L.O.A.

Apparently I have been on a leave of absence from the blog. When things in my head get a bit crazy I enter a state of denial and I deny that I have a blog. I crawl inside my head and stay there and think and repeat that process.............. and repeat that process. Tonight I was still blissfully in that wonderful state when I looked at hubby and said that I really needed to attempt to put this week into some sort of order, so here goes.

Last Sunday night the hubs and I had our second night out since Rosie came home in 2008 and we lit up the night. We were supposed to be leaving town first thing on Monday morning after I was done with an 8am appointment. Since we were not packed and since our reason for heading out of town had changed our appointment to Wednesday and due to being wonderfully, hellishly tired from the night before we changed our leaving until Tuesday and took our sweet time doing everything on Monday. On Tuesday, we were packed and left town.

We spent 2 days looking at houses and narrowed down our search to where and what we are looking for. We found one that Lily wanted to move into right then but we pointed out it was too little and then we found another which is a contender. No more information on this at this point will be shared. AT ALL. (sorry)

Later in the week we headed to Orlando to allow the kids to let off some steam. Gawd knows after 2 days of being dragged through houses they needed it and so did we. By this point I am all bunched up in my head and my camera remained unused. My mind is racing. Figures are flying around and decisions need to be made. By evening's end I was in need of Mojito's and if you know me, you know this is not me. One evening we headed to Downt0wn Disney and I managed to take one picture of the kids on a carousel.

and then this one of Rosie looking oh so unfeminine!

Neither of us took any pictures of the kids at the parks.......lame parents.

Friday we headed home. We wanted to be here on Saturday to meet up with Jacob's cousin Amy, her hubby Steve, and their girls Katie and Marie who are visiting from Grand Rapids. They stopped by, on their way to the Keys, for lunch. Why is it that the family members who you love spending time with are the ones that live the farthest away?
I felt bad for Katie and Marie as our girls didn't give them a second of peace, not one second.


Today Jacob made plans to meet up with everyone at Pennekamp so that they could all go on a glass bottom boat ride together. I had to sit this one out as I have some (read many) CEU's to get under my belt by August and I wont be here for a large portion of July. I'm not usually a procrastinator in any aspect of my life but I have really dropped the ball on my CEU's this year and am scrambling to get them all done. Oopsie. I got this 12 hour set whacked out in a record 3 hours this morning which really ticked me off cos if i had known it was going so easy I would have gone. It would appear that everyone had a great time and in some cases a very tiring one!

Marie and Lily

Whilst Marie wonders if she can drown Lily, Katie ponders some funky ocean gunk.
Hmmm, some serious 'tude
Rosie auditioning for Titanic
After about an hour on the boat Jacob said Rosie got really sleepy and just konked out! Party animal.

So this is why I have not posted. Since we have been back I have been cleaning, organising and cleaning some more. This trend will continue for a few more days. I start a conversation and then stop and say, "but the so and so in that house is perfect, or, the garden in that house isn't big enough for a pool", which has nothing to do with what I was previously saying and leaves hubby looking dazed and confused and leaves me irritable. It's better when I just clean and play with the girls and pretend that I don't have any big girl decisions to make at all.
If it's all the same to you I'll take a Mojito and call it a night....kidding folks I'm kidding.

Chatter

I do NOT text.

Yes, you read that correctly, I do NOT text. I have a phone, which I often forget or if I do take it I fail to turn it on. If it is on, I don't hear it. I am not an important person, I don't believe I need to be available every second of every day. My friends and husband have spent hours trying to convince me of the joys of smart phones.....phooey.

As I left for work this morning Jacob told me he was going to upgrade my phone and told me to leave mine with him. Yeah, Ok, sure thing. He's said it before but hasn't. This time was different :(

I have a new phone. It is all schmancy. I have no idea how it works. Now I can't really tell people not to text me cos when they see my phone they won't buy my little tale of how I have had the texting capabilities turned off. Oh god this thing is so intimidating. I'm not afraid of technology in general, just phones. I was browsing through the app's and had to giggle. Why do I need all this stuff, who, WHO uses all of it? I did have loads of fun playing with the flashlight. It's the small stuff that makes me smile. Not sure why a phone has a torch built into it but it does.

