Ordinary Time

1 new family next door + 1 large television set + 0 curtains =

We are still waiting for the Dong Nai officials to complete their end of our paperwork, but the US Embassy has been moving ahead on their end. For those of you who don't obsessively keep up with the state of adoptions in Vietnam, you have missed quite a roller coaster ride. Sadly, some agencies who work in Vietnam are more concerned with their own bottom line than with the well-being of the children who come into their care or the prospective adoptive parents who hire them. As a result, the US Embassy felt it was necessary to investigate the status of more than a few of the children for whom visas were applied, and even denied some, causing the parents to have to leave Vietnam without their children. In order to avoid future occurrences of this scenario, new regulations have been put in place. Parents need to apply for the child's visa before they travel and the adoption occurs. This way, if there is anything questionable about the situation, all parties involved know bef...

although I'm not sure it makes the wait any easier.

[Yikes! 2024 me here to say the concept of first time obedience is bad news!! Read on at your own peril. Look for parenting posts I wrote in the 2020's to see where I am now and marvel at the change. It was a change that was difficult, so do yourself and your children a favor and just skip this kind of parenting.] I just noticed that Jena had asked me a question in a comment on my post about obedience. As I was writing my reply to here, I thought maybe others would be interested in my answer as well. Here it is: I just noticed your comment on my blog, sorry it it's been a while since you asked your question! There are a couple of things we do to encourage first time obedience. One tactic I use regularly, and probably works best for grade school age and up, is that if the child doesn't respond cheerfully and right away to a request, a second job will be added. Pretty quickly the child learns that it would have been easier to just do the initial request in the first pl...

We still have no provincial approval. We are now at 9 months of waiting for something that by Vietnamese law is supposed to take two to four months. According to our agency, there is nothing wrong with our paperwork, just that the provincial officials don't see the need to move quickly. (Well, we're long past quickly, now we're just talking movement.) In the meantime a little boy heads quickly toward his second birthday, still living in an orphanage, still waiting to have surgery to correct his cleft palate. We are not the only family. I believe there are three other families whose files have gone past the average time for approval. Please pray with us that the officials will be moved to approve the files of these children. I believe that only divine intervention will cause these officials to act.

This is Mr. Adventure Guy. He was a gift to TM for his birthday. Mr. Adventure Guy came equipped with two o utfits, an ATV, and a bicycle. TM loves Mr. Adventure Guy very much, and wouldn't let anyone touch him for the first couple of days. But, then, after the newness wore off, I started finding Mr. Adventure Guy in unexpected places. The first time, I looked into the front hall and discovered Mr. Adventure Guy riding his ATV across the carpet, without any clothes, but, since he is a responsible adventurer, he was wearing his helmet. It became seriously amusing to me as to where he would turn up next, and I started taking pictures of him. The next time, I found Mr. Adventure Guy, was when I was walking down the upstairs hallway. A hot tub of sorts had been thoughtfully made for him and he was relaxing after his hard day of ATV riding. Now for those of you who may wonder at the explicit photos of Mr. Adventure Guy, I want to reassure you that he is also modes...

[2024 me popping in to say only read this post if you want to see where I started in my thinking on parenting as a counterpoint to where I ended up. I pretty much disavow much of what I had written here. Parenting posts dated 2012 or later, such as this one, are better ones to read for actual parenting advice. Proceed at your own risk.] A couple of weeks ago, while watching us have a short battle with TM about him wearing his coat, a friend made the comment about how this must be shock because all of our other children are so compliant. This has started me thinking about the meanings of compliance and obedience and why, as a society, we rarely ever talk about child rearing and obedience in the same breath. To start, some definitions... compliance n. 1. the act or process of complying to a desire, demand, or proposal or to coercion 2. a disposition to yield to others obedience n. submissive to the restraint or command of authority As a parent, I would much rather have an obedient child...