I have talked about some of my children being very close in age a few times. I have even mentioned that sometimes people ask me if they are twins. This is partly because they have similar hair and eye color. We honestly didn’t plan to adopt children that all looked like birth siblings, it just turned out that way. We didn’t plan to create artificial twins either. The children were placed here in foster care and years later became available for adoption. When they originally were placed in our home, they actually had a return home plan. Obviously, they did not return home. After... more

I have yet to meet an adoptive family with a child affected by fetal alcohol who has not had to deal with sneaking and lying. As the adoptive parents of these children, we often struggle with accepting the child’s inability to control sneaking or stealing, when it often appears to be premeditated. A common scenario that would seem premeditated involves an active effort on the fetal alcohol affected child’s part to search for hidden objects. Once the sought after objects are located, the child often conceals them, usually within the clothing that is being worn. Then the child takes the... more

Ah, Christmas day, our house looks like a tornado flew through from the living room through the kitchen and dining room and coming to rest in the playroom. If you can imagine eight children, ripping open packages at lightning speed with shreds of colorful wrapping paper flying around the room, then you have some idea of what our house looks like right now. I can only take comfort knowing that Cindy’s House is probably worse than mine right now, since she still has 20 children at home. To borrow a phrase from The Christmas... more