There is an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal today about the growing complexity of international adoption. With new rules and longer wait times, parents face all kinds of new challenges in planning their lives and dealing with stress. (Ok, this isn't really news to us, right?)
The good news is that many employers are offering some sweet benefits to help parents through the difficulties. If your employer isn't already on the bandwagon, perhaps you could drop a copy of the article off at your HR department. :-)
Showing posts with label Taiwan adoption International. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taiwan adoption International. Show all posts
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Genealogy - or not?
The July issue of Smithsonian has a great article about genealogy. Unfortunately, I don't think it's posted online, but it's worth buying the issue or tracking it down at your local library. "The Family Tree, Pruned" by Richard Conniff isn't about adoption specifically and, in fact, doesn't even mention adoption, but the message of the article is perfectly suited to adoption. The author's daughter apparently spends a lot of time with her genealogy projects, yet the author contends that genealogy is relatively meaningless. He sums it up nicely in the closing paragraph of a fairly long and well-written article:
"What makes us who we are, what makes us people worth knowing, comes from within ourselves, and from the often annoying, somewhat laughable, occasionally lovable families we live with now."
"What makes us who we are, what makes us people worth knowing, comes from within ourselves, and from the often annoying, somewhat laughable, occasionally lovable families we live with now."
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Music
For our dog, Shasta, the 4th of July has traditionally been the worst night of the year. This is because she is simply terrified of fireworks. In the past we have tried many things including covering her ears, "sedating " her with herbal remedies, crating her in an underground garage where we were certain she was out of earshot and most drastically, taking her to a town so far up in the Eastern Sierra that fireworks were not allowed due to fire danger. The former three attempted remedies did nothing to reduce her full-body tremors of fear. The latter did no good either since there are teenagers wherever you go and those teenagers always seem to manage to get their hands on some lady fingers (the fireworks, not the desserts). I have to say that that trip to the Eastern Sierras was amazing in every other way.
In any case, as we prepared ourselves and our dog for this year's 4th of July festivities, we took extra care and, for lack of any better ideas for calming our dog, decided to spend the evening at home (although we had tried this in the past with no obviously positive results). We started the day with a visit to West Coast Grandma and Grandpa and found it hard to leave as we saw the barges rolling into place for what was sure to be a spectacular show. Rather than stay and enjoy the show, we drove home under a beautiful sunset and enjoyed some incredible aerial displays from what surely must have been backyard fireworks. (Where and how so many people came upon such impressive ammunition I don't know and don't want to know.)
We arrived home just before 9:00 and the neighborhood (along with every other neighborhood) was in high gear with booms and whistles. Shasta started to shake. We brought her in the house and that didn't help. We turned on some music and voila! We witnessed something we have never before seen on July 4: Shasta put her head down and chilled out. Awesome.
p.s. The music that soothed our trembling "beast" is not what you think - we weren't playing Mozart or Bach. Apparently, our little princess has a predilection for RUSH.
In any case, as we prepared ourselves and our dog for this year's 4th of July festivities, we took extra care and, for lack of any better ideas for calming our dog, decided to spend the evening at home (although we had tried this in the past with no obviously positive results). We started the day with a visit to West Coast Grandma and Grandpa and found it hard to leave as we saw the barges rolling into place for what was sure to be a spectacular show. Rather than stay and enjoy the show, we drove home under a beautiful sunset and enjoyed some incredible aerial displays from what surely must have been backyard fireworks. (Where and how so many people came upon such impressive ammunition I don't know and don't want to know.)
We arrived home just before 9:00 and the neighborhood (along with every other neighborhood) was in high gear with booms and whistles. Shasta started to shake. We brought her in the house and that didn't help. We turned on some music and voila! We witnessed something we have never before seen on July 4: Shasta put her head down and chilled out. Awesome.
p.s. The music that soothed our trembling "beast" is not what you think - we weren't playing Mozart or Bach. Apparently, our little princess has a predilection for RUSH.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Too Much News...Still No News...
The last few weeks have been absolutely full of news - so much so that I don't know where to begin other than to say we still have no news on two of the things that matter most in our lives. We are still waiting to learn whether the chemotherapy treatments are working on our sweet doggie and we are, of course, still waiting for some news - any news - on when we can bring our little guy home from Taiwan.
I am happy to say we've had a lot to celebrate over the past few weeks. I had a birthday; my husband received a Masters Degree (I am SO proud of him!); we celebrated Father's Day and we celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary(!).
Our anniversary celebration was a little different this year: we flew to Ohio to attend a surprise FIFTIETH Anniversary party for my aunt and uncle who were married on the same day (different year!) as my husband and I. They were definitely surprised and we had fun celebrating with them and visiting with our family in Ohio even though the trip was much shorter than originally planned so we could get back to take care of our sick doggie. Although the trip was short, we managed to squeeze in some good quality time with family along with a little sight seeing and exploring. It's fun to think (hope?) that next time we visit, we'll have our little guy with us.
I am happy to say we've had a lot to celebrate over the past few weeks. I had a birthday; my husband received a Masters Degree (I am SO proud of him!); we celebrated Father's Day and we celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary(!).
Our anniversary celebration was a little different this year: we flew to Ohio to attend a surprise FIFTIETH Anniversary party for my aunt and uncle who were married on the same day (different year!) as my husband and I. They were definitely surprised and we had fun celebrating with them and visiting with our family in Ohio even though the trip was much shorter than originally planned so we could get back to take care of our sick doggie. Although the trip was short, we managed to squeeze in some good quality time with family along with a little sight seeing and exploring. It's fun to think (hope?) that next time we visit, we'll have our little guy with us.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Always waiting...
The test results were not as conclusive as we'd hoped, but the oncologist assures us that our sweet doggie does have a very bad stage of cancer, so we started chemo today. We hope the tests provide more definitive answers on Friday, but either way the oncologist assures me it won't change the treatment plan much, if at all. So we're waiting for test results and waiting to see how she responds and waiting for a call with good news (please?? we could really use some!!) out of Taiwan.
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