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Autumn Leaves -- Too Quickly

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When I was younger, fall was my favorite season. It seemed, as I day-dreamed out the school windows, that the crimsons, golds, and fiery oranges were a painted canvas to be enjoyed for weeks on end. Now the leaves are a fleeting show of glorious colors one weekend only to be ripped off by a windstorm the next, leaving us to stare at a world of gray and white for the next seven months. Perhaps if I actually had a window to look out while working, I could contentedly watch the season ease into into its show throughout the weeks of September and October, until finally exploding into the grand finale -- and not feel so cheated when the leaves are so unceremoniously flung to the ground to make way for the coming snow. Oh, autumn, to quote Marvell: "...yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found..." So while I was at Green Lakes over the weekend, I took time to just soak in the colors, albeit with a five year old at my side peppering m
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Break My Heart

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"I happy you my Mommy and Daddy." Teshale has often shared that he misses his house and his family in "'topia." He seemed to really like his new home until his English expressive language developed to the point he could talk about his feelings, and likes and dislikes. "I no like this house," he would say as we would return home after school. "I want MY house." "MY house" means his house in Ethiopia. "I no like this house!" he would say at bedtime. "I want MY house." For quite a while, he expressed his desire to go back to his family in Ethiopia. He seemed to like us ok, but let's face it; he knows he has a "real" family in Ethiopia -- "real" in the sense of the one he was born into. He remembers his siblings and his Gashe -- his uncle, and the woman he called 'Ama' -- mother -- quite clearly. And he misses them terribly. If someone plucked me up from my home in the northeas
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Adopting the Older Child -- Part 4: Power Struggles

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The stairs at the right of the photo were the site of one of our early power struggles -- T wanted to jump from the platform, and I didn't want to him cracking open his skull. "I don't like you. You mean." I hear that a lot, typically in response to things like "Time to pick up your toys," or "You need to take your vitamin," or "It's time to get dressed for school," or "Time to brush your teeth." Basic, every day power struggle stuff. T wants to keep playing, doesn't want to go to school, doesn't like any of his clothes, doesn't understand why he needs to brush his teeth twice a day every day, and most definitely does not want to take those yucky vitamins. He even rebels at being called to the dinner table. I try to avoid power struggles by using the options approach: "It's time to get ready for school -- do you want to get dressed first or brush your teeth first?" Or, "It's time to get
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