Gotcha Baby

We’ve been busy here around Casa de Kahuna since deciding that our big goal for 2010 is to move on from this here townhouse. We have met with a Realtor, gotten pre-approved for a mortgage, and have been touching up little things around the house every chance we get. Our biggest accomplishment so far, though, has been filling a 16′ x 8′ POD. POD, you ask? You know, those nifty storage containers that get delivered and whisked away by a special truck? That kind of POD.

Would a self-storage unit been a little cheaper? Yes.

Would I have lost my sanity in attempting to load the van one load a time to move into said storage unit? Yes.

Would it have been near impossible with all of the snow we’ve gotten this weekend? Yes.

Would I have cried when it was time to empty the storage unit and move it? Yes.

Clearly, it was worth the extra bucks to go this route. So we started packing about a month ago, and once the boxes were stacked around the garage and the house to the point that we couldn’t really do any more, we knew it was time. My parents came down for a visit and took the kids out for several hours while @bgkahuna and I worked our tails off. We pretty much filled 128 sq ft (to the 8′ ceiling) with a few feet to spare.

What’s funny is that I can’t really even tell you what’s in that POD. Oh sure there’s the double bed, the extra dresser and  the kids’ stuff. But the entire box labeled “top of dresser/nightstand”? The entire box labeled “extra towels and placemats”? Is it really necessary? And the boxes of toys…sure there are toys that they will be happy to see again, but I am considering NOT unpacking a few boxes….and wrapping them up instead and re-gifting them back to the kids at Christmas.

Tonight @bgkahuna asked if I thought we could live like this at the new place–sans 128 sq ft of crap. I’m thinking it’s worth a shot. I am seriously considering NOT opening some of those “misc” boxes and just setting them aside for a few months. After a few months, I’ll just take those unopened boxes to Goodwill. And become a lot more particular about what crosses the threshold of our new home! (which by the way, we’ve not yet even started to look for yet)

Michelle Uncategorized

When Marcie announced the topic of this month’s carnival was Reform, it took me awhile to come up with what I’d like to reform. After some thought, I think what I’d change first is this: I would make open adoption the standard in the domestic adoption.

Five years ago while we were homestudy approved and waiting, we got a call from our agency asking if we’d be open to open adoption. It wasn’t a guarantee that our placement would be open, nor would it require us to make our placement open, but it we would be agreeing to put that possibility on the table.

Five years into my life as an adoptive parent in an open adoption, I can’ t imagine it any other way. I can’t imagine not knowing. Even in open adoption, we don’t know everything, but we have the basic information needed to explore and search further.

I’m beginning to think that it shouldn’t be an option to not exchange identifying information. That in typical cases, the biological parents should meet, in person, the adoptive parents.

Does that sound scary to you? Five years ago it sounded a little scary to me. Turns out, it really hasn’t been all that scary at all.

My reasoning for this is simple: Knowing is important. Having information is important. I’m not suggesting a co-parenting arrangement, or even that both families need to be in constant communication. Logistics may not make visits a frequent possibility, but contact is important.  But think about all the searching, agony, guessing and wondering that could be eliminated with the exchange of basic information. Think about the good a few photographs can do for all. The photos of my children with their birth parents are precious to me. Jane’s told me that photos of our family are precious to her. Visits are important. For my children to know their biological mother’s voice? To know her mannerisms? To know her style and preferences? These are gifts I can’t give my children. She can, and she does. I am glad our children are growing up in open adoptions.

Want to know more about what open adoption *should* look like? I found www.openadoption.org , and I think it’s a good place to start.

Want to know what else should be reformed? Join the discussion and link-up at Grown in My Heart!

Michelle Uncategorized

As I’ve said before, I love the internet. It has expanded my horizons in so many ways, broadened my knowledge and brought me friends. One of those friends is Judy Miller, author, advocate and adoptive parent. (I’m also fond of alliteration)

Judy has a new project on the horizon, Parenting Your Adopted Child: Tweens, Teens and Beyond with Judy M. Miller and the other day we sat down with some delicious Skinny Cinnamon Dulce Lattes to discuss it.

