My heart is heavy tonight for the adoptive parents who are still waiting to get their children home from Haiti, and for the children who wait in the balance. Since we got our son out of Haiti last week, things have changed dramatically. On January 18th, the US government announced it was granting humanitarian parole for orphans already in the process of adoption. This made perfect sense: these children were shown to be eligible for adoption prior to the earthquake. The Haitian and US government go through extensive searches when a child enters the system to show this to be true, including the procurement of death certificates, DNA testing, and birthparent interviews. I was so proud that our country saw the value of evacuating these children into the care of waiting families in the US, not only to remove them from a precarious situation, but also to free up room in orphanages to take care of children who are orphaned or displaced as a result of the earthquake.

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January 13, 2010 from Port-Au-Prince

 

Today continued to be very emotional. I am at the end of myself. I don’t think I’ve slept well in a week and we all feel a little crazy. The tremors have continued. They are not as frequent but there were two very intense ones this evening, that caused the walls to rattle. However, all day long the earth feels like it is pitching. This is extremely difficult for me. I think we all have a little PTSD from yesterday and every shake brings back that feeling of dread. I am in hyper vigilant mode. I am constantly aware of how far I am from a door. I’m trying to keep both kids nearby at all times. Every plane that flies overhead, every loud car, every time the gate opens, I feel my muscles twitch for the door. It is incredibly insane to be afraid of being indoors. We spent a good part of the evening sitting in the driveway, but the mosquitoes are in full-force and it looked like it might rain. We are indoors now, and it’s making me incredibly anxious. I took a shower earlier and I left a set of clothes outside, just in case I had to make a run for it. I didn’t want to be those ladies we saw last night, in the street in a towel.

(from Tuesday)

Last night a massive earthquake hit Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, where I am visiting our adoptive son. I am still reeling. The reports I’ve heard are saying it was a 7.4. I’m finding that hard to believe, having been through many an earthquake in my day living in California. It felt like nothing I have ever experienced.

At about 5pm, we were getting ready to head out for dinner. I had Karis strapped in her infant car seat, and Keanan was playing in the backyard. I ran upstairs to grab my purse. On the way down the stairs, the house started shaking violently. It was shaking so hard that I had to grab on to the railing to make it down. The ground was pitching and tiles were flying off the walls. I could see cracks forming in the walls, and it was difficult to even see from shaking. It sounded as if a helicopter was landing on top of the house. I made it down the stairs, ran to grab the carseat, and then ran outside, where the shaking continued. Outside we could hear people screaming, and though it was less than a minute, it felt like an eternity. The people in the streets were panicking, and we saw two women in towels, who must have run from the shower.

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In a season marked by giving, we love the idea of giving back to our community and our planet. This year, my family decided to forego gifts for the adults, and give donations in each person's name instead. It's been so fun thinking of each family member and finding ways to honor each of them with a unique donation.  At Mama Manifesto, we wanted to provide our readers with a list of ways you can do your Christmas shopping and give back at the same time. Here are a few ideas:

The bags and purses from Haitian Creations are handmade by women in Haiti, who are a part of a sewing program that is giving these impoverished women lifelong skills. The ability to earn money gives these women the ability to be self-sufficient, to support their families, and to have the independence they need in a society where this is often difficult.

 The Body Shop's hand cream has a fresh, citrusy scent and will leave your hands feeling soft and smooth. The added bonus is that $6 from each purchase of Soft Hands Kind Heart hand cream goes towards fighting against human trafficking. We heart the body shop in a big way for how they put their money where their mouth is.

Kauzbots is a line of 10 plush toy robots – each one with its own “kauze.” 10% of the retail price from each adorable bot is donated directly to the non-profit that is noted on the hang tag. With a wide variety of charities to choose from (including AIDS Walk, Arbor Day Foundation, Lifewater International, and 7 others), you’re sure to find one that touches your heart. Kauzbots are designed to inspire kids to change the world!

