1. Get some sleep.  I know this is so simple it borders on ridiculous, but I feel it's the single most important thing a parent can do – and I have to remind myself of this constantly. We all want to grab alone time once the kids are in bed, but, eventually, lack of sleep will make you sick, crazy, and unable to cope with normal or challenging child behavior. When you feel stressed, it's tempting to zone out in front of a screen, but don't. Don't stay up watching Law and Order reruns. Don't spend hours on Pinterest hating the crafty, organized moms who have time to build a pink lemonade stand. Staring at a screen for hours through blurred eyes will depress you. Opt for a soak in the tub or reading a fun magazine. Then go to sleep.
    
2. Keep life predictable in your household. I got this advice from Dr. Nancy Curtis at the International Adoption Clinic at Oakland Children's Hospital when my children arrived. Internationally adopted kids have gone through a tremendous upheaval, she said; it helps them feel safe if they can predict what's coming next. Try to keep mealtimes and bedtimes consistent. If you go out to eat, stick to the same restaurants. If you go to the park, go to the same one every time. Following the doctor's approach made our lives downright boring when the kids were small, but I know consistency helped them adjust.
   
   Routine can be harder to pull off when you've got older kids involved in sports and activities. A regular schedule also may not be practical for parents who work odd hours. But trust me: predictability is worth shooting for. Kids who've experienced instability in the past will feel more secure with a routine, and you'll enjoy happier, more cooperative children. Now that my kids are fourth- and fifth-graders, they are able tolerate a lot more variety and spontaneity, but I still try to keep things as boring as possible. Finally, if you know you're going to have to deviate from the usual, brief your kids in advance about the alternate plan. Try not to catch them off guard.
    
3. Hire as much household help as you can afford. An adoptive mom of rambunctious Ethiopian twin boys gave me this warning before my kids arrived. I didn't want to hire anyone –- I wanted to save money and be Supermom -- but after I had three rambunctious preschoolers of my own speaking two different languages under my roof, I got the point.
   
   I found a homeschooled teenager to be a mother's helper a few mornings a week so that I could take the kids to the park and avoid a nervous breakdown when one child climbed a tree, one bolted for the bathroom, and the third threw a tantrum at the top of the slide. I also found a house cleaner willing to run to the grocery and make an occasional meal. Even with help and a great husband, my first year as a mom was exhausting and teary, but at least I didn't have to clean the toilets.
   
   Of course, not everyone can afford to hire regular help. Thankfully, there are lots of low cost options out there to relieve some pressure. Many grocery chains offer online ordering and home delivery. Safeway's delivery fee is just $3.95 – a small price to pay to avoid dragging a bunch of kids to the store when you're frazzled.  If you've hit a rough patch and the laundry is overflowing (or if, hypothetically speaking, everything in your house needs to be washed because you have three kids with lice), find a local laundromat that provides drop off, fluff ‘n fold service.
   
   Another resource I love is Taskrabbit, which operates in nine large metro areas around the country. The site allows you to post a job you need done and what you're willing to pay. Vetted "taskrabbits" in your local area then submit competitive bids, which makes this a really affordable service. Payment goes through the Taskrabbit site after the job is complete. You can hire someone for a big job, like organizing your closet, or something as small as returning your library books. I've used taskrabbits to organize my kids' art supplies, clean my garage, and create an Excel spreadsheet.

In my last post, I discussed the challenge adoptive parents face in trying to balance our children's privacy with the need to share or reach out when our families struggle. I referred to a candid blog post, written by another adoptive mom, that had met with both praise and criticism online, as an example of how the privacy balance isn't the same for everyone -- but there are a million other posts I could have singled out. Mom blogs have exploded in the last 10 years because women have been driven to connect and confess how hard, painful, and ridiculous motherhood can sometimes be. Dads have gotten in the mix too. As the mom blog culture has matured, the children of some of pioneering bloggers have gotten older too. Bloggers' kids have started asking their parents not to share so much.

Parents don't have to be bloggers to feel that tension; it affects every parent on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, but as always, adoption adds complications.

