Tag: adoption

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An Interview with The International Mom, Judy Miller

DSC_7152_pointzeroAs I’ve said before, I love the internet. It has expanded my horizons in so many ways, broadened my knowledge and brought me friends. One of those friends is Judy Miller, author, advocate and adoptive parent. (I’m also fond of alliteration)

Judy has a new project on the horizon, Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens and Beyond with Judy M. Miller and the other day we sat down with some delicious Skinny Cinnamon Dulce Lattes to discuss it.

Judy has developed and will be teaching a class to help parents of adopted tweens and teens, beginning Weds, February 10th. What? You don’t live in the Indy Metro area? Good news–the class format is via email. Judy will send out assignments, you will complete them, and then there will be discussion online.

Judy created this class with hopes of reaching parents as their children enter an age wrought with emotions and new understandings about adoption. As a mom to four children (one biological, two from China, one from Guatemala), she’s living through her own children’s adolescence and observing what sort of questions and difficulty her children are having in regards to their being adopted.

Each week, Judy will email a topic for introspection, and participants will then write on that topic. Judy said each week’s assignment will prompt participants to “go deep”. The messages the parent sends to the child lay the groundwork for that child’s journey to discovering himself. The topics are ones that will most likely come up in conversation in the tween (8-12yrs) and teen years, but Judy encourages parents with children as young as four or five to consider signing up.

You can learn more about and register for Parenting Your Adopted Child by visiting Judy’s website. There is also a spot to sign up for a newsletter that I know will be great. I always LOVE the time I spend with Judy, and I know you will too!

Judy is a fellow contributor to Grown in My Heart, her personal blog is The International Mom’s Blog.

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Thankful: Grown in My Heart Blog Carnival IV

There is a little “thanks” that we say in preschool before every meal.

“We are thankful for the food before us,

We are thankful for the friends beside us,

We are thankful for the love among us,

We are thankful.”

My list is a long one. As I sit here in a warm house, cozy on the couch, typing on my laptop with two sweet babies asleep upstairs, it’s hard to know how to begin.

Since this post is for Grown in My Heartheart, a community I wouldn’t be a part of if it weren’t for the adoption of my children, I feel like I should start there.

I am thankful that we made the decision to adopt when we did–in the fall of 2004. I am thankful that all of our paper work came together (in hindsight) smoothly and quickly, for as we were becoming home-study approved, J was thinking about placing MaM for adoption when she was born. If we had been delayed, our profile book may not have been available that day in July when J went to consider prospective adoptive parents.

I’m thankful that J felt some sort of connection to us via said profile book. That there was some instant level of comfort between us. I”m thankful that she invited us to the hospital for the birth of both of the children. I am so incredibly thankful that both children were born perfect and healthy in every way.

I’m thankful that open adoption has worked out so well for our children–that they know J and they know Z. I am thankful that they are loved and accepted by their bio family and their adoptive family.

I’m thankful that I’m sharing this parenting ride with @bgKahuna, the world’s most enthusiastic dad.

I’m thankful that because of the internet, I’m connect to so many more adoptive families than I would be if the internet wasn’t what it is today.

I am thankful.

Want to link up? Join the carnival at Grown in My Heart!

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It’s Been Five Years…

Since adoption became an every day word and thought in this house. Five years ago this month, we went to an informational session that would change our lives forever, and that would lead to us becoming parents less than a year later.

Here’s my post about some of those beginning thoughts and feelings at Grown In My Heart.