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Archive for the ‘Adoption’ Category

A journey of 100 posts …

Posted in Adoption, Family, International Adoption, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles, tagged , on November 13, 2007| 5 Comments »

Yesterday I published my 100th post on this blog. Given that up until last month I was posting close to 100 per month on the triple combo of my pro blogs, 100 since April seems a paltry contribution to the tonnage of wordage in the blogage, and I’m actually surprised at how many days passed with me thinking, “Nah. I’m wrung out.”

NaBlogPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) is bringing me here every day of November, although I have no idea why I’m finding this challenge so compelling. Blogging every day is not new for me, although blogging HERE every day is.

Not only is it easier for me to take a pass on any given day on Paradise P’o’d than on the Adoption.com site because no one is paying me to post whatever dribblets I manage, and the fact that the only commitment happens to be one of no consequence whatsoever that festers in my little mind, the lack of any specific focus on this blog often stops me in my tracks. It’s never a case of having nothing to write about, but rather of having too many potential topics and not enough energy to pick just one.

I could write about adoption issues every day using this space for angles that don’t fit under news, international adoption or adopting as an older parent, but quite frankly I really need to get away from the subject after pounding out 1500 to 2000 words on one take or another every morning.

I like writing about my family, but I fear that waxing lyrical day after day about how wonderfully happy and content we are in our little cocoon would become dull as stamps for all but a few regular readers.

Tropical living, Seychelles in general and island quirks are fun, but even I’m not interested enough to yammer on daily about fish, the weather and who may be sleeping with whom … the pop-topics in local conversations … and with any luck at all the horrible trauma of recent days won’t repeat any time soon, or ever.

So … 100 posts and counting. So much to say, yet so much of life outside my office calling for me to participate, to enjoy, to get the hell away from my computer.

Note the graphic illustration of the choices as they are presented to me whenever I sit down to write:

Sandra’s office

My office

Not my office

Not my office, and only three steps away

The beach at the end of the road

The beach at the end of the road

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Sam’s slide show

Posted in Adoption, Family, International Adoption, Island life, Seychelles on November 11, 2007| 1 Comment »

In honor of our boy growing up, here’s an encapsulated version of how that happened.

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Sam’s 5th Birthday!

Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, Family, International Adoption, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles on November 11, 2007| 9 Comments »

A birthday has been had and a boy is now five.

The event was a huge success. Sam was thrilled to bits about everything from the way his planned menu turned out … roast chicken, grilled red snapper, coconut crab curry, rice, eggplant chutney, pumpkin salad, roast potatoes … to the musical candle and sparkler in the shape of a 5, to the wonderful company, to the raft of gifts.

Mark’s family considered me cruel to the extreme for not letting Sam open any gifts until after dinner. The giddy charm of anticipation eludes them completely, so they consider placing wrapped presents in plain view to be slavered over for days in an ever-increasing frenzy of expectation and suspense little more than torture.

How many times over the course of the evening I heard, usually from my husband’s mother, some oblique reference to Sam’s fortitude and my cruelty over the apparently arbitrary wait to satisfy curiosity with some furious wrapping paper demolishing.

My mother, on the other hand, sent an email in total support of the enforcement of a period of anticipatory agony.

“It’s the best part,” she reminded.

Even Sam admitted as much under the influence of afterglow this morning, acknowledging that long longing made the revealing more fun and stretched out the excitement over a longer period than simple gift opening frenzy would allow.

Keeping in mind that many things kids in the real world take for granted and have seen time after time are completely unknown on this island, you will see in the photos that a Spiderman suit complete with built-in muscles was the cat’s pajamas … so to speak … although much too hot in a non-breathing polyester sort of way to be Sam’s pajamas no matter how dear his wish was never to remove this perfect fit of an alter ego.

(Sent from Utah by my friend Holly along with a bounty of Americana, she provided this piece de resistance … triceps de isometrics?)

A tiny china tea set from my mom was a big hit with Cj, who spent the rest of the evening pouring.

With my boy well sated, I’m figuring I now have a couple of weeks before the pre-Christmas mania begins to build.

Enjoy the photos.

Before the party

Sam and Cj before the party.

SamSpidey

Casual Spidey

Spidey pose

Spidey pose, Spidey pose, doing the thing only a spider does

Happy Birthday Boy

Such a happy Birthday Boy!

Happy Cj, too, with her very first tea set

Cj’s Tea Set

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Cambodian news and announcements for the week

Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, International Adoption on November 10, 2007| Leave a Comment »

News and announcements for families with Cambodian connections have been posted on my International Adoption Blog.

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A NaBloPoMo Winner (blush)

Posted in Adoption, Family, NaBloPoMo, tagged , , , on November 3, 2007| 1 Comment »

NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month, is just seeing the dawn of its third day and I have already managed to embarrass myself into being declared a winner.

Not that the point of the daily post-fest has anything to do with competition; in fact, the camaraderie building feels comfortably non-comptetitve and I’ve yet to see any announcement of prizes for “most compelling post on recipes using feta” or “best tips on cable knits”.

No, I won’t see any award, but kudos are coming, nonetheless, with one poster stating emphatically, “You win for the BEST story I’ve heard in a long time!” while another is shamelessly “*bowing deeply and kissing Sandra’s big toe in attitude of adoration*”.

To what do I owe these accolades so long coveted?

My big, fat mouth and my most embarrassing moment.

I should have known that any distinction I’d ever manage to achieve would end up having something to do with my innate talent for offensive verbosity, as even when trying really hard to make nice I oh-so-often end up leading an unintentional pas de deux that stumble-starts with a faux pas … a faux pas de deux, so to speak.

