Thursday, March 31, 2011

Momma’s Super Girl

CoCo tutuI am taking CoCo back to have the school district tomorrow to have them re-evaluate her to see if she qualifies for Special-Ed services now that she is 3. They had “graduated” her from early intervention right before I got her MRI results back. They felt like she was right on the cut-off for services, so they went with graduating her (giving her the boot as I say).

I spent Monday and Tuesday trying to track down the actual report, they hadn’t sent it to her doctor and after every appoint out here in the satellite office, they transport all of the charts back to Children’s downtown.

I was finely able to get them to fax them out here to our doctor and since I had to take Amélie in anyway, it ended up working out well…two days and 20 phone calls later.

As I was driving to the office, I remembered a conversation I had had with a friend about six months after CoCo’s big adventure. It was a very lonely and frustrating time for me. I was here with three kids, on my own. I was having issues revolving around my oldest and I had this baby that I felt was not quite right, and I wasn’t really comfortable talking about it to most people.

But on this night, I was up chatting with a friend. We mostly talked shop, music, and pop culture. Well this late night, they said something like, “no, really what is going on?” and I proceeded to list all of the reasons I felt like maybe some was wrong with her.

“She crawls funny.”

“I had a nephew that crawled like that too.”

“She isn’t walking yet.”

“My nephew didn’t walk until she was 18 months.”

“She isn’t even trying to talk.”

“My same nephew didn’t talk until he was 3.”

I went on to name a few more things I was seeing as developmental red flags. And like a good friend does they continued to reassure me that, it was fine, she was fine because their nephew had followed almost the same developmental path.

“Maybe I am just over reacting. Maybe I am just paying too much attention because of the seizure, or something? I’m sure your right I feel much better now.”

“Yeah, I am sure that is it…oh….” And then, “…………”

“What?”

“…”

“No, really, what?”

“Um…..never mind. Now that I am talking and thinking about it…that is my nephew who has Cerebral Palsy”

I laughed Hard. Really, really hard. I mean I laughed like somebody who hadn’t laughed in six months. I so needed to laugh at cerebral Palsy that night and I did –like, only somebody who has already accepted the truth can.

I got in the car yesterday, I looked at the envelop. I had been told, I thought why look? Because I am me I had to see it for myself that is why, so I open the envelope, and I looked at the report. I skipped to the end and there it was, impression: Borderline Developmental Delay / Static (not going to change) Encephalopathy (brain damage). I have to say that seeing it in black and white did feel weird, but honestly I just keep thinking how lucky she is…borderline, and very lucky.

She walks, she talks and according to her she has “super powers”, Yep, lucky girl.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Blogger: To Tell Truth - Please Stand Up - Stats

Search Key words

Search Keywords

sunday koffron blogspot (112 Xs since I began my blog)

blue koffron

sunday koffron 

adoptee

foster kids detachment

i cant stand foster kids

my life in foster care and orphanges.com

taylor laugner penis

Blogger: To Tell Truth - Please Stand Up – Stats

Every once in a while I check out my blog stats, sometimes it is a kick to see what words of phrases people searched that led them to my site. This is what I saw when I looked today. Some are amusing, some slightly disturbing and one confusing.

sunday koffron BlogSpot (112 times since I began my blog) – Really? I have only written about 150 posts since I started my blog in was it in August? Since they are not just searching for Sunday Koffron, but rather Sunday koffron BlogSpot, they obviously know I have a blog. Right? Why not just bookmark it? Add it to your favorites? Now I realize that I may NOT actually be a favorite of whoever is searching for Sunday koffron BlogSpot. I dare say they may even, very likely see me as more of a redheaded step-child, if you will. I am just saying, if you want to keep in such constant contact with my every thought and word, why not just bookmark my site, better yet subscribe by email and make things that much easier for yourself?

blue koffron – ?

sunday koffron - this I get.

adoptee – that too.

foster kids detachment – Yep that as well

i cant stand foster kids – Seriously? You hate foster kids? I hope that isn’t a foster parent, is all I have to say about that one

my life in foster care and orphanges.com – I’ll go with that, it makes sense.

taylor laugner penis – now you all know I just HAD to Google that one myself.  For research purposes, ya know. Yep there I am, 6th on the page. I have no idea who would be looking for Taylor Lautner's penis or why they would think I had it…but there you go…life is strange. Maybe there are only 6 degrees of separation between me and Taylor Lautner's penis?

