Too Close to the Tree: It's always interesting to see the nature and nurture of things with adopted kids, which aspects of their personalities you would swear were by genetic connection to yourself if you didn't know better. My daughter has "inherited" the same anxiety and obsessive worry that I got by blood from my own mother, and my son has clearly picked up the procrastination strain from my DNA even though he has none of the stuff. I'm in a position of telling her "don't worry" and telling him "just do it!" when my own personal ears are deaf to those words. Hypocritical much? Do as I say, youngsters.

(Speaking of distance from the tree: I requested a review copy of the interesting-sounding Far from the Tree, which looks at families of children with special needs and how they deal with their differences, to write about for my About.com site, and ... OMG, it's 976 pages and three pounds of book. If your book is going to be that big, you better be Stanley Greenspan telling me how to work with my child in very concrete and life-saving ways. Otherwise, for goodness sake, edit! I have this tome looming me over my workspace now, and I can't even imagine the kind of opening up of time that would need to occur for me to be able to sit down and give it a serious read. Maybe when my kids are out of college.)