TOPIC: Adoption

THE STORY
Jackie and Kathy came to me wishing for a song to celebrate their family and to tell the story of their daughters' adoptions from Guatemala in a way that would make sense to their girls now, at their current ages (3, 6) and would also hold deeper levels of meaning that they could come to appreciate anew when they listen again to the song as adults. I learned of their trips to Guatemala, of the many ways in which their family began to take shape and turn into something real and amazing. I got to draw on my own time in Guatemala, having visited the cabin where my husband lived for two years in his "Habitat for Humanity" days. But the very crux of what makes this song feel so special to me, as the writer, came from out beyond the stories, out beyond my experience of Guatemala. It came from something Kathy said that shot right through me when she said it--it was so unadorned and obvious. It made me understand and feel on an even deeper level how much is true and the same for all children in all families, regardless of how those families came together. I turned her comments into the bridge of the song, and I love the way it makes the specificity of this story suddenly feel so universal:

We can't know all of where you've been,
Just like we can't know all of where you're going.
And it's not always easy here.
It's not always easy anywhere...

TOPIC: WELCOME NEW BABY!

THE STORY
Sandy came to me wanting a song that would serve as both a lullaby and a welcoming greeting to her new grandson Jonah. There were two unique challenges in creating this song: (1) Sandy (humbly, I think) requested that the song be from her but not use the word “I” (pretty much all of my songs, you might note, are written in the First Person because I believe that gives them the most intimacy—so this was new territory for me). And (2) this song was to acknowledge the fact that Sandy’s husband Lew had passed away and would not be present to greet Jonah, but this was to be done in such a way that this fact would not be overly obvious nor made an “issue” of in the song. 

TOPIC: Having a little fun with fretting

TOPIC: Mother to new baby

TOPIC: Adoption for newly adopted 2 year old; To adopted daughter from single mom

TOPIC: For a feisty 2 year old