Monday, March 28, 2011

The Life of a Mom

amelie tutu

This morning somebody had thrown all of the clean clothes onto the living room floor and was using the laundry basket as a stable for their horses.

I said to Amélie, “I need you to take those horses out of the laundry basket and put the clothes back in.”

“I didn’t take them out. Why don’t you make CoCo do it?”

“She is sleeping and she is too little any way.”

“That is not fair!”

“Now you see how Maddie feels when she has to clean up messes you have made, just because she is older.” Says Mr. Sunday.

I say, “We are a family, and that is what families do. We help each other out and we do things for each other when the other can’t do it for themselves. You are too little to wash your clothes, wash the dishes or make your own meals so I do that for you.”

“You don’t feed me – dad does!”

Did you hear that ya’ll? I don’t feed her dad does? See how that works?

Those of you who know me in real life or who follow my blog regularly may realize Mr. Sunday works out of town. Mr. Sunday is home two days at a time. One of those days I get up early and go to work, the other, I sleep in and lounge around like a slug. He lives in a hotel with grown-ups, he goes to work, makes his microwave meals, reads the paper, and watches his coveted Jeopardy IN silence. I don’t begrudge him this…MUCH.

Today is a rare occasion where he is home on a Monday, I slept in and he drove Mad to the bus stop and toasted Ms. Amélie a bagel. And just like that…dad does EVERY thing all of the time.

Too bad I’m not more like Dad.

C'est la vie!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

The Cone of Silence

My kids graze constantly. Apples, oranges, bananas, cheese, yogurt, PB&J, you name it as long as it is semi healthy they can have it whenever they want it.

Our neighbor girl comes over after school to play but her mom has asked me not to let her eat anything here because she doesn’t eat her dinner when she gets home. Fair enough, she is their kid, I don’t mind, I am not offended. My kids always want this or that to eat while she is here and I try to put them off because it is rude to eat in front of our friends if they cannot eat too. I have suspected on occasion that it is actually their friend asking them to ask for food so she can have some. But I have never had any proof until today –


Enter the Cone of Silence:



“Amélie ask your mom for some and then you can give it to me, she won’t know”

Um…well…you are in a fairy tent…two feet away from “your mom”…I think she will know…it is a tent - not the Cone of Silence… she can hear you!!!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Everyone’s A Comedian

The other day I saw the neighbor man just getting home from work, pull in the driveway. Right as I was heading to the basement to flip the switch of the fuse I had just blown. Me being a big girl had no issue flipping the blown fuse, flipping the fuse box door shut…oh…drats…did Mr.Sunday say not to shut the door?

And with a shrug of my shoulders I headed back up the stairs. Oh well it wouldn’t be a problem unless I blew another fuse.

Like I did the very moment I turned the blow dryer back on….

I trudge back down into the dungeon, otherwise known as my basement and the darn fuse box door just. Won’t. Open! I try pulling up it up, pulling it down, juggling it.

“Hey, I just shut the fuse box door.”

“Why did you do that? You can’t do that, it is really hard to get it back open, just jiggle it a little”

“Ha, been there, done that…I’ll figure it out…love ya…bye”

So I go back upstairs to look for a screw driver to pry it open. All I managed to come up with was a butter knife. After a few minutes of jamming the butter knife around in the fuse box I decide my pride wasn’t worth being electrocuted and I resigned myself to call the neighbor and ask for help.

“Hey, this is Sunday, your husband hasn’t gotten in to the shower yet has he?” (Remember I said I had just seen him come home from work?)

“Uh…NO…Uh…why…were you planning on joining him……………….?”

“Uhhhh…..NOOO….i was hoping he could come see if he could get my fuse box open for me, its stuck.”

“Oh, O.K. I’ll send him over”

“Thanks, Bye.”

I was puttering around in the kitchen waiting for the neighbor man, when I heard a knock on the door. I just called for him to “come in” and keep doing whatever it was I was doing.

