Day 6: Character Trait

The character trait I'm grateful for today is one that I've had to grow more than one that comes naturally, and that is adaptability. I tend to have an idea, once I start down a path, of how life is going to look both day-to-day and also 5, 10, and 15 years out with following that path. The thing I've had to learn about life is that it doesn't work so predictably as to be planned out neatly for decades into the future. There will be surprises, curve balls, and challenges that force you to pivot. There will be things about both you and your family members that make what seemed like the best life path turn out to not be so anymore as time goes on. 

•  Vocation-wise: I've learned how to be a stay-at-home mom and a homeschool mom for a good chunk of my adult life when I never in a million years would have envisioned that life for myself; and now, over the last couple years, am learning how to transition back into the workforce after so many years away. 
• For everyone who raises kids: you see that the only predictable thing is change over time. Just when you get the hang of one stage, they are on to the next, and each stage comes with increasing independence and a need to trust the kids more rather than try to control everything. 
•  In my line of work, the cases are extremely dynamic, so it very frequently happens that you have conversations and do research and make plans based on one set of facts and then things have already changed by the time it gets to the decision making deadline. Everyone in this work world has to learn how to plan and move forward with plans, but stay adaptable for changes at any time.

All of this has been stretching and growing and teaching that me how to re-invent, how to be a beginner in middle age, and how to adapt to what life demands of you at different times. I'm grateful for that lesson, which I think I have grown in but which will also continue to be a lifelong learning project. 

Day 5: Day-to-Day Bore

One of my regular trails

I can't let a gratitude series go by without writing at least one post about my gratitude for running, and this works as the category to slot it in because this gets to an aspect of running that I appreciate - it's the same thing, over and over. I will occasionally try a new trail or get out for a run on vacation or see a new route via a race, but generally I do the same 3-4 routes every single time I run. This familiarity allows you to notice things - the changing seasons, the people who do really creative and beautiful things with their yard, the little tucked away green space that's not officially a park. You get to know the landmarks that you pass each time and gauge how the run is going based on how you feel when you hit that point in the route.  It allows you to zone out of the activity itself and either work through things in your mind or attend fully to music. It makes it very easy to get out the door when you're just grabbing your shoes and heading to the same few places - no time or energy used up in planning. And it's comforting, when you're going through stressful and chaotic things in work and in life, that running can be a space that is not stressful or chaotic. I'm grateful for the day-to-day bore of running.

Day 4: Talents

 

This is not a unique talent, judging by the number of memes available on the subject, but I am grateful for my talent of memorizing song lyrics. (My unique twist is that I can hear a lyric in a close-but-wrong way and then maintain that as the correct lyric in my head even if I hear the song with the correct lyric 500 more times.) I'm grateful for the joy that music brings and I'm grateful for the way that singing a song you loved when you were 11 or 16 or 25 brings you right back to that time in life. I'm grateful for the songwriters who come up with just the right words to capture a feeling or moment, and I'm grateful for the musicians who add the music that elevates the whole experience to another level. 

Day 3: Invention

 I am grateful for the invention of dishwashers. There are many chores that I enjoy if I'm in the right mood and have a good audiobook playing, but handwashing dishes is never on that list. I'm grateful that dishwashers allow you to avoid the level of rinsing and scrubbing, the dealing with really hot water, the wondering if you got it clean enough with glasses, the trying to dry in the weird nooks and crannies, and the finding drying space on the counter for a meal's worth of dishes. And I'm grateful that because dishwashers are common in primary homes now, the one thing that's fun about handwashing is the signal to the brain that if you're handwashing, it's probably because you're somewhere new and different and hopefully on vacation. Here's to you, dishwashers!

Day 2: Part of the Day

 

Since I do a series like this every year, I like to try to choose things that are true of our family for a stretch of time, but likely won't be true forever. One of the things that we like to do a couple times per week right now is play Settlers of Catan. 

I'm grateful that the kids are old enough to play games and watch movies that all of us can genuinely enjoy. I'm grateful for this game, which has just the right amount of complexity and length of gameplay to be maximally enjoyable. I'm grateful for how it brings out the girls' personalities, showing their increasing abilities to strategize, negotiate, and adapt. I'm grateful for the Longest Road card and getting a killer 2 for 1. Most of all, I'm grateful for the time together.

Gratitude Series 2026: Food

We are hitting our homeschool summer break, and with that, I'm going to start up another round of summer gratitudes on the blog. As always, my mind could use a reset towards thankfulness, and working through these lists is a helpful way to do it. I plan to post a few of these per week through the summer, and invite any of you who enjoy gratitude lists to join me!

Day 1 is "What Kind of Food are You Grateful For?"

