With the fun of summer comes millions of annoying insects including mosquitoes. Mosquitoes not only bite and leave itching welts but they sometimes transmit serious diseases to their victims. Some diseases transmitted to people by mosquitoes are West Nile virus, malaria, and dengue fever. Your pets can get life-threatening heartworms from these nasty pests, as well. Here in the United States our risk of contracting diseases from mosquito bites are low. We can use insect repellents to help discourage their nasty bites and protect our pets with... more

Are your teenagers struggling with Acne? It is one of those horrors of the teenage years. If your child is also dealing with adoption issues, fitting in, finding their place in the world, acne can seem like the end of a social life. You want to help, you offer kind words, and you dutifully look for a product that will clear the acne. There are so many to choose from, how can you know which ones will actually work? Are they all the same? If they are different, then what ingredients should you look for?

Sebaceous glands are connected to the hair follicles. The job of... more

As I mentioned in a blog yesterday, a reader asked me for some advice on encouraging her soon to be adopted daughter, to dress appropriately. Her question really had three parts so I decided it might be best to split them up. Yesterday, I covered adopted daughters wearing dirty clothes again. The second part of the reader’s question was about her daughter wearing clothes too tight. I tried to deal with this by appealing to logic for my first few years of foster and adoptive parenting. All that led to was arguing and one of us getting angry. I decided to make this a non-issue at... more

If you have adopted a sibling group, you may need to find ways to stretch your food dollars. Buying prepared packaged foods becomes cost prohibitive when you are feeding a family with more than four members. Eating at restaurants becomes less frequent as well. To stretch your food dollars you will need to begin preparing more of your food from scratch. I am not talking about the time consuming jobs of preparing a loaf of bread or homemade cold cereal, they are still quite reasonable to purchase.

However, you can prepare delicious meals that your family will love using... more

If I said the name Dave Thomas, most anyone in the adoption world would recognize him as the founder of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers, but even more importantly, a philanthropist who was a staunch supporter of adoption. Having been adopted himself as a child, in 1992 Dave set up the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption which is dedicated to finding families for children in foster care. Sadly, he passed away at the young age of 69 on January 8, 2002 due to liver... more

Do you ever feel that your "together time" as a family resembles The Munsters more than it does The Cleavers? I know I do! Our family tries to set apart Monday nights as time to be together without outside interruptions. Whether that becomes quality time...well that remains to be seen on some weeks.

Tonight, Taylor asked if he could go play flag football over at the park with some friends. I sighed as I answered that he knew it was family night, so no, he couldn't go until after 9 p.m.

I tire of other families trying to... more

"It's MINE!" How many times has a parent heard that from a 2 year old? Developmentally appropriate, right? What if that same statement is being yelled by an eight year old, however, or a 12 year old? That kind of comment is not uncommon from a child who came from a background where she was never taught how to have empathy and compassion for others.

Perhaps it was never modeled in the home or orphanage, or perhaps it was just a Darwinian type mentality that our children had... more