Re-Run Links

I'm re-posting two links to sites that helped me with my wild boy for Lisa who seems to have brought home a wild one of her own. These boys will wear us out, yes, but they will be very interesting grown-ups.

Staking Tomatoes
Calming Your Wild Child

Back to our regularly scheduled interview

How are you preparing yourselves for potential physical- and mental-health issues your children face or may face once they come home?

Both children are patients of record with the Center for Adoptive Medicine in Seattle. They will both have full assessments when we get home. Given the medical info we came home with, we have an understanding of the full range (least disruptive to most disruptive) of possible medical concerns. For mental health issues, they are losing everything that is familiar – another loss on top of their previous losses of their first or birth mothers, losses that I highly doubt they were every able to grieve. We expect that as soon as they get settled in they start to feel these sorrows and we will help them walk through it. Additionally, as orphanage life is highly regimented, and as there is security in knowing what comes next – especially at a time of such change – we will keep the orphanage schedule and meal patterns for quite awhile.

Why are you adopting older children?

I am being interviewed this week by a lovely woman who is writing a book about adoption. She has sent me some questions to think about, and I do my best thinking on the keyboard. Comments very very welcome.

Why are you adopting older children?

Why not? They can walk and talk and play. Yes, we anticipate that we will be doing full-on therapeutic attachment parenting as they know absolutely nothing about belonging to a family, but Attachment Issues can be out-parented, whereas FAS and FAE cannot. With younger children, the risk of FAS/FAE goes up as it is harder to spot the younger the child is. You can't out-parent FAS/FAE.

Also, as infant adoption is seen as the “norm” (this is embedded in your question even), older kids are left to languish in the orphanages. That’s sad. They are not bread that goes stale after awhile. Older kids are as vibrant and attractive to me as are younger kids – moreso perhaps. By way of example, our son Andy threw his arms around my neck and asked (in Russian) “Is it true!? Is it true!?” He doesn’t know how to be a family kid, but he sure does know that he want to be one. Babies really don’t celebrate their new families in the same way.

Oh, yes, and diapers. No diapers.