Adoption and Family
Parenting by adoption is bigger, louder, and often harder to start with. From the assessment and waiting process to the adoption probation period, it can seem endless and like it will never happen. Then you get the call and your life changes forever in a miraculous way. But what next? Sure there is often a honeymoon and parenting is a blessing no matter how you get there. It is a new adventure every single day. AND also adoption comes with numerous other ups and downs.
Find Your Supports Early and Stick With Them
Very often there's minimal support for adoptive parents and families after they leave the courthouse finalizing their adoptions. Consider this your supportive honest space where we share what's worked, what doesn't work, and all the challenges in between. Share your stories, learn and grow together.-
Tooth Fairy Tales and How to Fix the Fails
My Payton has had a wobbly tooth for about one month now, so we’ve been anticipating the tooth fairy visit for a while. Her wobbly teeth seem never to be nudged along by prying hands or crunchy foods or anything else for that matter. She is content to let them fall out when they are ready and that’s okay by me. It’s the kind of girl she is. Cautious and happy to just take life as it comes. Our Tooth Fairy Adventures Anyways, it is the sixth or seventh tooth she has lost. The process should be firmly entrenched by now in our house, right? We should be old…
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My New Vlog
Well, in the spirit of growth I am trying my first vlog. That’s right. Mama’s giving this a shot and she got her self a brand new little camera thingy (read: gadget) just in time for summer. Wahoo!! No stopping me now. So this is me telling you all about my excellent, cute, adorable and sporty new Kodak Playsport. $159.99. Good price and well watch vlog to see the rest. PSST. I will get better at this, by the way.
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Toilet Water and Welcome Wednesday
If I had a dime for every time my kids did something that stunned me and made me fall down laughing, well I would be a very wealthy woman. The beautiful wild thing about parenting and having children is the very unpredictability of it all. A friend of mine who sat on a panel of adoptive parents with me a couple of weeks ago described her adoptive experience like this. She said it was a very calm easy slow process at the start that lulled them into believing parenting would be the same. They filled out their adoption application, waited, did the PRIDE training and read books about parenting and…
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Ironic Awards Day
On this rainy Monday I am blogging quickly about my first award. Yay me! The Sunshine Award – funny and slightly ironic name for the award on a day like today. (Booming thunder drumroll in the background.)Anyways so this is me thanking my readers for one year of excellent support and comments and ideas. And also acknowledging Deb Kade, over at Lucas’s Journey With Sensory Processing Disorder for giving me this award. Thanks much my lovelies. Now for this next year of growth and partnerships I look forward to having you visit me at one of my other blogs http://www.thriftymommasbrainfood.blogspot.com/ or http://www.thriftymommagogo.blogspot.com/ I hope too to meet some of you…
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Welcome Wednesday and Snoezelen
Hi all. I spent my Wednesday morning at the local Community Living London Ford Access Centre doing a Snoezelen Room training. That was kind of cool to see the sensory tools they have hooked up for public use. All you have to do is take one two-hour training session on how to use the equipment and then call and schedule a timeslot. For those who don’t know, these rooms are great for kids and adults with any type of sensory needs or autism. I may have to try out their leaf chair myself next week when I take my daughter in with me. There is a hot room and a…
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Bingemans Grand Experiences and Lays Chip Trips
This was too funny for me to resist putting here and frankly here goes Mommy’s first attempt at vlogging. Be afraid! Be very afraid! I took my family on a day trip to Bingemans in Kitchener. It’s a waterpark, amusement park, camp site with splash pad and various other fun things. For full review come visit http://www.thriftymommastips.blogspot.com/ Also I saved money because I am totally rocking the Lay’s Chip Trips promos this summer. For more on that go here: http://tiny.cc/7hud0
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Weekend Warrior post
So I was browsing around the other day and I found this excellent topic Weekend Warrior, started by the lovely blogger at Adoption of Jane. The idea is to educate others about special needs. So this is my post from the weekend – better late than never. This is my daughter Ainsley. She’s 6, beautiful, daring and athletic. She says Arm of Woir for Armoire and “No I willn’t” and that still makes me chuckle. She also was adopted at 5 months old and she’d been prenatally exposed to a number of substances, including alcohol and variours drugs. She has several diagnoses that are lasting as a result of choices…
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Welcome Wednesday
Hi all. I am trying something new here on a rainy Wednesday night. The awesome Take It From Me has started a sort of social bloghop. Visit http://www.takeitfrom-me.blogspot.com/to find out the details. Basically every Wednesday you visit and enter your blog url and then follow the directions. It’s a good way to meet some new blogger and attract some new followers too.
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Curbside Food Drive
So what does a picture of my darling daughter in a Brownie uniform have to do with London’s Curbside Food Drive? I thought you’d never ask. Recently, I had a chance to volunteer with my daughter’s Brownie troupe at the London area food bank off Adelaide Street and I learned a few things. The first thing I learned was that eight-year-old girls are stunningly competitive. Yes, the Brownie troupes, when split into smaller units, were racing each other to bag the most food hampers. Mommy comically reminded them to slow down and “it’s not a race” a few times. I also learned that children these days are incredibly bilingual. Probably three quarters of…
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The End of School Blues: Triggers for Grief in Adoption
Let’s take a minute to talk about triggers. We all have them, triggers that sometimes seize us by the heart and drag us back to a memory – good, bad or otherwise. Triggers can be like strange little portals to the past. Sometimes brought on by a smell, a time of year, a feeling, a picture. Triggers for Grief in Adoption are many and they sometimes arrive out of the blue for parents. But for kids in care and adoptees they can be hard to cope with and even harder to communicate clearly to adults. They are visceral and emotional. The Triggers for Grief in Adoption For adoptees, or children…