The Adoption Tax Credit.

Upwards of $30,000.
That's an average of how much an adopting family can expect to pay, out of pocket, for an adoption; domestic or international.

$30,000.

And families do it every day.  They sell a car, they take out loans, they stop going out to eat, buying clothes or going to movies for a couple of years, they take on a second job, they start fund-raisers, they humbly ask for help from families, and they make it work.  But it's not easy.

The only thing that is easy for adopting families is knowing how desperately they want a child, how much love they have to give, and how hard they'll work to make it happen.  But that's where the easy ends.

The bills are staggering, and may pose a road-block to ultimately completing an adoption.
And the thing is--these bills often come on the heels of years of infertility treatments--that were also accompanied by a litany of bills.

I would be lying if I didn't admit that there weren't days that I cried about how unfair it all was; unfair that we couldn't get pregnant..........and for no reason at that, unfair that we had to disclose every tidbit of personal information to complete strangers in order to have a child; our incomes, our health history, our anticipated discipline style, how our marriage was doing, things we didn't love about our own childhoods, and our career goals.  It didn't seem fair that we had to drain our savings account and then some, and it didn't seem fair that I was in this position while my friends could have children virtually cost-free because their insurance covered most, if not all of their pregnancy expenses--including a paid maternity leave--a luxury adopting parents don't usually have either.

I don't write this to conjure up sympathy or to play the "woe is me card."  When you decide to pursue an adoption you know all of these things.  But human nature takes over in the dark corners of the night like it does with anything difficult and you allow yourself those martyr moments, however unhealthy they might be.  We all do it with something.

I write it because they are just hard facts--facts that some are unfamiliar with.
I write it because amidst all of the hard work that adoptive parents go through to have a child there is something that the federal government provides as a breath of fresh air so-to-speak in what feels like an uphill race.

An adoption tax credit.

This tax credit doesn't aim to cover the cost of adoptions in full for families.  It's goal is to offer a bit of financial relief for those working through an adoption.  In the tax year that an adoption is finalized, families can submit all of their out-of-pocket expenses for the adoption. If their total family income is below a certain amount they will most likely qualify for an adoption tax credit.  In 2011 for example, the federal adoption tax credit was around $13,000.  And thankfully, for the last few years this tax credit has been refundable; meaning it comes back to you in check form that you can deposit into your bank account to offset the drain that your accounts experienced while pursuing adoption.

However, since this credit is not part of the permanent tax code it is tragically set to expire as it stands right now at the end of the 2012 calendar year.  The credit would be reduced down to around $6,000 and would no longer be refundable.  The $6,000 amount would be applied to owed taxes; this would continue for subsequent tax years until the $6,000 had been absorbed.  The near immediate relief that it has offered to adopting families in the past, including mine, will not be felt with the revised version of this credit.

The revocation of the tax credit as it stands, moves our country backwards in the steps that it has taken to build a culture of adoption.  It could be a roadblock to someone wanting so badly to build their family through adoption, and more crushing, it could keep a child from finding their forever home.

Adoption needs your help.  Even if your children are not adopted, I'm sure you've been touched by adoption in some way.  And I'm going to guess, it's been a blessing.  A huge one.

The adoption community is begging you to write to your senators and plead with them to pass legislation that would protect and extend the federal adoption tax credit.  Here is a link to a list of senators per state (write to them all!) and below is a sample letter that you could e-mail them.  The letter was written by a fellow adoptive mama named Callie, who blogs over at "Crazy Beautiful Life."

Dear Mr. Senator:

I am writing you to petition that you would please campaign to save the adoption tax credit.  This tax credit is something that helps thousands of children find love and permanency and provides substantial financial aid for the families involved. 

The adoption tax credit provides financial benefits to families that open their homes to children through adoption from foster care, inter-country adoption, or private domestic adoption.