That’s what first attracted me to the topic … the discussion is here … a title that told me I could really get my teeth into this one: How Does Your Foot Taste?

The story I recounted for my new NaBloPoMo pals has been told before. I fessed up big time on one of my pro blogs a couple of years ago, but this seemed a perfect opportunity to trot it out again.

If you’ve not yet heard my “Ugly Baby Story”, check out either link, or both, for the whole train wreck. If after doing so you would like to join the ranks of those presently bestowing approbation upon me for my mortifying blunder …

Line on the left, one slap each.

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Remembering why …

Posted in Adoption, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles, tagged , , , , on November 2, 2007| 5 Comments »

In an effort to keep the beauty of my island home and all that is wonderful in my world in mind as the ugliness of life and death intrudes, I’m posting more photos today and saying little.
Bird/Sam rope ©2007SHBenoiton
My amazing son, Sam

Bird/Tortoise
A big, bird-poop spattered tortoise enjoying the attention (?) of my family.

BirdSootyTern©2007SHBenoiton
A sooty tern, up close and personal with a potential for poop spattering

My lovely family on a lovely beach ©2007SHBenoiton
My lovely family on a lovely beach on Bird Island

The Ent in my garden ©2007SHBenoiton

From my veranda at home, the Ent that lives at the bottom of my garden pointing at the hidded treasure on the hill opposite. (One day I’ll follow his finger and dig it up.)

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NaBloPoMo #1

Posted in Adoption, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles on November 1, 2007| 9 Comments »

I blog every day. Honestly. Not here, I’ll admit, and this, my very own personal blog that I created with my two little hands and love to bits gets ignored too often while I’m working my fingers to the nub on the pro blogs.

This month, all this changes, however, as I dedicate myself to the concept of NaBloPoMo … National Blog Posting Month.

Although I’d love to kick this off with something fun or focused, I can’t. I’ve used up all my energy already on posts about adoption and such and now have to address what’s been too close all day …

Sometime last night a lovely woman, a kind and pleasant neighbor, was brutally murdered in her home in Anse La Mouche.

Violent crime happens rarely here, and there is something even more horrid, more shocking about murder in a place as seemingly tranquil as Seychelles.

Everyone on this end of the island is in shock. Many are terrified. Most are both.

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Adoption Conference Nastiness: We knew it was coming …

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, International Adoption, Seychelles, tagged , , , , on October 18, 2007| 6 Comments »

With all the predictability of a lemming, Mirah Riben tries to spin her fifteen minutes of some people with brains looking in her direction into some sort of respectability.

Yes, her appearance at the Ethica/Institute Conference has her feeling so cocky that trying to insult me is a matter of first importance. I am SO flattered. She’s put me right in there in the mentions on her Pickled Family Plffftt … or whatever … blog with people like Brenda Romanchik and Adam Pertman. Cool.

Apparently, I was quite the topic of conversation in nincompoop circles, and from the Riben’s writings (shudder) one would gather that those anti-adoption nut cases are as geographically challenged as they are misled about the circumstances of the world’s children.

Sadly for the poor and limited Riben, with all that a weekend such as this should have brought in the way of enlightenment, I was one of the few things she could focus on.

Oh, yes…and the piece de resistance for me: I was told that Sandra Hanks Benoiton, who slandered me on a.com, requested to attend the conference as a blogger and was refused because commercial bloggers were not allowed!!!

I’m a piece de resistance. It matters not that she’s wrong, as she always is, I like the designation and plan to forever … or for a week or so, at least … introduce myself in certain company as “Mirah Riben’s piece de resistance”.

Still deluded into thinking that my pointing out the fact that her writing sucks is “slander”, she continues to prove the truth of my words (the opposite of slander, for anyone not quite sure) over and over with multiple exclamation points and incorrectly spaced elipses and even more bad writing, as is obvious by the following exchange from her blog:

I just want to clarify that your comment about Ms. Benoiton is inaccurate. The conference was open the the public and she was not excluded to attend. Rather, one our criteria to participate in the bloggers introduction (not panel since there was no discussion or presentations), was that they not primarily blog professionally or for commercial sites. Thanks!

Linh Song, MSW
Executive Director
Ethica, Inc.

To which the Riben responds:

Thanks for that clarification, Linh. I guess I was unclear. I did not mean to imply that she was barred from attending, I guess it was her choice not to be a paid attendee to attend and learn about adoption ethics.

About as well-spoken as usual, that one.

If I thought there was any chance of educating this woman, I’d send her a map of the world with a little circle around Seychelles.

Since I don’t, I’ll just try this heads up: Yo, Riben and Riben-thinkers (And that’s a real ox of an oxymoron … or is it simply more moron?) — the Indian Ocean isn’t in Indiana.

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Cambodian news for the first week of October

Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, International Adoption on October 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »

For those touched by adoption from Cambodia, or simply interested in happenings in the country this week, the news update is posted at the following links:

http://international.adoptionblogs.com/index.php/weblogs/history-vietnam-oil-and-rambo

http://international.adoptionblogs.com/index.php/weblogs/sri-lankan-concerns-the-un-elephants-and

http://international.adoptionblogs.com/index.php/weblogs/fish-ovaries-artists-and-monks

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Cambodian news for this week

Posted in Adoption, Cambodia, International Adoption on September 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »

This week’s posts summing up Cambodian news are at the following links:

http://international.adoptionblogs.com/index.php/weblogs/jungle-woman-stolen-artifacts-drugs-and-

http://international.adoptionblogs.com/index.php/weblogs/brother-number-two

http://international.adoptionblogs.com/index.php/weblogs/cambodian-computers-and-bloggers

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