“My wife said you needed me to come right over” he said.

I. Turn. Around. To. See. The neighbor man, in gym shoes, socks a t-shirt and a towel wrapped around his waist! Oh. My. God.

I laughed SOOO hard.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

It Was Bound To Happen, She Said “I Wish You Were Dead”

Her little sisters have been asking if I was going to die or why I’m not dead yet.

Yep, I knew they got that from somewhere.

I knew it was coming and Sunday it did.

“I wish you were dead!” She said.

I said, “Be careful little girl, you never what can happen in life. You never want to have to live with knowing that those were the last words you said to anyone. This I know firsthand.”

“Well that wasn’t your fault, saying that didn’t make that kid get hit by a car, you were just a kid yourself.”

“I was your age…almost exactly. And I still feel awful about it all of these years later, I never want you to have to live with that kind of guilt.”

And with tears in her eyes she looks up at me and she says,

“Can you take me shopping to look for some shoes?”

“No. If I were dead I couldn’t buy you shoes. I couldn’t load the dishwasher either, so you can go do that right now. Waking me up in the middle of the night to go get you water, that ends today too!”

Monday, March 21, 2011

Build Our Own Foster Family Tree Together

Way back when a friend and I were talking about how there were support groups for everything under the sun, but none for foster children or foster care alumni. She got the ball rolling found some other former foster kids and we started a small support group and a Foster Care Alumni Association in Michigan. We met for a while at The Church of Today and at each other’s homes. I became a new mom and fell away from the group as I got drawn in to my new role of a mother.

But all along, though the pregnancies, carpools, school concerts and gym meets my heart always leads me back to my foster kin. My foster brothers and sisters especially the young ones who find themselves lost and alone in the world. Anxious and frightened about just who they are and how they are going to make it in a world, who I am kidding I still feel that way sometimes, Just not quite as much as I used to. I have always wanted to reach out and interact with them.

Since I have been blogging I have come a crossed some really neat former fosters / foster care alumni, and when I read about some of our common struggles about how overwhelming and confusing the little things that other people take for granted I think wouldn’t it be great if we had some place we could go that would be totally positive and supportive? A place where we could ask others how they dealt with this or that or where we could get compassionate advice or encouragement? Wouldn’t that be cool?

And since I haven’t come a crossed that place in blog land yet. I thought we should build our own Foster Family Tree site together. What do Ya’ll say?

Sunday, March 20, 2011

All In A Days Work-Out

wedgie pullSo at the gym one of my girls who always has a bit her undies hanging of her leotard was apparently wearing granny style bloomers today. They were really bugging her because every time she did anything she would stop and try to stuff them back in.

Finely she says, “these underwear are making me crazy!”

Another girl says, “that’s why I never wear any!”

Coach Sunday says, “Oh, I know me either…I can’t stand them!!!”

At which point every kid in my class completely stopped, stunned and shocked looking at me like I had lost my mind.

It took me a minute… I meant when I wore a leo…like 20+ years ago…when I did gymnastics myself (it is a deduction if they are showing)…not today…under my yoga pants…I assure you…I am ALL about the boy-shorts.

Can you imagine the car ride home today?

I finish every class with, “Did everyone have fun today? Did everyone learn something new?”

“Yes! Coach Sunday never wears any panties... She can’t stand them!”

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Score One For Puberty.

I knew that one day it would happen and today it did! My 12 year-old got up, on her own, took a shower, washed her hair and blew it dry – all in time to make the bus. I am supper stoked. Of course this will still be the predominate scowl look on her face. In turn I expect to see more of these types of expressions on the faces of her sisters (and I).

But today mommy’s face looks like this, Open-mouthed smilebecause I believe that at least the, “you need to wash your hair today” argument will be one we won’t be having on a regular basis anymore.

Score one for puberty.

If A Picture Paints A Thousand Words…

P3150543

Than this picture needs no explanation. Life with three girls… I am done for the day. 

Calgon, take me away!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Colds and Conversations

017At work tonight every one of my kids showed up with runny red nose - that is except for the one with the strep skin infection. (It was covered and she had been on antibiotics since Thursday...but still.) Yuck!

