Kudos to Mr. Clean Magic Eraser!

While I normally write about adoption-related topics, I have decided to go off-topic today to offer my kudos to Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. I first learned of this product when I was trying to figure out how to clean crayon marks off of a wall. It’s amazing, I tell you!

Not only has it “erased” crayon marks and black scratches from the wall, it also proved itself worthy against ink-pen writing on our computer monitor screen (left behind by a young child learning her alphabet). The first time I used it I did get a little over-zealous and started cleaning all of the surfaces that had a little bit of dirt – I should have read the instructions first, which tell you not to use the eraser on glossy surfaces. Oh well, the back of our front door has lost a little bit of its gloss…but that handprint that always seemed to appear there has not come back either.

Chinese Sweet-and-Sour Chicken

We tried a new dish tonight for dinner, this one from the Crockpot. This recipe for Chinese Sweet-and-Sour Chicken came from one of my favorite new cookbooks, Not My Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook. 

This was the first time I cooked a whole chicken. Fortunately my husband did most of the dirty prep work for me. . .you know, removing the giblets and the neck. It was simple to prepare in the slow cooker and the aroma of the chicken as it cooked was wonderful. I served it over long-grain white rice with a salad. This recipe is a keeper. I did not include the green onions but the dish was fine without them.

Ingredients:
One 3 to 4-lb broiler/fryer chicken
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup dry sherry or apple juice
1 tablespoon ketchup
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 green onions, trimmed and halved
1 clove garlic, pressed
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, lightly toasted in a dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant

Directions:
Wash and dry the chicken thoroughly. Reserve the giblets and neck for another use. Cut off any lumps of fat. Put the chicken in the slow cooker, breast side up. Combine the soy sauce, brown sugar, water, sherry, ketchup, red pepper flakes, green onions, and garlic in a small bowl; pour over the chicken. Cover and cook on HIGH until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the thigh registers 180°F, 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours.

Transfer the chicken to a platter. Remove and discard the green onions. Combine the cornstarch with the water and stir the slurry into the sauce. Cook on HIGH, stirring constantly, until thickened. Spoon the sauce over the chicken, sprinkle with the sesame seeds, and serve.

Update: VA Adoption Tax Credit Fails to Pass Committee

The proposed tax credit for adoption expenses in Virgina failed to make it beyond the House Finance Committee. I am disappointed that no action was taken on this bill, and intend to write each member of the committee, as well as my district’s delegate. For a bill like the adoption tax credit, I feel politicians need to hear from those it could impact – it is easy to assume no one would pay any attention to something like this, since it is unlikely to get any media attention or have widespread appeal.

Below is the text of the email I intend to send to the delegates on the committee. I am posting it here in case others would also like to send a letter or email to your representatives in the General Assembly.

Dear (Finance Committee Member or Delegate’s name),

I am disappointed to see that HB743 (Income tax, state; qualified adoption expenses tax credit) failed to make it beyond the House Finance Committee for consideration during the 2008 General Assembly session.

Several states already offer a tax credit for adoption expenses, including Missouri ($10,000), Maryland ($5,000) and West Virginia ($2,000). Offering a tax credit to Virginia taxpayers would help families off-set some of the costs of adoption. There are an estimated 143 million orphans worldwide. This tax credit could help some of these children find homes with loving families.

I hope a tax credit for adoption expenses will be considered in Virginia in the future. I know there are many families who would be grateful for it, including ours.

Sincerely,

(Your name & address)

Adoption Trends – Part III: Growing Interest in US Foster Care

This post is part of a series looking at adoption trends, both here in the United States and in Taiwan.

USA Today recently reported there is growing interest in US domestic and foster care adoptions among US families, which is good news for many American children waiting for their forever families.

“The interest is there in domestic adoptions, but the supply of babies is not,” says Paul Placek, a consultant to the National Council for Adoption, which represents adoption agencies. He says most unmarried pregnant women have an abortion or keep the baby. The percentage who relinquish them is less than 1%.

. . . The limited number of domestic infants, combined with recent restrictions on international adoption, is causing more Americans to consider older children, two or more siblings together, children of other races and those with medical needs, says Mary Ann Curran, director of social services at the World Association for Children and Parents, an adoption agency.

