Books That Have Helped Along the Wait

OK, it has been and continues to be a long wait, but ONE DAY, I am going to go from 0-2 kids overnight! Yipee! Yikes! I have read some books, thought some thoughts, redone parts of my house, reworked parts of myself, blogged, journaled, traveled, exercised, etc. I'm sure that will help some, but I have no clue what's coming. So, with the admission that I don't know squat, I wanted to share a few of the books that have made me feel like I might be able to do this:

I had never heard of RIE until I went to a conference on Montessori Education two years ago. I was completely blown away by this method of caring for infants - it is so gentle and respectful of the little person you are caring for! Your Self-Confident Baby is a very easy, but full of good information book. I am going to re-read it again soon so that I can have the information fresh in my mind when I become a mom.

I read a lot of adoption books and this one is by far the best one I read. So many adoption books deal with adotpion by itself and add international adoption as an extra chapter at the end or not at all. Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child is dedicated to the challenges that my children will face not only as adoptees, but as Ethiopian adoptees living in the US. This book advocates a preemptive parenting style where we as parents help our children (and us) piece together how their past may be affecting the subtleties in their behavior. By giving voice to that past and how it affects them now, we can help our children develop more freely.

Newsflash: I am white, my children will be black. I live in an African-American community, have African-American friends, but I am not black and I need to learn more and more about what it means to be black in the U.S. I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla does of great job of helping us understand race and color from the point of view of a child.

For some humor and a "heads up" to what having a child will be like, all future parents should read Operating Instructions. This is Anne Lamott's diary of the first year after her son was born. Bill and I are reading it together (which means SLOWLY), but every time we pick it up, we have great laughs and lots to talk about.

Finally, if you don't know Eyes on Books, head on over there. Julie has done an amazing job of coming up with a great list of "must reads" in Ethiopian adoption.