I called my husband on the way home a little miffed that he hadn’t called me at all yesterday, what’s up with that?

“Yesterday?”

“Yeah, what was that about?”

“Um…Honey…today is Monday…I was home, with you all day yesterday…”

“Ooohh! Never mind”

I got home to find MY two little ones with runny red noises. Mad and I got ours over the weekend. CoCo was absolutely bouncing off the walls, which is typical for the nights I work. She has to make up for all of the attention she missed while I was gone.

I was sitting on my bed trying to get some quick reading in with Amélie and CoCo was not wanting any of it. She kept jumping on my lap and trying to knock her sister off of the bed, just a generally needy mess. Finely I told her that she either had to lay down quietly here, in my bed or she would have to go lay down in her own bed. She was very hurt but she laid her head down on the pillow, pulled the cover up and looked up at me with her very sad, and sickly eyes and said,

“Take care of me”

To which Amélie said, (and I am quoting verbatim)

“CoCo, you never have to worry, our mommy will never fail to take care of us.”

Monday, March 14, 2011

The Anywhere but Here Girl...: On Adoption and Belonging...

Adoption, the institution that gives and takes for generations to come.

I think many people forget or have never thought about how adoption affects the next generation. Whether it is just wondering where you came from or if it is having to survive being parented by someone who is suffering under the burden of unresolved/unrecognized trauma its affects carry over. Katydid talks about finding her mother’s original family:

I know it is not the same as being the adoptee herself but I always felt out of place, like I didn't belong to anyone and would be completely alone in the world when my parents were gone. I feel the the ripple effects of adoption are tremendous and not much thought is given to the second generation who misses out on grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins... The loss may be different but the wound is deep.

The Anywhere but Here Girl...: On Adoption and Belonging...

Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Note To My Fellow Foster Care Alumni

Bad stuff happens to good people, it is not fair but it is true. You deserved better than you got. From your original parents, from your workers and from the system, they let you down. That is not your fault. You did not make this mess you are currently sitting in, nope you didn’t. Where you are at is not the wrong place. It is exactly where they dropped you off and left you to your own devices. I would say you are exactly where you would be expected to be. But the truth is if you are not currently incarcerated, homeless, and pregnant by 20, or have lost custody of your own kids, you have already beaten the statistics. Got a job? You are a raging frigging success! I commend you, that is no small feat for folks like us.

Some of us have had it worse than others. Some of us go on to be academically successful; some have great success in their careers. Some of us beat all reasonable expectations by still being alive at 25. What I am saying baby, is that you are ok. I know you don’t believe me now but it is true.

Growing up I was lucky that I had staff and social workers who had come through the system, and they would tell me that I had the power over my own life, that things would get better and that I could do anything I put my mind to. *cough* *choke* *gag* oh yeah, *eye roll* they just didn’t understand what it was like to live in my head. They must not have been as damaged as I was in the first place. They must not have lost as much as I lost. They must not have had to resort to the kind of stuff I did to survive. They just didn’t get what it was like to be me. I just knew they were all wrong about me. I was not like them.

I cut, I drank (I blacked out), I fought, I slept around, I couch surfed for years and I did a lot of really stupid things. I hitch-hiked a crossed this country several time trying to find someplace – any place I belonged. I loved people, hurt people and I made many mistakes. It wasn’t pretty for a while, but I survived, I thrived.

…And so will you my sweet, sensitive, wounded little sister (or brother). I can see those eyes rolling now. I know you think I am wrong. I don’t know what it was like to live in your head. I don’t know what it was like to live your life or feel your pain. And I don’t know exactly. But what I do know is that our lives, our pasts, and the amount of pain we have been able to withstand have left us uniquely qualified for survival. You won’t catch me shedding a single tear because the garage door open broke. (Now burning a hole in my only winter coat, well…what can I say?)

There is a lot left here for you to do. You are the voice for our younger foster kin, our little brothers and sisters who are stuck in a broken system, most of whom will find themselves out in the cold and on their own the day they turn 18, just like you and just like me. Your voice can help advocate for them. Your voice can help change that. You have a book to write, a song to sing, a meal to serve, a hand to hold or a billboard to paint. You are crazy strong and foster care gave you a crazy powerful will.

