12 Adoption Tips for November, National Adoption Month

November 1, 2009 at 6:00 am (Making a Difference, Tips) (, , , )

My husband and I are adoptive parents.  We met, courted and married in a mere 10 months. 

Getting pregnant proved not so easy.  After a year of anticipation, and because our time clock was on the 11th hour, we consulted a fertility specialist.  We were soon told our only option was an egg donor.  We chose to pursue adoption instead.

There were hiccups along the way – paperwork and adoption delays - but just over 2 years after we had begun the adoption process, we flew to China to pick up our amazing 9-month old twin daughters.

Christmas Mommy reduced

Nicole and Danielle, age 14 months, with Mommy

Last week, our beautiful, funny, smart, sweet little daughters turned 10 years old. They are our sunflowers and we agree it has been a most amazing journey.  

D&N at market reduced

Danielle and Nicole, Age 7

Because November is adoption month, I wanted to share the following advice for those of you considering adoption, in the hopes that you will decide to welcome a parentless child into your home, giving him or her a Forever Family.  It will be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life.

  1. Begin by reading several books about adoption - Most adoption books will walk you though many of the things you’ll want to consider (whether it’s right for you; the determinations you’ll need to make about adoption choices; how to choose an adoption facilitator, etc.).  Most offer a list of resources, but I have provided some below as well.
  2. Attend a workshop offered by an organization that provides comprehensive adoption information. (In New York State, the Adoptive Parents Committee  offers a wonderful one-day conference each November. This year it’s on November 22 in Brooklyn, NY)  Many adoption agencies offer informational sessions as well.  Your state agency that handles adoption (see resources below) may be able to provide additional resources for workshops.
  3. Speak with other adoptive parents to explore their experiences. Every adoption is unique.  By hearing many stories, you’ll have a better idea of  what to expect.
  4. Investigate agencies and attorneys who handle adoption and get references.  Decide whether you want to work with an agency or an adoption attorney.   Do due diligence on the adoption organizations you are considering.  Have there been any complaints registered about them? Do they have age or financial parameters that might be restrictive?   Do they handle the type of adoptions you are considering?
  5. Investigate your state’s requirements.  Each state has unique requirements. The  Child Welfare Information Gateway offers links to each state’s department that handles adoption.
  6. Start making decisions about the direction you want to take. Do you want an open adoption where the birthparents can remain in the child’s life? (For international adoptions, this may not be possible)  Do you want a domestic or international adoption? Do you want a single child or would you welcome a sibling group?  Is an infant or older child right for you? Is a child with special needs right for your family?  Will your age limit which agencies and/or countries you can work with?
  7. Begin collecting your pertinent information.  You’ll need things like birth certificates, tax returns, income statements and many more documents.  Many need to be notarized or verified in other ways. Be sure to check with the organization you’ll be working with to find out what is required. Get the documents together, organized in one place.  Get your home study(s) done early.
  8. Investigate financial assistance for adoption, if needed.  Recognizing that adoption can be a financial strain, some companies offer financial help.  Grant funding may also be available (see below).
  9. Prepare for the wait.  Some adoptions move quickly, others, especially international adoptions, can take multiple years. Your adoption facilitator should be able to give you an estimate of how long it will take.  But remember, you’re working with a bureacratic process and sometimes delays arise for no apparent reason. Keep yourself busy; read about adoption and adoptive families; Discover what adoptive children experience…But understand that each adoption is unique.  You can take guidance from others, but you’ll find your own path that feels right. 
  10. Join an adoptive parents support group.  The experience of others who have adopted or are waiting will help answer questions and handle the stress. See ”The Adoption Guide” below.
  11. Your adoptive child will become your own.  If you have any hesitation about adopting because you wonder whether you can love a child you didn’t give birth to, I assure you, your adoptive child will be as much yours as a birth son or daughter.  He or she will simply be born of the heart rather than the womb.
  12. Final Words.  No one else can tell you what is right for your family.  You will simply know it in your heart.  Sometimes when people learn of the adoption, they will comment on how lucky the child is.  In truth, you will be the lucky one.  Not a day will pass that you will not feel showered with blessings to have your adoptive child in your life.

There are many wonderful and legitimate adoption information resources available online.  Here are but a few:

If you know of other great adoption resources, won’t you please share them with our readers?  Thank you!

