Search Results for: blog national adoption day this saturday

National Adoption Day 2009

Jessie joined our family on September 11, 2008. She was placed in our home for adoption. It wasn’t until June 2, 2009, that we learned that what was promised was going to happen. We were going to be able to adopt our third foster placement. That was the happiest day since we graced our eyes upon her. The next thing we had to think about is what to do next. I had the names of two attorneys whom I spoke with when there were challenges to Jessie staying with us. I liked them both and each had a different take … Continue reading →

“Big Fat Greek Wedding” Star Advocates for Foster Adoption”

Posted on by

I’ve written about Angelina Jolie, Katherine Heigl and Madonna adopting internationally, and about Sheryl Crow adopting an infant and Sandra Bullock’s adoption of an African-American infant from New Orleans. (Breaking news on Bullock: gossip sites like “Anything Hollywood”and “igossip” are saying Bullock wants to adopt a sibling for Louis, and wants to start the process now and hope that it won’t take as long as Louis’ adoption. Bullock and her then-husband Jesse James applied to adopt nearly four years ago. I haven’t heard any mainstream verification of this, though. ) It seems rarer to hear about celebrities adopting from foster … Continue reading →

National Adoption Day this Saturday

Each November is National Adoption Month. Many adoption organizations and adoptive parent groups have activities. But in recent years the centerpiece of National Adoption Month has been National Adoption Day, when adoptions are celebrated in a festive manner. This year National Adoption Day is this coming Saturday, November 21st. It will be the tenth annual National Adoption Day. Courts in every state and in Puerto Rico will process and celebrate the adoption finalizations of children from the U.S. foster care system who now have a permanent family through adoption. Many of these events will have a celebration following—sometimes for the … Continue reading →

National Adoption Month 2008

National Adoption Month is bringing a permanent home to approximately 3, 500 foster children in the U.S. this year. National Adoption Month awareness activities are credited with helping more than 20,000 children find homes in the past nine years. President Bush has proclaimed November to be National Adoption Month. His proclamation urged Americans to celebrate adoptive families in general and in particular, to consider how to find homes for the country’s foster children. This year, adoption agencies have put a special emphasis on adopting older children and teens from foster care. Some suggestions various parent groups and agencies have for … Continue reading →

November in the Adoption Blog: Month in Review

I began the blog on All Saints Day with a tribute to certain “Saints” in U.S. Adoption and Pioneers in International Adoption. Then I wrote a tribute to the founder of my daughter’s Korean adoption agency, who has lived an exciting and multifaceted life and is remarkable for his humble concern for children. In honor of National Adoption Month, I wrote two blogs on Top Ten Myths about Adoption. For Part One, click here. For Part Two, click here. Then I wrote a blog about events on National Adoption Day, Saturday November 17. These events included finalizations of thousands of … Continue reading →

November is National Adoption Awareness Month.

Every year in the United States, the month of November is set aside to promote awareness about the adoption of children from the foster care system. National Adoption Month, has been celebrated for over 20-years and started in May 1976, when Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued the first state Adoption Week proclamation. Later in the same year 1976 President Gerald Ford officially proclaimed National Adoption week by way of a letter to the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) conference. During the following years, Adoption Week was observed during the week of Thanksgiving in November. In 1986, NACAC coordinated … Continue reading →

Difficulty Sleeping

Posted on by

My daughter Jessie has been having issues with sleeping lately. I feel so bad for her, especially since she was always a good sleeper. Jessie joined our family when she was nine months old. She transitioned beautifully. We could put her in her crib and she’d flop over onto her tummy and sleep peacefully for 12 hours or more. Pumpkin was a foster baby in our home when Jessie came. Since Jessie has been here, four children have come and gone. We’ve done our best to cushion the blow of changes in the family. We reiterate how she is our … Continue reading →

Positive Steps to Confront Stereotypes

In recent blogs I talked about anti-immigrant feeling in America today and whether it will have an unintended impact on our adopted children. I was thinking primarily of our Asian and Latino children, but a third-grader from Ethiopia was recently taunted in my neighborhood and told to go back to her country. In some parts of the U.S. the immigrant African population may be larger than the African-American population, so possibly more and more people will assume that African-heritage children are immigrants as well. And some of them are—Haiti and Liberia have been native countries of significant numbers of adopted … Continue reading →

May in Review, Part Three

Posted on by

I shared the news that thousands of Chinese are offering to adopt children orphaned by the quake in Earthquake May Prove to Be a Milestone for Adoption in China. However, some orphans of a previous quake reported feeling as though they were tolerated as foster children rather than fully part of their adoptive families or relatives’ families, and some social service personnel feel that the children could support each other better in a boarding school where they would live with other earthquake survivors. This controversy is discussed in Is Adoption the Best Solution for Earthquake Survivors? –The Disagreement. In What … Continue reading →

Examining My Own Attitudes Toward Race

On Saturday, I wrote about my parents’ attitude toward skin color (loving, but in an “it-doesn’t-matter-so-don’t-talk-about-it” sort of way). Now I have to ask myself, how much of their discomfort talking about race rubbed off on me? I am white, with a white son and two Korean daughters. I guess I’d better get comfortable talking about it quick. I wrote a poem for my first daughter called “My Beautiful Caramel-Colored Daughter”. I absolutely love her smooth, golden-brown skin and sparkling black eyes. I love the way the light rosy blush on my youngest’s cheek looks against her light tan face. … Continue reading →