Boing-a

"Boing-a boings-a boing-a bounce!" says Katya's bouncer swing.

 

"Boing-a boing-a bounce!"

 

My little angel is growing up, and her favorite spot is hanging out in the pantry (literally) where she can see me as I work in the kitchen.

 

"Boing-a Boing-a Bounce!"

Quotes Oct. 20-Jan 1

Dec. 7
Me, trying to convince Spencer to eat his dinner: I know you like zucchini, Spencer, because you ate them before.
Spencer: Yeah, when I was little! I'm big now. Kids change their ways!

Dec. 2
Me, in frustration after finding Claire Bear spraying the Nature's Miracle pee cleaner on our leather chair: Claire, NO! I told you over and over...
Collin: Claire is not an ogre! Now can you please stop callin' her that?

Collin: When I was a widdle kid.....

Dec. 1
Collin: Ooba-bum a-budda-budda-bum a-nay -na!
Spencer: A nana chicka - chicka-boom bum-da-chicka dee!
Collin: A bada bada bumdee bada - bada.
Spencer: Chicka-boom budda wish!

What you have just read is a conversation between my two boys who were attempting to communicate in their own special languages. And they pretended to understand each other very well.

Nov. 26
Conversation as we sat at Spencer's parent-teacher conference:
Teacher: Spencer love his Bakugans! He always wants to write about them in class.
Me: Yes, write about them, and talk about them, and play them, and dream about them....
Spencer: I didn't dream about Bakugans! I dreamt about naken women!

Cue the trap door that I can fall through.

Nov. 25
Spencer, in the grocery checkout line after reading a Christmas party invitation in the form of a birthday part invitation for Jesus, began a rousing round of: Happy Birthday to God! Happy Birthday to God! Happy Birthday to Go-od! Happy Birthday to God!

Everybody, now...........!

Nov. 24
Spencer, mistakenly using his teacher's title when speaking to me in the car after school: Madame...? (Embarrassed) Oh, I mean 'Mommy'...(Stops and thinks for a second) Is it okay if I call you 'Madame'? Because you know more.

Spencer, seeing a McDonald's cup in the car after school and lunging for it: Ooh! Can I have this?
Me: Sure. It's water.
Spencer, putting it down in disappointment:Oh. I though it was something not-healthy.

Nov. 20
Collin, to Clarie: Hey, there, little lady! Are you lookin' for a strong man?

Nov. 17

Collin, looking in disgust at the morning smoothie in which I'd been a little overzealous adding the spinach: Mommy, you maked it green!

Nov. 9:
Collin: Mommy, after we go to the grocery store and get some money for trash, then we get to go to the dump, right?
Me: Right.
Collin: Yay! The Dump!

Evidently, my kids don't get out much.

Nov. 7, 2:45 am, while Collin and I were on a midnight potty break:
Me: Collin, look at those stars out the window. Aren't they pretty?
Collin: Yeah. You see that big shiny one? That's Jesus. And when Jesus is a star, he's a shooting star, and he goes across the sky, and then he turns back to Jesus again.

Ah, the age when all beautiful things melt into one.

Nov. 6
Me before Spencer left for school: Spencer, why do you have two sweatshirts on?
Spencer: Because I want to be two cozy!

Oct. 29
Spencer: Mom, Madame Beth wants me to change into my Halloween costume after lunch! All the kids are going to see my underwear!
Me: You can just change in the bathroom.
Spencer, horrified: But all the kids go in there when they have to go to twah-let!
Oh, the joys of French Immersion.

Oct. 24
Spencer, frustrated with Collin: Oh, for Pete's Lovin' Sakes!"

Collin, as he's building with big cardboard blocks: Mommy, I'm building a baby cage!
Me: A baby cage? You mean a playpen?
Collin: Yeah, a playpen!

Oct. 21
Spencer, as I handed him a mug of hot cocoa: Oh, Bless you!

Oct. 20
Spencer, as we drove over a bridge: Cheese and crickets! There's a river!

Spencer, when he found out he wasn't going to get to ride the bus, but we would drive him to school this morning instead: This is uncivilized!!

Orphans dying. Can you help?

This is a letter I received from a woman who runs an adoption program out of Haiti. I know many of you received this from me in the form of an e-mail forward, but it warrants putting it on the blog as well. The situation is DIRE. Red tape and political correctness is keeping children from getting the help they need. Already, children are dying. It is only a matter of days until more will be dead from disease, infection, dehydration, and starvation than were killed in the initial quake. To top it off, those who are only trying to survive are now targeting orphanages to steal their supplies. This is a humanitarian DISASTER of epic proportions. It is time for us to move from our places of apathy and mobilze to help these children.