Adoptive families exist outside the norm. Sometimes, when mothers don't "match" babies, or brothers don't "match" sisters, we literally stand out in a crowd. Our families are accosted by curious strangers, acquaintances, and even friends, almost every day. We're a little different, and people expect that we have dramatic or heartwarming tales to tell -- and who doesn't love a good story? Folks put us on a pedestal because we've got the "heart" to take in a child who is "not our own."  Others question the choices we've made: why we didn't adopt from America/from foster care/from our same race/from another race/ from a country where kids really need help? Adoptive families live between the old rock and a hard place, judged as more loving and special than ordinary, yet somehow less real and legitimate than normal.

Let's face it: adoption is a wonderful way to form a family, but sometimes, it's lonely.

Do the unique challenges in adoption drive some of us to occasionally overshare, especially when folks question our families ALL THE TIME? Do some of us shut down and go silent, partly because we're exhausted from fielding questions about our families ALL THE TIME? Yes and yes. Finding the balance between sharing and secrecy is a high wire act worthy of Cirque de Soleil. And if it's a challenge for us parents, who've chosen adoption freely, how much trickier is it for our kids, who had no choice?

The key for us as parents, I think, is to take care of ourselves first, in body, mind and spirit, so that we don't feel compelled to vent continuously or habitually withdraw, and, most important, so that we have the patience and energy to care for our children. In my next post, I'll focus on a few strategies parents can apply to ease household stress and support self-care, which helps the whole family.

A lot of folks in the group, including me, felt that this woman had violated her child's privacy -- and some vehemently told her so (for the child's sake, I'm not including a link to the original post). G explained to critics that she wants to de-stigmatize mental illness so that more families will seek treatment. Many parents said they appreciated her candidness, because their families are struggling too. Some argued that we need more of this kind of openness in the adoption community, where too many families suffer in silence when life isn't Hallmark card-perfect. A few pointed out that it can be hard to find doctors and therapists who really understand adoption; a couple of moms even said that blogging and reading adoption blogs is the best way to get help, because adoptive parents who've "been there" know more than most professionals.

I found this entire episode so alarming that I wrote about it on my personal blog, but the concerns raised by the online discussion continue to gnaw at me. I strongly believe children have a right to privacy; over and over, I've heard adoptive parents of grown children say they regret being so free with their children's personal stories. At the same time, families shouldn't suffer in silence. Parents facing rough situations should feel safe reaching out for help from peers and professionals (but hopefully not look exclusively to the Internet to solve their problems!).

Before the dust had even settled from that flame war, news broke of the terrible case of Doug and Kristen Barbour, the Pennsylvania couple accused of abusing their newly-adopted Ethiopian children almost to death. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Kristen Barbour blogged extensively about the family's adoption preparations, but once the six-year-old boy and one-year-old girl came home, Barbour got quiet; adoptive families living in the Pittsburgh area have said that the Barbours were not part of local play or support groups. The couple has now been charged with felony aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of children. Reading about this tragic case gave me a new appreciation for G's openness in seeking personal and professional help for her family.

All of this has got me thinking. As the parents of three internationally-adopted children from Ethiopia and India, my husband and I have struggled at times. Without question, my brave children have struggled too. Somehow, we were able to find the help we needed without sacrificing anyone's privacy. I think the time has come for me to share some ideas for getting through the tough times -- and again, I think I can do it without giving away too much. In my next couple of posts, I'll talk about what I did when times were hard and how to find the right kind of professional help. I hope you'll come back and check them out.

Inside the bustling restaurant, the hostess seated us at the only available table for two, located just a foot away from a middle-aged white couple. I didn't want to be so close to another party -- what if Gobez chewed with his mouth open or cracked a fart joke? And then there was the odd way that the woman looked at us as we sat down. She didn't seem hostile, exactly, but she'd noticed us, and her look made me feel on notice. We had no other seating options, so I tried to brush away my discomfort.

We placed our order: Pad Thai for Gobez, Spicy Chicken with Eggplant for me. Meanwhile, our neighbors chatted about work. We were so close, it was impossible not to overhear. I needed to use the restroom, so I handed Gobez my phone so that he could play a quick game of Pocket God while I was gone.

"Turn off the sound," I reminded him. "You don't want to disturb other people."

When I returned a few minutes later, my son appeared deep in an online game stupor. I sipped my water and tried not to listen to the next table's conversation, but there was no escaping it.

