Welcome to the first blog post of The Adventures of Adoption and Parenthood. I've never blogged before unless you count my endless Facebook posts. This blog will focus on my experiences raising my children. I will include my husband sparingly as he is very private and I do not want to violate his privacy through this blog. So, if you know me, this will be perfect, as it will be all about ME. I will treat this post more as an introduction and hope to have more interesting/usefel blogs in the future.
Our children Asian and my husband and I are Caucasian, so we are a transracial family. I have come to realize through adoption that even if your child is not "special needs" they have special needs. We have one child whom I will refer to as Turtle and are waiting on #2. Next month will mark our 36 month-paper-pregnancy for the second child.
We got Turtle when she was 9 months old in November 2009 and traveled with the greatest group of people all doing the same thing - going to China to get our babies. We try to have reunions every year so that the girls can all get together as often as possible. Between reunions we run around to Chinese lessons, swim lessons, playdates, birthday parties, and all things involving transportation: railroad museums, airplane museums, car shows, and stop to gaze lovingly at motorcycles that we see in parking lots. She prefers Cars, Thomas, Planes, and Shark t-shirts, but when I manage to get a turn and put her in a twirly dress or skirt she gets a huge smile on her face and twirls around her room. It does my heart good that she can appreciate a good twirl.
Turtle, now 4 1/2 (don't forget the "and a half" part of her age) is enamored with anything with wheels. She informed me this morning that she plans to move to Indiana. I see an Indianapolis 500 vacation in our future. It's outside of our comfort zone as neither her father nor I watch racing of any kind and yet, she loves it. The other day she wanted to know who would win in a race: a race car or a cheetah.
The special needs Turtle has are related to attachment. She refuses hugs, snuggles, kisses from everyone except me. I cherish that she not allows me to hug, snuggle and kiss her, she requires it. Holding her in my arms for a good snuggle is my all time favorite activity. If she does give hugs to others they are backwards - she will back into the person and "hug" them that way. It is very consistent and she gets very upset when someone forces themselves on her. The other day, someone kissed her on top of her head and you would have thought they had poked her in the eye the way she reacted. I had to "take the kiss away" before she could settle back down. She does hug her friends very willingly. But they are her size and not as threatening. She sleeps in our bed otherwise there is no restful night for any of us. But in our bed, she sleeps solidly all night. The more we watch and observe her, the more convinced we are that she has some level of attachment anxiety. So, we let her be our guide. If she doesn't want hugs and kisses, then she doesn't get them. That's fair - it's her body after all. If she sleeps like a log in our bed, then that is where she will sleep. She is much healthier when she consistently gets a good night's sleep - and that is far more important than where she gets that good night's sleep.
I have oodles and oodles more to say, but will save it for another post. I don't know how often I will post, and don't want to make any promises. I hope you enjoy this blog as it develops. Feel free to leave comments, but keep them positive. There is enough negativity in the world, without trashing other people simply because you disagree. If you have nothing positive to say, than please say nothing. Thank you for reading.
Our children Asian and my husband and I are Caucasian, so we are a transracial family. I have come to realize through adoption that even if your child is not "special needs" they have special needs. We have one child whom I will refer to as Turtle and are waiting on #2. Next month will mark our 36 month-paper-pregnancy for the second child.
We got Turtle when she was 9 months old in November 2009 and traveled with the greatest group of people all doing the same thing - going to China to get our babies. We try to have reunions every year so that the girls can all get together as often as possible. Between reunions we run around to Chinese lessons, swim lessons, playdates, birthday parties, and all things involving transportation: railroad museums, airplane museums, car shows, and stop to gaze lovingly at motorcycles that we see in parking lots. She prefers Cars, Thomas, Planes, and Shark t-shirts, but when I manage to get a turn and put her in a twirly dress or skirt she gets a huge smile on her face and twirls around her room. It does my heart good that she can appreciate a good twirl.
Turtle, now 4 1/2 (don't forget the "and a half" part of her age) is enamored with anything with wheels. She informed me this morning that she plans to move to Indiana. I see an Indianapolis 500 vacation in our future. It's outside of our comfort zone as neither her father nor I watch racing of any kind and yet, she loves it. The other day she wanted to know who would win in a race: a race car or a cheetah.
The special needs Turtle has are related to attachment. She refuses hugs, snuggles, kisses from everyone except me. I cherish that she not allows me to hug, snuggle and kiss her, she requires it. Holding her in my arms for a good snuggle is my all time favorite activity. If she does give hugs to others they are backwards - she will back into the person and "hug" them that way. It is very consistent and she gets very upset when someone forces themselves on her. The other day, someone kissed her on top of her head and you would have thought they had poked her in the eye the way she reacted. I had to "take the kiss away" before she could settle back down. She does hug her friends very willingly. But they are her size and not as threatening. She sleeps in our bed otherwise there is no restful night for any of us. But in our bed, she sleeps solidly all night. The more we watch and observe her, the more convinced we are that she has some level of attachment anxiety. So, we let her be our guide. If she doesn't want hugs and kisses, then she doesn't get them. That's fair - it's her body after all. If she sleeps like a log in our bed, then that is where she will sleep. She is much healthier when she consistently gets a good night's sleep - and that is far more important than where she gets that good night's sleep.
I have oodles and oodles more to say, but will save it for another post. I don't know how often I will post, and don't want to make any promises. I hope you enjoy this blog as it develops. Feel free to leave comments, but keep them positive. There is enough negativity in the world, without trashing other people simply because you disagree. If you have nothing positive to say, than please say nothing. Thank you for reading.
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