Karen's Journey

 Happy Teshalie! I've had a couple of venting posts recently, and got to thinking that even though we still have rough days/hours/events, we've made a lot of progress, and I should post about that. T wore one of his various (he has four now) winter jackets all winter long. As opposed to last winter when he refused for two weeks? Three weeks? A month? It was a long time during a cold, snowy upstate New York winter. I took him to his last dentist appointment by myself. He was a little dysregulated, but not beyond my ability to handle. W didn't need to bring in Daddy to be the Big Gun. He refused to let the nurse swab his throat when we took him in to check for strep last month. But after she left the room, we talked, and I allowed him to tell me why he wasn't cooperating. He said it doesn't feel good. I validated his feelings, gave him lots of hugs, assured him he could do it, and when the doctor came in, he let her swab. Sometimes it just takes letting him expr

Mr. Grumpy has returned in a Big Way. When I picked T up from school, he got into the van muttering crabbily. I couldn't identify the words. He said he had a good time at school, but when we talked about what 'W' word he came up with today ("window") and I told him that was a great word, he started muttering crabbily again. He got out of the van announcing he wasn't going to shut the door, because I had opened it. That was it; first I made him shut the door ("you were the last one out, and my hands are full"), then I made him tell me why he was so grumpy (or no tv tonight -- I'm tired of the grumpies with no explanation of why we're grumpy. If we're going to be grumpy, we need to use our words to explain why.) He said it's because I got him too early from school and he didn't have enough time to play with his friends. Of course, this morning he didn't want to go to school; he hates school. So it's lose-lose. We'

In a follow up to my prior post about public broadcasting, I thought I would take a page from Clifford's 10 Big Ideas and post his 10 big ideas ("share"). What does this have to do with adoption? Maybe not much, directly. What does it have to do with my general philosophy on how we should live our lives and teach our children? A lot. Share Be Responsible Be Truthful Be Kind Believe in Yourself Be a Good Friend Have Respect Help Others Work Together Play Fair

A white circle in a black square! Actually, it's the moon over Green Lakes State Park during our September camping trip. I desperately need a telephoto lens!  A slightly better photo of the moon, taken this winter. There is a movement afoot by people of political ideologies that frankly infuriate me to zero out federal funding for public broadcasting. This is under the guise of balancing the budget, but the $400 million we're talking about amounts to $1.35 per person per year, and won't even make a dent in reducing the federal deficit. We were willing to hand $70 billion to fat cat bankers who still got their $20 million a year salaries and multi million dollar bonuses even after destroying the global economy, but we're going to take Sesame Street away from our children? While also taking away Head Start programs? I firmly believe this is not about balancing the budget; this is about restricting access to information. But enough of me on my soapbox. What I want re