Articles by Deanna Jones

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

The Sleep Habits of Orphans

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The Sleep Habits of Orphans
From the time my kids have been home, they have demonstrated some strange ideas on sleeping. On Friday nights, we let them have more freedom to sleep all together, or in playrooms or around the house. (Usually they sleep two to a room.) One time my girls came downstairs while I was cleaning the kitchen on a Friday night really excited. They were in their pajamas, with pillows, blankets, toys in hand. "Mommy we have a great idea! We want to sleep in the kitchen." Although I give them a lot of leeway on the weekends, the kitchen was off limits.  Read more »

How a Love of Ginger Tea Helped our Multicultural Family

Ella had been in America for about six months. We were making a connection but there were struggles.  Read more »

Why the Tooth Fairy is American in our Multicultural Home

With six kids from six to 14 years old it is often hard to keep up with all the teeth falling out.  Read more »

Remembering Their Birth Mother’s Face

My first Christmas with my Ethiopian children came 10 months after they were officially adopted into our family.  Read more »

Letters from Orphans

November is National Adoption Month and this past Sunday was Orphan Sunday. We dedicated our children at our church in Durham, North Carolina with about 10 other children who had been adopted in the past year within our congregation. Typically in our inter-denominational Christian church, babies are “dedicated” as a way for parents to commit to raising their children with an understanding that they are children of God and to declare a promise to teach them about Jesus.  Read more »

Is it Possible to be Too Multicultural?

People who see us together call us the United Nations family. We are stopped constantly by people who ask, “Are these all yours?” I confidently tell perfect strangers that my family represents four different countries. Our diversity is something that I am very proud of. However, it is difficult to continue to teach your children about their history and their culture while at the same time introduce them to their new culture and family.  Read more »

Learning Languages for Adopted Children

Next week we are heading to the Ukraine to adopt our seventh child. I have tried to block out time from my day to study Russian, but just haven’t been able to make any progress with it. It isn’t that I don’t want to--I really enjoy learning new languages, but have been very busy. Before we adopted our baby, Matea, from Guatemala, I spent hours studying Spanish.  Read more »

Disconnect to Connect: Foregoing Facebook and iPads to Model Connection for Our Children

So, I caved! I gave my 12-year-old Ethiopian daughter a cell phone this year. As she was heading into middle school, I realized that she needed it to stay connected to us “in case of emergencies.” Well, as you can imagine, the phone has become an invisible lifeline between my sweet Grace and her friends. Lately, when she walks in the back door after school, she forgets to say hello to me or doesn’t hear me because she is texting.  Read more »

Adoption and The Gift of Hope

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13: 13) My children tell me the story of when they were in the orphanage in Ethiopia and how they had lost hope that a family would adopt them. We adopted three children who were siblings. Most of the adoptions they had seen were of one child at a time.  Read more »

Death of a Parent and Ella’s Troubled Hair

The first time I laid eyes on Ella was via a picture from her Ethiopian orphanage. I immediately thought that she was perhaps the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen. She was six years old and had perfectly braided hair gathered into a bun on her head. The orphanage had very little resources but a local hair salon came on Saturdays to wash and braid the hair of dozens of little girls.  Read more »

Supernatural Conception: HIV Adoption

We are about to embark on another adoption journey. This time we call it an accidental adoption but it really is more like supernatural conception and childbirth. We thought we were done. We have three children from Ethiopia, two born to us in America and another from Guatemala. We never ever thought we would be adopting again. Similar to going into the doctor and being surprised by a positive pregnancy test, I can imagine this feels the same.  Read more »

Charity and Children

Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the Lord delivers him in times of trouble. The Lord will protect him and preserve his life; he will bless him in the land and not surrender him to the desire of his foes. (Psalm 41:1-2)   As Christians we are taught to honor the "least of these." The reality is that only a small percentage of Christians are extending themselves for the orphan.  Read more »

Matea: Gift from God

I had a very odd dream on the eve of Thanksgiving in 2004. A woman who looked like Kate Hudson handed me a very trendy Moses basket with a perfectly blond, blue-eyed baby boy inside. She looked me in the eyes and said, “Here is your new baby, Liam.” I looked at her incredulous and responded, “This is not my baby! My baby is going to have dark hair and her name will be Matéa.  Read more »

The Gift of Oranges From a Sister I Will Never Meet

I felt a connection to a woman who had lived across the continent in Ethiopia. We had never met and will never meet in person. She was the birth mother of my three Ethiopian kids. I know it is strange to admit this connection but I can honestly say that I felt a call from her heart to "mother" her children via adoption. Bayoush was around 32 years old and had passed away due to AIDS a few years prior in 2005.  Read more »

Languages of My Children

We belong to an international Christian church that is very diverse. We are blessed to have people from all different nations available to help us with cultural differences in raising our children. Our Ethiopian friends worship with us as do Hispanic, Asian and people from 50 different countries. I believe the expression “it takes a village” really applies to us.  Read more »

A Real American Family

I have one of those families that turn heads. I usually don’t notice. I am too busy shooshing everyone because we are also very loud. But every now and then I notice people have no clue what to make of us and look at us quite perplexed. I am the mother of 6 kids. We are a family of 8. My husband was raised in NYC and is Jewish by culture.  Read more »
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This mom never knows how she'll find her kids in the morning

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