My Learning Curve: No Farmers Market for my Sensory Boy
They May be Dandelions…
Looming Deadlines
Helloooooo
Mimi Breaks the Block
“There’s Nothing to Eat”
Stop. Take Three Deep Breaths.
At the Mile High Airport
Topsy Turvy Monday
I know it isn’t really Tuesday, but I’ve missed posting your questions the last few weeks and decided I would do one today despite it being Wednesday. My girls had a four day Easter weekend, so it feels like Tuesday to me!
This great question came from Leslie who asked:
Our 7 year-old Ethiopian daughter, K., has been with us for a year. We are in process of adopting a 3 year old boy and hope to travel for court in July.
We are trying to decide whether to take our daughter with us.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic; it's just a rare and calm moment.
It is 3:00 in the afternoon and I am finally putting up today’s Tuesday Topic. It’s a good one, so even though it hasn’t been up all day, I hope you will take a moment to leave a comment. Stacy wrote,
What looked like an initial easy first 6 months home, one of my new four is now constantly lying to me (never to my husband). She will look right at me, lie then say, “Mom I promise I am not lying!!” This happens over and over for sometimes hours on end, in the meantime she is screaming like a small 2 year old having a fit. She is around 8 years old. I started rocking her in the rocking chair two nights ago and then instantly had two great days, but WHAM, today she is back to not listening to anything I say and lying…
Dimples feels safe when the freezer is filled with food.
Last month we had a Tuesday Topic that I wanted to answer, but I didn’t quite get to it. The question was:
How do you help your kids feel safe so they can make progress toward attachment and healing?
I love the answers so many of you have shared to this question. I was going to add my thoughts as a comment, but as I considered it, I realized that my children require different things to feel safe in our family and home. They are all unique with different histories and personalities. There are, of course, many basic rules and routines that provide safety for everyone. Some of them are:
Ladybug made the best Irish Soda Bread ever!
On Tuesday I shared Melissa’s question; she asked if those of us who adopted older children are seeing positive change and growth. I have loved reading your responses and found them very encouraging. If you have not yet responded, please take a moment to add your thoughts to the original post. If you haven’t read it yet, you will love seeing the positive answers from families.
Earlier this week I was talking with my friend Jennifer about the ways that our families are coping with some of our children’s needs. We came to the conclusion that it is essential to look back at where we’ve come from rather than worry about where we are headed. It is easy for me to let my mind run anxiously to the future, worrying over details I cannot control, rather than recount the amazing progress we’ve made.
Notes on Hope began as a Tuesday Topic and was such an encouragement to me and my readers, that I didn’t want it to drop down the page and disappear from view. The comments on this post are wonderful, especially if you are parenting children from “hard places.”
I want to keep these thoughts coming, and may develop it into a weekly feature, but for today, I’m going to highlight this on my sidebar in the hope that people will stumble upon it.
Please add your comments and stories of progress. We want to hear from you – let’s encourage one another.
Lisa
It’s Tuesday and time for a new Tuesday Topic. This one comes from a friend-of-a-friend who currently has three children 7, 4, and 1 at home, as well as an older son in college. Nine months ago they added their oldest and youngest to their now- four year old. Their seven year old is having an extremely challenging adjustment.
Melissa asked a question that I think will be a great encouragement to all of us, and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some good news! This is what Melissa wrote:
This week’s Tuesday Topic comes from Carla who writes,
Our adopted daughter from Ethiopia has expressed to us several times that she wishes she had white skin and hair like ours. This is a major concern I have always had since we began our adoption journey to Ethiopia. I was always told that it all had to do with how we handled it and if we didn’t have problems with it, then our adopted children wouldn’t. Well, I don’t believe this is true because it is an obvious difference that these children see and have to deal with.
Russ is out of town for work and it has been snowing like crazy, once again making life a little bit more complicated. Fortunately the guys have been able to get in out and of our driveway without needing to plow. With more snow predicted, we’re thankful that Russ will be home very soon. I am particularly proud of Ladybug who went out in the crazy, blowing snow to feed the cows. She is amazing!
I am happy to announce the winner of last week’s giveaway of the Empowering, Connecting & Correcting Principles DVD from Empowered to Connect and Dr. Karyn Purvis.
This week’s Tuesday Topic comes from Campbell who wrote this in response to the earlier conflict over the Rockin’ Mama Challenge. We have had a good exchange of emails and I suggested I post her question here.
Upon reading the difficulty you had in finding only 15 minutes in a day to spend with one of your children (GIMH Rockin’ Mama Challenge) I had to ask myself why a person would have so many children. I’ve always been of the mindset that people can have too many children and that when they do, it’s unfair to the children as they cannot possibly receive as much attention as they need, and deserve.
For context, I’m an adopted person who is not anti adoption. I am not religious and do not subscribe to adoption being any group’s God’s will and I do believe in hugging/cuddling children of any age that want it.
Campbell and I have had a nice email exchange and I think I can fairly say that this is a genuine question and not a mean-spirited barb. I encourage you to answer with that in mind – let’s have a good discussion. I would love to hear from you.
Do you have a Tuesday Topic you would like to ask? Please email it to me at:
lisa@onethankfulmom.com
If you put Tuesday Topic in the subject line it will help me a bit. Also, if you’ve left a question in the comments that you would like to ask as a Tuesday Topic, feel free to send it to me via email and I’ll make sure to get it in the queue.
Encourage one another,
Lisa
It is early Tuesday morning and I am up while my family sleeps; how I love the quiet. The challenge for my morning is that we have no water. No water at all.
