Is there anything weirder than everything going right? It's disorienting. I'm a little bit lost. Sure, I've got to wrestle health insurance for the kids. Adoption means they transfer departments, get new names, are "uninsured" as their old selves and put into a new program. It's kind of a hassle. Also we've got to sort [...]
I stayed up late finishing Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings tonight, captivated by her lovely prose and the widescreen view she offers of a group of friends who meet as teenagers and stay involved through middle age. It's such a gift, the ability to be so specific and detailed that there's a simultaneous feeling she's speaking [...]
Our five-year-old has a reliable reaction to any surprise in her routine.Something causes us to reverse activity 1 and activity 2. The place is closed. They're out of her favorite X, Y, or Z. She is not pleased. Sometimes she puts on a grim face and powers through it. Sometimes there's wailing. But it's never [...]
In what seemed like the endless time between being approved as foster dads and getting matched with our kids, I yearned so much for the wait to be over. I thought, as I always do, that this "next thing" would be the beginning of a new life. Of course it was. It's hard to clearly [...]
What a crazy system! I'm not sure I know a better way, but having "visits" and "overnights" and then taking the kids back to their current foster home just seems to upset them, and us. Change is hard, but now that it's clear it's going to go, my thought is we should just do it [...]
The placement date was set, about 3 weeks away, and we are set to do our first overnight tonight. Hooray! Oh wait, the placement date needs to be moved up two weeks. They're moving in next weekend, unless they're not. And we're going to be their forever family. Unless something weird happens in the legal [...]
I've been in a happy shock, as well as a whirling-dervish of childproofing and preparation. We've met our kids! It's been a blur, but here are the high points. The same week we celebrated freedom from bondage at Passover and new life at Easter, we met the nearly-two-year-old boy and nearly-five-year-old girl who have been [...]
It feels like Spring, and I'm thinking about love. One thing I like about yoga is that there's lots of talk about the human condition. It's a little philosophy chat during your workout. Years ago a yoga teacher said "if you didn't get your chin to your legs, it's no big deal. If you did [...]
We have a tradition in my family. As nerdy, techy, competent guys, the men in my family like like to be right. Often this is useful, because we do tend to know a lot about how electricity, plumbing, and basic mechanics work. But I've been known to be sure about things that might be a tiny [...]
OK, guilty. I was checking out Smash this week (will the sensitive brunette or the bombshell blonde be picked to play Marilyn?). There were Debra Messing and Brian d'Arcy James, struggling with the long, long wait they've been facing in their adoption. Should he go back to work, should they wait longer for the baby? Then on [...]
On the recommendation of a friend I'm reading a fascinating new book, Timothy Wilson's Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change. I also recently saw Our Idiot Brother, and the two have me thinking. The brainy one first: Redirect talks about the power of the interpretations we give events. A simple example: someone who [...]
My twice-yearly dental cleanings are an interesting opportunity to feel like a completely mediocre achiever. I don't think I'm incredibly lazy, or unable to follow directions. OK, I probably don't brush for the full two minutes each time, but I floss twice a day (always!), and I try the different techniques that have been offered--circular! [...]
We took a few down days, to process the adoption that didn't happen, but then somehow swung back into action. Friends had offered to swap the adult bed we had in the kids-to-be room for these great bunk beds, but Jay felt we might be tempting fate by moving on the furniture before we were [...]
Unfortunately this week a placement we hoped (and had been told) was very likely to happen fell through, for unknown reasons. Hopefully it was because of something positive for the kids like a better placement. Weirdly, we will never know. Sadly, instead of having great news which I've been going crazy hiding under my hat, we've [...]
As possible placements are floated, and either are or seem more likely, I find myself kicking into high gear. But with nothing to do. Parents expecting babies can put together the crib or pick out stuff, but there's little useful concrete action we can take until we know more. Whenever I can, I follow the [...]