Many thanks for these resources shared by my Readers:

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How Social Media Is Creating Ghosts

October 29, 2009 at 6:00 am (Commentary, Musings) (, )

In December 2008, I lost a dear friend of 26 years.  Social Media is bringing us back together again in an eerie way.

Mike was someone I worked for at a law firm in New York City and then worked with as I moved on to a trade association for which he was legal counsel and where part of my responsibility included negotiating contracts. 

Mike became my friend, my mentor, my swordsman.  He always had my back.  It’s a wondrous thing to have a friend you trust that completely.

Ours was an odd relationship.  We were polar opposites in many ways, most notably,  politics.  There is no common ground between the ultra-conservative and the liberal, so we just didn’t go there.

After I left the trade association, he handled a number of legal matters for me, but more importantly, we stayed in touch as friends.  Because he had moved from New York City to Scottsdale, AZ and I, to Rochester, NY, our contact was almost exclusively by phone and email.  We kept each other updated with news of our personal and professional lives. In the six to eight months before he died, he began exploring social media, somewhat cautiously because of the legal questions it raised for him.  As an attorney, he considered the internet “The Wild West.”

For 26 years, Mike was there for me, the older brother I never had. Then one day, he was gone with no warning.

I’ve experienced this type of loss before, but what has made this more poignant, more painful than with other friends I’ve lost is the extent to which we communicated by email and social media.

Even now, 10 months later, his comments still live on my blog and his emails still rest in  email folders.  How often I’ve wished I could send an email he’d be there to read or that he’d receive wherever he is now.

Just this evening on LinkedIn, I got a notice that someone I might want to connect with recently joined.  You guessed it.  There was Mike’s name.  Sadly, he has – and will always have - only one connection, so recent was his foray into use of this social media tool before his death.

In the past, when friends died we mourned them. We carefully put away their letters and notes, the books they wrote or items they created, to be taken out of safe storage for communion with the memory of them on our terms.

Such is not the case in this new electronic landscape of ours.  Friends may pass on, but their ghosts continue to surreptitiously haunt us in this virtual world we’ve created, appearing out of cyberspace when we least expect it.  Social media has added a new feature to the face of loss.

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12 Things I Know Now That I Wish I’d Known Then

October 24, 2009 at 10:53 pm (Musings) (, )

My friend Kathy recently emailed asking me what 2 sentences of advice I would give young women graduating from college.  Two?  Only two?  Which two should I choose?  Which two would you offer?

If I could go back and do it all over again, here’s what I wish I’d known:  

  1. Network diversely and religiously.
  2. Be interested to be interesting. 
  3. Learn beyond your profession – the greatest innovations are born from the collision of two non-related ideas.
  4. Save as if you’ll never have a spouse. 
  5. How you dress really does matter.
  6. Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want  your grandparents or your grandchildren to find out about.
  7. Remember that no matter how old a person appears, in her mind, she probably stopped aging in her 20s or 30s. 
  8. Explore family history now.  One day, it will be too late to ask all those questions.
  9. Only date people who practice the golden rule.
  10. Life is too short to work at a job you hate.
  11. Travel well and far – it will change your life.
  12. Start writing on the pages of history now to create the legacy you want to leave behind.

And a few I didn’t need to know but that I want my daughters to know:

  1. “Too many accessories” shouldn’t include the tattoos on your skin.
  2. Be cautious what you put online….What happens in cyberspace stays in cyberspace.

What advice would you add?

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Au Revoir New York

October 22, 2009 at 6:00 am (Musings) (, , )

Written in 2006

I am leaving New York after living here since 1983.  My husband and I are moving to Western New York with our young daughters.  Some friends question our sanity.  Others envy our freedom.  Most wonder how I’ll handle the separation from a city that’s been my lifeblood.

I recall the first party I attended here.  It was aboard the ship, Peking, anchored in the South Street Seaport.  Jazz sizzled on the breeze, you could hear the rustle of people meeting as they ate and drank their way through a sea of acquaintances, and the luminescence of Manhattan at night hung like a canopy overhead. 

I thought, “This is what I came to New York for.”

Now, more than twenty years later, I’m heading back to the area in which I grew up, armed with the skills, friends, contacts and experience I’d never have had if I’d stayed there.  Hopefully, that will make all the difference.