I think we have a made the decision to throw caution to the wind and just do it. Move that is. It is something that we have wanted for a while but now appears to be the time. Moving doesn't worry me (which when you consider I worry what shoes to wear) that's quite an accomplishment however now we have 2 kids. They make everything much more important.

It's summer. My new motto: if the kids get 3 meals a day and get to bed at some point, it's all good. I have never been quite so unstructured in my life. The school year is just one fat rush after another so to be able to wake up later, eat breakfast later and just keep at a snails pace for the whole day is so refreshing.

Everyday is pool day. Rosie is just as much a fish now as Lily. Now that I would take my eyes off of either of them for a second but it makes it a lot more fun.

I cannot wait to go home. My brother emailed me yesterday and invited us to go punting on the river in Cambridge with them. I have never done this. Everyone else who visits them has had the opportunity. The girls are going to love it. I also can't really believe that Hollis and her girls are meeting us there. Oh how much fun we are going to have.

I should publish this post and go and study this danged phone but I am in total denial so instead I am going to read my book. I'll grab the tissues first. Anyone else read. "Message From an Unknown Chinese Mother?"

Vision Walk 2010. Team Katie Starr.

Should I begin this post by saying; "The best laid plans of mice and men" or should I begin by saying, "Say it isn't so?"

Today was Lily's much anticipated 5K. She raised a lot of money and couldn't wait to walk the walk. She has been talking the talk for weeks now and she was ready. At least she was ready when she hopped into bed last night. Her clothes were laid out ready, her water bottles chilling in the fridge, her new sneakers were at the front door with her socks placed neatly next to them, the sunscreen was in our bag, ditto the bug spray and her epi-pen, the cameras were charged and last but not least her picnic lunch was packed and ready to be grabbed at 7.50 this morning when we left the house to drive to Fort Lauderdale.

I set my alarm for 6.03 and came downstairs, moments later Lily followed me and in this odd, high pitched, raspy voice she told me she felt ill. She said her throat hurt, her head hurt and her legs were very wobbly. I probably stared at her for a few seconds with my mouth wide open. I touched her head and she was hot, really hot. Lily NEVER gets sick. The last time she had a fever we were in China, nearly 3 years ago. I gave her a huge cold drink and she sat on the couch looking so miserable and things just got worse when I said she couldn't do the walk. She begged and pleaded. I told her, no. I told her I would do it with Rosie in her name and she would have to stay home with Daddy. I dosed her with some M*trin, made her comfy and headed to the shower...rather late.

By the time I was out her fever was already down so I started to get dressed and get Rosie ready. At the last second I took her temp and she was at 98.8. Okay kiddo you can come but under one condition, you have to sit in Rosie's pushchair. I will push you both and when we are done it is straight back in the car and we are coming home. No face painting, no bouncehouse, no picnic and no playing. She agreed. All she cared about was doing the walk. A lot of people had sponsored her and she wanted to keep her end of the deal for Katie Starr.

We left the house late and arrived for the 9 am registration at 9.30 but we made it. The Katie Starr team was all kitted out in really awesome team shirts. Lori had done an amazing job of fundraising and the Katie Starr team was in the lead. I kept Lily in the shade sitting down and another Mum went and got her a smoothie, she had an apple and said she felt great. Her temp was back to normal ( I took the thermometre with me) and she was ready to go. After all the teams were introduced we had a quick pep rally, and a warm up. (warm up? Who are you kidding it was hot as all heck and we were sweating before we started LOL.) Lori came over to us and handed Lily a pin that she was given. It was for being an All Star. Lori's team raised $10,000 for The Foundation Fighting Blindness and as the team captain she was honoured with a pin. She told Lily that she deserved it for her fundraising it was very touching but then again that's Lori. Lily beamed.

I forced her to sit in the stroller because she was still very pale and looked ucky. I went as fast as I could, pushing a stroller with 80+lbs of weight in it. It was hot and sticky and I needed to get around as fast as possible then head back home. Both girls were drinking water so they were fine. After awhile Lily said she had to walk at least for awhile cos that was why people had sponsored her. One thing is for sure she is not a quitter. I let her get out and off she went. She didn't last long but she did it.

