We finally did our tie-dye project in the days before July 4th. Our red, white and blue concoctions had some good and bad points but we proudly put them on for the holiday and generally dorked out in matching shirts and khaki shorts.

When we do this again, we'll definitely use the Tulip branded stuff, specifically the One Step Fashion Dye.



All you had to do was soak the clothes in normal water and fill the bottles up with water. VERY simple stuff, which is great in working with kids.



I tried too hard to do the 'old school' style rubber band wrapped tie dye design (where you rolling up the shirt and bind it in sections with about 6 rubber bands). That would have worked super well if we had used the old school tie-dye buckets of dye.



It was less efficient and harder than needed since we had squirt bottles. So know that you can do the rubber band style or you can just let the kids squirt on a design on their liking on the shirt flat.

The funny thing is all my hard work ended up not being on MY shirt but my husband's shirt. His turned out well while mine ended up looking like an abstract art canvas. Hayley called it that, which is pretty cool that she gets art forms but I digress. She decided to just speckle the heck out of hers and what we thought was Jeff's but ended up as mine. Even messy they were fun and cute. She loved making them and we are definitely going to do it again.

Plus we didn't even make a big mess. We lined the deck with garbage bags and paper towels on top. We just rolled it all up and tossed it when we were done.



And I'll have you know the people working at a local grocery store thought we were very cool in our shirts.

I'm making this a post on the blog because it is going to max out the comment limits and because I wanted to share about it, in what I hope is a constructive way. This is in response to comments by author Mirah Riben who took issue with the links I posted earlier about adoption language. I'm not calling her out by any means but attempting to share my dialogue. I don't want to shy away from this topic but I also don't want to get hammered by random folks either. If you want to jump into this, feel free but do it with respect for everyone or I'll just delete it.

Dear Ms Riben,

I've written this response several times, trying to find a good balance. It is always hard when you only know someone from words on pages and I really don't want this to be adversarial. Often when talking about adoption, I try to speak what I think is rationally from the heart but get steamrolled over by people who have opinions that differ from mine. I keep saying I'm just not going to talk about it anymore online but I do anyway. I understand you didn't call me a 'paying customer' etc but posting it here is basically putting that at my footsteps.

I know who you are and I certainly respect your efforts and extend my condolences for your loss. But you said that link I posted was to 'outdated' adoption language - however, that isn't the issue you are arguing about with your additional links.

The center of this language argument is over the use of prefixes in front of the word mother/father but the bigger picture is that groups like Origins want permanent legal guardianships instead of adoption. The language you use here is indicative of the language seen on that site at times - "Paying customer", "fairy tale", etc. We aren't all that way. We aren't all living some fairy tale. Or operating unethically. I stressed that in my initial post. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the word but we try our best in dealing with adoption stuff.

Sure, I too encourage people to check out that link you posted - the one that says I should not be referred to as my child's mother. And how that site says a child only has one mother and father.

I have no problem with truth and honesty. I certainly don't live in a fairy tale nor were we paying customers. There was no legalized fiction in our case. But I can assure my daughter has two moms and two dads - the ones who created her and the ones who raise her. And she calls us all mom and dad too (she calls them birthmom/birthdad, or by their names too, just as she's called us her adoptive parents or by our names).

Perhaps you are irked or calling me naive in your mind. But you have to know that I do agree in many cases with you. I agree about reforming adoption. I agree about open records access. I agree about the importance of history, family and heritage. I agree that supporting women in all aspects of life is a good thing.

Adoption should be about the best needs of the child. Best isn't about money, best is about love, protection, safety and the core of what a home means. Adoption isn't about creating families, even though it can do that.

You said, "Adoption needs to be far more transparent, open, honest and regulated to ensure it serves the best interest of those it is intended to serve." Well I couldn't agree more. I know we've handled our adoption in ways that we can hold our head up about. Nothing is perfect but we feel we've done a lot of right things.

Your Big Business In Babies article I quoted from - well we are the people who adopted from foster care here in the US. We didn't adopt an infant but a child whose parents had already relinquished before we were even involved. I'm not going to get into all of it but let's just say we took the path less traveled. In this case, the child protective system worked as it should. It has been an amazing journey so far and I wouldn't make any other choice. We love this child with all of our heart.

We had the resources to make any number of choices about how to create our family with adoption but we went down this path. Our adoption was ethical. We have a good open adoption. Our daughter knows more of her family now than she did before she came to us. She knows she was placed for adoption for what was best for her.

