Since I was a very young child I have wanted to adopt a child someday. I loved the idea of adoption and dreamed of adding to my family through adoption someday. When I became a Christian, adoption took on a whole new meaning for me. I was chosen by my Heavenly Father and adopted to be His child.
When our biological daughter and first born was born with Down syndrome, my adoption dream evolved into adopting a child with Down syndrome in the future. The incredibly high abortion rates of children prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome and my growing love for my own biological daughter with Down syndrome fueled my passion to adopt one of these precious children. Over 90% of these prenatal diagnosis end in abortion. That broke {breaks} my heart. Shortly after my daughter’s birth, I started researching domestic adoptions of children with Down syndrome. What I found was incredibly heart-warming. In America, there are waiting lists of families who WANT TO ADOPT a child with Down syndrome. Learning about the waiting lists encouraged me to start researching international adoptions of children with Down syndrome. What I found was not so heartwarming. A lot of countries discourage families from keeping a child born with special needs and there are way too many children sent to orphanages and later institutionalized because they have Down syndrome. Dateline recently did a special on one country’s institutions and they are under-resourced, understaffed, and basically inhumane.
While researching international adoptions of children with Down syndrome, I found Reece’s Rainbow. Reece’s Rainbow is an adoption ministry aimed at finding homes for orphans around the world who have Down syndrome. They have helped to save over 90 orphans with Down syndrome (or other special needs). While they are mainly focused on saving children with Down syndrome, they do have an “Other Angels” page where they share information about children who have special needs other than Down syndrome. Our raffle beneficiaries, the Balsis Family, is working through Reece’s Rainbow in their adoption of a little girl who has Down syndrome.
About six months ago, I started really feeling like it was time to pursue an adoption of a child with Down syndrome through Reece’s Rainbow. Several months later, my husband started feeling a heart tug as well. One child in particular really spoke loud and clear to both of us that NOW was the time to grow our family through adoption. We are very excited to announce that we have committed to adopting a very special 8 month old little girl who we are calling “Reese.” Reese has Down syndrome and also a cleft lip and cleft palate. We are hoping to bring her home from Eastern Europe in early spring. I realize that adopting a child with special needs is not the road often traveled for most folks, but I want everyone to know that my husband and I are not “special people.” We were given a very special gift when our daughter was born with Down syndrome and we have a very special love for her. While we are overjoyed to save a child who needs a Mommy and Daddy, we are selfishly ecstatic to be having another daughter who has Down syndrome and to experience the gift she is going to be to our family.
There are so many ways you can make an impact in these orphans’ lives:
- Adopt! I know this may seem like a crazy notion to most of you, but before you dismiss it completely, I encourage you to strongly think about this option. You will be blessing a child, but will also be blessed in more ways than you can imagine!!
- Give! We have our AWESOME raffle going on right now which benefits a specific family and gives you a great chance to win something. However, you can also donate to children who are waiting for their forever families, children whose families are in the adoption process, or give a general monetary donation to Reece’s Rainbow. All of these options (except for our raffle) can be found at Reece’s Rainbow.
- Visit Reece’s Rainbow and see the many other ways you can help!
To receive information on domestic (American) adoptions of children with Down syndrome, visit the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Cincinnati.
This morning my local Fox News affiliate came to my house and interviewed me about mom blogging. The story will air here in San Antonio onTuesday in the morning and evening news. I will be sure to post the video when I get it!
The interview got me to thinking about why moms like to blog. We do have a lot going on in our lives with kids, family, and house demands, but we carve out time in our day to share our thoughts with the world. Here is why I think we like to blog, but let me know in the comment section why you like to blog and give a shout out for your blog!
1. It is easy to chronicle our lives online. Have ever you gone back in your blog’s history? It is fun to see what we were thinking about at the time and what our children looked like.
2. For family and friends to keep up with your kids. I have a separate family blog where I post my daughter’s photos mostly for family who don’t live in the same town. I know many moms who would have never started a blog if it weren’t for having children and showing them off to family out of town.
3. You don’t have to leave your house to connect with friends. Imagine if we all used cameras when we blogged! Could you imagine what we would look like? I love being able to keep up with friends both out of town and in town through their blogs. I sometimes feel like I know my friends better through their blog than I do in real life.
4. To share our opinions and use our brains! My day consists of teaching Annabelle colors, shapes, and numbers. It is nice to get online and form complete sentences. When I write for The Mom Crowd I try to be thoughtful and helpful. I need the mental exercise to stay sane!
5. To get support and encourage other moms. I have read quite a few posts asking for help and what to do in certain situations. It is a great place to get feedback. Sometimes we just need to hear “I have been through that and you aren’t crazy.” Receiving sympathy comments are nice too. So you could even say that we blog for comments. I know I wouldn’t be the first to admit it.