Oh, but I will miss New York!  Already, I feel a sense of loss and mourning for friends and the city we are leaving behind.  The last weeks here are teeming with farewell gatherings and promises to keep in touch.  When we do reconnect with these friends, we’ll pick up where we left off.  The same can’t be said about New York – cities change far more quickly than people.

As we arrange for movers, mail forwarding, electrical, phone and internet service – all the “mundanities” that litter life’s moves – I ponder how one says goodbye to a city.   

Strangely, I faced this same question some 25 years ago when I moved back to Rochester from the City of Lights.  After one mere year I found it difficult to leave, because Paris is not simply a city – it infuses the soul.  Hemingway said, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young [person], then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable Feast.”  Hemingway was right.

Preparing to leave Paris, I found myself revisiting the places that had enchanted me while there. 

Preparing to leave New York, I feel the same need to make pilgrimages. 

Just before leaving, I make one final trip into Manhattan.  Allowing extra time between meetings, I visit places I’d missed before.  Some favorites…Broadway, Central Park, Lincoln Center, East Sixth Street, The Village…we’ll visit to on our returns to New York.  But the true jewels of this city are its gem-sized parks, unique shops and secret rendezvous locations, significant only to the individuals who discover them and make them their own.

My first stop is Bryant Park.  Its ivy beds, bistro chairs and grassy lawn always felt like Paris – my Luxembourg Gardens in New York.  Since my first discovery of the park, an ivy-covered café has been added, as well as a carousel for children, recalling the gaiety of the puppet theaters in the Jardins du Luxembourg.  Missing still are the crèpes and glâces stands dotting the park’s periphery. 

Fittingly, as I cross the flagstones toward the twirling carousel, two women behind me converse in French.  I sit for a while watching laughing children ride the merry-go-round, but as rain begins to fall, I head to Lord & Taylor for my “95 scent tour” of the perfume, makeup and jewelry counters. The fragrance I associate with Lord & Taylor will forever conjure department store magic as surely as the smell of baking cookies takes me back to my grandmother’s kitchen.

Next, it is time to head downtown for lunch at Les Halles, a wonderfully-French restaurant discovered while attending Baruch.  As I meander down Fifth Avenue, again I detect the lilting cadence of French.  In front, two men converse in Hebrew.  The flower-vendor at the deli shouts in Korean to someone inside.  On another corner, I hear the rolling rhythm of Spanish.  Surrounding me is a cornucopia of languages that takes me back to my first encounter with Paris and its multi-culture.

I flourished in Paris.  That city, with its medley of cuisines, languages, cultures and influences became a springboard encouraging – no – propelling me to move to New York in pursuit of new experiences.  Here, I’ve reveled in the feast of the senses that is New York. 

But now, I’m leaving.  My husband and I make this choice – he with seemingly little reservation, I with much ambivalence – to slow our world so that we can enrich our daughters’ childhoods by spending more time with them and exposing them to experiences the city can’t offer.  It feels like the right move – at least, for now. 

When I moved here many years ago, my best friend who had arrived before me to study acting said, “Living in New York is a love-hate relationship.”  Mostly, I’ve loved it.

Copyright 2006©Carol White Llewellyn

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Man’s Oldest Survival Mechanism

October 19, 2009 at 6:00 am (Humor)

Some have suggested man’s oldest survival mechanism is his skill at hunting.  Others have stated it’s his ability to adapt.  A few credit his “fight or flee” response.

I have finallly figured it out.  There’s no doubt that man’s oldest survival mechanism is his tendancy to snore.  Here’s how I figured this out.

I’d known Patrick since we were six, which, let’s just say is a long time even in dog years. 

When I gave up the joys of retailing and moved from Philadelphia to New York City, he and I roomed together in Astoria. 

For a little over a year, Patrick and I shared an affordable little apartment, conveniently located near a good Archie Bunker kind of corner bar, a Greek pizza parlor and a subway stop that offered mostly-quick trips into Manhattan.

Besides sharing an apartment, Patrick and I also shared opposite sides of a bedroom wall.

The one thing that puzzled me about this apartment was why, at night, the rumble and vibrations of the subway resonated so much more. 

Did the night air magnify the sound and tremors?  Was there  less city noise and movement to muffle it?  Maybe I simply noticed it more because I was, well, home.

I wondered about this until the first time Patrick fell asleep on the living room couch. 

His snoring hit 6.8 on the Richter Scale. The downstairs neighbors asked what construction was being done in the living room. We had to replace or renail seven floor boards the next morning.

