As a 16-year-old, Jennifer Poss Taylor began praying for Ashley. At the time, she just didn’t know how much her little girl would need someone like her.

Taylor learned at that young age that she would never have children naturally because of a health condition that sent her into premature menopause. However, she never gave up her dream of having children. “I always wanted as many children as I could afford to feed,” says the mother of three. “Even at that young age, I knew God would provide either through medical intervention or through adoption.”

Today, Taylor and her husband, David, are the parents of three incredibly fortunate children, two of whom have special needs. Ashley, a blue-eyed blonde like her mom, was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, and her younger brother, Grant, has autism.

Ashley was the first answer to Taylor’s prayer for children, and she was the one who inspired “Forfeiting All Sanity, A Mother’s Story of Raising a Child with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome” (Tate Publishing, $10.99). Taylor poured out her heart in this 130-page book, openly and honestly describing the challenges, joys and frustrations of seeking adoption and then a diagnosis for Ashley.

e hadn’t even made it down the aisle before the marital drama began. “This is the worst place I have ever stayed,” sobbed my mother-in-law as she checked into the hotel I had chosen for her—and for our other 90 wedding guests. Considering that she had grown up in the slums of Mumbai, this was a pretty harsh statement. On top of the hotel fiasco, the plane ride had been stressful, the morning coffee served cold, the drive to the wedding location too long... and clearly I was to blame. She brought me, the mild, no-drama bride, to tears. I was completely freaked out, wondering what kind of family I was marrying into. Did they expect a subservient daughter-in-law who would bend to their every whim? Was this going to be the reality of my cross-cultural marriage? This was not how I had imagined it.

The mail keeps coming, sometimes six or seven pieces in a day—glossy postcards, clever come-ons, thick envelopes full of promise and opportunity. “12 Nobel winners” one proclaims; “Vibrant intellectual community...producing 11 Rhodes Scholars since 1986” another attests. The packaging varies slightly—a close-up of a brunette in lab goggles squinting at a test tube; a brochure featuring hip, diverse co-eds chilling on a sunny quad—but the hook is the same: Come Here and Become Somebody. The economy may still be sucking wind, but evidently the college admissions gauntlet is going gangbusters. I’m convinced that it, along with 20 percent off coupons from Bed, Bath & Beyond, may be all that’s keeping the United States Postal Service afloat.

Food Face plate is just begging for you to play with your food. Finally, a way to prove your mother wrong.

~ The Daily Muse