past my own level of acceptability. I don’t know why I expect people to understand why I willingly adopted older children, at times I can’t even articulate it past the lame sounding, “I felt called to do so,” explanation. But isn’t that enough?

Why do folks think it’s necessary to share with me the story of a parental murder by an older adopted child or how another family lost everything they owned via international adoption expenses? Are folks simply trying to justify or rationalize why they aren’t... more