Since then, I’ve come to realize snoring is a survival mechanism.

What?  You’re skeptical?  Just think about it.

Imagine our early ancestors: by day, a silent, stealthy and lethal predator, aggresively tracking down game for the slaughter in order to be welcomed home as the breadwinning hero.

But at night, the tables are turned.  The predator becomes the hunted, vulnerable to the marauders of the night who would wrest him, slumbering, from his bedding.

This is when snoring becomes a defensive tool.  Just envision a whole encampment of hunters, exhausted from the day’s hunt, groggy from the night’s imbibing, sending out raucous shock waves resonating from their nasal cavities.  Why, night predators must have thought the T-Rex still reigned. 

Once safely back in the comfort’s of his home, man’s snoring played another important role in his survival…awakening his spouse. 

Now she’s been home, sleeping soundly alone for days, weeks, months, maybe even close to a year.  Suddenly, he arrives home and with him comes his sonorous snoring threatening to bring the roof down. 

She has two choices.  Hit him to get him to stop.  Or wake him up for a procreative romp in the hay.  Which would you choose?

So ladies, the next time your guy’s snoring is keeping you awake and you want to womp him, think about how our female ancestors would have handled this.  And remember… if it wasn’t for this early survival mechanism, we might not even be here now!

Copyright 2009©CarolWhiteLlewellyn

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Talking with My Feet

October 18, 2009 at 10:32 pm (Commentary) (, , )

Today, I went to a fabric/craft store to look for fabric.

I seldom patronize this store, prefering their competitor instead. It’s not that the price or choice is better. They have better customer service.  I have yet to experience a cheery person in the fabric department of this store. Unfortunately, fewer people sew these days so my choices are limited.

When I get there, they’re having a huge sale that includes the fabric.  There are about 30 people in the checkout line and 10 or 15 waiting at the fabric counter. I’m tempted to leave.  But it’s 4:00 on Sunday afternoon, I have only a week until the birthday party for which I’m buying fabric, and my daughters are with me to select it.  I decide to tough it out.

After making our selections, we wait online.  And wait. And wait.

When it’s our turn, I realize our fabric counter clerk must have been here for hours and she’s not amused.  She’s downright cranky. She clearly shows her annoyance that I haven’t heard her call to me in line.  I try to make friendly small talk, thinking she must have had a grumpy prior customer.  She doesn’t respond.  I ask if they expected such a busy day.

“Of course. It’s only our biggest sale of the year,” she answers testily.

The fabric has been cut crookedly by a prior clerk and she grumbles under her breath….and accidentally knocks the bolt of fabric onto the floor.  Instead of picking it up, she yanks fabric from the bolt that now lays on the floor.

“Sweety, why don’t you go pick up the fabric for her?” I say to one of my daughters, who willingly complies.

As my daughter stands there holding the bolt, not quite sure where to put it, the woman yanks it from her nands and puts it on the table without a smile or a thank you. The tone does not change for the rest of the transaction.

Walking around the store, I get more upset.  I compare this experience with my most recent at their competitor.  I’d been selecting flowers for a floral arrangement.  When I got to the counter, the young man asked about the arrangement, commented on how well the flowers would look in the vase and noted that they worked well together because they were complementary colors.  I asked if he was an artist and his whole face lit up, delighted to share that he was.

 
Now when I’m impressed by customer service, I write a note of thanks. It’s good manners and it reinforces great customer service.

When I’m unhappy, I don’t normally say anything – Mom’sf training - ”If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”  I talk with my feet.  And my wallet.  This was the last time this store will receive my business, even if I have to go out of my way for fabric. 

What truly confounds  me is why, especially in this employers’ market,  any company would hire employees for customer service roles who don’t truly enjoy people.

Sadly, this company doesn’t appear to care.  They don’t do customer surveys.  I’d be surprised if they have secret shoppers. They simply assume that since they’re the only game in town for some products, people will return because of their coupons and sales.

Well, not this person.  I’m talking with my feet.

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Missing Harry Potter

October 15, 2009 at 9:00 am (Musings) (, )

I know it sounds crazy, but I half-miss Harry Potter.

For close to two years, Harry invaded our lives. Our family – my husband, twin daughters and I – gathered on the sofa every night, often nestled under a down quilt, taking turns reading the bewitching tale of the young orphan who grew to adulthood before our eyes. 