Letter from Hope for Families:

The ISS (international Social Services) of the UN, is as I type, petitioning to have all adoptions from Haiti ordered to cease. Our own embassy in Haiti, although not destroyed and fully functioning, is still demanding that every adoption file be in perfect order before they allow a child to leave the country for the United States. They refuse to use common sense in any aspect of their dealings - this from an orphanage worker, who reported to us yesterday, on the ground in Haiti.

The UN is afraid of human rights violations - their official position is that they feel it is better for the child to stay in his / her country of origin than to be adopted or fostered outside the country. They are officially referring to the tragedy of the Indonesian tsunami. Here is an Email from a orphanage worker yesterday that tried to get some orphans processed at our embassy. This is appalling:

"The only way to describe Haiti right now is a living nightmare. The lack of coordination and the practicalities of traveling from the Embassy to the airport and back to the orphanage makes it impossible to work with any efficiency and we can accomplish very little. Today we spent over 3 hours trying to get to the Embassy with 15 children – 14 under the age of two – and then spent 9 hours at the Embassy. We walked out with few parole visas and were advised that DOS had left for the evening so we would get our adoption visas the next day. After risking my life to enter an extremely damaged building to recover files and lugging them to the Embassy it was frustrating to say the least to have accomplished so little. In addition, I know I will need to stay up all night tonight to go over 40+ cases to assess the documents and to organize them, all while under a tent and using a flashlight. We are too scared to try to sleep inside and who can sleep anyway when every little noise or jar wakes you up in fear? The conditions are unfathomable and I cannot understand why we do not have a centralized location to serve these orphans – those already established as being in need of a family before the earthquake. I am so thirsty, but cannot drink as often as I would like because we are running out of water and I cannot take what the kids may need, although we came into Haiti with more than enough for us, we have to share what we have.
I have to stay strong here and not fall to pieces but the situation is truly impossible and is leading to unnecessary delays and continued and increased risk to children already established before the earthquake as orphans (as well as MANY others). I have so many fears – another aftershock that woke us so roughly on Wednesday morning and a wall tumbling down on our heads, children starving, the orphanage being looted as the frustration continues to grow regarding the delay in distributing supplies, children dying from sickness (almost all the children here have a deep cough and we have few meds. to offer), and ultimately, what other diseases will result from the conditions here.
The children are sleeping outside on soiled mattresses and in wet sheets – there are not enough diapers for them to be used as needed. They are scared to death and will cling to anyone who reaches out a hand. All of the people who experienced this horrific catastrophe seem to be suffering from post traumatic stress – quite understandably – and yes, I am qualified to diagnose.
I am having such a hard time seeing that orphans are once again being used as political pawns in spite of this monumental tragedy. I am standing in the midst of a nightmare where I am thirsty and hungry and scared – but I have a US passport and eventually I have the chance to go home to a warm bed, plenty of food and people who love me. When did common sense exit the entire equation regarding children’s welfare and establishing what is in the best interests of a child? How many children must die unnecessarily in the midst of this crisis because of bureaucratic red tape when simple and temporary solutions are not that difficult? But, I guess I should expect this – because we are dealing with very poor orphans and how high on the priority scale do they fall? When I initially heard about the US response to the orphan crisis in Haiti I was SO PROUD. I was so grateful that Obama was our President, Hilary Clinton was our Secretary of State and that for once we were going to get this right. Unfortunately, it seems that the US has again bowed to outside pressure to be politically correct and back down from what we know to be morally right. I do not think there is any person with an ounce of compassion who could view this situation and not believe that immediate and decisive action is necessary to save the children of Haiti. Enough will die without us contributing through inaction and inefficiency.
Please pray for all of us here. We need it desperately."

At Hope For Families - we encourage you to contact your Senators, US State Department, and Congressmen. We, like other agencies, feel we have a plan to help free up this political nightmare for the children of Haiti. Over 20,000 people are now dying every day in Haiti from the secondary infections and sickness that is setting in. We have presented a detailed plan to help free up the process to representatives of the Haitian Government. We anxiously await their response. It is our opinion that in NO way is it better for an orphan child to remain in Haiti than to be orderly processed to an international adoptive family. Please join us in calling for action.