"He had gashes on the back of his head. He was bleeding," I heard the woman say.

"The 911 operator told him to stand down," said the man.

"What's he supposed to do if he's attacked?"

"If you start a bar fight, you know you're gonna get punched."

It took me a few seconds to process the exchange, but then it hit me: They're talking about Trayvon Martin. I'd seen the latest news photos of a bleeding George Zimmerman, the man accused of shooting Martin, an unarmed black teenager. Zimmerman's lawyers claim these injuries prove their client acted in self-defense after the teen attacked him, but the boy had clearly been minding his own business until Zimmerman started trailing him out of suspicion through a suburban Florida neighborhood.

"Sounds like the kid threw the first punch." The tone of the woman's voice told me that she blamed Trayvon Martin for his own death.

I felt sick. Why were they talking about this with my son right here? Had the mere sight of my big-for-his-age African child sparked the ugly conversation?

I looked at Gobez, still seemingly engrossed in his game. Had he heard? Did he understand?

Although I talk to my kids about how to deal with racism, they're still young enough that I try to shield them from violent and sensational stories in the media. We don't watch TV news at home, though Gobez did catch one CNN report on a pizzeria TV when the case first broke. As far as I knew, that story had been his only exposure to the details of the tragedy, but who knows what he might have heard at school or at a friend's house? And so I faced a dilemma: Should I probe my son about what he might have understood about the restaurant conversation, souring his birthday, or convince myself that he hadn't heard a thing?

The waitress delivered our food. Inexplicably, she patted Gobez affectionately on the back as she left, almost as if she'd heard something awful, too, and wanted to comfort him. We began to eat, and I felt a rush of relief as the conversation next to us turned to fishing.

"Mom," Gobez said after awhile, "Can I get a fish for my birthday?"

I took a deep breath. Just because he's listening now doesn't mean he was listening earlier. My mind whirred with the insanity of the situation, even as the usual "No, you can't have a fish/parrot/lizard/pit-bull" speech came out of my mouth. I wondered if the couple next door was now eavesdropping on us. I silently screamed for them to GET OUT of the restaurant, but they took their time.

After our lunch plates had been cleared, Gobez declared himself too full for ice cream. I can count on one hand the number of times my son has been too full for anything but broccoli -- he typically eats enough for two grown men -- and I worried that he'd lost his appetite because of our neighbors' conversation. Then again, I consoled myself, he'd certainly cleaned up the Pad Thai.

At home, we rolled into our afternoon routine of homework and chores, and in the evening, more celebrating and lots of gifts. My son seemed happy. Normal.

I never said anything to Gobez about what happened in the restaurant. I couldn't even bring myself to tell my husband for several days; the shock and pain felt too deep. Even now, as I write this, I don't know how to put my pain into words. I know some will read this and think I overreacted, saying that couple's conversation had nothing to do with us. But I know better. Sometimes I wish I didn't.

We've been working on clutter clearing at our house recently. I asked my son, Gobez, adopted from Ethiopia, to go through his room and pull out anything he no longer wanted. He threw exactly two items into the hallway: a medieval toy castle and a fire truck. Seeing the truck on the junk pile made me gasp.

"Gobez, honey," I called. "Are you sure you want to give away your fire truck?"

"I don't like it any more," he said.

Gobez turned 9 in May. He hasn't played with the truck in years. Of course he wants to give it away.

I sat down on the hallway floor and began wiping dust off the truck with a damp rag, readying it for the donation box. Within seconds I was sniffling, and then I broke into a full-on sob, my son's discarded toy still in my lap.

Gobez poked his head out of his room. "Mom, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I told him. "I'm just sad about the fire truck."

Gobez looked at me with confusion. "Do you want to play with it? Because you can have it. I don't care."

I laughed. "No, honey. I don't want to play with it. I'm sad because it was your very first birthday present from us. Do you remember?"

My son shook his head. "You're crazy," he said, and ducked back into his room.

Gobez was only 3 years old, and his little sister Lemlem just 2, the day they bravely followed my husband, John, and me onto an Ethiopian Airlines jet bound for the U.S. Three months later, it was already time to celebrate my new son's fourth birthday. At that point, communication in our household consisted of an incoherent mishmash of English, toddler Amharic, and emphatic gesturing. I wasn't even sure Gobez knew what a birthday was, and I had no way to explain the concept to him. Throwing a big party would be overwhelming for him and for me. Frankly, as the exhausted new mom of two rambunctious kids whom I barely knew, hosting a party for a pack of preschoolers sounded like torture.