Punjammies are adorable sari-inspired pajamas. Each Punjammies are created in an after-care facility for women who have been rescued, released or escaped from a life of forced prostitution. Holistic aftercare involves quality medical care, emotional safety, education and the tools to create a new way of life for herself.

The Hunger Site - If you go under Gifts that Give More on the sidebar, there are a lot of interesting things you can purchase in someone else’s name - things as different as a child’s education for a year or a microloan for a pig or goat.



Charity : water - 1 in 8 people on the planet do not have access to clean drinking water. Be a part of the movement to bring clean and safe drinking water to developing nations. Heather Mattos & Julie Carson, two of our mama writers, have linked up with some other incredible mamas to launch Project 320 - an online raffle that is going to fund a new well in a village that is currently without clean drinking water. We love this project and hope you will support it!


Rising Tide Fair Trade sells beautiful bohemian style bags of various sizes (weekender bags to hand bags) that are hand made in a woman's fair trade labor coop in West Bengal, India from re-purposed vintage kantha saris and cruelty-free black or brown suede. The female artisans earn a fair wage that allows them to provide for their families.

Rocks in the Sun is a gorgeous photography book filled with Haitian proverbs and photos of this beautiful but impoverished country. It's compiled by Troy Livesay, who lives in Haiti and does great mission work there (and just happens to be a stellar photog). This would make a great coffee table book, and the proceeds go towards their missions work with Heartline Haiti and Worldwide Village.


World Vision has an amazing gift catalog where you can buy a number of innovative and sustaining gifts for people living in poverty. Their website even allows you to purchase and print a card letting a loved one know you have donated in their name. You can purchase medical attention for a pregnant woman, a goat that can provide milk to a child - even a grove of fruit trees!

31 Bits Jewelry is made out of 100% recycled paper, posters, and magazines by internally displaced women in Northern Uganda. Each piece of jewelry is unique and hand-crafted by a woman in the community of Gulu, Uganda.

Krochet Kids international works in developing nations to empower impoverished communities to rise above poverty. Each day, a group of women in Northern Uganda gather in a simple brick hut. The crocheted products these women are making provide immediate stability for their families, share about the realities of poverty, and their sale promotes the development of their community.

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I may not be a cock-eyed optimist. But something about So You Think You Can Dance makes me feel a little better about the world. Who doesn't love a show full of fun dance numbers? It's part talent show, part eye candy, and part artistic expression: a reality show that isn't about celebrity or idiocy but rather about talent and athleticism; stamina and creativity.

I was so excited for the season to really start, because I am not a fan of the audition weeks' Parade of Freaks, and was ready for the top twenty to show their stuff.   Now, I am a seriously sleep-deprived mom, and prone to a bit of the curmudgeondry as of late. but the new set on the show was sending me through the roof. To the point where, fifteen minutes in, I was already badgering my husband with, "Do you see this set? Are you SEEING this? What is with this, Mark? Whaaaat?"

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Obama delivered a completely non-controversial speech today, that was banned due to the controversy surrounding the lack of controversy that was his not-at-all controversial speech.  In the days prior, a good portion of the conservative contingency got their panties in a wad about the president giving a pep talk about hot-button issues like perseverance and staying in school and setting goals. Of course, it sounded a little more exciting when the extremists were using words like re-education and brainwashing. Comparisons to Hitler are always a little more provocative then the banal reality of irrational partisan squabbling.

My kids are not in school yet, so I didn't have to worry about their pretty little minds getting brainwashed by our president and his cult of personality. But I did Tivo it and let my kids listen. I watched them very, very closely for signs that the socialism might be catching on, but they mostly looked pretty bored. That is, until Jafta started quoting Charles Fourier and India put a beret on her head and planned a cooperative communal uprising with her Groovy Girls dolls.

I kid, I kid.

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We had a little crisis this week involving sports.  My four-year-old Jafta has been begging to attend a basketball camp for the past three months, and I signed him up for one through our city for preschool-aged kids. All summer, he's been asking about it and counting down to when it would start. It was supposed to start Monday. On Saturday, I got a call telling me it had been cancelled.