Note from Carmen: This is not about snatching newly-orphaned children off the street and whisking them away to another word without thought to whether or not they have surviving family members. There is little chance that will happen. There are thousands and thousands of children in orphanages who were in the process of being adopted internationally, or who have been cleared to be adopted internationally. These are children for whom it has alreay been verified that they have no family members who can care for them. We're talking thousands of children who can be helped free and clear. Political correctness does very little for a child who is dead. We must do something.

Looters target Haitian orphanages

Click here for contact numbers for Congress

Haiti

UPDATE:
Operation Pierre Pan has a website: operationpierrepan.org
You can go there to register your information to be contacted regarding adoption/fostering of Haitian children.

Have you looked at Haiti?

Have you really looked, and considered?

This is a nation in unimaginable difficulty.

The few aid groups that have arrived, the few medical stations that are in operation, are so overwhelmed that they can't even begin to wrap their minds around the huge need, and can't begin to handle the situation. I read today that one doctor was beside herself because she had to treat critically wounded children who are at "grave danger" of dying from infection, and then release them back into the street where it is unlikely they will even be fed. Critically wounded being treated as if they are outpatients. There are 3000 inmates that escaped dilapidated prisons in Port Au Prince. 3000 inmates on the loose, but only 2000 on the police force. There are parents who lost all of their children when they were all in school together. People are desperate for food and water. They are so desperate that they are twittering for water - essentially sending a message in a bottle. Before the earthquake only 20% of Haiti had access to clean drinking water. It's much worse now. The people have started looting. The looting is turning violent. The earthquake was what set off the disaster, but the rest of the disaster is in the making. Port Au Prince is a dangerous place to be, and it's only getting worse by the day because insecurity is rising.

Depending on how you look at it, the survivors who are going through this hell on earth are lucky to be alive. There are innumerable people under rubble, and only a few more will be saved. There are innumberable dead, and most will never be identified before being bulldozed into a hole with so many other bodies.

If you saw a child in a building that was about to collapse, would you save it? Would you try? What if it meant personal sacrifice, like the loss of a hand- something that affected you every day of your life for the rest of your life? Would you do it?

You say yes. In fact you probably wouldn't even think about it before trying.

And yet there are hundreds of thousands of children in grave danger right now. They are the children of Haiti - the ones that are wandering streets, unsure of what happened to their parents and families in the quake, and the ones being watched in orphanages with few caretakers, many of whom have lost their own family members. In a country of 8 million, there were more than 300,000 orphans in Haiti before the quake. Now there are thousands more. With many of the orphanages across the country damaged, and with aftershocks continuing to shake the nation, there are orphans sleeping in courtyards or under the sky. They may be part of an orphanage, but they are also in need of food and water. They are also more vulnerable than the general population due to fewer caregivers, injury, overpopulaton, and dwindling supplies. They are in danger of severe malnutrition and infection from contaminated water. They are also in danger from the social unrest. They are without parents and without adequate protection. THe aftereffects of this disaster are likely to start taking lives very soon - disease, infection, malnutrition, social unrest and violence... Most at risk are the children. Most at risk of the children are the orphans.

The already-impoverished nation has dived to new depths of inadequacy to care for them or to process adoptions. They simply do not have the capacity to care for these kids, and the kids are suffering. Lives will be lost.

This is one and a half hours from Florida. One and a half hours is the same as from our house to our rental house, from Phoenix to Flagstaff, from Las Angeles to San Diego.... Think of your house and pick a spot that travelling there lets you get only a quick nap in, and that's about the same distance. And children will be dying because there are not enough supplies, and not enough people to care for them.

This is not speculation. It will happen.

Usually a country with fairly stringent adoption restrictions, apparently the Haitian government has lifted all of its exit requirements for orphans to leave the country. Their message is clear: Help our children. We can't.

There is a motion underway to airlift thousands of children out of Haiti and into Florida. Like Operation Pedro Pan, the covert operation in Cuba that airlifted thousands of children to the US, this is already being called Operation Pierre Pan. There are high hopes to bring thousands of children to the US to be reuinited with extended family living in the States, as well as for fostering and adoption. The main goal is to bring the orphans, the children with no family, and to plant them in good families where they can be cared for. This will relieve the nation's burden in caring for its many many orphans and also open up beds in orphanages for the "earthquake orphans" who will be coming to the group homes in the next weeks.

There is a need for families who will take one or more children, either for fostering or for adoption. From what I've read, this may be set into motion in as little as a few weeks.

Life is literally and figuratively crumbling around Haiti's orphans. Will you consider helping, even if it means it will affect you every day for the rest of your life?

Click here to see a powerful video on the Haitian orphans' situation.