While I'm very grateful for the simple food that constitutes the vast, vast majority of life, at this moment I'm feeling most grateful for the kind of food you get to eat at a fancy restaurant. I'm grateful for how you often get to eat in courses, with an appetizer, a salad, a main course, and dessert - instead of cramming everything onto one plate and eating through it like a race before getting on to the next thing on the schedule, you get to savor the food, the company, and the whole experience. I appreciate how nice restaurants care about the aesthetics of the food, presenting things beautifully and sometimes even artfully. I appreciate how they attend to the texture and the smell as well as the taste. I appreciate how they are so inventive, coming up with spice and flavor combinations that you've never seen before. I appreciate how they can take a classic food that you've eaten a hundred times and prepare it better than you've ever had it before. I appreciate how the restaurants strive to make the whole experience pleasurable, with hospitable service and nice decorations or views. I am grateful how this commonest of activities, this thing we need to do multiple times per day every day to sustain life, can also be turned into such a grand, pleasurable, celebratory event. 

What is a Children's Attorney?

 

I've been meaning to write a blog about my job for awhile now and May is Foster Care Awareness month, so this seems like a perfect time. My job is representing children in foster care as their attorney, so I will tell you more about that and then add some ways you can get involved at the end.

Why would a child in foster care need an attorney?

When a family is involved in the foster care system, the whole situation is actively monitored by the court, starting with the initial removal and then continuing with review hearings until the case ends, which often takes years. The court monitors and makes orders on all kinds of issues. 

The most common issues related to the child in particular look like: 

• How is the child's current placement going? 
• Are there relatives or close family friends they would rather be living with? 
• Are they living with siblings, and if not, why not?
• Is this the appropriate level of care, or do they need something less restrictive?
• Are there any concerns about the placement that need to be raised?
• If they are going to be moved to a new placement, how do they feel about this and is this situation likely to work better?
• Are there items important to them that didn't make it through a move (such as clothes, stuffed animals, glasses)?
• How is visitation going?
• Are they getting to have in person visits as well as the option of phone / Facetime visits with important people in their life, particularly parents?
• Are they getting to have regular sibling visits?
• Do they feel comfortable with having visits, with the type of visits, and with all the people included as part of the visit?
• If case is going well, how can we increase hours of visitation?
• What should be the permanent plan for the child (reunification, guardianship, adoption, or aging out)? Should parental rights be terminated? 
• Is the child getting the support they need as far as therapy, developmental services, and school services? Is the child on psychiatric medication and who is making decisions regarding this medicine? 
• Should the child be involuntarily committed to a locked facility? 
• If the child is aging out, do they have the information and support they need for independent living and know their rights related to Extended Foster Care?

All the parties get their own attorneys - so each parent has an attorney, CPS has an attorney, and the children have an attorney. Each party gets to state their opinion on the issues above (as well as issues relating more specifically to the parents) and then the judge makes orders. So my job in court is to make sure the judge knows the child's opinion on the issues before the court, and my job in between court hearings is to stay up to date on what's going on with the child and to advocate more informally for anything they need.

How is representing a child different from representing an adult?

It's actually probably much more alike than people would guess. The  job is to stay up to date on what is happening in the case, explain that to the client in a way that they can understand, get their opinion on issues being decided by the court and others in charge, and then advocate for them in and out of court. We have all the same tools as regular attorneys - speaking in court, filing motions and oppositions, calling witnesses, filing appeals, etc.

Having said that, there are some things that make the job very different. Some examples:

• The methods we use to gain trust and build rapport - if you have a young client, this might look like building blocks together, crashing cars, coloring, hunting for bugs. With school age clients, let me just say that I know a lot more now about video games and YouTube videos. 
• Judgment calls on what the client is able to understand and discuss - you're going to have different conversations with a 3-year-old than with an 8-year-old; and with an 8-year-old than with a 16-year-old. We convey as much information as possible and do our best to gather the child's perspective, but exactly what that looks like varies wildly by age.
• Part of the job is explaining the basics so it's a more comfortable experience for them - like, what is an attorney? what is a judge? what exactly happens in court and do they want to be a part of it? will they have to talk if they don't want to?

What are the best things about the job?

There are several great things about the job: it's amazing getting to form relationships over time with our clients and to watch their growth. It's a privilege to try to help guide a case towards the most positive outcomes possible for the youth (and sometimes to help finalize their adoption). It's inspiring to work with other professionals, both my colleagues and others in the system, who care so deeply about the kids. And there's never a boring day. There are definitely some really hard things about the job as well, but even with the hard things, it's a privilege to be one of the adults entrusted with helping a young person navigate through challenges.

So that's my job in a nutshell! If hearing more about the concerns of foster youth makes you want to get involved, there are a bunch of ways...

How can others get involved?

• If you are an attorney in Northern Nevada, there is always a need for pro bono attorneys to help with these cases. You can talk to me or check out the Northern Nevada Legal Aid website.
• CASA volunteers form relationships with foster children, learn about the situation, and report to the court their opinion about what would be in the best interests of the children.
• There is always a need for more foster families!
• There is also always a need for mentors.