When we first meet Harry, he is 10 and living a half-life with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Cousin Dudley. On his 11th birthday, everything changes.  The gentle half-giant Hagrid rescues him from his hopelessly self-centered and bigoted relatives and whisks him off to Hogwarts, a wondrous school of magic and mayhem.

My daughters were 7 at the time we first met Harry Potter and each night, we followed his and his friends’ antics as they fought evil, learned magic, thwarted teachers, pulled pranks, fell in love and aged far more rapidly than my own daughters, thankfully.

We finished the final Harry Potter installment early this year.  I, for one, was half-glad to be through reading the books.  The first book started as a lively romp down some of the most clever and imaginative roads in children’s literature. 

As the series progressed, the books became increasingly dark and foreboding…a literary reflection of the trip from the carefree childhood years, through puberty and into an adult world. 

Harry Potter and his friends aged and grew more adept at wielding magic, using it to control and rearrange the elements of their lives.  Yet they discovered there were some events over which even they had no control.  Their sole power lay in how they reacted to those events, in mirror image of real life.

I admit to being disappointed in the ending.  I grew up on a diet of Disney where, in spite of every trial and tribulation, I could expect a happy ending.  Somewhere deep inside, I knew the ending was fiction, yet I could believe. 

Yes, it’s fantasy, but the “happy ending” of the Harry Potter series was far less believable for me than Disney’s—too much contrast between seven books of somber then one chapter of pastel.  In the final book—much of which felt like the kiss of death from an ominous Dementor because of its epic tragedy—Ms. Rowling undoubtedly felt she need to leave her readers with a final note of magic. Not doubt, I’d have done the same.

Six months after finishing the last book, I find that I do not miss the tortuous plot and dark underpinnings, but I do miss many of Ms. Rowling’s lively and lovable characters who spun their magic through our lives for two years.

Should I ever have the opportunity to meet Ms. Rowling, I’d congratulate her.  She deserves every bit of success for the tales she spun, putting non-readers under the spell of literacy and turning them into lifelong readers.  That is a feat worthy even of Harry Potter.

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How “Making a Difference” Becomes Universal

October 14, 2009 at 9:40 pm (Making a Difference) (, , , )

A piece of paper spits out from my printer and my daughter comes to retrieve it.

 “Mommy, do you want to see my flyer?”

 I see a picture of a kitten at the top. She explains that it is a flyer for the group that she and some friends formed called “The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee.”

 Although I’m not quite sure what this group does, I somehow find it more comprehensible than the other club she and her twin sister belong to, “The Worm Club.”  This second group is dedicated to saving worms from being squashed or drowned on sidewalks at school.  Out of respect for my daughters’ sensibilities and their club, I admit to having rescued my share of worms after heavy rainstorms leave them floating in puddles, susceptible to drowning.

As I read the flyer, I discover this committee of eight children is working to raise funds for a one-year-old cat named Samson.  Samson, it seems, has lost use of a limb due to the actions of an abusive  person who shot the poor creature in the leg. Suddenly, the group’s purpose has become mine.

 “How do I donate?” and “How can I help?” I want to know.

Beyond my interest in their mission, I’m proud of my daughters and impressed that this small group of children is trying to make a difference.  Their mission to save this one little cat reminds me of “A Starfish Tale,” adapted from The Star Thrower by philosopher Loren Eiseley. 

In the tale, the storyteller is walking on the beach and sees a man picking up individual starfish and throwing them into the ocean using ballet-like movements.

The storyteller wonders at the other’s actions and, hearing that the man is saving individual starfish, he points out the futility of the other’s actions. After all, the sun is up and there are starfish along the entire length of the beach, so this one man can make very little difference in the bigger picture, he asserts.

The Star Thrower simply smiles, bends down, picks up a starfish and throws it into the sea.

“It made a difference for that one.”

 
My daughters tell me that their Itty Bitty Kitty Committee has just received requests from two more students to become members.  Soon they’ll number ten who will work to raise funds to help this kitten.  The number of dimes, nickels and quarters in the mayonaise jars installed in each classroom, labeled with “Funds for Samson’s Surgery” are guaranteed to grow with such a dedicated group inspiring action.

This is how the passion of one individual wanting to make a difference can become universal, touching and engaging many.  Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King and many of history’s great people recognized it.

So did one child in the Terry A. Taylor fifth grade class.