The adoption tax credit with a maximum of $12,650 in 2012 has helped to offset the high cost of adoption for hundreds of thousands of families since it was established in 1997.  The IRS estimates that the credit benefited 96,949 children and their families in 2010.  With more than 100,000 children in the U.S. foster care available for adoption and countless millions of orphans and abandoned children around the world the continuation of the adoption tax credit is vital to providing love, safety, and permanency through adoption to as many children as possible.

The current adoption tax credit is set to expire on December 31, 2012.  If that happens, adoption may require a cost insurmountable for many American families, resulting in fewer children finding love and permanency through adoption.  Although the credit remains through 2012, many families will not benefit because it is not refundable.  In 2013, the credit will decrease to only $6,000 and will be available to very few adoptive families. 

Congress must act now to pass legislation that will protect and extend the adoption tax credit and encourage the right of every child to grow up safe and loved in a family of their own. 

Would you please make this a matter of importance for your office and pass the word along to your fellow Senators?  Your action in this matter will make a difference in the lives of thousands of children and families. Please act today to positively affect the lives of these precious children. 

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter, it is greatly appreciated. 

Sincerely,
Your Name


It's a small, easy thing to do really.  It will only take you a few minutes.  The adoption tax credit made adoption a more feasible option for Chris and I.  It allowed us to relax little about the decision and feel confident that we could do this.  It provided a little ease and comfort that might have been absent without it.  


There are countless blessings that accompany adoption; the adoption credit is just one of them and of course, in the grand scheme of adoption--a small one.  


Yesterday, we experienced another one--one that came with our daughter.  Hanging out here............

with Tarah, Georgia's birth-mom. 

Georgia, Georgia, Georgia.  We love you!

Going to her house feels like being with family.  They are family.  It's an amazing thing this open adoption we have.  One that surrounds my daughter with more people to love her, more people for us to love, and positive role-models to look to.  I look at these pictures, I think about our memories, and I know that adoption is the biggest blessing in my life.  


I want it to be one for others as well.  I want adoption to be easier, not harder.  More accessible, more manageable, more do-able.  For families............for kids.  I want more people to experience this.  So much. 


One letter could be a step in the right direction.  
Thank-you in advance.  Thank-you.  

Week One in the Books.

So I'm wrapping up Pinterest Week #1 and it was, for the most part, a good week--on Pinterest terms.  We did post-pone one of our activities and did two on one day due to a three year old temper tantrum after I got home from work on Tuesday that we had a hard time recovering from quickly.  I made the game-time decision that it would be better to just go outside and play versus trying to sit and do a project.  I felt like that might entail more tears.

We started here......

all of our supplies gathered in one place, ready to go.

Activity #1:

This little activity has really made the rounds on Pinterest.  I give it a D......for a three year old.  I think this would be perfect for a one or two year old.  Georgia really could have cared less and didn't understand why we couldn't just paint with the paint.  The magic of tempera paint in a bag lasted all of ten minutes.  Then she asked if she could just go inside and work on her cards (at any given time she has 10-15 cards she's working on for..........Fiona.)

Activity #2:

The caterpillar clothespin clips.  I'd give it a B+.  Georgia liked this a lot more than the paint activity.  She was actually creating something.......and that's important to her.  I get it.

Activity #3:

Easy A for this one.  There was a process here, Georgia loves rainbows, and it conjured up stirrings of Wizard of Oz songs.  The makings of a match made in heaven in Georgia's book.  And she's proceeded to move this rainbow cloud all over the house with her this week.  It travels from her room to the coffee table to the bathroom to the basement.  "Don't at all move this!," she told me tonight as she laid it on the chest in the living room before she went to sleep.

Activity #4:

Eeehh.....this was just okay.  It works, it's just not that fun really.  It's pretty darn obvious that the marbles are going to all travel at the same speed down the pool noodles if they're dropped at the same time so the magic wears off quickly.  It turned into a debate about why we couldn't just toss the marbles down the stairs.