No, you didn’t make that mess, it’s not fair but I know you are capable of cleaning it up. I know you are fully capable of doing anything that you put your mind to. And I know that you have a lot of good left to do in this life. Keep on keeping on, I have high expectations for you.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Jiggle Dance

Those of you who follow me on FaceBook or Twitter may have seen my 2 am-ish post asking what the heck was banging around in my attic. I got lots of great guesses, ghosts, the wind, benign trolls and my niece claimed it was her. But if you guessed:

raccoon

You were right, that is him, our uninvited guest.  If you know me and my attachment “issues” you know I was seriously trying to figure out how we could all cohabitate. He was so cute the my girls wanted to keep him, alas Mr. Sunday and common sense prevailed and he went for a little ride in the wee hours of Monday morning, the way I hear it he took off running as fast as he could…right back in the direction of our house. If he shows back up around here I may just think it was meant to be.

Of course I tell a neighbor about our uninvited house guest, and she says, “you should have borrowed our trap, my husband catches them all of the time. He just takes them back by the pond and lets them go.” Any guesses about where ‘out back by the pond’ is? Ding, ding, ding…MY. BACK. YARD.

 

Did anybody else catch The 10th Anniversary Concert performance of Les Misérables at London's Royal Albert Hall on PBS?

CoCo le miz

Yep, that is what ‘CoCo’ (our Cosette) thought about it. She was is yelling “I can’t hear you.” the whole time.

 

Apparently CoCo has special powers that enable her to put marker all over her face.

She’s Got The Power–It’s getting, It’s getting, It’s getting of hectic (jiggle dance)

But don’t worry, she can turn them off.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Attachment, How Disordered Is It Really?

What do I have to say about attachment?  I am not an adoptee.  Nor am I an adoptive parent.  Me? I’m just a former foster child and the daughter of a former foster child/adoptee.  I think I may have a thing or two to say about attachment.

I have been told that I had intestinal issues when I was a baby and that nobody wanted to change my diapers and that they avoided being around me, that apparently I took that personally and because of that they said I never properly bonded to my mother. That all sounded like a bunch of baby doo–doo to me at the time (I was still a kid), and it still does now. (Although just now writing this I recall one of my mother’s go to phrases about how I “walked around as if my shit didn’t stink” so, maybe not total psyco- dookie after all.) The way I see it my mother never fully attached to ME and even as a little kid I knew it.

When I was around six my mom (who reads my blog, just an FYI) decided that she deserved more in life. She moved out, we got nannies and they filed for divorce. She was “looking out for #1.” her phrase, not mine (and one that still makes me physically cringe to hear to this day) I heard it a LOT. And my oldest sibling was sent away to boarding school.

We went through something like 13 nannies over the next 3 years. Which only speaks to two things – my father was not so good at picking the women he expected to take care of his kids and my brother and I were pretty good at showing our dislike of our circumstances. We were just kids who wanted our life back and weren’t going to get it.

Some nannies we liked some we loved and some we just wanted to disappear.

After a few years we (nanny included) ended up living with our mother. It was a nasty divorce. They fought and went to court about everything all of the time and every penny was a point of contention. Some of those pennies were the ones that paid for the nanny. When she left, (the one nanny that we loved) She was never replaced, and my mother was stuck with two kids and no nanny. Daddy’s new wife wasn’t having any of it, which left us at ten and eleven completely unsupervised and unattended to.

My mother and father started the little game of dropping their children off on each other’s doorsteps and driving away at all hours. We stopped going to school. My mother dropped us off and left us at runaway shelters and other places, she even had me removed from my own house as a runaway, and I was like eleven years old.

By the time we had ended up in court over my truancy, I was a mess and had had enough. On the advice of my social worker I asked the judge to be placed in foster care. My SS worker said it was clear that I was not going to be cared for at home and that nothing would change.

I know a little about attachment, but I know a hell of a lot more about detachment.

I have heard foster and adoptive parents say “people just don’t know what it is like to have to deal with ‘Attachment’”

And what I want to say today is:

And they don’t know what it is like when your whole life depends on the benevolence and the whims of (detached) adults.