We don't pretend adoption doesn't have an element of loss. It does for everyone involved. I made sure I went for therapy before we adopted and our daughter sees a great therapist with a background of working with open adoption and foster children's issues. We have been adamant about foster healthy connections when and where ever can in our adoption to help her. It's hard at times for me but it is what is best for her. I have friends who have placed children for adoption and their opinions are a great perspective and reality check for me at times.

At times I feel like I need to dump all of our adoption information out there for someone's approval. And I've probably already done that some here. I guess I'd just like you to consider that some parents who have adopted are closer to you in thoughts than you know and that maybe you could get your point across better by posting with less venom or by emailing us to see if we'd consider posting more about adoption reform issues.

So where do we go from here? Either the adoption triad try to find a space at the table to sit together to help children or we can keep hurting each other. And I really don't want to see anyone hurt or to continue to hurt. I'd rather look to our common ground that focus on our differences.

Sincerely,
Michelle (who is her daughter's mother too)

ps, yes, my daughter knows I talk about adoption here. I do it with her permission.

There once was a time when I carried a cute little purse. All I needed was a small wallet and my keys. I favored small Dooney & Bourke bags and loved to see when new ones came out. Sometimes I'd even go without a purse all together.

That all changed when motherhood arrived. The purses I carry now are huge and usually washable. The wash-ability factor is a good thing because my purse in the last week alone has held cheerios, opened ring pops, wet goggles and other random possibly gross things.

My compromise is to get Vera Bradley ones to at least have some sense of style with my bag but these days I'm carrying around a backpack model. I need my hands free to carry junk.

Right about now my purse has my wallet, cell phone, a deck of cards, four ponytail holders, old tickets to IMAX, sliding numbers game, four pens, Kleenex, kids motrin, six markers, chapstick, wet wipes, extra earring back, sugarless gum, sharpies for swim meets, starburst, three Chuckie Cheese tokens and two pads of paper for tic tac toe.

What are you toting around these days?

Our daughter was adopted and that is something that we are happy to share about with people. However one of the things we are usually struck by when talking about it is that the language used by some people is outdated. With the push for open adoptions and the waves of international adoptions, adoption is in the public eye more than ever.

I certainly don't expect everyone to be adoption-savvy but there are some changes in how people speak about adoption that try to reflect more respect for the entire triad of people involved in adoption. It is important to understand that ethical adoptions aren't done in the shadows but with honesty and knowledge. Parents who decide to place their children for adoption are making a plan for their children, not throwing them away.

Part of changing how people react to adoption is changing how they speak about it. Take a second and check out this article on Positive Adoption Language by Adoptive Families.

© lavendercupcaker

What happened to all the old Ice Cream Shoppes? The ones where you actually sat down and were waited on? They'd have a whole menu of wonderful ice cream sundaes and other concoctions.

I suppose they followed the way of the Soda Shoppes and their counters. Sadly I can no longer remember having an ice cream sundae that I didn't make at home.

I have great memories of going to Swensen's as a kid and getting their Coit Tower. It was truly a party when you got to get the legendary Earthquake - eight scoops of ice cream with a ton of toppings. It was a great place to go to slow down and celebrate something, maybe even just being a family or being out on the town away from your folks.

What about Friendlies? Anyone remember the old restaurants at Howard Johnson's that put a cookie in with your sundae?

I love ice cream in just about every form from gelatos to homemade at the dairy. But there is no question to me that the art of creating ice cream as a dessert item has moved on to the quick mix-in custom ice cream places. I'm a regular at ColdStone Creamery but I'd still love to sit down at a table, look at a menu of fun creations and slowly enjoy them with my family.

I know that some are out there but with the high price of gas, I can't see any road trips to hunt them down.

I'm having to loosen the reins now and it isn't as tough as I thought it would be. My daughter is growing up and I've got to let her have more opportunities, slowly but surely.

Last night I let her walk home from the pool with a friend. It is about a five to seven minute walk through our well lit neighborhood. The friend was the nicest boy that we know, who also happened to be two years older. She asked while I was stuck in a town hall meeting at the pool and I made the decision without even thinking long about it. It worked out fine but I did worry a bit.

Today was the last day of school for her - she is in year round school. I let her take her digital camera to school today. She had to tell her teacher she had it and promise to be responsible and appropriate. The camera was labeled but it could still have been lost or damaged however I was more worried she'd forget to bring it home! She and her friends took a bunch of photos and videos and she brought the camera home in one piece.

She's taking the steps towards being more responsible but those are also steps leading away from us.