And I about went crazy with this, because while I'm getting better at accepting some wild and out of control behavior (and please know I use the term some very generously here) it pretty much sends me over the edge.  One time while I was still teaching 8th grade a student said to me, "You know Mrs. Terryn.....you never just let us act crazy and nuts."  I responded with, "Ummmmm.........that's correct.  And I take it as a compliment that you noticed."  

But don't worry--we followed this up with some crazy.  

We're for sure the only house in the neighborhood that has been playing with snaps already this year.  And my daughter?  She likes to make them pop by jumping on them.  And I let her.  I do.  

Activity 5: 

This one was probably the best for a few reasons........it entailed running around, screaming, shrieking, and daddy.  For Georgia--it doesn't get much better.  

But hands down.......the best thing we did this week was use our sidewalk chalk on the wet trampoline.  A little idea I dreamt up all on my own.  When wet, the trampoline is a perfect blackboard and the chalk glides across it effortlessly making using chalk bearable.  Hands down.........I'm guessing these will be some of my favorite pictures of the summer. 

We'll be doing this a lot.  I can promise you.  And if you have a trampoline--get on this.  Squirt it down with a hose when you're done and it comes right off.  

I'll be doing a Pinterest week again the last week of June.  What should I include?  Leave me some great links below!  

On Googly Eyes and Gardens and Being Wild.

Seriously.  How do you even spell googly eyes?  Is it googly?  Googgly?  Goggly?  Googlie?  Weigh in why don't you and help me solve this dilemma.

Here's a sneak peek at how our Pinterest week is coming along......

It's going okay.  We're doing the projects each day, I'm working at being intentional, and Georgia is proving that she truly is a three year old.   Thankfully, what I chose for her and I to do together (which is just about everything) requires an attention span of about five minutes--which is what we're working with.

Today she told me she just wanted to be wild instead of working on projects.  I laughed.......at her, at my pie-in-the-sky expectations, and because I was already teetering on the edge of a "thank-goodness-no-one-has-a-hidden-video-camera-in-our-house-because-I'm-about-to-lose-it-up-in-here" mom tantrum for a variety of incidents that had happened prior to sitting down to do a nice, quiet, well-thought out project.  We finished our project.  It was lovely-ish.

And then.....we set off to be wild at the botanical gardens here in Grand Rapids with some friends.  It was a beautiful day, the kids were in {for the most part} fantastic moods and I said to my friend Rachel as we plotted how we could take naps on a bench without the kids noticing, that it was the longest I'd ever spent at the gardens in one day--four hours.  It's a great place; a beautiful one, one made for kids, and one that helps kids appreciate being outdoors and playing in the flowers.

Here we go.....the wild ensues.

This is a scaled replica of the Great Lakes complete with boats to float, rapids, and little tributaries.  It's pretty awesome.  And the kiddos are soaking at the end of it and it's okay with everyone because it's so much fun.

That up there is a beaver carved out of an arborvitae tree.  I think they're way creepy.  

And as parents we should all just be honest with ourselves and admit that kids can have as much in a drinking fountain as anywhere else.  The water that comes out of them is seemingly magical and thirst can never be quenched if there is a readily available drinking fountain.  It's just the facts.

So we'll continue on with our Pinterest week.  We'll try to counter the calm with the wild.  And luckily for Georgia the pool noodle games are coming tomorrow and Friday.  And we can run and shriek and yell like banshees.

And I can revel in pictures like this that present the illusion of a child who likes calm, solace, being contemplative, and just sitting and being.  If only there were sound effects to this picture.

Pinterest Challenge #1.

I've got a little summer challenge for all of us.  Myself included.  I'll lead the way.

I love Pinterest.  I think it's amazing.  It gives us moms new and interesting ideas, it helps us think about stuff we might already have lying around the house in a different way, it provides new recipes to try, manicures to give a whirl, inspiration of what to put together as an outfit when you're feeling like your closet is boring, home organization epiphanies, and games to play with the kiddos amongst other things.

