Yucca Yucka Yuck

Even though my blog is loosely speaking a mommy blog with a side focus on adoption from China, my most popular post of all time has nothing to do with parenting, kids or adoption.

The most popular post in the whole history of my blog is this one: How to Kill a Yucca Plant.

When I was considering deleting my blog last summer, those poor Yucca Plant sufferers weighed heavily on my mind.  Who would help them with their yucca plight?

 

Just to illustrate the Yucca hatred out there, here are my stats from today: (also included is my mental commentary when I read these search terms)

 

  • american family blog
  •  how to kill yucca plants
  •  american family
  • how to kill yuccas
  • american-family.org  (You clearly know the address of my site, why are you googling it?)
  • americanfamily org  (Just add a hyphen and a period and you will be here!)
  • amfam blog
  • china orphans time out  (Is this like NYC Time Out or London Time Out? All the party places for China orphans?  I heard Guangzhou rocks the house for the orphan party scene.)
  • china travel packing list  (Bring duct tape and instant oatmeal!)
  • death culture in taiwan  (I get this one a lot. I am not sure what death culture means exactly)
  • disney is evil (Yes. Yes it is.)
  • educational grants for chinese orphans
  • excuses to go to Disneyland  (I think you mean “excuses to NOT go to disneyland”)
  • executive wife blog
  • eyeball jokes (???)
  • family boob  (I am going to assume this is some one trying to find MILF po*rn who doesn’t have good google skills).
  • her vulva  (I get this one ALL THE FREAKING TIME. “her vulva”???? I assume this is a 13 year old who doesn’t know that it would be more effective to search for vulva photos on an actual porn website.  And also that in porn, they don’t usually use the word “vulva” very often. Check here for alternative options.)
  • how to destroy yucca plants
  • how to get rid of yucca plants
  • how to kill a yucca 
  • how to kill a yucca plant
  • how to remove Yucca gloriosa plants
  •  i dont like my black skin    :(
  • killing yucca plants
  • organizations helping chinese orphans  (I like Love Without Boundaries or Grace and Hope)
  • should a child with sensory issues start kindergarten  (Mine is waiting an extra year. Yours?)
  • taiwan wiggles
  • taiwanese death ceremony
  • what will kill Yucca roots (Not much short of a nuclear holocaust)
  • will roundup kill yucca (Only if you do it the right way…see link above.)
  • death culture in taiwan  (Seriously, what is it with all these searches about dead people in Taiwan?

 

The only one in my regular line-up that appears to be missing today is “can black parents adopt white child” or some similar variation on that.
July 19th, 2011 | Category: Blogs - Reading and Writing | 8 comments

Twisted and Violated

Today, I received an email that someone well-known in the Chinese adoption community named me by name on a forum and cited our reunion with L’s birth family as one that “ involved trafficking which allowed those connections {reunion] to be made..”

I am going to take a moment to say for the record, that statement is categorically false.  Every single scrap of information we gathered and person we spoke to who had actual knowledge of our daughter and her family only pointed us in the opposite direction.  We were afraid we might find trafficking, but we did not.

I can’t say more than that without violating the privacy of the kind and generous people who helped us search and led us down the unlikely road of reunion.

If the truth were uglier than the personal (and I suspect quite typical) family tragedy that took my daughter from her family, I believe I would find a way to share it with you all.  I have always done my best to tell the truth here and in other places when I am sharing our story, because so many of you can only guess what your child’s truth might be.  I sacrifice L’s privacy, so you might be able to have a better understanding of your child’s story and what is waiting for you if you search.

I am beyond horrified to see someone have so little respect for my willingness to share and my daughter’s privacy speaking as if they know anything at all about us and our experience.

If you find someone trying to tell you something about our story that doesn’t sound right, please let me know.  (And thank you to the online friend who let me know today.)  I consider L’s family story to be sacred.  There are many, many things I do not and will not share publicly, but what I do share is the truth.  I hate to think one day my daughter will google me and find such false information spread by someone with no concern for her or her well-being.

I believe the situation is mostly resolved for now.  If something similar happens again…well, let’s just hope it won’t.

June 21st, 2011 | Category: All About Me, Blogs - Reading and Writing, Open International Adoption | 17 comments

Vote once, vote twice

I don’t usually worry about stats or badges or whatever, but today I got an email saying I was nominated for Circle of Moms Top 25 Adoption blogs.

Now, all my blog ad money is being saved to take L back to China to visit her birth family, so the more links and readers I get, the better.  (You would think that would encourage me not to alienate readers with massive doses of snark, but nope.  I need readers who like both honesty and snark.)

If you want to vote for my blog, you can click right here:

June 1st, 2011 | Category: Adoption, Blogs - Reading and Writing | 6 comments
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