Although I have four kids, only half of them came to me as newborns. Sam and Cj were both over three-months-old before we were allowed to meet them, touch them, smell them, and bring them home, and although that is young for international adopted children, as anyone who's been around babies knows, a three-month-old is most certainly not a newborn.

I still begrudge every minute of those three months these kids were out of my grasp, and am often reminded just how much I missed in having them pass those early days... more

Sam and Cj have a life so different from that my first lot of kids lived as children. Of course, having a teen mom gives a whole different flavor to childhood from the one a kid gets when mother is closer to a grandmotherly age ... or even great-grandmotherly -- ack! ... and though both can be tasty, there's no denying they're not the same. (I tended to burn the cookies more often when I was younger, for one thing, and relied way too much on... more

What's the number one concern for older adoptive parents? Living long enough to see our kids through to adulthood.

It's not quite that simple, however, as it's also important that we're reasonably healthy through those years that lead to our children's independence, and beyond, if we're to avoid becoming a burden to the kids we brought home later in our lives.

An article in the new issue of AARP Mag titled, "Never... more

Could it be that we Boomers are not less healthy than the generations that preceded us, but only just as healthy as, and that that comes as a big disappointment to a bunch of folks as used to excelling as we are? So, before we go getting all depressed about the fact that we're going to die someday and that we're most likely not going to beat all records for hanging around longer and fitter than any group of people in the history of the world... more

There has been the suggestion that perhaps it's not that those of us in our generation, the Boomers, are really sicker than previous generations, but that we expect to be so much healthier than everyone who came before us, that as a generation we're so accustomed to being the best and the brightest and having the newest and shiniest that we can't live up to our own image of what we're supposed to feel like at 55 or 60.

It's sometimes frighteningly... more

A blog in the Huffington Post caught my eye this morning with the title, "Are Baby Boomers Sicker Than Their Parents?"

Written in reaction to an article in the Washington Post that looked at a study funded by the National Institute on Aging,... more

Unlike some of the bloggers here, I don't follow soap operas, so the apparently continuing adoption-related thread through the story line ... like sands through an hourglass? ... on "All My Children" has passed me by.

My dear friend, Gay,... more

Sometimes I am almost knocked sideways by the bits of my life that seem miraculous. Bouts of "How in the world did I get so lucky?", and such not only give me pause, they put a pause in my pauses, and reflecting on the circumstances that carried me from Point A to the Point B I live now is a practice in deep meditation on the wonders of the universe. Case in point:

I am three months away from my fifty-sixth birthday, and last night I celebrated the second anniversary of my daughter's birth. Yep. I put two little... more

With the new regulations on adopting from China coming into play next month, readers are asking what other countries impose a maximum age limit for adoption. (China is lowering theirs to 50, or 55 for special needs kids.) Although most countries are clear about the minimum age allowed between child and adoptive parents ... most often asking for parents 25 or older, or a certain number of years between child and parents ... those that... more

As always, I've collected tidbits of interest over the week and find my desk cluttered with things I've been wanting to share with you.

I'll start with Disney, and the new website they're starting up.

Unlike their entertainment sites with games and toys and such, this one is touted to be a, "one-stop site for parents, especially mothers, providing everything from Internet search to user-generated articles on... more