Once we got back to the start I grabbed her another cold drink and told both girls we would have our picnic in the car and we said our good byes. Neither of them questioned me and we walked slowly back to the car. I put the cooler between them both of them were asleep before they had a bite to eat. Lily doesn't sleep in the day, she might miss something!

When we got home Jacob and I carried them both into the house and plopped them on the couch. Lily didn't move all afternoon. She got up for awhile and played play-d*ugh, had some soup and a popsicle and then after her shower we watched a little television before she went back to sleep.

The walk was incredible. So many people, the Katie Starr team alone had 85 members! Again, that's the Weinstock way. So many people were all walking to raise money for research. Hopefully there won't be a walk next year because a cure for hereditary blindness will have been found but just in case we are signing up again.

Katie Starr and many others deserve this.

Team Captain, Lori with Katie Starr and the Mischief Man, Ethan. ( he felt a little forgotten today because eh kept hearing Lori and Katie Starrs names mentioned but not his.)

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Not looking so hot...she had no idea I was looking at her.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Putting on her brave face and beginning to feel better.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Not one to be left out, she loved the fact that she got a team shirt too.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Everywhere you looked it was a sea of red for Katie Starr.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

These little signs were all along the walk.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

These HUGE spiders were everywhere. When you looked up all you see were these rather scary chaps. Urghhhh

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

This pushchair was not made for this much weight!!! ( nor was this Mama!)

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Lily's team I.D. with the pin that Lori gave her.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Here she is walking the walk, just as she promised.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Such a fabulous quote on the front of the team shirts.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Sweet Katie Starr, you will see your future because you have an amazing family who will stop at nothing to ensure that happens.

(side note: Andie since you cannot see Y*u Tube from Afghanistan I posted the video through dr*pshots. Let me know if you can see it. If you can I will continue to do it this way until you get back home))

Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes!

Today was a big day, we received this email from Thesaurus.com

Dear Dawn,

I have great news! The changes we mentioned in our last email are in place.

Your concern helped draw our attention to something that needed further
clarification. Our mission is to provide the most accurate information
regarding language, and we are pleased with the added clarity.

Please do not hesitate to reach out should you have any additional
questions.

Kind Regards,

Evelyn

The changes are for the better, they still use the word "stray" which neither Lily nor I care for but compared to, Hobo, bum, street person and all the derogatory terms they had before, we will take it. Nowhere on the page does it have anything unkind and or hurtful. Lily replied to the email herself and told them exactly what she thought of the changes.

Here it is:

Main Entry:	orphan
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	historical/literary child without parents
Synonyms:	foundling, stray

Main Entry:	ward
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	custody; person in one's custody
Synonyms:	adopted child, care, charge, child, client, dependent, foster child,godchild, guardianship, keeping, minor, orphan , pensioner,protection, protégé, protégée, pupil, safekeeping, trust

Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
Copyright © 2010 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source

Thank you to every single person that contacted them....as a group, we did it!

Butterfly Moon.

Approximately 2 years ago through my blog I met a really wonderful friend, Maci Miller. At the time she was waiting to travel to bring her baby girl home forever. At one point we started chatting on the phone and then before we knew it we met up with each other. Maci was so sweet and warm with the girls and I just couldn't wait for the day to arrive when she could hold her baby in her arms.

At this time I had no idea she was a singer and when she mentioned it I just sort of said, Oh. What can I say I live in Miami and everyone is something else, a poet, an actor, a singer but they never really are, they just want to be.

As our friendship progressed she told me she had recorded her latest song for her daughter. Something made me sit up and pay attention and Jacob and I listened to that CD and I was in tears. It is without a moments doubt the most beautiful song you could ever play to your little baby. It is now one of the girls favourite songs and even though I have heard it hundreds of times it makes me get teary. Maci has such a beautiful voice and it matches perfectly with her beautiful heart.

All the proceeds of this CD are going to charity. Please take a moment and visit her here to read about all the little children that the world considers un-adoptable that this CD will help.

And yes this is the first time I have ever had music on my blog but this is the song that Maci wrote for her daughter, Butterfly Moon

We did It.