Judy has developed and will be teaching a class to help parents of adopted tweens and teens, beginning Weds, February 10th. What? You don’t live in the Indy Metro area? Good news–the class format is via email. Judy will send out assignments, you will complete them, and then there will be discussion online.

Judy created this class with hopes of reaching parents as their children enter an age wrought with emotions and new understandings about adoption. As a mom to four children (one biological, two from China, one from Guatemala), she’s living through her own children’s adolescence and observing what sort of questions and difficulty her children are having in regards to their being adopted.

Each week, Judy will email a topic for introspection, and participants will then write on that topic. Judy said each week’s assignment will prompt participants to “go deep”. The messages the parent sends to the child lay the groundwork for that child’s journey to discovering himself. The topics are ones that will most likely come up in conversation in the tween (8-12yrs) and teen years, but Judy encourages parents with children as young as four or five to consider signing up.

You can learn more about and register for Parenting Your Adopted Child by visiting Judy’s website. There is also a spot to sign up for a newsletter that I know will be great. I always LOVE the time I spend with Judy, and I know you will too!

Judy is a fellow contributor to Grown in My Heart, her personal blog is The International Mom’s Blog.

Michelle internet finds adoption, internet finds, parenting

I’ve already blogged about how Neosporin is my family’s Windex. It’s true. So when Mom Central sent out the call to try their new Lip Therapy, I was ALL OVER IT (seriously, answered that email the second I read it) because, OMG, can you imagine how divine a lip product from Neosporin would be???

The Challenge was simple–use the Neopsorin Lip Health Overnight Renewal & Daily Hydration Lip Therapy for three days and report back. OVERNIGHT my lips were visible better–they were no longer cracking and peeling. After three days, it was like winter was over for my lips (if only!). The results were fast and with daily use, my lips have never been better. Want to learn more (and register for a coupon)? Visit http://www.neolips.com/

Disclosure:”I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Neosporin and received a sample of the Lip Health Overnight Renewal Therapy and the Lip Health Daily Hydration Therapy to facilitate my review and a $20 thank-you gift certificate**.”

*I signed up for this tour before the events in Haiti happened. When I realized that the blog tour started this week, I felt a little odd talking about lip therapy immediately following my posts about the tragedy and complications in Haiti, particularly in regards to children and adoption. I was most geeked, however, to remember that the gift certificate I will be receiving is to Global Giving. Which means that my $20? Will be making it’s way to Haiti. Here’s a link to the current projects in Haiti.

Michelle Uncategorized

I remember the week after September 11, 2001. My husband was working out of town, so every night I’d come home from work, turn on the TV and watch the recovery efforts. I remember watching the telethon benefit that was held shortly after the tragedy occurred.

Darbonne, Haiti January 20, 2010, photo courtesy of www.firesideinternational.org

Fast forward 9 years, and I’m not getting my information from the television. With young children at home, I’m not going to broadcast the footage that’s being shown into our living room. Instead, I’m getting my info via Twitter and Facebook–from people on the ground in Haiti (follow @MissionMANNA, they are retweeting everything, or feel free to follow the list I created) and from charities with operations there. I’m having a hard time looking away.

I’ve also been spending a vast amount of time thinking about the children effected by this catastrophe. About the 380,000 children who were in orphanages before the earthquake. About the children granted humanitarian parole and united with their new adoptive parents. About the newly orphaned/ separated children whose worlds have been turned upside down.

These children need so much. I think about how much care my 19month old needs on an average day–the bathing, the dressing, the feeding, the diaper changing, and I think about how impossible the task of simply caring for Haiti’s children seems. Add in the trauma of an earthquake, and how is that supposed to happen?

I read an amazing post last night on Upside-Down Adoption that explains some of the pitfalls of having a modern day “Pedro Pan” operation. There is no easy answer to this situation. Here’s the thing though, there was no easy answer the day before the earthquake to Haiti’s (and so many other nation’s) problem of abandoned, orphaned and neglected children. With so many people now thinking and praying about it, my hope is that we are headed in the right direction.

For more photos, check out www.firesideinternational.org’s Web Gallery They are happy to share their photos, just link back to them.

Michelle Uncategorized