“There’s an increase in openness,” says Curran. She says it was much harder a decade ago to place Hispanic babies. — Read more in USA Today, February 10, 2008

For our adoption, it was important for us to maintain our children’s birth order in our family. We did not feel adopting from the US foster care system at this time would allow us to do that, since our biological children are young. More information on adopting from foster care is available at http://www.adoptuskids.org/.

On a related note, volunteers from our church participated in service projects at a shelter for youth and the local Boys and Girls Home last year. The staff was grateful for the support of our church through these service projects. I would encourage you to consider contacting youth and children’s homes in your community and consider volunteering.

Related posts in this series: Adopting Infants in the US; Domestic Adoption in Taiwan

Ni Hao, Kai-Lan

We now have a new way to learn some of the Mandarin language – Nick Jr. premiered a new program on its network last week called Ni Hao Kai-Lan. Yes, it is for preschoolers, but that is right about my level of the Chinese language at the moment. Kai-Lan is a little girl who speaks both Mandarin and English – in the first episode, she and her friends participate in a Dragonboat race and learn how to help their friend who is angry they lost the race. Along the way, Kai-Lan taught us how to say hello, goodbye, the numbers one, two and three, and jump. And if you are like us and don’t have cable (or just want to watch it again), the program is available for free on iTunes – you just have to download it.

A Weekend to Remember

 We have a goal this year to attend one of Family Life’s marriage conferences, called a “Weekend to Remember.” We first attended one of these conferences the year after we were first married and I believe it helped strengthen our relationship and learn how to better relate to each other.

Now, six years later, we are thinking about attending another one. We look at the conference brochure each year and think about it…but with two young children, it is so hard to get away. Even just going out to dinner is challenging – when we left the children at the sitter’s house to go out to dinner for our anniversary last year, our son experienced his first real bout of separation anxiety and screamed most of the evening.

 

Despite that, we feel the best gift we can give our children is a strong and healthy marriage. Plus, attending a conference this year will also help our two little ones get used to someone else taking care of them for a night or two, so when we travel to Taiwan for our adoption, it won’t be the first time our children have been put to bed by someone other than us.

 

The conferences are held all over the United States. We traveled to Niagara Falls for the first conference we attended. The schedule shows there are two conferences in Hawaii this year…too far for us, but wouldn’t that be a nice getaway?!

 

John Stossel: “USA Makes Adoption Harder”

John Stossel, ABC Correspondent and 20/20 Anchor, says the US Government is making adoption harder in a column he wrote for Townhall.com. He specifically talks about the situation in Guatemala, where international adoptions have come to a halt as the Guatemalan government works to become compliant with the Hague Treaty by setting up a central agency to process adoptions.

Do you want to rescue an abandoned child and give him a loving home?

Don’t even try, says the U.S. State Department.

That’s not exactly what the bureaucrats said, but it’s close. The State Department says the Guatemalan adoption system “unduly enriches” so-called baby brokers and that “Guatemala has not established the required central authority to oversee intercountry adoption.”

“Central authority”? This from our government? They sound like Soviet apparatchiks.” - Read more at Townhall.com, February 6, 2008

For our adoption, the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions is unlikely to have any impact since Taiwan is not a party to it. While Taiwan does not have a central authority for intercountry adoptions, the country does have strict laws which outline the eligibility and requirements for intercountry adoptions.

Adoption Update: We have our I-171H!

The approval from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for our adoption arrived in the mail on Monday. The approval is a form, the I-171H. I had imagined that it would be a very official document, possibly with a watermark and a seal or something along those lines. It is just a piece of paper with a checkmark next to our approval and the expiration dates for our fingerprints and paperwork. Our application was processed much faster than I had anticipated – it took USCIS just one month to send us our approval.

This week marks our fourth month on the waiting list with our adoption agency. Our agency, Families for Children in Utah, announced this week restructuring plans. The restructuring includes hiring several new adoption coordinators to help families through the adoption process, and a name change – the Taiwan and Haiti adoption programs will now be managed by For Every Child (FEC) Adoption Services, a new organization affiliated with Families for Children. What does that mean for us? There is a new Waiting Family Coordinator who will be responsible for helping us through the adoption process. It also means the fees for our adoption program are increasing by about $1000 – with added staff and services, I guess that should be expected. The restructuring and additional staff were much-needed and I am happy with the changes our agency is making.

We are hopeful we will receive a referral of a child sometime at the end of this year or early next spring.