Do you remember this post about how Lily had to find the synonyms for the word orphan and how she was incredibly upset by what greeted her?

As most of you know it started a huge email campaign involving everyone I could think of, adoption groups, family members, friends, concerned parents, school teachers, (not Lily's school though, they were not interested!) radio personalities, fellow adoptive parents, magazine editors, to name a few. I was told by many of you that we crashed the website of Thesaurus .com on more than one occasion. I sent them an email E V E R Y S I N G L E D A Y. I was constantly thinking of ways to keep it going as I didn't want it loose steam before the magazine was published.

Thanks to all of you for keeping on it.

Nobody ever heard from them at all. In one of my emails I even stated this fact. It wasn't my kindest letter as you can see......

Both of my daughters started their lives living in
orphanages and as such were classified as orphans however
they were NEVER waifs strays or ragamuffins. The synonyms
that you offer for the word orphan are incorrect and need
to be removed and replaced by something that is correct
which in this case word be the phrase, no matches found.
It is unthinkable to me that you can offer this
misinformation and wrongly educate the 1000's of students
that use this site.
What baffles me more is that you don't have the decency to
reply to any of my emails.

I hate to admit but even I was growing dubious that we would ever see any results. I just kept chugging along.

Finally yesterday as I was checking email one addy in particular caught my eye.. help desk, thesaurus .com

It isn't exactly what I wanted to see but it is something. I immediately contacted Adoptive Families Magazine and asked them if they wanted to pull the story but they said, NO. This still isn't good enough so we are going to print with what we have.

Here is the email.

Dear C**e Family,

Thank you for bringing this painful situation to our attention. We
apologize for the distress our Thesaurus entry caused your daughter. The
modern uses of "orphan" differ from the historical or literary uses of
the term. Therefore, we are adding a note to the entry that will
describe how the word "orphan" has been used in the past and in
literature. We feel this common reference practice will clearly explain
the distinction between recording how the term has been used
historically and what the term accurately means now. Please let us know
if you have any further questions or concerns about this topic and we
hope that these changes will make you, as well your daughters, satisfied
users of our Web site.

Regards,

I also received an email from another thesaurus that I had contacted and they were really helpful and gave me the names and email addy for the publisher so that I can contact them. I need to explain that their definitions and synonyms are outdated. Apparently they pride themselves on being up to date.

So it's just a small step in the right direction but we did it. We did make a change and I think it is big. I thanked the lady for doing what she is doing and told her I felt it was a start but that I still believe her synonyms are incorrect and outdated.

Lily you are a ROCK STAR. You stood up for what was right and you have changed a little piece of the world by doing so.

Putting On Her Walking Shoes.

When I told Lily about her friend Katie Starr's diagnosis of Cone-Rod Dystrophy she immediately wanted to know what we could to do help. That is just the way she is. I explained that Lori was arranging a walk that involved lots of people walking in a team and raising money for research that would help find a cure for this disease so that Katie Starr would never go blind.

Lily wanted to get involved and was happy to know that we had donated to the Lori's team but she still wasn't happy. She wasn't doing anything herself.

Now she is. Lily will be walking the 5K walk, instead of just talking the talk! If you click HERE you will be linked to Lily's sponsor page.

It explains what you need to do in order to donate and how to do it. You can donate directly to the cause with your credit card.

Please help Lily to help Katie Starr. A dollar is just a tiny amount to most of us but it would mean the moon and stars to Lily knowing that she is helping Katie.

Thank you.

My Girl

Today I took the girls for a bike ride. Daddy had some "boy" jobs to take care of around the house and it was going to be a lot easier for him to get them done if we were AWOL. One of our favourite places to ride bikes is at a local park but tis involves things like bike racks and I really wasn't about to tackle that without the help of hubby so we made do with me running and the girls biking.

As I was watching the girls riding today I realised that LIly couldn't have a more appropriate helmet.

The words at the bottom read "LOUD GIRLS RULE"


She has been quite loud in the last few days! (with some help from all of you)

She Rocks!

Making Lemonade

I am continuing my quest to have the synonyms the word orphan changed at www.thesaurus.com. I have contacted as many groups and people as I can think of and will continue to do so. Our adoption community is a powerful group and we pull together. We can and will make a difference. Sadly more and more people keep contacting me with different websites and many of them have similar synonyms so this is going to be a long crusade but I know we can make a difference.

