Happy New Year and welcome to the first Adoption and Fostering Round-Up of 2013.
I’m Vicki and I blog over at The Boy’s Behaviour, where I write about my life as adoptive mum to Mini. Our usual lovely round-up editor Maryam has recently welcomed the latest addition to her family and as you can imagine, is busy settling him in and finishing the court papers to finalise the adoption. So I’m helping out this month and hope that I can introduce you to some great posts, and bloggers that you might not have seen before…
So I’m kicking off with Bears, Babies and Bananas, where adoptive mum Megs writes about her two boys – Pup and Tigs. In this particular post Megs questions what makes her boys who they are. I love this post for its honesty about expectations we have about our children, and our future children.
Another blog that’s well worth a look up is Two Guys Adopting, who over the years have shared their journey to become adoptive parents. Now that they are, they write about their life with their children. This post looks at how a seemingly harmless programme on children’s TV can have a big impact on the emotional well-being of adopted children, and can really stir things up for them.
Meanwhile over on Honest Adoption Blog, you’ll find a post that demonstrates the type of conversation that many of us have with our children, and certainly rang true for me, despite the age difference between the child described and my son Mini. This blog really does live up to its name, and highlights the highs and lows of life with two traumatised children.
A blogger who never fails to highlight exactly how many of us adopters feel, is Sally Donovan. In this reflective post, Sally looks back at the hard work and lessons learnt throughout 2012.
More summing up of 2012 at Family of 5, though not such a positive sounding year for them. However, news of their latest therapy session sounds promising, pop on over and have a read…
Gem’s been busy over at Life With Katie this month with several posts of interest. It’s great to see Gem’s views on the Government reforms that have been announced. I also like the light-hearted way in which she has written about the serious issue of pets being assessed as part of a prospective adopter’s own assessment. There are many myths around who can and can’t adopt; but being a pet owner is not a barrier to adoption. Gem shares the questions she was asked about her cats, with her real answers, and the ones she would have liked to have given!
Sezz has been blogging about life with her daughter Missy at Dear Daughter: Our Adoption Journey, and in this post she shares her experience of meeting other adopters at a local coffee morning.
Whilst over at Adopt and Keep Calm, Buster (who has recently celebrated her blog’s first anniversary) has written about the day that Bonzo had an EEG, and how she had to deprive him of lots of sleep. Well worth a read, and especially encouraging to see that they had a bit of a breakthrough.
As I mentioned before, Maryam is busy settling her new son, but in her post Toddler or More, she writes about how hard it is to know if your adopted child is displaying ‘normal’ behaviour, or something more. This is something that lots of adopters struggle with, and it’s certainly in the back of my mind nearly all the time. Sometimes trauma or attachment issues don’t come to light until you look at the bigger picture and *all* of those slightly different behaviours, and it’s because of this that adopters can be a little more questioning of those different behaviours that a birth child might also display occasionally.
The Puffin Diaries has had a bit of makeover and is looking great. Do have a look through some of Sarah’s wonderful #SilentSunday posts; however the post that I really enjoyed reading this month was A Mini Melodrama – so typical of a day in my own house. Sarah handled the situation as I would love to, but infuriation often takes over!
And on The Boy’s Behaviour, I’ve written about The Positivity Pot. We’re not very good at shouting about achievements in this country, and I know I focus on the negative side of my life all too often, so I’ve made a positivity pot to record the little things that have gone well…do have a look, you might be inspired!
I mustn’t forget to mention some other wonderful bloggers – Kat at On the Edge, Adoptive Mummy, Dream Seekers blog Life, Love and Adoption, The One Hand Man, Mostly Functional, and Getting There. All well worth a look.
The Weekly Adoption Shout-Out
And finally, The Boy’s Behaviour and The Puffin Diaries have also launched a great new weekly initiative to bring together the community of adoption bloggers that exists. The Weekly Adoption Shout-Out #WASO is a brand new link-up which provides a platform for bloggers to share their posts, and means that those interested in reading about adoption will have a handy list of links each week. We’re both really excited about this as we believe it’s the only adoption related link-up in the UK. So do come and have a look every Friday and join in.
There are so many great adoption bloggers out there; it’d be great if we could feature some fostering bloggers too. So if you blog about fostering or you know someone who does, please do contact Maryam at maryam.lane@yahoo.co.uk or @MaryamLane, or myself Vicki at theboysbehaviour@gmail.com or @mrs_vicki_n.
Vicki is adoptive mum to 6 year old Mini, who currently has two wobbly teeth, and birth mum to 2.5 year old Dollop, who thinks she is a princess.
Vicki blogs at The Boys Behaviour, which began as a record of the journey towards help for Mini as he struggles to come to terms with his background. She writes about their therapy sessions, feelings, behaviour and anything else in between. Vicki is grateful to be a part of a very supportive group of adopters and foster carers on twitter and in the blogosphere.
The Boy’s Behaviour is also on Facebook, and you can reach Vicki on theboysbehaviour@gmail.com or on Twitter @Mrs_Vicki_N
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new mummy
Wednesday 30th of January 2013
Really good to see a few other adoption blogs to be able to link up with.
Sarah Hill
Monday 28th of January 2013
Awesome round up Mrs N and thank you for including me. There are a couple of blogs here I've not seen before so I will be popping over there soon. x