We're flying home today, so I'll be back at you soon.

Since I've been in the land of a hundred channels, today's rerun is about our one little TV station in Seychelles:

Bratz? What the heck are Bratz? Bratz buzz is happening all over parenting sites and once again I'm out of the loop, in the cold, behind the curve, insert the new cool way to say old and uncool > here. What I'm picking up third, fourth and eleventh... more

Getting close to the end of our trip, but still not home, so you're stuck with a couple more reruns. Sorry ... As you know, we live on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean. It's usually hot here, and if it's not hot, it's very warm, at least by the standards of folks who live in more temperate climes.

We do have seasons ... sort of ... but the changes from one to the next aren't usually noted by casual visitors. You have to live here for a while before you can smell the difference between the Southeast Monsoon and the Northwest.

Kids... more

Yes, I'm still away ... but this story deserves a second telling. By the way, the waving cat here can be seen in just about every shop, office, restaurant and mini-market in Singapore ... which is where I am at the moment. They must really work at bringing in the luck, at least for anyone making waving cats! Perhaps I'll by a gross and call them Christmas gifts?

This is one of those tales that has become the stuff of legend in my... more

Sorry. More hash. Or is this rehash?

Like many adoptive parents, Mark and I are sometimes stunned by how much our kids take after us. Even physical similarities, like Sam's feet ... just like his dad's (and Fred Flintstone's, although there's no connection there we can establish) ... and the way Cj can roll her tongue like I can, go far to strengthen our view that these kids were meant to be ours.

My son is a Super Hero. Well,... more

Sorry if the hash and rehash is getting boring, but I'm still away.

Is it a parent's job to worry about everything? Or simply our pleasure? Do motherhood and anxiety naturally go together? Does the primitive part of our brain ... that place in our heads where everything learned while our species lived in caves and ate raw bear meat continues to mold us into thinking animals ... automatically imagine the worst of the worst whenever we're called upon to fill in the gaps?

... more

Still away ... so enjoy the reruns! For anyone just stepping into the shallow end of the adoption pool, here's a post with some pointers from back in February regarding web groups:

There are a couple of things most people learn after enthusiastically joining every Web group, listserve and forum they come across while searching for information in the early stages of the adoption process: they can be addictive, and not everyone... more

Still taking the memory bus back to the land of previous posts ...

Language acquisition is one of the things toddlerhood is all about. Too often, parents find out just how much their kid has picked up when a "bad" word slips or a family secret pops out in the wrong company. Oooops. How kids assimilate vocabulary depends on many factors, but being talked TO is probably the biggest advantage they can have.

In my world, talking happens a lot. But it's ... more

Still tripping down memory lane ...

Back in February, I was prompted to notice how many adoptive moms on groups I visit have husbands younger than themselves. (Mark will be 40 in a few months, so he's catching up with me, but still spry enough to make life grand!)

There’s a lot to learn from Web groups, list serves, whatever you like to call them, and one for pretty much anyone about pretty much anything. I belong to far too many, but glean knowledge... more

Six months have passed since Adoptionblogs commenced, and in that time I've published somewhere around 400 posts on the International Adoption blog and the Older Parent page, combined.

A convenient synchronicity has this half-year anniversary coincide with the week I'll be away in Singapore, so I'm taking the hint and leading a meander back over the months highlighting some of my favorite posts.

Different past entries will appear daily on each of my blogs, so if you want to get up to speed, you can read both.

Apologies in advance for... more