A news report today showed the remnants of a Palestinian family after a day at the beach turned to mayhem when they were reported to have became targets for Israeli gunboats. A twelve-year old girl was filmed as she rushed to the bodies of her father and siblings, screaming and completely overwhelmed by the insane situation she'd just witnessed. Her mother was later interviewed from her hospital bed where she was being treated for injuries suffered in the attack. With understandable venom, she didn't grieve as much as curse.

"I want to see Israeli mothers with dead children... more

I knew I'd get to this story eventually. It's been with me for almost thirty-five years now, and has been told over and over again. It became such a standard at baby showers in Northern California, that I once had it told TO me without the person doing the telling having any idea that the story is actually ABOUT me.

I'm prompted to write it now by an ongoing topic on the Guatemala Adoption Forum and the Moose's blog.

Once... more

Talking yesterday about kids and language, I focused on children that have had a fairly easy time transitioning from one to another, or from one to many.

This has not always been my experience, however.

Our foster son, with us primarily from the ages of two to four, had a very difficult time learning to speak. Some reasons for this were hardwired, as he suffers from FAE and the learning problems that come with. Partly, though, he was just plain confused for too long.

T... more

Deep in a conversation about major world issues with a six-year old a while back, I asked what languages he spoke.

"Creole, Anglaise," he said without missing a beat, "and a little English."

Yes, kids 'get' the language thing in ways adults can only guess.

This little boy's parents are South African, but from the age of about two he spent a great deal of time with his Seychellois nanny's family and is every bit as fluent in Creole as he is in his native tongue ... a fact that neither surprises nor impresses him. Shifting from one to another as... more

Continuing with the connections thread I started unraveling yesterday ...

WWOOF is an ingenious organization that lets keen gardeners put their heart, soul and back into organic farming by living and working in places they want to visit, and to do it cheaply. They have groups in many countries. Here's a bit from the Canadian branch:

Willing Workers On Organic Farms and World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.... more

One of the true wonders of this age we live in is the ease of connections between people. I've found many old friends I'd lost in the course of international moves, and made an astonishing number of news ones, thanks to the pervasive and sticky threads of the World Wide Web.

Discovering what can link one person to another, and another, and another, is simply a "Google" away, as just about any aspect of life that that folks might have in common can be found, listed, described on the super search engines ... hobbies, illnesses, religions, personal histories, goals, foods,... more

Like Mo on the Korea Adoption Blog, I, too, have been blessed when it comes to friends. From all over the world, of different ages, religions, ethnicities…species, even… treasured relationships have developed, been fostered and thrived year after year. No matter distance, my friends are my friends, and the longer I live the more friends I have and the more I treasure each one.

I’ve had the honor of being befriended by an orang utan, a couple of chimps, a giraffe and a lemur, as well as a number of dogs, cats and birds,... more

In a perfect world, there would be no adoption. Every child born would be treasured by someone able to care for it and every person wanting to parent would be delivered of a healthy infant. Every father would be lovingly involved. Every pregnancy would be welcome. Food would be plentiful, shelter, cozy and available. Clean water would flow with abundance. The sky would be blue; the birds would sing, blah, blah, blah.

I may live in paradise, but it ain't like that. And wanting it doesn't make it exist, no matter how emphatic the wanting.

A question was posed... more

Erin of Transracial Blog fame here on AdoptionBlogs.com gave a call for favorite quotes. Mine leapt immediately to mind. Not words that would ever have passed over the lips of the Mahatma, the simple eloquence has inspired me through the years, as succinctly pithy phrases are meant.

It's Hemingway, pure and simple:

The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.

To give context, it's from a scene in "The Sun Also Rises" where a drunken Jake Barns and... more