Tag Archives: visit

Navigating the Holidays With Your Toddler

Christmas is just around the corner, and this means lots of travel with your toddler in tow. In order to make your visits with friends and family as fun as possible for you and your toddler, keep the following tips in mind. These are things that I learned over the past couple of years with Dylan, and I am going to rely on these strategies again this year as I head out of town with Dylan and Blake for a couple of days. One very helpful tip is to keep your activities as close as possible to your toddler’s schedule. … Continue reading →

Grandma’s Coming

My mom arrives in Dallas from L.A. today. I am beyond excited. I love living in Texas and the life my husband and I have created. Our toddler daughter is ours because we’re in Texas. Nevertheless, I miss living in Southern California with my large family. I wish that Jessie could spend as much time with her cousins and grandparents as my nieces and nephews do. Jessie knows that Grandma is coming. She’s been walking around the house saying, “Grandma,” for days. What an enjoyable time we will have too. According to the text alert, her plane lands in two-and-a-half … Continue reading →

Final Visit

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It had been almost a year since we had taken four boys into our home. We had visited with their birth mother once or twice a month. After all the visits, only one of the boys even knew who she was. She had never been their caretaker. Texas law mandates that these matters be concluded in twelve months. With the prospect of a nasty trial over parental rights looming, the birth mother had signed a relinquishment of her rights. It was now time for what the adoption community calls the good-bye visit. It was scheduled for two hours at the … Continue reading →

Our First Meeting With the Birth Mother

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This is the story of the first visit with our boys’ birth mother. We were pretty nervous. We had no idea what to expect, plus we were getting our first chance to meet our new baby’s three older brothers. We met two of the boys, ages four and eighteen months, in the lobby. The older one looked scared and the younger was shell-shocked. We already had an inkling that we would eventually adopt all of them. We were then escorted to the “playroom.” It was a fairly small room with no toys and some old office furniture. It was definitely … Continue reading →

“American Idols” Meet the President

What does it take to be given a private tour of the White House by the President of the Untied States? I would guess you would have to be a head of state, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, or at the very least, a friend of the first couple’s twin daughters Jenna and Barbara. But, apparently all you need to do (not that I can do it) is to sing well in front of millions week after week. If you haven’t already heard, 10 “American Idol” finalists had the opportunity to “hang” with the president at the White House on … Continue reading →