Tim & Lisa
Introduction:
Hi. We are Tim and Lisa. Thanks for taking the time to look at our profile. We are here to assure you that we are two people who are full of love and joy that are grateful to you for possibly helping us to bring some of our love to a beautiful child. We are two artists, married for six years now. We have a life full of creativity and energy. In many ways, we have so much to be thankful for. We have made a beautiful life together, making photographs, paintings, and music. We have wonderful jobs, exciting careers as artists and college professors, an amazing community of friends, and generous and supportive families. We feel we’ve made a loving home for a baby.
Parenting Philosophy:
We hope our parenting philosophy will reflect some of the core principles of our own relationship. At the heart of our marriage is communication. We have always been able to talk through problems, and we feel that the best way to give a child a sense of place in the world is to teach them to communicate openly. With each other we try to explore our differences and support our own personal struggles through open dialogue. We also know that a child feels most at home when they have a strong sense of their place in the household, so we expect to parent with real rules. We will provide them many opportunities to explore their interests—whatever they may be—and also give them space and time to explore the world around them, with a balance of structure and freedom. We have careers that allow for flexible schedules, so can be involved and open with our children and share our many adventures and fun times with them.
Our Family:
Our core family consists of the two of us and our two cats. We are incredibly close with our parents, siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, but consider our large group of friends to be family as well. Tim’s parents, three siblings and two nieces all live within two hours of us, and we see them often. Lisa’s sister is in L.A. and parents in the Midwest, but we travel to them, and they to us often. Get togethers with both of our families means a lot of eating and laughing, and with Tim’s family a lot of singing and playing instruments. Throughout both of our extended families, humor is what brings us all together.
Our Home:
Our house is a 120-year old farmhouse in a small town in the Hudson Valley. It is filled with books and records and musical instruments. We added an enormous screened-in porch to the back of the house that is the perfect place to have meals and sit and read and listen to the willow trees. We own a few acres that go back through the woods to a stream. It’s an incredible place for a child to grow and discover the natural world. We live in a beautiful town right on the Hudson River. It is a really unusual community. The town is as safe and calm and quiet as something out of Huckleberry Finn. But because it is close to the college where we teach, it is full of really smart and talented and vivid souls. Every year there is an Edible Sculpture party in the town, and there are lectures in the library every week by all kinds of scholars, artists, gardeners, and people who work to clean up the Hudson River. The college where we work is another great resource. It has its own nursery school providing free childcare for us and all its employees. Our town, our community, the college where we work, and our house, sometimes feel like a perfect nest we’ve built.
Our Professions:
We are both artists and professors; Tim a photographer, and Lisa a painter. We are both so lucky to have professions we love, which have flexible schedules and allow us to visit exciting and unusual places all around the United States and the world. We have connected with many people and cultures through our work. At home, where we teach photography and painting at a small college, we are able to share these experiences and form deeper connections with students, artists and fellow professors.
Our Activities:
Fortunately, we have many interests in common. This comes out of our shared practice of being artists. We travel to investigate subjects for our art, and while exploring the world, we both like to eat interesting food, go to museums, go hiking and visit friends new and old. At home, Lisa paints, gardens, cooks and watches movies and Tim likes the same as well as a deep interest in playing sports and making music.
In Closing:
I hope you can feel in our words how grateful we are to you. You are making an enormous sacrifice and doing something really brave. When we think about adopting through Family Connections, we see it as a connection we are making with someone, working together to help a baby. It’s more of a collaboration than some kind of legal thing. I hope it works out that we can be brought together to help this child find its way in the world. I guess the best we can do is assure you that we are good people; people who have been doing good all their lives waiting for this moment when they can share their love with a baby.