So, for those of us who care about the kind of world our kids come from and will be left in after we're gone (and who doesn't?), there are a couple of developments in the Big Summer Stories.

Toxic product recalls: Remember the lethal Chinese toothpaste sweetened with antifreeze story? Did you ever wonder exactly how the diethylene glycol was discovered to begin with? It wasn't an imports inspector. It wasn't a curious doctor. It was a Kuna Indian dude from Panama - a civil servant who doesn't even own a car - who ... more

I just got a very interesting appeal in my inbox from Half the Sky. They've got a chance at winning (!) a slot as torchbearer for the 2008 Olympics. And they want to let the children carry it.

Can you picture that? And you can help.

Half the Sky, as the regular reader might recall, is one of the coolest, ... more

Oddly, I've just had a cluster of Mandarin language stuff hit my inbox, in the form of two useful web resources and one fascinating (and inspirational) bit of research.

Resource #1:

Professional Mandarin tutor and Chinese translator Samuel Chong, from Beijing and Los Angeles, has provided a list of adoption related phrases in Mandarin Chinese. They're mp3s and they're free.

Yes,... more

I've talked about packing lists for traveling to China before (not to mention traveling with that other kind of baggage). But I was never THIS concise: Here's ... more

Somehow, another year has passed and it's the festival of the Autumn Moon, celebrating the one day of the year when Cheng-Er (or Chang-O, or Chang-Ngo) can come down from her prison on the moon. It's also the day before the festival of Sukkot, the Feast of Booths.

I was thinking about this lucky coincidence while reading this story about two... more

I can't exactly remember when My Forthright Spouse and I first really decided to adopt. I remember sort of talking about it, and then it was suddenly happening. This seems to follow how the pregnancy-type of family-making happens, only with more notaries and fewer doctor visits - you can talk and talk and then suddenly you're there, having to do things on checklists and filing and watching calendars and talking to Important People with Important Titles on the phone.

I was thinking of this when I read this story about a couple from Mattoon,... more

Every so often, I play the "What If...?" game. I think, in part, it's because I grew up reading comics - or, well, more like listening to friends tell me about the comics they were reading, because buying comics wasn't really on my parents' list of things to do. Forbidden fruit. Or, as "What If..." comics would have it: "The road not taken!" This series, in particular, took familiar characters like Spider-Man and placed them in subtly... more

So, Daughter is seeing a speech therapist - a speech language pathologist (SLP). Not because she has any language problems or pronunciation - she gets enough practice talking and talking and talking, after all - but because she has nodules on her vocal cords.

We've gotten hooked up with a therapist through the auspices of Child Find, a free "special education program" that handles things like developmental delays... more

CD Review: Lullabies: For China's Daughters & Their Adoptive Families, by Chuck & Lynette Giacinto (Final Quest)

This isn't an album I would have sought out and bought for myself, but it's one I'm quite glad I now own. Let me try to explain that. This is a collection of quite pretty songs inspired by and dedicated to children adopted from China. Some of it is done very much in the Amy Grant/Christian Contemporary mold. I'm not a big fan of slick production and those new-Broadway/Little Mermaid-style pretty melodies - as far as lullabies go, the ... more

My Punctilious Spouse recently did a home study for a waiting family. They sent their dossier to China in spring 2006, and have been told by their agency that they should expect a referral in about eight months. That's eight months from now.

So, if wait times have really stretched out to three years (?!!), then there's obviously a grave need for things to do while you're waiting. Of course, reading this here blog would be one thing to do, but after plumbing the, uh, archive, then, um, well... you'll need something else.

Why not immerse yourself in stories?... more