Of all the things that I have enjoyed about being an adoptive mom, listening to my kids as they acquired a new language has been among the tops. I recently discovered another adoptive mom of two from Russia who is reveling in her children's journey through language as much as I do, and I want to share her thoughts with you.

Deborah is a writer and teacher who is trained in music and speech science. The mom of two pre-schoolers adopted late last year, she blogs at "The Adoption Adventure".

She... more

The next time anybody catches me planning a trip to a major tourist attraction on a major holiday, shoot me, OK?

As a mother, I ought to know better. And as the mother of two kids adopted from Russia, I really, really should have known better.

Maybe I got lulled into a false sense of security yesterday. We had a wonderful outing to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, N.J. If you have not been, it should go on your to-do list immediately. But today we went to the American Museum of Natural History, along with about a million other people. And it was awful. Wall-to-wall crowds, and such a long line... more

Monday is the President's Day holiday, which means just one thing for a Russian adoptee I know: The annual discussion of why he can't be the president of the United States.

He is an American citizen now, he's up on his current events and he has great leadership skills. But he lacks the one thing the rules say he needs to have to run: Being born in the U.S.

My usually line of defense is to point out the other things he could be: the founder of a company, like Jerry Yang of Yahoo! or Sergey Brin at Google,... more

Heidi, over at the Adopting A Sibling blog, put up a smart, seven-part post on 10 tools for bridging language issues with an internationally adopted child a while back. It is a wonderfully informative read and it brought back a lot of the tricks I used with my two kids.

First a word of background. I speak five languages in addition to English (French, Italian, German, Japanese and Russian,... more

This is the kind of story I wish I read more often: What becomes of child after he or she was adopted from Russia.

It popped up in the "The Oshkosh Northwestern", thanks my trusty Google Alerts. Confession: I have never read "The Oshkosh Northwestern" before, but I did spend a few days in the charming town this past summer when I took my kids there to see the gigantic EAA AirVenture show. There... more

I could give you lots of reasons why you should think about adopting from Russia. I could start with the two funny, smart, charming, loving kids who are now my family. I could tell you about some of the other kids who have found forever families with other American parents over the 15 years since Russia opened its borders to international adoption. I could move on to a lot of other reasons, and hopefully, as I write this blog, I will get the opportunity to tell you them all.

But I'm going to start with one thing that sums up all the other reasons that I, or maybe anybody else, could ever give you to convince you to adopt from Russia: 867,800.

It's a number, and a big one at... more

I wonder what life was really like for our children in the orphanage. I am positive that we didn't see the way they were treated on a daily basis during our short visits. I know there were good people who worked there, but I also think there were some people who shouldn't work with children.

Last week, I took Bonnie to preschool with her new glasses. She wears her glasses around the house without any hesitation. But, once she saw the other children, she was very embarrassed to be wearing glasses. I couldn't get her to wear them. I was surprised that she was acting this way, because she wore glasses in the orphanage. She kept hanging her head and looking at the other kids to... more

This morning, after breakfast, my (4-year-old) daughter Bonnie shocked me when she said, “Mama, time to brush our teeth.”

I think I probably looked like a cartoon character with my jaw hanging open. When did she learn to say “time to brush our teeth”? I guess she picked it up from one of us, during her month here in the U.S. She has been shocking me almost daily, with a new word or phrase.

Kids are amazing. Bonnie has a Russian preschool teacher who informed us that, although she doesn’t speak fluent English, she understands the majority... more

Little J is up and raring to go. He's been up since 6:15. I've been up since 6:05. I had ten minutes to "work" at the computer (read: look at my e-mails and google the old friend who was in my dream last night) before he started yelling down the stairs for us to come up and get him. Apparently there was a monster up there so he needed us to accompany him out of his room.

It's now 6:45. He's stood next to me the past half hour and TALKED to me. Well, really more like BADGERED me. He wants breakfast. I tell him he has to wait until I get a little work done. He wants to tell me about the monster. I ask him to please be quiet - it will take 10 minutes. He chases the cat around and I have... more

I was enticed by a ad on a website for a quiz to tell me what kind of mom I was, so I clicked and took a really short quiz designed, I'm sure, to expose you to as much Internet advertising as possible (and to mine your email address...), but if you have a minute or two and strong spam control you should have a look: Are You a Slacker Mom.

I'm not sure that the results are particularly accurate, because here's what it said about me:

How do you do it? Even when explosions are all around, you... more