Speaking of the Chicken Dance… …following a recent Newsboys concert, the first song played as exit music was, in fact, the Chicken Dance. As the crowd herded out of the arena, I very subtly flapped my wings and twisted my shoulders along with the music. The girls watched in horror. I wondered if they were even familiar with the Chicken Dance; Americans seem genetically predisposed to perform the Chicken Dance whenever the music hits their eardrums.  Like the YMCA…you just gotta do it. Is this one of the things that we take for granted until the terrible day we learn that […]

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As anyone mesmerized by The Evolution of Dance knows, dance has changed over the years. Different moods characterize different eras such as social change in the sixties, technology revolution in the eighties; the dance of the time clearly reflects those moods. (Wow, can you tell i’ve been helping with way too many high school English papers??) So now there’s this thing called Dougie. Apparently, it’s so popular and engrained in teen culture that it morphed from nothing to a verb practically overnight. I asked my daughter recently what characterized Dougie. Was it a specific move, like the Moonwalk? or a […]

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I saw this photo recently and just wanted to throw up. (Ironic, huh?) My girls have a unique balance of confidence and insecurity. I’m incredibly proud of both of them and of how often they manage to stand firm on their convictions, whether their peers agree or not. But other times, they are just as sucked in as everyone else. Thin sucks them in. My girls have known what it’s like to not have enough food. We’ve been lucky. Neither of the girls has food-hoarding issues that so often come from years of living without. But it took quite a […]

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School starts today. In less than an hour, they will both board a bus to the High School. Today, they embark on a new season of classes and homework, of football games, of friends and opportunities and choices. They seek independence, yet the glue is still drying between us as a family. For kids raised outside their family of origin, or in a family with significant trauma or dysfunction, it’s harder to grow the bonds of trust and to learn to rely on others. It’s harder for them to understand the balance of love and authority. It’s harder to grasp […]

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Today, Masha turns seventeen. That’s with a one and a seven. Yeah, 17. Now before all of you leave a million comments saying “How can that be? Mark and Christine look barely thirty themselves,” or “Has it been that long?” or “Hmm, I think we’re out of coffee….,” let me say this: it really was just yesterday when we met Masha. At least it was just yesterday in “God Years.” Masha first stepped into our lives in the middle of a a hot August night, five years ago. Since that time, we’ve watched her grow from a tiny, scared, hurt […]

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