what we're reading links : 10.17.2014

From the last few weeks (okay, it might be more like months… but it was summer, y’all), some good stuff we’ve read that relates to adoption and/or parenting a special needs child.

As always, if you’ve read or written something you think would be a good addition to a future What We’re Reading post, we’d love to hear about it:

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Dr. Stephanie Galanis explains what the w-sit is, and why it should be corrected immediately, in The Dreaded W-Sit in Toddlers at Yummy Mummy Club.

China-adoptive mom and blogger Leah shares a hard post to write to the adoption community, and to waiting children. In it, she shares her take on a conversation about the future of the program with officials of the CCCWA.

Gillian Marchenko, a mom of four girls – one of whom lives with Down syndrome – shares a heart-felt letter to Special Needs Parents: I Give You Permission at Not Alone.

Pastor Jeremy Dowsett, of A Little More Sauce, tackles the concept of white privilege in a well-written post entitled What My Bike Has Taught Me About White Priviledge. Go read it if you haven’t already done so!

Guest poster Donna Thomson, author of The Four Walls of My Freedom: Lessons I’ve Learned from a Life of Caregiving, shares 5 secret of special needs parent happiness at the blog Love That Max.

Mary Evelyn of What Do You Do, Dear? describes what spina bifida looks like during its October awareness month.

Just over a month after her son Tommy passed away, blogger Susanna of The Blessings of Verity shares her thoughts and bits of her life in a furnace for gold.

Lisa Qualls of One Thankful Mom ponders the question Have We Made Attachment an Idol?

Carla Meyer at the Sacramento Bee reports on twin sisters, adopted from China into two different families, who will be featured on an upcoming PBS documentary: Twin Sisters | Separated at Birth.

Chris Fuchs of NBC News explores an adoptee’s perspective of international adoption in In Search of Self: Chinese Adoptees Find Shifting Identities.

If you have yet to see Videographer Trey Ratcliff’s video “Beijing from Above,” check it out on Rare in A man took an illegal video of Beijing using a drone and the result is positively stunning.

Nancy L. Wolf shares an op-ed parenting piece in The Washington Post, getting others thinking about that mom who’s not bragging about her kid.

Over at Disability Scoop, Shaun Heasley shares some of the top special needs friendly cities in Ranking Names Best Cities For People With Disabilities – Disability Scoop.

And on CNN Health, mom Allison Gracey recounts the birth of her son, Colson, with Amniotic Band Syndrome (ABS) – from her initial devastation to her newfound joy in her beloved son.