Have you ever seen CNN quoting the Bible Before? Click here to watch this amazing clip about Haiti's children and their desperate need.

Click here to read an article on Operation Pierre Pan.

Click here to read an article on the worsening desperation in Haiti.

Indomitable Spirit

This past weekend we came back from warm Arizona to a front lane full of snow that was trying to get the better of us. We have had to dig our cars out at least three times this week, and have had near-misses several other times. We keep whittling down the snow piles with the shovel, but it's a long lane, and there's lots of snow.

Good thing we bought a yard tractor with a snow blower! Why aren't we using it then? Because it was just delivered on Tuesday to the Sears in the US town 2 1/2 hours from here. Needless to say, we needed to make a trip there to pick it up.

That brings me to my story. Oh, you thought that was my story? No, it's not. Let me continue:

So, for anyone who's counting, 2.5 hours there, and 2.5 hours back means a straight 5 hours of driving. Add some time to get some stuff at our rental house, gassing up twice, registering the van in the small town on the way, picking up the tractor, having lunch, and feeding Katya....in all figured we needed about 8 hours for this day trip. The plan was to leave as soon as Spencer left for school, which would get us back just before he arrived home from school. Trouble was, I wasn't totally with it. We didn't dilly-dally, I just did the morning "stuff" like dishes, dressing babies, dressing self, cleaning up breakfast, and starting a load of laundry, , and Vlad hooked up the neighbor's trailer and load everything and everyone into the van. By time we left, it was about an hour and a half later than we'd planned. It was fine. We were cutting it close, but we thought we could still make it back by time Spencer was due bck from school in 7 hours. After all, the "extras" couldn't really take three hours, could they?


We didn't waste time, but by time we left from registering the van it was already12:00 pm. We still had 1 hour to get to Sears, 2.5 hour drive home, and time for picking up the tractor, plus time at the border. And lunch wasn't even on the radar. NOW we were cutting it close. By time we left from picking up the tractor, we were a good half an hour behind schedule, which meant that Spencer would get off the bus, find the house locked, let himself in through the back door, find us all gone, and fall into a sobbing heap on the floor where he would stay until we returned home and the sun shone once again...


Since I was falling asleep at the wheel, Vlad took over. Just as I fell asleep NOT at the wheel, he yelled out "OH, SHOOT!" The engine hood from the tractor had blown off. Evidently the rubber tie wasn't secure enough, and Vlad had to hike back on the shoulder for 1/4 mile to retrieve it. Luckily, the semi behind us didn't hit it, and there was minimal damage.

NOW we were a good 45 minutes late. We gassed up again, and got to the border where there were a good seven cars ahead of us. By time we got through and paid our double tax, we were a litte more than an hour late. I couldn't believe we'd done this to our little boy. Every awful thought went through my mind. What little kid wants to come home and find his entire family gone? He was going to be a wreck. What would he do? Would he maybe play outside with the neighbor kids? Maybe we could call our neighbors. No luck; my phone doesn't have their numbers saved. Maybe if he went to them in an emotional frenzy, they could call us. I was sure I'd given my number to them. At least if there was an emergency, he could call 911. Actually, no, he couldn't, because we don't have a home line. I could only imagine what this would do to him. Would he be scarred for life with feelings of abandonment? Would he go to school and tell his teacher we left him for hours in the dark, alone? Could we be investigated for technically leaving our son in Canada all by himself while we went to the US? If only he had a cell phone, I could call him and at least let him know that we'd be there soon, and that he should just sit in one place, not touch the knives, and lose himself in cartoons.


Vlad suggested calling his grad student who lives nearby and asking him to check on Spencer and let him know we'd be there soon. Spencer knows him, and would probably open the door to talk to him. And just in case he didn't open the door, we told the student to go in the back door and find Spencer to deliver his message. I was relieved for about a minute, until I realized that if Spencer was in fact watching cartoons and was a bit spaced out, we'd effectively not only left him home alone, but we'd also sent an intruder.

The things he's going to have to tell a therapist someday....

About 20 minutes from home we got a call from Vlad's student saying that he'd checked on Spencer, things were okay, Spencer was calm, and he'd left again after delivering his message. A bit of a relief! At least he knew we were thinking about him. At least he knew we were coming home, and he wouldn't be worried about us or himself...

