That's Entertainment!

I know, I know, I've posted this before!  But Darryl "DMC" McDaniels was the lunch speaker today at the adoption conference.  I heard him speak last year at the American Adoption Congress conference, and heard him and Zara Phillips perform this song.  You have to love a rapper who can drop a rhyme with "original birth certificate!"

Just like before, McDaniels was funny and sincere and touching about his discovery at age 35 that he was adopted and his search for his birth parents. And he finished it up with an a capella rendition of "I'm Legit." (Can you call rap "a capella?!")

I admit it, I'm a real research geek, love data, just eat up both quantitative and qualitative studies, I even call myself a "research-based" parent -- yes, mothering instinct is a wonderful thing, but I want RESEARCH!  So I've really, really, really loved this conference!!!!!!!!

But I've loved the "entertainment," too.  Not only did we get DMC's story, but adoptee Susan Ito,  performed "The Ice Cream Gene," described in the program as follows:

"The Ice Cream Gene" is a one woman solo performance by adoptee Susan Ito.  It brings to life her first meeting with her birthmother in a hotel room in 1980.  Will they like each other?  Will they like the same ice cream?  Follow their emotional roller coaster in a Midwestern Holiday Inn.

With no set, no props, she brought to life that nervous 20-year-old eager to be liked, stunned to learn that her mother gave the name on her original birth certificate to her second child, Susan's newly-discovered little sister.  Very emotional. Can't wait to read her 1999 book, A Ghost at Heart's Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption.

More later about all the great presentations, all the research that makes my heart go pitty-pat!