Leave a comment and let us know why you blog! Why do you think mom blogging has become so popular? Also, give a shout out for your blog!
It’s that time again: the start of school. For many of us moms, it’s the start of pre-school. My kids have been in pre-school for about four weeks now (and my mental health is the better for it!) Lucy is in the 2-year old class, so she brings artwork or little projects home twice a week. Eli, 1, goes once a week, and doesn’t bring anything home yet.
I love that the kids get to do fun projects at pre-school. I love seeing how proud Lucy is when she shows me what she did, and listening to her cute voice describe it: “What did you make, Lucy?” “A col-LAGE!” Another new word in her ever-expanding vocabulary.
So this is just the beginning. Soon, artwork is going to start piling up all around us if we don’t have a plan of action for what to do with it. I’m sure lots of you moms know what I’m talking about. What happens when there’s no more room on the fridge?
Thanks to ideas I’ve read in various magazines over the past couple of years, I’ve acquired some helpful tips for this issue. I don’t really take credit for these ideas – except for #1 and #3, which I just thought of as I was writing this post. I hope this helps you prevent mountains of construction paper from forming in your house & car!
- Turn your laundry room or spare wall into a gallery. As I mentioned last
week, my house has out-of-date wallpaper. In our laundry room – a place where I spend a fair amount of time each week, and also the room we walk through to get to the garage – the wallpaper is pretty busy. So I started taping up the kids’ artwork and projects. Every day that Lucy brings home something new, she helps me pick out a spot on the wall, and up it goes. It’s her artwork-central. She loves it. I get to appreciate it, and the less of that wallpaper I see, the better.
- Take pictures of the artwork as it comes in, and save them in a special folder on your computer. Then the opportunities are endless: use the pictures for your screensaver, or make a photo year book for each school year!
- Create a blog just for their artwork. Give the address to family members and friends so they can comment. The kids will love the praise on their own special webpage!
- Mail pieces of artwork to distant relatives. Not only does this get it out of your house, it gives Grandma a special surprise amid her bills!
- Keep a special portfolio, box or file for each of your childrens’ work. At the end of each quarter or semester (or any time you feel is necessary), sit down with your child and the artwork, and do a cleanout. Have them choose their 5 best pieces, and save them in the portfolio with the dates and their signature. Then decide what you will do with the rest. Tell your child that any of options 2-4 are acceptable, but it’s time to make room in the portfolio for new things that come in. Not only does this whittle down the amount of paper you’ve got at home, it gives your child ownership in what is kept, and even helps develop a critically-thinking mind.
- Frame your favorite pieces to be hung on the walls. I saw a picture of this in the latest Real Simple; the decorator created a collage on the wall of framed family pictures and artwork. It was really cool and colorful.
Surely there are other ideas and tips out there for cherishing the work of each of our little Picassos, Monets, or better yet, Dalis. 
What have you done?
The baby, Graham, is getting closer to walking every week. And now I am in the process of getting him some shoes so that when we go outside his little toes won’t get too cold. I recently purchased some Robeez Tredz shoes which are absolutely adorable. I liked the idea of the Tredz because we live in a cooler, rainy climate and thought that a more water resistant shoe that was still soft soled would be a good choice. I used the Robeez soft soled shoes for both the older boys for the first 6 months to year after they started walking. I had read about all the advantages of the soft soled shoes and knew that spending lots of time walking barefoot or close to it would help their feet develop properly. Plus, I love that they are easy to get on and don’t come off easily either.
Unfortunately I had to guess at his foot size and got the 12-16 month size. Graham just turned 1 but I couldn’t get his squishy, fat feet in the shoes. I tried jamming them in but it was no use–they weren’t going in. It looked like I was trying to wrestle an alligator as I tried getting his foot in that shoe. So now I have to send them back to the online store and either get the larger size or try a different shoe. My concern is that the larger 16-20 month size will still be too narrow. I had this same problem with my second child. He had fat feet and I had a terrible time finding shoes for him. He wore Robeez for a long time because I couldn’t find shoes for him.
I know it is good for babies to walk barefoot as much as possible but we like to go outside a lot and the weather is already cooling off into the low 50s in the mornings. I don’t want his little toes to fall off from frostbite. So what do I do? I don’t want to go from store to store trying to find flexible shoes that fit his feet. And I don’t want to keep returning shoes that don’t fit either. I am on the hunt for the perfect walking shoe for babies. Can you help me?
Does anyone else have this problem? What did you do? What shoes have you found to work great for your beginning walkers? Or your kids that have wide feet?
