It's the end of the month, so time for me to clean off my desk and dish out the information I've been hoarding lately.

For starters, if you've been thinking about adopting from China, but now will no longer qualify due to their upcoming new restrictions, there's a new Yahoo group for you.

Here's the description from their home page:

Ineligible to adopt from China? Welcome.
Already have Chinese children but no longer orphan eligible? Again, welcome. Where ever you live!
From where will you seek an adoptee, or will you no longer? Maybe you've already begun the paperchase or completed an adoption from another country?
Let's focus on countries for which people would now qualify. Considering age, health, marital status, kids, etc... Parenting a multi-cultural family, dossiers, & travel.
Celebrate your child & their culture. You're unique families.
Please maintain respectful posts to all! China, CCAA, any country & their people, as well. Nothing personal, but no bad attitudes allowed.
Let's have a safe haven for all to share, relax, & feel comfortable. About ourselves & our children. From wherever in the world they may come.

******************************

Legislators in Arkansas are debating what to do about overweight kids.

Part of the plan is to measure BMI (that Body Mass Index thing the Chinese government is all head-over-heels about these days), then send the results home to parents. Not everyone thinks this is a good idea.

According to this report from New Zealand, however, parents there need some help noticing the elephant in the room ... so to speak.

New research backs a view that most parents can't tell whether their children are overweight.

They're suggesting ... guess what? ... that schools provide info on BMI.

**************************

In one of those ain't-it-nice-to-hear sort of reports, here's one that states with authority that, "Delinquency Risk No Greater In Families With Stepparents". It also links to a guide to stepparenting.

"The evidence suggests that divorce will have an effect on delinquency only where a two-parent family structure is not re-established," said Edwin Page, who did the research for his doctoral dissertation in sociology. "Youths living in two-parent families where one parent was a stepparent were no more delinquent than those living with both of their biological parents."

... "It's not the biological connection, it's the social connection -- having an intact family structure ..."

And speaking of divorce ... this article suggests that tomorrow could be make-it-or-break-it day.

According to a survey of married couples in Europe, if your relationship makes it through the next 24 hours or so, you're likely to stay hitched for the whole year.

A flirt over a punch bowl or a kiss under the mistletoe may be all it takes to convince estranged spouses that other people think they are attractive and witty and don't nag and grumble the way their spouses do.

They wake up on New Year's Day to the grim reality that the party is over and that they face another year in the same boring old relationship.

So the bad news is that January is the month when the most marriages break up and the most engagements are broken off. But the good news is that relationships that survive the month of January are likely to survive the whole year.

... But like a New Year's Eve hangover, the sobering reality of January turns out for many couples to be the dawning realization that their own relationship, for all its faults, is not so bad after all, or at least that it is not worth ending on the off chance that a new relationship might be any better in the long run.

*****************************

And here's a reunion story I just can't pass up.

Through a convoluted set of circumstances that's worth a read, Cujo, a golden retriever, who went missing from his St. Louis home in July of 2000 was reunited with his family a few days ago. Good dog!

Sniff ...