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Posts from the ‘Dee’ Category

Jun 22

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Dee Thompson’s new book!

Dee Thompson, who posted at this blog last year, published her nonfiction book this month. What follows is Dee’s press release. You can read more at Dee’s blog, or order her book on amazon. Congratulations, Dee!

Adopting Alesia:
My Crusade for My Russian Daughter
Release Date: June 1, 2009
Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
$15.00

I never dreamed I would find my child on the other side of the world.

A few years ago, I was single and childless, and 40 years old. I had spent 20 years searching for Mr. Right and he was nowhere to be found.

Longing for a change of pace and some adventure, I went to Russia to sing Handel’s Messiah, in a remote town on the edge of Siberia. There I met a little girl in an orphanage and I knew she was my daughter. I had seen her in a dream the night before. I had never even considered adopting an older Russian child, but from the moment I first saw her, I knew in my heart that Alesia was my daughter, and no matter what it took, I was going to bring her home.

When I returned to the US, my adoption dream hit brick wall after brick wall. My company laid me off. I had to break up with a boyfriend who didn’t want children. I found out the orphanage director didn’t like Americans and wouldn’t even talk to the adoption agency. Alesia wasn’t even available to adopt. The agency told me over and over to choose a different child. I didn’t have the money I needed to complete the adoption. I started another romance that failed. At times I thought I was going crazy.

Many people told me I was crazy to adopt. The child I had thought was about 8, because she was so emaciated, turned out to be 11. I persevered. When I finally got her home, she was 13 years old.

Through it all, I read everything I could about adoption, learned to speak Russian, cried a lot, and wrote in my journal. I later spent many late nights turning that journal into a book.

Adopting Alesia is a book about a dream, a miracle, and two people who were meant to be a family, despite everything. Adopting Alesia is not merely an adoption story. It’s a story for anyone who has ever had to learn to be brave, fought to follow a dream, or found faith in the darkest of times. It’s a story of a little girl who didn’t even know the word “adoption.” It’s a story about love.

Dee Thompson is an Atlanta writer. Her first book was Jack’s New Family, a children’s book. She holds an MA in creative writing from the University of Tennesee, and writes articles, screenplays, and a popular blog, The Crab Chronicles. She can be contacted at thompsondee@bellsouth.net.

Dec 18

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Dee: Yes I’m Insane, So What?

My name is Dee Thompson and I am a paralegal and writer in Atlanta, Georgia. I am a single mom to a 17-year-old beauty, Alesia, adopted from Russia in 2004, and my son Michael, age 12, adopted from Kazakhstan in 2007. I spent 20 years dating and never found Mr. Right, so finally I gave up. Now I am much happier because I have my children, and my mother lives with us and helps me a lot. I write The Crab Chronicles and Scribblerchick’s Movie Dish whenever I can — lunch hours, late nights, early mornings — as a way to keep my writing skills and blow off steam. I also want people to read The Crab Chronicles and think that adopting an older child can be a wonderful experience. In addition to blogging, I have written a children’s book called Jack’s New Family, about a boy adopted from Russia and how he adjusts to America, and numerous magazine articles. I have manuscripts about my kids’ adoptions, and I am looking for a publisher. Both my adoptions were pretty unusual. I met Alesia when my choir sang at her orphanage. Before that I’d had no idea I would ever adopt a child. My son is missing his right hand due to a frostbite accident, but he’s a great kid.

When I blog I am sometimes very informative, sometimes funny, and sometimes I just need to vent. Some posts are all three. Here is a recent post, entitled: Yes I’m Insane, So What?

I tried to go to sleep last night and ignore the bizarre beeping that was happening somewhere downstairs all night. Found out this morning it’s a smoke alarm with batteries that are failing. The intermittent beeps are to annoy you until you start screaming and tear your hair out trying to figure out why the beeps are happening and you approach the smoke alarm with a hatchet and a crazed look in your eye and — I digress.

We had a day of epic thunderstorms and tornadoes whipping around middle Georgia. It’s December. We should have SNOW, for crying out loud. Instead, we get thunderstorms. It was so weird driving in this morning feeling like it was July — I didn’t need a coat or even a jacket — and hearing Christmas music on the radio.

I looked at Michael last night and thought OMG, his head is getting bigger. It IS bigger. He takes after me — I have a freakishly large head. Mother looks pained every time she recalls my birth, because I came out looking like a big-headed alien child with bright red hair. The first photo, the newborn photo, shows a tiny creature that looks extremely pissed off, probably because Mother stayed on a diet the whole time she was pregnant and gained less than 20 lbs.

I don’t have any such traumatic birth or infancy memories of Michael, of course, but the head thing really amazes me. He is growing almost 1/2 inch every month, which explains the bigger head. The pediatrician said for boys Michael’s age, normal growth is about 2 inches a year. Mike is growing 3-4 inches a year.

I was on the elevator in the parking garage yesterday and this woman tried to get on, then realized we were going up and stepped back, apologizing to me and the other lady on there. We just nodded. I started at her as the doors closed. She was very tall and skinny, and appeared to be an alien life form. I turned to the other lady in the elevator, though, because I thought, I need confirmation of what I have just seen. “Is it my imagination, or did that woman have the tiniest head you have ever seen?! Good lord!” The other lady nodded and started laughing hysterically.

There’s a guy I see all the time in the parking garage, smoking, and he has a very large head. [In a man, that’s called “leonine.” In a woman, it’s called “a freakishly large head”!] Anyway, I saw him yesterday and thought, if you and the pinhead lady got together — would your child have a normal size head?!

I love this quote: “Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.” — Nora Ephron

I am quite willing to admit I am very eccentric. Maybe even crazy, but not in a bad way.

Michael asked me last night while he was brushing his teeth what my favorite movie is. I couldn’t think, so I just said Braveheart. He rolled his eyes, “No, what is your favorite movie that WE DON’T HAVE?!” he demanded. Again, brain fart. “The Color Purple?” I said. He gave me a look of great suspicion. I’m sure he has no idea what The Color Purple even is, but it sounds weird that I like both that AND Braveheart. Finally, duh, it occurred to me that he was thinking about my Christmas gift. I said “Sweetie, we are going shopping this weekend and you can pick out a gift for me, OK? I’ll tell you what I want. Don’t worry about it. I’ll also help you and Alesia pick out something for Granny.”

He gave me a speculative look, like, can I trust you? He reminded me of a cross between Opie Taylor and a very short KGB agent.

I had a dream last night that I was hanging out with Tom Cruise. We weren’t doing anything fun, but I was thinking in my dream, you are so cute but you need to get a CLUE, dude. Quit hanging out with the crazies and get a wife your own age.

As soon as I mentioned this dream at breakfast, Alesia mentioned a dream involving her friend Elena, in which Elena had very long legs and knees oddly positioned. In the dream, Elena was wearing high heels. Her legs looked fabulous except for the knees. This led to a discussion of shoes, and Alesia said Elena wears high heels to school. I must have looked distressed, because I think it’s unwise to wear high heels in a big school — I bet her feet hurt at the end of the day. I detest high heels anyway. Alesia immediately got angry at me and said in her typically infuriated raised voice “Elena can wear high heels IF SHE WANTS TO! You’re not her MOTHER!!” Lately, Alesia gets furious with me every time I disagree with her. She talks VERY LOUD at the slightest provocation. It’s maddening.

It was a loooooong therapy session tonight…

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