This thought process started here. International adoptive parents' desire to bring as much birth culture as possible into the life of their children is nobel and respectful, but no matter how much you strive to duplicate native foods, celebrate important holidays or practice ancient dance in traditional dress, you can't help but be missing most of the basic of basics your kids would be have been experiencing.

Although... more

As international adoptive parents, we're all well aware that our children are growing up differently than they would in their countries of birth. They're learning a different language, dressing differently, becoming accustomed to foods they well might otherwise never have come across in a lifetime, and learning to turn their noses up at things that might have been considered tasty treats ... ... more

I've been called to task, and must fess up ... I owe a reporter from the New York Post an apology.

It seems that in my haste to leap in a direction that would put my too substantial bulk between another media slam on the Angelina Jolie adoption fracas and my readers, I went all sloppy with my work.

Not only was I so enthused about posting a response to what I thought was a response to my response that I completely missed the fact that the story I took to be recent was actually four months old, I also jumped to the conclusion that my opinion had originally been solicited because... more

A while back, I won a $150 gift certificate from Adoptionshop.com for coming up with some greeting card copy. I don't think the cards are ready, but they did send me the virtual gift cert, so I did what anyone would do ... I went shopping.

Cruising around the adoptionshop was fun, but being out of the ritual of regular shopping has me thinking that there's not much I can't live without, so I didn't find anything I needed to have.

What I did find, however, was an idea.

Those colored wristbands the rest of the world has been wearing for a while to tout various causes are just beginning to appear here in Seychelles,... more

Since almost no one in the US was able to catch my family's appearance on CNN last weekend, I've downloaded a clip of our segment. It's not the greatest quality, but viewable. Please forgive the music, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without, and you can still hear the audio.

My kids look adorable, of course. Me? Well, I'm reminded why it is for the last 25 years or so I've much preferred doing radio.

This was a repackaged bit from a thirty-minute program aired locally on adoption issues in Seychelles.

I have no idea when I'll be able to publish this blog post, as Seychelles has lost its Internet connection ... again ... and word has it that this outage is likely to last a while. Ack!

If someone had told me a few years ago that I would be driven to distraction by a disruption in global communication caused by a January storm in Austria, I most certainly would have wondered what in the heck they were talking about, and would never have guessed how much of my life would be tied to and impacted by such events.

I mean, really!... more

We used to be invited aboard most of the ships that stopped here for R&R, giving their crew some fun in the sun that wasn't shining on an unfriendly country in the Persian Gulf. Since 9/11, however, shipboard parties have been few and far between, unfortunately. Fully understanding the importance of heightened security, we've not complained, but were very happy to hear that we were to once again be welcomed aboard.

Imagine my chagrin when I learned that ONLY US citizens were invited, meaning that my husband, and virtually every other spouse of an American in Seychelles, was basically chopped liver.

Apparently, however, the powers that be down in Port Louis caught on to the... more

Life as an American ex-pat can leave one feeling more than a bit out of the loop, and under-appreciated by good old Uncle Sam.

I understand that many will think those of us who've opted out of life on American soil don't deserve much in the way of yankee perks, but we are entitled to certain things, most of which many of us never bother asking for.

One thing citizens abroad count on, however, is an embassy to process paperwork ... passport renewals and stuff like that. Unfortunately, the embassy in Seychelles closed shortly after I moved here. (I was assured at the time that it was a State Department cost-cutting measure, not a personal affront, but I haven't really recovered.)... more

Since most of my experience with the celebration that ends Ramadan comes from time spent happily in Malaysia, it's the Bahasa Malay version of the traditional Eid ul-Fitr salutation, "Happy Feast of the Breaking of the Fast" that comes to my mind. In our alphabet's rendition of the Arabic, it's "Eid saeed" or "Eid... more

For the first time since I started writing this blog back in February, I took a day off.

Yep. I unilaterally declared yesterday, Sunday the 15th of October, Sandra's Sedentary Sunday Siesta Day, and aside from an email to my mom, I didn't write a word ... not one, nada, zippo zilch. And did I feel guilty about the oh-so-blatant shirking of all duties blog and book?

Well ... yeah. And of course I'll be paying for my day of brain rest for the whole week now, as I'm behind on every self-imposed schedule I've self-imposed.

So, why did I do... more