A Boy of Gentle Spirit

We offer the kids many small choices throughout the day, in the grand tradition of Love & Logic and oodles of other similar parenting approaches. "Buddy, do you want to leave the playground in five minutes or in three minutes?" "Would you like to brush your teeth first or put on your jammies first?"

Eddie now has five years under his belt of hearing such statements. And clearly the technique has sunk in, though perhaps not the principles behind it. The other day while in the kitchen I overheard him calmly explain, "Mari, these are your choices. Do you want to give me your balloon or get hit in the face?"

(She gave him the balloon.)

It Ends Today, Thank Goodness

Last time, I promise! The Circle of Moms Top 25 Adoption Blogs vote ends at 5:00 PST today. I'm in 26th place. Gah!

My blog domain hosts the OpenAdoptionBloggers.com listings, so any exposure for my blog helps get attention to your blogs, too, in search results and such. So we'd all win, in a way.

You can vote for my blog here and for any on the list here. (You can vote once on your computer and once on your phone and again on different browsers. Just saying.) Please vote--thank you! You rock!

ETA: We did it! By the skin of my teeth: #25. Thank you!!

Open Adoption Symposium This Fall

Registration is now open for the open adoption symposium Opening Adoption: Realities, Possibilities & Challenges on September 23-24 in Richmond, Virginia. Yay! You should come!

A bit from the conference website:

Presenters and attendees will have opportunities to discuss, from multiple viewpoints, adoption as a lifelong process. We do not intend for this symposium to only discuss open adoption nor to only discuss adoption from a positive or negative perspective. We will have a wide range of perspectives to give a full view of the complexity of the issues and to allow attendees an opportunity to consider adoption from another perspective other than their own.

The list of sessions is up, too. The lovely Barb and I are doing a workshop on the second day looking at the role social media can play in adoption education and support:

Open Adoption in an Online World 

In just the past decade, blogs and other forms of social media have augmented open adoption: providing tools for maintaining relationships between birth and adoptive families, offering new ways to find support and advice from a community of peers, and creating cross-triad opportunities for education and activism. Yet the role of social media is often overlooked when discussing post-adoption support. We will share how social media has influenced our real-life adoption experience and explore the possibilities and limitations of bringing open adoption online.

Jim Gritter and Adam Pertman are giving keynotes, which will be a treat. But most of all I am looking forward to spending time with some of the online friends I already know will be there. Some of my favorite brains, gathered in a small setting, to think creatively about open adoption? Yes, please.