It’s National Adoption Awareness Month and I think that one of the best ways to build one’s awareness about adoption is reading about the personal experiences people have had with adoption.

Here are just some of the adoption blogs I read: 

My African Princes-  You can’t resist these three darling boys.  Two of them are Ethiopian and one is South African and their mom is great about posting and sharing her ideas and experiences.

There is No Me Without You Occassional Blog-  Melissa Fay Greene, the author of There is No Me Without You, blogs only occassionally but her posts are very useful and informative.

Ethiopian Tripletland- I have a thing for multiples. Just love ‘em.  So this blog about Ethiopian triplets in the heartland undoes me.

Party of 5- Back to the multiples.  This family has three darling kids with twins from Haiti.  They also have great parenting stories, insights, and recipes.     

Ethipian Adoption Journey- This single mom adopted a baby girl from Ethiopia earlier this year and honestly shares the joys and challenges of the experience.

Rooted in Love- This family traveled with us to Ethiopia and we enjoyed getting to know them and their boys while we were there (and have continued a close friendship with them since).  They adopted 2 older boys who are both deaf.  This blog is rich with insights, experiences, and strategies.        

The Wardrobe and the White Tree- This family also traveled with us to Ethiopia and adopted an older boy.  They have two other children, one of whom they adopted domestically at birth.  Also very rich with insights and experiences.

I thought it was a good time to focus my eye on appreciating some of the little pleasures in my life… hope you’ll add your pleasures to my list.

• sleeping more (who am I kidding, that’s not a little pleasure at all.  It’s huge!)
• the brilliant red, bright yellow, and blazing gold of the fall leaves.  In the field across the street, the dropping oak leaves make it look like it is raining gold.
• It’s soup season, and I had a bowl of it almost everyday this week. 
• Fabulous weather: perfect light, perfect temps, give me more. 
• a weekend day of doing nothing.  Love it when no one expects me to be anywhere at any particular time, and I don’t have to work and anything that gets done is gravy. 
• a little boy who just cracks me up.  all day long (and a big boy who does, too).   

Hey, are you in the greater Charlotte area?  If so, come join me for a reading at 3:30 pm on Monday, November 9th.  I’ll be reading from Hijas Americanas and answering questions in the C. Shaw Smith 900 Room in the College Union at Davidson College.

I am just getting home from a funeral for one of my former students.  He was such a fine young man.  If baby grew up to be like this young man, I would openly weep.  His name was Ricky, and he had the finest heart and a smile that put you on fire.  Losing anyone is difficult.  Losing someone who is so young, so vibrant, so radiant is humbling and unrattling and heartbreaking.  When you teach or work in education, the joy of it is that you get to fall in love over and over and over again with your students.  I don’t even pretend that I am more in love with the subject matter that I teach than I am my students, because it’s not true.  What I love about teaching is my students.  Watching them grow and consider and share and be and try and laugh and smile and cry.  That’s why I teach.  And so losing Ricky hurts like nobody’s business.  I’m wearing it these days.   My light’s out, my heart is heavy.  But I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  I think it’s important to feel what we feel, be honest about it, and not just brush it away.  And I think it’s important that we move forward with the awareness those feelings bring us.  I’m remembering what a pleasure, what a gift it is to have known and loved Ricky and honoring a life that was incredibly well lived. 

So, here’s a little something you might have gleaned about me while reading this blog.  I LOVE football (I also love futbol, uh, soccer.  But for now I am talking about football).  A guy I dated in college and for a few years after said I sealed his crush on me when I observed that our team was running the slot.  I was asked to be an assistant football coach for a local middle school when I was teaching.  Seriously, I. heart. football.  It’s my guilty pleasure.  

 And here’s a little something else you should know:  November is Adoption Awareness Month and so I will spend Inspired Tuesdays in November sharing some information and thoughts about adoption with you.  Today, I wanted to share these movie trailers for a movie that comes out the day before National Adoption Day (November 21): The Blind Side.  Just watching these trailers choked me up; I am especially excited to see the movie (my first movie in 2009 or, at least, I hope I see it in 2009): 

Have you wondered about adoption but didn’t know what first step to take?  Do you have any questions about adoption? I am happy to take them on.  Just post them in comments or shoot me an email and I’ll get to all of them!

