Does anyone else do this?

Whenever either of my kids start a new sport I immediately start fantasizing. I can literally see myself on television waving a little American flag while the voiceover announces that I'm my kid's mom. I imagine Little J going up against a Russian opponent and can visualize the behind-the-scenes life portrait that they produce about him (Adopted from Russia at 15 months, Little J Bashista now battles the opponent from the country of his birth...who will win? The Russian-born American superstar? Or the Iceman, Vladimir... more

I wish I had friends in such high places...like the presidency of Russia!

Gerhard Schröder has adopted a second time from Russia and according to this article in the London Times, it was with help from his friend Vladimir Putin.

Herr Schröder is 62 and although his wife, Doris, is only 43, he would not normally have been considered by adoption agencies. But the boy was living in an orphanage in St Petersburg, the Russian President’s home turf.

The Kremlin leader first accelerated adoption procedures, and bent rules, to ensure that the Schröders could adopt a three-year-old girl... more

This post is a continuation of my previous post reviewing The AD/HD Book: Answers to Parents' Most Pressing Questions, by Beth Ann Hill and James Van Haren.

This book is very sympathetic to the parents of children with ADHD and recognizes that most of us are trying our best to help our children, instead of the prevailing view in the world that parents of children with... more

We are in the process of getting Little J evaluated for ADHD. So far he's been seen by a child psychologist, who gathered information from us and his teachers and saw enough behaviors in his session with her that she recommended we see a child psychiatrist. My husband and I did a session with the psychiatrist and last week Little J had his own session with her. When she brought him out to me she mentioned that he did some things in the session that she expected, as well as some things she didn't suspect. My meeting with her is not until the end of next week... more

I have conjunctivitis. That's pink eye for the rest of the world. My husband has it too but my children don't. Thank heaven for small mercies. My husband's eye infection has morphed into a flu-like state. I am hoping against all odds that mine does not develop into that as SOMEONE has to take care of things around here. Mommies can't afford to get sick, especially mommies who've been out of town for almost 2 weeks straight.

Conjunctivitis is something that children get very often. It's highly contagious and before this week I didn't realize that there really... more

We’ve been at the beach these past few days and I took a little break from blogging. Here’s my excuse: spotty Internet connection. He he. Actually, I have no excuse…there was an Internet café up the road as well as a public library….I just didn’t feel like doing it. Plus I was on a break! Relaxing. Relaxing for me means hanging out with my family, taking walks, and reading good books. Mostly the last thing. It’s actually kind of pathetic. We’re staying in a condominium on the edge of a beautiful beach, there’s a pool, there’s sea kayaking and ferry riding and... more

Some really bad (but not surprising) news coming from Russia today. This is from the Moscow Times:

Five children under the age of 3 have been badly beaten in a Krasnoyarsk orphanage, and a nurse who worked the night shift is the chief suspect, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Interestingly enough, Pravda has nothing on the abuse, although they do have a report about Tom Cruise's baby photos. I mention this because I've found Pravda to be very (negatively) opinionated about adoption by foreigners in Russia and they have repeatedly run articles about... more

Here's why people have to help the sea turtles on their journey:

Lights from houses and buildings near the beach confuse the turtles and the vibrations from passing cars cause them to turn from the waves and towards the road. If left to their own devices fewer than the 1 in 500 would survive.

So humans step in to remedy the troubles they’ve caused. They build cages tight enough to keep the critters out, but with a wire mesh wide enough to allow the babies to crawl through. They watch the nests carefully to signs of dimpling – an indication that things... more

While we were at the beach these past couple of days we had the pleasure of witnessing a sea turtle hatch. We were lucky. Not many people get to see this.

I was surprised to learn how many humans help the sea turtles along. They don’t dig the turtles up or anything, don’t get me wrong, but they prepare the hatching site, assemble guides so they can reach the sea, and guard the nests from wrongdoing. They help them do what their sea turtle mamas don’t.

It’s not that the sea turtle mamas are neglectful. For millions of years, before humans came... more

Here's the link to the news story, "Johnston father fights to raise girl given to California couple."

In case the link doesn't work for you or if you don't want to read it, I'll summarize. A little less than 5 years ago a man, Pernell Ingram, was in a relationship with a woman and she got pregnant. They planned on getting married...but then the relationship went south. Despite the break-up with the baby's mother, however, Mr. Ingram planned on being a father to his child. He bought a more family-friendly car, picked up more shifts at work, and went back to school to train for a better job.

The mother of this baby... more