And they don’t know what is like to watch helplessly while the very adults who are supposed to protect you rip your life to shreds because they think they deserve better.

And they don’t know what it is like to be in a good place just to be torn away and have to start all over again.

And they don’t know what it is like to have lived with parents who aren’t all that attached to you.

And they don’t know what it is like to be wrapped in blankets and sat on by adults to ‘recreate’ your birthing experience that happened eleven years prior, in some attempt to inspire some magical attachment.

And they don’t know what it is like to be small held down against your will by people three times your size as a form of “therapy”.

And they don’t know what it is like to live under the microscope, with your every, thought, word and action being analyzed, scrutinized and pathologized.

And they don’t know what it is like to be a kid, wanting to do normal kid things but you can’t without them being attributed to some bizarre deeper mental malady.

And they don’t know what it is like to know that normal kid stuff is only dismissed when normal kids do it, and that you have been labeled so kid normal kid stuff is not ok for you.

And they don’t know what it is like to realize that even your OWN parents will throw you away.

And they don’t know what it feels like to lose everything you love and hold dear, even if it was really crappy in the first place.

It makes it a tad bit difficult to get comfortable in new surroundings, to trust new people easily and completely. I do not have an attachment disorder I am very attachment ordered. I had the misfortune of learning at an early age that people are indeed fallible. That my parents weren’t heroes and that life can change on a dime. Things most children do not discover until they are in adolescence, is it any wonder that the ‘symptoms’ of attachment ‘issues’ resemble adolescence?

So maybe I moved around so much that I jump in to new situations with both feet, and put my feet on the couch. Maybe I like to keep my relationships with new people superficial for a while, until I see what they are really about. Maybe I realize that people are capable of some pretty terrible inhumanity and maybe that makes me a little leery. Maybe I still have some trouble with anxiety, but how bad is that? How disordered is that, really? It seems to me that it just makes plain good sense. I would be truly worried about a child who went through that kind of trauma and was unscathed. That my friends, I would find highly troublesome.

Sometimes kids like some people better than others. That is their right. Sometimes kids do kid stuff because they are kids. Sometimes kids miss and wish they were back where ever they came from, even if it may be horrifying to others, it was their home. That is their right, and it is not personal. Being ‘attached’ doesn’t mean obedient, compliant or “fun to be around.” It is impossible to demand or force anyone to love us, trying to hard only makes them push further away (For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Remember THAT girl in elementary school who wanted to be your bestest friend ever and stalked you…do you remember how that work for her?), we have to be careful and patient.

And please if you are a foster or adoptive parent who thinks they may need to seek professional help for your child with attachment issues I beg you to do A LOT of research and avoid anyone who has ever used controversial techniques like “holding” or other coercive/dangerous “therapeutic” methods.

The truth is, that in the end as parents are here to love and care for our children because that is our job, whether they ever appreciate it or love us back is completely irrelevant.

 

 

(That I wrote this post in response to Claudia at My Fascinating Life’s call for posts by AP and PAP’s about attachment, I thank her for welcoming my perspective into the mix.)

Sunday, March 6, 2011

The Secret Life of Bees

I really suck at picking out movies. That’s why movie picking is Mr. Sunday’s job. But I yesterday I took a stab at it. I wanted something that Mad and I could watch together. You know – she’s 12. And, well, it is hard to feel connected with a 12 year old. I am connected all right, but she is in the process of trying to hate us enough so she will be compelled to support herself move the heck out of our house by the time she is 18. I’d say she is well on her way.

Anyway I chose a movie I thought was family friendly, heartwarming, you know “feel good movie” The Secret Life of Bees. She is old enough to understand the social commentary and the story of the teenaged white girl showing up on the doorstep of a black family and how she came to belong to them, has some parallel with MY own story. I thought it would be nice for her to see we are not the only white people who have a WHOLE black family of their own.

Of course Mad decided that she would rather go to bed than hang out with her parents. The Mr. fell asleep less than half way through.

