It works almost as well as keeping our sense of humor. When all else fails around here, let’s dance!

LuLu and I often use dancing as our break from school work and our release when the pressure cooker of life starts getting a bit much. I’ve been known to pop in our old Wiggles VHS tape and have the two of us Mash Bananas for a few minutes. It’s hard to be serious when you’re dancing with four grown men in bright primary colors singing kids’ songs.

And if that doesn’t work, we jam to big sister’s show tunes. Yes,... more

Here it is over a week later, and I’m still processing what I learned from Kathie Snow of Disability is Natural, a speaker at our Partners in Policymaking class. One thing that I learned is that Advocate Moms (and Dads) everywhere must learn to use humor to stay sane.

Around here, an active sense of humor is mandatory. It is the glue that holds our family together. There is rarely a crisis that is weathered at our household during which some kind of humor is not raised. For example, after our atrocious day yesterday, I emailed... more

Recently a friend and I were sharing embarrassing moments in public caused by our adopted special needs children. Some of the coping skills our children learned during the years of neglect and abuse can certainly cause questioning glances and rude comments.

Our teenager, Lane, feels embarrassed every time our four-year-old has a meltdown in public. He seems thoroughly disgusted by the fact that she does not embarrass me with this behavior. I’ve explained to him that I do not control her behavior, she does, and therefore I do not need to “own” her embarrassment.

However,... more