When we finally pulled up to our house, it was all dark except for the front porch light and the flashing lights of the TV up in our bedroom window. Full of anxiety, wanting to see my boy and cuddle away any insecurity or fears that had embedded themselves in his little mind and heart, I went up to the door and rang the doorbell ferociously, about 20 times until I could hear his footsteps thundering down the stairs. He opened the door, breathless, with a sheepish look on his face except for his eyes which were shining with excitement. "Hi! Sorry the door's locked! I used the back door. I - I'm watching cartoons and eating Nutella!" And then he ran away to the upper bedroom which was evidently a seven-year-old boy's paradise.

Which brings me to my point. Oh, you thought that was my point? No, it's this:

When I think of Spencer, I think of the phrase "indomitable spirit." Over and over it occurs to me lately that whatever life brings Spencer's way, he doesn't let it overtake him. He rolls with it, uses it, finds the good in it, and makes it his own. He has always been like this. Unbreakable. THe older he gets,the more experience he has to draw from, he only seems to gain confidence and to march along with the wind at his back.

That doesn't mean everything is easy for him, or that he's the easiest child to parent. He's very sensitive while at the same time being strong-willed, and has a never-ending well of energy. And if he doesn't understand the direction that a parent or teacher is taking him, he's confident enough to choose his own direction and go with it. This makes him a challenge, but it also makes him a joy to watch. A self-propelled seven year old. A child willing to meet challenges head-on. A child who, released onto the right path, will never stop pursuing his goal and will continue to great heights...

The evening that we arrived home late we were at the dinner table and Spencer poured out his little heart to us, telling us about the problem of his best friend distracting him at mat time in class. They tend to get in trouble together. He wanted to know what to do about this problem. I suggested he talk to his teacher, or write her a note telling her about the problem.

He wrote:

Dear Madame Beth,
I have trouble. Nicholas is distracting me on the mat. I want to be nice and earn respect tickets like the others. Can you move me to a different spot?
Thank you,
Spencer.

And then he delivered it to her the next day. She moved his friend, and he said it helped him concentrate better.

My heart swelled with pride that he handled that so effectively on his own.

Indomitable spirit.


Continue to let life's ups and downs make you, instead of break you, Spenceroo. You are already soaring.

Happy Belated Birthday!

Love,
Mommy

Catching Collin

One of the major perks of having a better camera is that I can finally catch Collin in action. This child who will NOT sit still for a camera, has finally met his match in fast cameras! So I get clear shots of him, and once in a while I even get some eye contact. LOL

I think I finally got a good one.



Loving my camera,

I'm back.

It's 6:15 am. For the moment, the house is quiet except for the sound of laundry spinning out in the washer. So I'm grabbing this moment to write a blog update. For those of you who actually read my blog regularly and noticed that I was AWOL for nearly 6 weeks, I'm sorry to leave you hanging like that. I actually didn't plan on doing that, but that's what happens when procrastination gets the better of me.

Procrastinating on what? On writing a birthday post for Spencer, which is still to come. :) I put it off, and then the business of the holidays and our trip to Phoenix (we were gone one month) and then the business of normal days, all swept me up and away, and before I knew it there were tumbleweeds blowing through this ghosttown of a blog.

We had a wonderful time in Phoenix. Aside from the decided lack of snow or cold altogether, we stayed with my parents, and we also had the chance to see my two brothers and their wives, along with my nephew and my soon-to-be neice.
(I did take a pic of her, but I'm not sure Racel would be thrilled with me posting a pic of her 7-month preggo belly).

The Russians say that how you bring in the new year is how you will spend the new year. So we brought in the new year surrounding ourselves with loved ones who partook in our joy and misery, and supporting each other through all the ups and downs. In other words, we brought in the new year cleaning up bedding and carpets from puke, and holding little faces and an entire baby over a garbage can to catch the mess....before we adults caught the bug ourselves.
Everyone of us went through a flu bug in turn that was hard and heavy for 12 hours, and then slowly receded by the next day and then followed through with some sinusy problems. So in all we were sick for about a week to 10 days. To those of you who I had plans with for meeting for coffee or lunch, I'm sorry it didn't work out. But you really didn't want what we had! :)

I'm now the proud owner of a wonderful camera, and I've been practicing. Katya is still really the only one that affords me a lot of patience and eye contact. I think she thinks that lens actually IS my eye. The others aren't too thrilled with my new-found pride and joy.......or persistence in getting a good shot while in their personal space.


So we're back home at the grindstone. I've been working on getting routines into place to help with keeping my house and life in order. It's going great... the only thing is that I haven't quite worked in time for blogging. Maybe I'll put it between my daily pedicure and daily massage.
LOL!! Only joking. For a minute there, you really wanted in on this routines thing, didn't you?

TTFN....