Melissa | January 28, 2012
If you haven’t done so, I highly recommend reading whatever you read before your child came home again…after the fact. We’re in the middle of 7 weeks of homework for an upcoming training and I just reread a book that I’ve always believed in, The Connected Child: Bring hope and healing to your adoptive family. [...]
Melissa | January 7, 2012
January’s Christianity Today ran an article, “Open Arm, Closed Doors” (pages 15-17) that is just one of a slew of recent publications to bring attention to the dramatic decrease in international adoptions over the past few years. Usually such articles briefly mention that slow downs are due to new regulations that aim to crack down on [...]
Melissa | December 15, 2011
Five years ago, even though we didn’t know it, our bouncy, pouncy, Ty-ger of a child entered the world albeit 15 weeks early. He joined our family at 2 1/2 years old and our lives haven’t been the same.
Unlike our other two, he didn’t respond to cause-effect discipline or intuitively learn anything. We still have [...]
Melissa | November 23, 2011
Because November is National Adoption Month, I’d be remiss in not blogging about it or at least giving an update on Ty (and our current adoption process).
On paper, Ty’s almost 5.
There’s one camp that see him as 5 and expect him to act that way. They lay out how he should be acting based on his [...]
Melissa | October 9, 2011
Our long home study interview was today. Each agency and country is different, but this will be 2 of 4 (our orientation meeting at our agency counted as #1).
Again, since each agency and country is different, your interview will probably look a little bit different but this is how ours went today.
Our social worker did [...]
Melissa | October 2, 2011
This is kind of a post-in-progress. We find ourselves with a strong-willed child from a hard place in our home. I’m hoping there are more of you out there.
For our purposes, I’m going to define the key words like this:
Strong-willed: Thrives on conflict. Has difficulty obeying right away…ever. Always fights to be “right.”
From a hard [...]
Melissa | September 10, 2011
The adoption process (either getting your child home or parenting your child) will undoubtedly bring stress. I actually thought our second time through would be easier because we had experience on our side. WRONG. Learn to deep breath and then turn it all over to God. Otherwise your blood pressure numbers may be prohibitive in [...]
Melissa | September 3, 2011
We did not have an attachment plan but maybe we should have. I won’t lie. The cocooning part of attachment plans makes me want to shrivel up and die. I think the 3 kids (who are all extroverts) might have shrivelled up during an extended cocooning time as well. However, I think there is validity [...]
Melissa | August 27, 2011
I interupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you the YES Challenge.
I’ve been practicing in secret but now that you all know, we can keep each other accountable.
Step 1: Read this article.
Step 2: See how many YES’s you can accumulate this weekend.
(Hint: Be creative. For example, if you were going to say YES to a [...]
Melissa | August 20, 2011
For us, the hardest part of adoption is not the actual parenting a child from a hard place. Although that certainly has not been easy. For us, we’re lucky to get through our home study in one piece. If we can get past that, it seems like smooth sailing from there.
I know I’ve said it [...]