I get very weary of the Pinterest bashers.  Very weary.  I think it smacks of a little insincerity.  There, I said it.  I don't believe for a single second that just because someone puts up a picture of their newly remodeled bathroom and it's fabulous, that the rest of their life is just as perfect and I'll never be able to keep up.  I don't buy that because Mom Doe whipped up some beautiful cupcakes one time and pinned them that she regularly throws Martha Stewartesque parties--and yeah for her if she does--can I be invited?  Let her star shine if that's her star.

What is invaluable about Pinterest is that I believe it can inspire and initiate creativity where there might not have been any to start.  It can be a catalyst for a DIY that you'd never thought of doing before.....and before you know it, it's taken on a life of its own with your very own signature to it.  Creativity begets creativity.  The more you look at it, do it, get into it, the more naturally it comes.

Okay.  I'll step down off that soapbox now.

I do have one problem with it however.  I pin phenomenal ideas and.........rarely complete any of them.  What a waste of computer time.  So here's my challenge, and I believe summer to be a great time to enact this......

I challenge myself to two Pinterest weeks a month.  Here are the rules:

1.  On Saturday or Sunday (or whichever days you choose if decide to join me!) I'll pick a combination of five activities, recipes, simple DIY's, sayings to frame, practices to start, or anything else that strikes my fancy.

2.  I'll schedule them, one per day, Monday through Friday based on what I know my week looks like. Simpler ideas for busier days.

3.  On Sunday afternoon I'll compile all of the supplies I need for my Pinterest week and put them in one location.  This will help the, "Oh crap--I was going to make a parade float of Ernest Hemingway today and I don't have what I need to make it," excuses on the day that you want to accomplish that activity.

4.  And then.....come Monday......I'll get started on that list. I will. I will. I will.  And I'll let you know how I did in a post on Friday!

Here's my list for the upcoming week:

Monday:  I'm sure you've come across this activity on Pinterest recently--it's originally from here.  Starting the week off easy.

Tuesday:  Georgia loves these little pompon's--we actually call them puffle balls here at our house.  We play kitchen with them as they can turn into any variety of soup or dessert, we make magnets out of them, we sew them onto shirts, and just generally make a mess with them.  Tuesday--we'll be making clothes pin magnets out of them.  Here's the original web-site!

Wednesday: What better craft for a Wizard of Oz loving-'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' singing little girl?  Find the author of it here! Sorry for the fuzz--couldn't get it any better!

Thursday: Georgia thinks pool noodles were invented by God and wants to play with them anywhere and everywhere they are sold.  I know she'll be all over this! I found it here.

Friday: And since I already needed to purchase a few pool noodles for Thursday, I added this activity in too.  We'll see how it goes.  Find it here.

And finally--I added these to the mix too........

I've wanted to make them for a while and thought---I'll start this challenge off right!  Six things!  This great little food web-site is home to these delicious looking little morsels.

You'll notice that I focused on activities and crafts that are really all about Georgia--and that's on purpose.  I want to get better at intentional play with her. While I think it's crucial that she can play independently, conduct pretend play, and that we can just make up games spur of the moment I also think kids need to feel like mom has specifically set aside time to complete a special and 'authentically for them' project of some variety.  I'm assuming that my Pinterest weeks, in general, will follow in this same vein.

So what do you think?  Care to join me?  Just do one week a month, one day a week, one weekend a month, or whatever number works for you. The point is--take the time to try out some of those amazing ideas you spend the majority of the 'Bachelorette' pinning.  If you're up for it--let me know--I'd love to have a Pinterest team to cheer one another on with!  And tell me what idea you've been dying to try from Pinterest yourself!

Your kids will think it's awesome!  Let them help pick out some of the activities. Make a "Pinterest Challenge" board full of ideas that are easy and do-able and fun for kids; recipes, games, projects, books to read--whatever!  Make it a great summer.  Let Pinterest help you do that!

I'm learning all too quickly that our babies soon turn into little girls like this......

Little girls that all of a sudden look way too old.  Little girls that are growing up faster than you would ever want them to.

Be intentional with them.  As much as you can.

They won't forget.

Okay!  Here we go!  Week #1!