Adoptive Families Magasine is going to run the article in their November December issue under the Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down segment and is going to urge their readers to contact Thesaurus.com.

Lily has gone from feeling down trodden and belittled to feeling empowered and this is what I wanted for her.

Our children should never feel belittled because of their humble beginnings. No one should. Surely if you have been orphaned in your life you have suffered more than enough pain.

If you haven't sent a letter of complaint to thesaurus.com go to the highlighted link at the top of this post and scroll down to the bottom of the page to where it says contact us and please do contact them.

Sadly, I am still waiting for Lily's school to contact me....sigh. I do not blame her teacher but I would like them to be aware of what is happening. I have sent a letter and made phone calls.

"Be the change that you want to see in the world."

Ghandi.

Never Saw This One Coming. Updated

Homework, some love it, some despise it, some battle over it, some do it willingly. Thankfully in this house Lily has not only always done it willingly but she has always done it well. This evening was no exception and she sat at the desk with the computer as her study guide as she worked her way through her vocabulary words. She had to define each word and list 3-5 related words. As she sat down to do that I read over her math homework and then went about my business in the same room as her waiting to see when and if she would want my assistance.

I didn't wait long.

Her voice was filled with angst. "mummy, come here". I hurried over to her because I know that tone. On the screen in front of me was the word, "orphan". I looked from the screen to her vocabulary list where I saw the word again. I shuddered to myself as I thought how insensitive it was to put that word on her spelling list. At the same time my rational brain is telling me we can't avoid all sensitive words. It only takes nano seconds to glance at a computer screen and a composition book and at the same time Lily says with her voice drenched in a mixture of sadness and disgust, "I am NOT any of these. I am NOT a beggar, a street person or a hobo. I am not a tramp an urchin or a bum nor are any of my China sisters and I WILL NOT write these words down." I stared in utter disbelief at the screen wondering what the hell I was seeing. What Thesaurus had the teacher suggested that they use.

I held her and comforted her, I begged my tears to stay and not roll down my face. We talked and I searched 3 other sites, 2 matched exactly and one said,"no matches found".

Lily was hurt, angry and in fact defiant. I stood with her. I picked up the phone and called my voice of reason in matters like this and she concurred. A short note to the teacher was in order explaining that Lily was classified as an orphan at one stage in her life and she found the related words offered by numerous Thesauri to be insulting and demeaning and consequently I am asking that she be excused from that one line of the homework assignment with no attention whatsoever to be given to her in class regarding this matter.

I am angry. I am hurt. My child nor any other orphaned child should be classified as a beggar or a street person. WTF?

Yet again my girl has made me proud and I have told her that if there are any repercussions from this in class tomorrow I will declare a war.

This is straight from Thesaurus.com
orphan - 4 of 4 thesaurus results
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Orphan Synonyms
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Dictionary.com
Main Entry: orphan
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: child without parents
Synonyms: foundling, ragamuffin, stray, waif
Main Entry: ragamuffin
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: person who is poor, tattered
Synonyms: beggar, bum*, gamin, guttersnipe, hobo, loafer, orphan, scarecrow, street person, tatterdemalion, tramp, urchin, vagabond, vagrant, waif, wastrel
Antonyms: sophisticate
* = informal/non-formal usage

Many hours have passed since this happened yet I still have a knot in my stomach and my hands still don't feel as if they truly belong to me. I am not upset at the school teacher for giving this word although with all the words in the English language I think she could have found another it wasn't as if her vocabulary words for the week followed a theme.

Update.

Instead of fuming and being bent out of shape I have started a letter writing campaign to Thesaurus.com If you go to the website and scroll to the bottom of the page it says contact us. Click here.From there you can follow the links. I told them that their synonyms are incorrect. I also posted a similar post to this on Faceb00k, and all of my adoption groups and told the fine folk at thesaurus dot com to expect an increase in their email.

Lily has so many supporters and even my clients have emailed on her behalf. This isn't just for Lily but for all of our children. Please take the time to let them know that this is unacceptable.

Thank you.