 
P.S. If you, like I, are inspired to help Taylor Elementary School’s Itty Bitty Kitty Committee in their efforts to raise funds for Samson’s surgery, you can make a donation directly to GRASP (Greece Residents Assisting Stray Pets). Samson and The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee will be ever so thankful.

Copyright 2009©Carol White Llewellyn

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Women’s Clothing, B.C. and A.D.

October 9, 2009 at 10:32 pm (Humor) ()

No one can say I wasn’t warned.  It’s not one of the things they mention in the book, What to Expect When You’re Expecting.  Its one of those nasty little secrets friends like to whisper once you’re already pregnant (or in my case, once the adoption paperwork is in).   By then, it’s too late to turn back. 

 I still remember the first time I was warned.  My husband and I were at a picnic for adoptive families and those waiting for referrals.  We met Loreen and Stephen who were adopting their second child.

 We were talking about how kids change your life – as if we knew. 

 Loreen confided, “You know, B.C. – before children – my style was definitely Sex in the City.  Now, A.D. – after diapers – it’s more like The Muppets Do Desperate Housewives.”

“…I’m just happy when I can get out of the house with clean clothes on,” sighed Stephen.

 I chuckled, thinking, “Surely, they jest.”

Expectant parents are so naive.  They also believe they’ll never feed their kid McDonald’s.

Three months after the arrival of our twin daughters, I went back to work. At the first Board Meeting after my return, I had a presentation to make—in front of 30 Directors of the Board. Before leaving the house, I bent down, hugged my toddlers and said, “Wish me luck.”

They did. 

As I got up to take the floor, I glanced down to discover four little yogurt handprints on my thigh-length navy jacket.  Flip charts make wonderful camouflage.

Then there was the time someone complimented me on my pin. 

 “What pin?  I don’t remember putting on a pin.”

There, adhered to my Fair Isle sweater, were three bright, multi-colored fruit snacks.

And I’ll never forget the family photo where I have spit-up globs smeared across my left shoulder.  I asked my husband, “How could you let me go out of the house looking like that?”

 “Looking like what?”

Whoever invents vomit detectors for shoulder pads will make a fortune.

 Now, the damage to the wardrobe doesn’t stop with the food. Something happens to the clothes themselves.  They self-destruct just to get even.  To compound matters, they don’t get replaced.

 The results? 

 The elastic in my underwear’s so stretched out that it’s in testing for bungee jumping.   My bras are so saggy, I’m selling them on e-bay as double-barrel slingshots.  Some of my shirts are so threadbare that whole quilts are dying to be fabric donors.

Worse, the clothes that aren’t busy self-destructing are trying to turn vintage.  Those blue and gray striped, flare-leg hip huggers I once wore in high school would be the cat’s meow right now if I hadn’t chucked them in a donation bin a year ago.  I can just see it – some teenage Thrift Store Shopping Diva has matched them with a ruffled-front Mod Squad-flowered shirt and is parading around, the height of Retro Chic.

You know, I get annoyed when I actually do get out shopping.  All of the clothing is designed for women under child bearing age.  I’ve finally realized this is done with a purpose. Clothing designers are simply protecting self-interests.  Gerber’s on Ralph Lauren is like a Barbie sticker on a Harley.

 I keep thinking that once my daughters are old enough to buy some of their clothes with babysitting money, my wardrobe will return to its former state of elegance, but I suspect I may be in for a shock.  I’m haunted by the tale my friend Elaine tells about watching TV with her teenage daughter.  Her daughter has been campaigning for Elaine to update her wardrobe.

“Can you believe it?  Renee gave me a top with spaghetti straps for my birthday so I’d be ‘fashionable’!  I’m sorry …they’re spaghetti straps – meant for meatballs, not melons.”

She continued, “So, the other night, we’re watching this TV show, Your Clothes Should Be Outlawed.  You know, that reality show where they strip the worst-dressed audience members of their clothes and dress prisoners in them as a form of torture.”

“Suddenly, Renee runs screaming from the room and comes back laughing hysterically.”

 “Mom, notice anything?” she asks, holding up my favorite top.

 “The show’s fashion victim is modeling my sweater.”

 After this story, I take strange comfort in one thing: I will never have to worry that my clothes will be hijacked for college by two envious teenage daughters.

By Carol White Llewellyn
Copyright 2008 © Carol White Llewellyn
Originally published in Genesee Valley Parent Magazine, November 2008

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