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Listening to impacted voices

As a parent to adopted children of color, I have learned that listening to the voices of adoptees and to the voices of Asians has helped me understand what my children may experience. Sometimes it is hard because what those voices tell us isn't always what we want to hear. We like to be the good guys in the story, but we also need to hear where we (or the majority culture) has fallen short. It is humbling, but necessary in order for me to be the best parent I can to my children.  This is also true for people with disabilities. I feel fortunate that I had a friend with another mom when I had two young children. This friend also happened to use a wheelchair due to childhood polio and was a disability advocate. I learned a lot from her and I am grateful for both her friendship and my education. I also know now that I should not have put the onus of education my clueless self on her, but should have also worked to educate myself. But you don't know what you don't know.  Which b...
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Steep learning curve

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Today the plan was to get the rest of the sheep sheared, or technically rooed because we didn't think any shears would be involved. Well, the best laid plans and all that. We decided to start with Fred because he is the biggest and I knew he has the thickest wool, so it seemed wise to start with him.  As of this afternoon, we now have one and a half sheep sheared. I think the wiser course of action would have been to practice some more with the smaller sheep and save Fred for last. I remember last year the shearer being really surprised at how difficult it was to shear Fred, so I knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park. But good gravy that sheep has incredible think, sproingy, and greasy wool! By the end of both mine and Fred's patience, I was able to trim the blanket (the wool on his back and sides that I will save to process), and had started on the britch which didn't need to be quite so careful with because it was going to go to the garden for mulch. But we were both...
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Funny, not funny

I spent some time talking with an adult child today who needed to vent about trying to use AI to do a task at work. I won't go into the why's because that's not my story, but I am fully up for listening to venting about AI, so was all in. I'm not even going to try to explain what this child was working on because I only vaguely understand it, but there were a couple of things that stood out from our conversation and I haven't been able to get them out of my head since.  The bottom line as I see it, is that AI is really nothing more than a sassy teen who is smarter than is good for them, but hates to work harder than necessary. Why do I say this? Well, if you give Frederick or Charles or Pierre or whatever name the not-human-but-plays-one-on-the-internet set of connections has been named, if you give it instructions that are too long, Pierre (as we'll call it for simplicity's sake) will do the instructions, but the output will be wrong. When you asked Pierre ...
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Public Service Announcement

It seems there is a new homeschooling group around that people need to be aware of.... even if you are not a homeschooler. And that would be you need to know about it and not in a good way. I'm not going to link to it. If you want to do your own research, Google can find it for you. And I'm all about doing your own research.  So this particular group is The Homeschool Freedom Directory. It wants to gather a list of businesses and professionals who are willing to sign their pledge to get on their list. Which you then pay a fee for them to do direct marketing to their audience. The website uses phrases such as "connecting homeschoolers with businesses who support their values" and "wanting to bring the homeschool community together and make it stronger."  There seemed to be a few code words in there, so I looked at the pledge. First, it is very faith based. Clue number one that these weren't my people. And if you haven't been around the blog for very l...
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A small dent

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I had dinner with a friend tonight which was lovely, but also means I have no energy to write anything of substance. So enjoy my small gardening accomplishment from today. Now just 60+ feet of garden to go. 
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Normal

Let's talk about what is normal in parenting children with a trauma history. And just to remind you, all adoption involves trauma. Yes, even infant adoption. Ready?  It is normal for the child to have an immature regulatory system. Things that children with stable backgrounds weather easily are difficult.  It is normal for this regulatory system to be dysregulated much of the time. It is normal for a perpetually dysregulated child to melt down or rage over what seem to be trivial things. It is normal for the child to be non-compliant. It is normal for the child to lie and steal.  It is normal for the child to be functional in settings which don't involve the parents. It is normal for children to be more dysregulated after being functional in the non-home setting.  It is normal for the child to act both younger than their chronological age and also more sophisticated.  Please note that I did not say all children who have experienced trauma will behave like this. ...
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Surprises

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Yesterday J. and I were each busy doing various things so R. took herself off to her room. I was aware of her digging around in the bin of Duplos. I didn't think anything of it, as she'll often dig around looking for one of the few favorite figures that she likes to carry around. What I wasn't expecting was when she came into the studio to show me what she had built.  This, in case you can't tell, is a house (zoo?) with different rooms for her favorite Duplo animals. I think perhaps I was speechless for a moment and then double checked that this was her own creation. I was probably speechless again for a moment.  While R. is very good at entertaining herself, she has about five different activities that she enjoys and will play with for hours. I try very hard to get her to switch things up throughout the day, but it is really just a theme and variation. We have never seen her choose to build something without direct instruction and support. I honestly didn't think t...
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