We packed the kids in the car instead and met my sister, Heather, and her boyfriend, Clint, at the beach. The day was brisk and windy. Sand drifted into our sandwiches and dusted the birthday cake. The kids had never seen the ocean before, but it was too cold to even dip a toe in. We tried to stage a game of Wiffle ball with the set Heather and Clint had brought as a gift, but the wind outplayed us. Then John and I gave our son his big present: a large fire truck, much like the one he enjoyed in Miss Sarah's room at preschool, and he laughed. All in all, it was a lovely day, except for the unspoken burden we all shared: We didn't quite feel like a family. Not yet. We were gingerly going through the motions and hoping for the best. We bought our son a fire truck because that is what you do when a boy turns 4, and honestly, we had no other ideas. Somehow, we fumbled our way through the first big family occasion and survived.

For years, I tripped over that fire truck, which became a fixture of our daily lives together. Gobez and his engine rescued dolls in peril for his sisters and rushed to the scene of elaborately staged bike accidents to care for the wounded toys. Every single day, I would hear my son wailing "Woooo, woooo, woooo!" as he pushed that truck down the hallway, until one day, the wailing stopped. Gobez had moved on. If a toy didn't have a remote control unit or a microprocessor, he wasn't interested. Relegated to a dusty corner of the bedroom, the truck hung around for old times’ sake. Now it's gone.

Many birthdays have passed for our family since that first tentative celebration. Now I know that Gobez wants me to make Cincinnati chili for his birthday dinner, that he wants to bring buttermilk cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting for his classmates, and that he expects a chocolate cake decorated like a soccer field. For his ninth birthday, I knew the gift he would love was the Team USA soccer jersey I got him, personalized with his name and team number.

We've come a long way together. We can let some things go.

This post was originally published on Mama Manifesto.

For example, my 9-year-old daughter, Didi, adopted from India, came home from school out of sorts on a recent afternoon. I sent my son, Gobez, adopted from Ethiopia, and younger daughter, Lemlem, adopted from Ethiopia, outside to shoot baskets while I pulled my oldest aside for a private talk.

“Did something upset you today?” I asked.

“Mom, how long have I been here?” she shot back. “Four years?”

“Yes,” I said, realizing with surprise that it was almost four years to the day since we flew home together from India—one brave but anxious 5-year-old and her happy but nervous new mom.

“Being here still feels new,” she said, her tone leaning toward accusatory. She gave me that look I’ve come to know so well, an intense expression of mingled hope and frustration that says, I really need you to fix this, Mom. She’s still young enough to overestimate my fix-it capacities.

“I’m sure it does feel new, honey," I said. "You lived in India longer than you’ve lived with us. Things may always feel a little new every once in a while, even after you’ve been here a long, long time.”

The story of what happened that day started to pour out then. Didi had been talking with a couple of classmates who’d only recently come to the U.S. with their families. “Katarina had to leave her country because there was a war,” she said, her face tensed. “And Jon had to leave Norway because his dad got a job here. Jon didn't want to come.”

I could just picture Didi and her third-grade classmates huddled together in a corner of the playground, awkwardly discussing the pain of their immigrant experiences, and I thought, She’s growing up and away from me, looking to her friends for support now … just like she’s supposed to.

“I’m glad you’ve met people who understand what it feels like to move to a new country,” I said. “We all need friends we can talk to about our lives.”

Simply describing what had happened and having her feelings acknowledged seemed to lighten Didi’s mood instantly. We wrapped up our conversation, and she skipped outside to join the basketball game leaving me thinking about how far we've come together and how far we have yet to go.

No matter what the age at placement, every adopted child joins her new family bearing a personal history,  but children like mine, who were older at adoption, arrive with a cache of formative memories and life experiences. I want my children to know and trust that I treasure the memories they've shared with me, and  that I honor the lives they lived before.

Gotcha Day wasn't the beginning of the story for any of us. Although the memories of our early days together are precious, they're only a small part of the whole. We've grown so much closer with the passage of time.