So, I am in the midst of book 2, writing 5-10 pages every week day on boosting body image and self-esteem.  Which brings me to the big question?  What have you done in the past to boost your body image or self-esteem?  What do you do now?  What did your mama teach you?  What do you try to teach your kids, your students, your friends?  How do you tackle the body image roller coaster?

Once the baby came home, BF moved his office to the house.  Our computers are on opposite walls, our backs to each other when we are working.  When you walk into our office, two screen savers greet you.  Can you guess which one is mine and which one is BF’s?  The juxtaposition of these two photos just cracks me up. 

I was reading a book about adoption this weekend (written by an adoptive mom) and was paralyzed by these words,

“Adoption is a bittersweet solution to a two-way problem.  Sweet, because a baby in need of a home finds a home in need of a baby.  But bitter because it is nobody’s first choice, and the baby will grow up one day to understand that.” 

While I understand that these words are what the author felt, they are her truth; I am struck by the absolute nature of them– the “it is nobody’s first choice, and the baby will grow up one day to understand that” statement.  Now, I’ve talked before about how sensitive to and impacted I am by what baby’s biological mother must have gone through to make the decision she had to make and I know that for many mothers who choose adoption for their child, it is not their first choice.  Sadly, it might be their only choice.  But, for now, what I want to consider is that statement from the adoptive parent’s point of view because  it is just so wrong in our case, and I know we are not alone. 

There is no infertility backstory to our adoption.  There is only this:  the desire to adopt born in me when I was twelve.  By then, I had such a strong sense of the imbalance and injustice of the world that I wanted my family to adopt and, when they could not, I vowed that I would one day.  That awareness stayed with me, actually multiplying over time.  There are so many reasons why adoption spoke to me, so many ways that I knew it was clearly my calling.  Truth be told, the imbalance of the world undoes me.  I don’t have many ways to right the world’s wrongs, but I can be in communion with the realities of this world and its people.  I know I can’t look away from that which I see that inspires me or hurts me.  I know that if it steals my breath, I must get it back in a way that whispers of justice or truth or love or community or engagement.   

BF and I talked about adoption before we ever married, before we ever got too serious in our relationship because adopting was a must for me and I knew that, if I was to be partnered in this life, then I would need to find a partner who felt inspired to adopt as much as I did.  Adoption made just as much sense to him as it did to me and like I had my whole set of reasons why adoption spoke to me, BF had his.  

The thought that some people believe that adoption is always only a second choice for those who adopt saddens me.  Truth be told, I never wanted any family story other than exactly the one we have.  I could never picture my reality any other way than what it is.  If there is any bitterness to our reality it is this:  the imbalance of wealth and health in this world and the reality that there are not enough creative solutions being explored to  impact dynamic change so that those who wish they could raise their biological children would have the infrastructure, resources, and health to do so.

The littlest kid is growing and growing and growing.  He’s tall; he’s walking; he says daddy and doggie; he mostly sleeps through the night; he’s opinionated and curious, fiesty and funny, charming and, as BF says, cheesy.  These days I am calling him Frankenbaby for the way that he walks.  In fact, I think we should dress him as Frankenstein/Frankenbaby for Halloween and let his walk be part of his costume, but I don’t think I’ll be able to talk BF into it.  If we can help him get over the fear of his mane, he’ll really be a lion cub at Friday’s Halloween March– a trek down Main Street of our town where hundreds of kids trick or treat at the doorways of local businesses and shops.  He, however, has been shrieking like a banshee each time we put on his lion mane so it may be that he’s Frankenbaby afterall.  

Here are some of my favorite shots of baby during October, as he crept towards 14 months old and 9 months with us. 

While baby often looks like this...

he is not afraid to act like this

Nothing escapes his eye

The battle of the costumes... the lion cub

or Franken Baby