I found myself with two options:
1) completely crush my son and have him mope about it endlessly until the next camp starts IN OCTOBER
2) enroll him in a camp running this week for kids age 5-8

Which one do you think I did?

Growing up in a family that didn't really do sports, I am having a long and rocky learning curve as I navigate the role of "sports mom". I would like to pretend that it's just a new cultural experience for me, but the reality is that athletics have always brought up deep insecurities for me. And as any parent knows, having a child basically means watching your own fears and insecurities walk around outside your body.  Watching him at camp this week was no exception.

Like when you drop your son off and watch him roam aimlessly through the gym, clearly self-conscious about being the new kid, looking for a friend or something to do and seemingly unsure of where to even put his hands as he looks for a familiar face.

Like when you see him find the few kids he knows, and he runs to them, but then he walks away because they seem engaged and he seems intimidated.

Like when you observe that just because your four-year-old looks old enough to pass for a K-2 student, doesn’t mean he can keep up athletically. There is a vast difference of skill level between your child and the other kids, and you know that he notices, too. Only he doesn’t understand that it’s an age/motor development issue. He just knows he can’t do things as well as everyone else.

Or when, on the first day, you don't send him with snack money because you don't know that they break for snack halfway through, so he sits and watches other kids eat and then can't recover for the second half of the day. Not because he was desperately hungry, but because he was left out.

When, after the first day, he requests to play football instead, and you remember that after his first day of baseball he requested to play basketball instead. And you know that he’s really just hoping that, in a new sport, he will be automatically as skilled as he hopes and imagines himself to be. And you know that he’s disappointed that he is not.

When, on the way home, your son mentions that maybe next time he could play basketball without any of his friends being there, because having his (older) friends there makes him feel embarrassed.

When you come to watch at the end, and he sees you and tries even harder to make that basket, and he can’t. So then he pretends to be hurt so that he can be rescued from trying.

When you give him a little more grace than usual about fibbing in the car ride home, because you know that he didn't make fifteen baskets, but he earnestly wishes that he did.

When, every day that you pick him up, you see his face fall when the Camper of the Day is announced and it is not him. And even though you know that each child will get a turn, you also know that to your sensitive son, being the last one to get this recognition is brutal.

And when he is awarded Most Improved Camper on the last day, and after his name is called he disrupts the whole ceremony by running full-speed out of his line and into your arms, and your heart breaks into a million pieces that he's not at all embarrassed to show how proud he is and how much he wants you to be proud, too.

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Recently, I was a part of a discussion on facebook about race. (You gotta love social networking for juxtaposing people from all walks of life into 140-character-or-less philosophical arguments). This particular discussion took a turn that I often see happen when white people jump into conversations about race. A few folks implied that racism was over. References to society's Token Assimilated Black Guys were made (Colin Powell, Tiger Woods, etc). Someone suggested that seeing more interracial families would make black people seem more "normal". Awesome. And then, I made a gaffe myself by posing a question that made it sound like I was trying to get a friend to speak for the entire adult population of African Americans. It's not what I meant . . . but it sounded like it.

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I've been wanting to write about healthcare reform for a while now. I feel really passionate about it, but I have so much to say that I end up getting overwhelmed and then say nothing. I've also been a little hesitant on what to say and how to say it, because it is such a divisive and polarized political issue. I know my views are sure to tick a few people off. But my unwillingness to choose a side in the conservative/liberal identification game, along with my tendency to blather on about my personal political views, basically means that somewhere along the lines I am sure to piss off EVERYONE I KNOW. Especially my mom, but probably more so for saying the word "piss".

Anyways, there are a million things I could say on this issue, but for now, I want to start with just telling my own story. The reason I think our story is important is because I think that most people who are against healthcare reform have some notions about the "uninsured", and also about what government-run healthcare is really like. In our family, we have struggled with private insurance, but we have a child who is on a government-run plan. I will talk about Jafta and our experience with his insurance another time. But today, I want to give a face to the problem for an average American family like ours.

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