Leaving me to sob, red nosed and snot faced for the entire last half by myself. Really! I am pathetic when it comes to movies. I mean embarrassingly wretched. Maybe I’ll have my friend Yo do a guest post about watching the end of Thelma and Louise with me in a crowded theater. Blubbering idiot. I am still attempting to live that one down in MY OWN MIND.

I hate loss even when I know it is just a movie. It’s a PTSD thing some may not understand.

Anyway I guess I am glad I got a chance to prescreen it for Mad. What are the chances I will weep like a freaking willow the second time around?

I said all of that to say that this quote sums it all up for me. I may have never had that self-sacrificing and unconditional love one expects their parents are capable of, but I have never lacked love. I am one lucky girl and I have lived a charmed life.

“And there they were. All these mothers. I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me.”

~The Secret Life of Bees

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Sidelined in Ethiopia

Ethiopia to Cut Foreign Adoptions by Up to 90 Percent

Peter Heinlein | Addis Ababa  March 04, 2011
Aaron Lieberman holds his son Theodore, 2, adopted from Ethiopia, as he shows his citizenship certificate, during U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Adoption Day ceremony in New York, 18 Nov 2010
Photo: AP
Aaron Lieberman holds his son Theodore, 2, adopted from Ethiopia, as he shows his citizenship certificate, during U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Adoption Day ceremony in New York, 18 Nov 2010
Ethiopia is cutting back by as much as 90 percent the number of inter-country adoptions it will allow, as part of an effort to clean up a system rife with fraud and corruption. Adoption agencies and children’s advocates are concerned the cutbacks will leave many Ethiopian orphans without the last-resort option of an adoptive home abroad.
Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women’s, Children’s and Youth Affairs has issued a directive saying it will process a maximum of five inter-country adoptions a day, effective March 10. Currently, the ministry is processing up to 50 cases a day, about half of them to the United States.
A copy of the directive provided to VOA says the reduction of up to 90 percent in cases will allow closer scrutiny of documents used to verify a child’s orphan status.
Read more at the VOA:
Ethiopia to Cut Foreign Adoptions by Up to 90 Percent | Africa | English
I left this comment figured I’d make it a post:
I do feel some sympathy for those perspective adoptive parents who were waiting. Many picked Ethiopia for its ease, quick turn around and lax policies. I hope they, like you can see that protecting the children and original families from fraud and abuse is paramount. No mother should have her child taken by force or even have to choose to sell one child to feed her others. Adoption is a viable option for true orphans and abused children, but the risk of trafficking is great and we must be vigilant in the quest to establish ethics in adoption.
As a former foster child, I will say there are plenty of children - right here in this country who need stable homes. And while some believe that adopting children internationally is somehow a “safer” option that is just not true. Anytime a child is removed from their familiar environment, institutionalized and or passed from stranger to stranger they are bound to have some emotional baggage at the least, whatever their mother country. Children are a gamble no matter how they come to you.
I do hope that some of you perspective adoptive parents, who have been sidelined in Ethiopia, take some time to reconsider the thousands of children waiting in the U.S. foster care system

Friday, March 4, 2011

Just What I Mean

"If your mom was a hardworking woman and is your hero helped you no matter how bad you were or is just the best mom ever, if you are blessed to still have her or if she is an angel in heaven, paste this to your status and let everyone know You are PROUD of your Mother. You can replace a lot of people in life, but you only have one Mother"
Facebook
How many times do you see statuses like this going around Facebook?
Or the equally sappy ones about the dad who worked so had to provide you with all the advantages in life?
Even if I were big in “chain” statuses, I would not be copy and pasting any like these.
Do you know how hard it is to attempt to acknowledge Mother’s or Father’s day, even with just a card?
You sacrificed so much for me
You were always there for me
Unconditional love… Blah, Blah, Blah…
Being that I don’t like lies or the people who depend on them I usually just let those days pass by. But I have often thought there should be a line of “Just What You Mean” greeting cards.
For your parents:
Thanks for not smoking crack while you were pregnant
Thanks for kind of paying child support…sometimes…$15.00 at a time…for decades
You didn’t totally suck and I love you anyway
What would you like to see on a “Just What You Mean” greeting card?
For your friends? Enemies? How about that sympathy card for THAT dearly departed?

 
Powered by Blogger