Holidays & Birthdays

Recently I blogged about the Dutch diplomat and how he and his wife are placing their adopted daughter back into the care of social services. A reader commented about “parenting in a fishbowl” and how difficult it was to raise these children in relative anonymity, much less with the whole world watching. I remember a family that contacted me years ago—a pastor of a small town church, his wife and their three sons. The oldest was a “healthy white infant placement” and was at that time about 8 years old … and a very, very disturbed little boy. This family was, with the exception of this little boy, the quintessential Midwestern Christian family, and they were really, really struggling to live with this child… [more]

Merry Christmas to everyone! I haven’t posted in several days, and yet I find time to post on Christmas day? What’s up with that? Well, we had our Christmas two days ago, prior to Kyle and Marie heading north to spend Christmas with her family. Steph went with them, as she is spending this time with her boyfriend and his family. That leaves the old folks and the really young folks. I must say, I am quite happy being "off duty" today and just munching our many leftovers, watching television, and doing nothing! It didn't help that I awoke with a headache (the "coming down from stress" trigger for a migraine) and while my meds have diminished my headache, they make me sleepy, too. Last week it seems… [more]

Julie Fuller blogged about losing Christmas presents for unacceptable behavior, and this really rang a chime with me. I just had to comment on this … I know of a family who had a child who never, ever participated in birthday or Christmas gift exchanges. In fact, the family used to joke about the fact that as they were all sitting down for the birthday dinner, this child would run to the computer and quickly print off a generic birthday card, signed on the computer. Literally at the very, very last minute. The mom of this family attended a Nancy Thomas seminar sponsored by ATN, and during that workshop, Nancy Thomas said no child in her household was allowed to participate in Christmas if they didn’t… [more]

I’m on my way to Minnesota this morning to spend the weekend with Stephanie. Her 21st birthday is December 4th. My hubby will be managing things at home, which includes therapy for Dora today and Beth’s Division II Championship swim meet both days this weekend. I hate to miss the meet, but I want to spend the weekend with Steph and I have yet to figure out how to be two places at once. I can’t believe it has been 21 years since Steph made her appearance. My birthday is three weeks after hers … I was almost 30 when she was born. Not too hard to do the math, is it? I wasn’t dying my hair or pushing wrinkles around my face when she was… [more]

Today is Beth’s birthday. She's 11 years old. She’s upstairs doing a little schoolwork today, and then we are off to get our nails done. After that it’s lunch at Panera (she likes soup in a bread bowl) and then we will come home and feed the dogs and put a loaf of bread in the bread machine to go with the Crock Pot Beef we’re having for dinner, at her request. What she doesn’t know is that we will then go see Martian Child before I drop her off at the Parks and Recreation Home Alone class at 4 PM. We’ll all celebrate her birthday (once again) tonight at dinner. Last night she informed me that yesterday just might, in fact, be her birthday. She’s… [more]

For many years after I started ATN, we had a tradition of gathering many of the families together on the Fourth of July and having a picnic at my home, followed by watching our local parade and fireworks. We did this for several years in a row, and when we moved to Illinois, it was one of many, many things I missed. We even came back to Kansas one year and celebrated the holiday with one of the families … the most consistent of our holiday guests. Last year we were in duplexes and just recovering from a wedding, so I didn’t have a place or the motivation to plan such a party. This year I am busy with the conference and really… [more]

While all the controversy was swirling around Sandra these past few weeks, I have been spotty in my blogging and certainly not controversial. Not that I can’t be … it’s just that most of my energy has gone towards getting through the day. I’m still not 100% well. I called the doc today about my productive cough and general inability to completely shake this whatever-it-is. Hopefully I’ll be operating at full throttle here shortly—thanks for your patience! We did manage to get out of the house yesterday for Father’s Day. Next post I'm going to tell you about a fabulous Father's Day sermon we heard. But first I want to mention something else ... I didn’t receive a phone call from Amy on Mother’s… [more]

Stephanie is a waitress this summer, at the same restaurant she has worked at in Illinois and even Minnesota, where she is in college. It’s a chain, if you haven’t figured that out … Kyle also waited tables, as did my husband (in college) and I, in high school and college. In fact, I worked at … are you ready? … Farrell’s fantastic fabulous fountain of fun! Just for jollies, I Googled it tonight, and was surprised to find it is making a comeback. I guess some old things still have value! When I worked at the Farrell’s in Indianapolis, we made giant sundaes for the Indianapolis 500 mile race festivities (this is an actual picture from that event, circa 1975 or… [more]

After driving all day, we returned Thursday evening from Colorado. It was 34 degrees, windy and very winter-like when we left in the morning. It was 88 degrees driving across the prairie. I just had to share these chipmunk pictures with you. This is a tradition in my family. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say this is a tradition for me … I have loved photography for years and I always take the kids to ride a tram to the top of this mountain in Estes and feed the chipmunks. If you go in July, the critters are so fat they can hardly move and they are not interested in anything… [more]

In the series of posts I just completed, I discussed our purpose in parenting our challenging children, and how we should best measure our success. Being satisfied that the gift is in the giving is a very, very difficult concept to absorb, but it really is true. It is an easy concept when one thinks about more accepted areas of giving, like Christmas or birthdays. As children mature into adults, most of them learn that the true joy of Christmas or other gift-giving holidays is in watching people you love open a gift you thoughtfully created or purchase or arranged. The joy of the gift is truly in the giving. But what if the recipient was always unhappy with what you offered?… [more]