Conscious Mom

I've gone from being concerned about questions my family gets in public to angry. Maybe I'm just in a bad, up at 3 AM too many nights in a row, mood, or maybe yesterday's questioner was just the one to push me over the edge. Here's what happened: I went to my gym and was about to drop Little M off in the nursery when the receptionist asked if her daughter could meet Maia. The three of us (four if you count Little M's babbles) had the typical 'meet the baby' conversation: look at her teeth, she's getting so big, etc... Then an unfamiliar voice behind me said, 'where is she from?' I turned to this newcomer to the conversation, this ...

Little M has four teeth. These all came in within a week of one another (meaning no sleep for anyone in the family that week.) She's trying very hard to communicate; she uses the sign for milk when she's hungry, imitates simple sounds and gestures, and knows the names of everyone in the family, including Yoda the Iguana. And she's very good at letting us know what she wants. When she wakes up, she stands up in her crib and says something sounding like 'hey' over and over until we wake up. This usually happens at 4 AM. It's a good thing she's adorable! The biggest news is that she's started taking a few steps. She's been cruising holding onto the ...

anything about the crap the media writes about famous people's Ethiopian adoptions, as if what the media says is true, as if it has anything to do with our families.

I am on a lot of adoption-related forums, and often people share some of the more astounding things people say to them. Despite the growing prevalence of adoptive families, there are still a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about adoption, which lead to some really odd comments. So here's a list of some of the more frequent things I hear, either directly, or relayed by another adoptive parent. To show how inappropriate these comments are, I'm giving analogous comments to a person building their family biologically. Since many of these comments are attempts to make conversation or find out more about people's experience, I'm also offering some adoption-friendly alternatives: Comment 1 to adoptive parent "You're adopting? I'm sorry, I didn't know ...

It's been a year! Little M turns one year old tomorrow, so for this Wordless Wednesday I have included some photos spanning the year. 1. The earliest photo we have of her: 2. Our first meeting in Addis Ababa: 3. The most recent photo taken of her: