A Personal Challenge From One Mother On Behalf Of Other Mothers

This is a personal challenge/request to my FB friends to raise awareness of "Philip Wiseley's Janus Charity Challenge" in support of Doctor's Without Borders therapeutic feeding programs. Monies raised will fund the nutritional food supplements needed help severely malnourished babies and children. Every $30 raised is enough to literally bring a starving child back from the brink. I always say that while that sounds dramatic, it is the literal truth.

My friend Meghan and her cohorts have been the drivers behind this challenge for the past four years. Every year they find an athlete to run/swim/bike a triathlon in the Janus Challenge. It's especially important because the athletes who raise the most money qualify for "bonus" donations for their charity from Janus Funds that could amount to thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars translates to many, many children having a chance at life that they would not otherwise have and to many, many mothers not having to suffer the experience of losing a child to a slow and truly awful death.

Doctors W/O Borders maintains therapeutic feeding centers in the area where Atinafu was born. I've heard from people who live in this area. The situation is very bad and gets worse the further south one goes. Much worse. I can't even start...

Needless to say, this is pretty personal to me. So I'm raising a personal challenge to my friends and family. For every person who makes a donation of $10 or more, I will donate an additional $10. All you have to do is click on the link below and put my name somewhere in the "message" field for your donation. Or post on this thread. Or message me. Or whatever. Just find a way to tell me. Your donation amount can be totally anonymous. I will be grateful for any and all support. My cap in this offer is $500. That's 50 donors. I'm not sure I even know 50 people so if you want to share this challenge with your brother's wife's hairdresser's cousin Fred, go for it, as long as I can identify that a donation was made because of this challenge. I would especially love for my non adoptive parent friends to get involved since I know that my AP friends are already deeply involved and seriously stretching themselves to find ways to impact the current crisis. But regardless, I'm hoping people will find a way to make me hit the $500. My VISA card will thank you!

The deadline for my offer is Wednesday, August 24th, by the end of the day.

So there it is. My challenge to you. Thank you for taking the time to read.

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorreg/donorpledge.asp?ievent=469399&supID=330432677

Morgen

P.S. I totally stole this from another friend of mine. Shannon, thank you for the idea!

Drumming In The Park At Dusk

Tomorrow is Johnathan's last day of Kindergarten.

Johnathan goes to a school with a system that groups 3 years of classes together at one time. For example, two years of Pre-K and K in the same room, grades 1-3 in the same room, etc. It's a great model. The younger children learn from the older the children and the big kids teach the little ones. I believe it's empowering for the children and it gives them a different and more accepting perspective regarding a diverse peer group with a diverse level of abilities. In short, I like it.

This system also means that Johnathan has had the same teacher for three year. His beloved Ms. Mary.

Ms. Mary, who embraces all the amazing potential in every child and does her best to get out of the way of that potential so as not to stifle it. Who manages to allow each child to explore what interests them the most while at the same time guiding them to learn what needs to be learned, i.e reading and math.

Ms. Mary, who uses a list of virtues as teaching tools to the point that the children are truly able to recognize and appreciate virtues in themselves and in each other. It's interesting to be lectured by your child on the topic of moderation and awesome to hear him speak sincerely about what is special in another person.

Ms. Mary, who while being the personification of gentleness and warmth, is not someone to test with inappropriate behavior. (I will totally confess to once invoking the name of Ms. Mary during a fit of frustration over behavior at home. As in, "Johnathan, do you want me to call Ms. Mary?" I know, bad... but oh my gosh, so effective.)

Ms. Mary, who gives her students the gift of music and the gift of poetry. One of my favorite things from the past few years is how Johnathan will just start singing songs about anything and everything. Sometimes in Spanish. My second favorite song was a rap song about the layers of the earth. Inner core, outer core, mantel and crust. With gestures for each layer. The full body gesture for the viscous mantel still cracks me up. But my all time favorite is a lullaby about pretty little horses that Johnathan sang to soothe his little brother on one particularly fussy evening.

Tonight was Ms. Mary's end of the year evening family picnic in park. Time for all of the families of children in her classroom to get together, visit, watch our children play and celebrate what they have accomplished over the past ten months. At a certain point, the children gathered to share things they learned a few weeks ago about drumming from a professional Cuban drummer who came to visit the classroom. Some of the kids drummed on drums they made from plastic buckets or trash cans or whatever. Most sang. And all celebrated the gifts they have been given by Ms. Mary.

So I am anticipating tomorrow, the last day of Johnathan's Kindergarten year, with a little bit of sadness. Because I know that while he is moving on to exciting stuff in the lower elementary classroom and that I am sure that he will flourish with his new teacher, he is also leaving behind a very magical time in his childhood.

My deepest thanks to Ms. Mary for all that she has given to Johnathan. I know that 30 years from now, he will be using the virtues in diplomatic conflict resolution and singing songs about anything and everything.

And... I am deeply happy to know that 3 months from now, I will be escorting Atinafu to the Pre-K gate to be introduced to the wonderful world of Ms. Mary. Little does he know at this moment the amazing things in store for him in the next three years.

Special day...

Today's trip to the playground should have been nothing special, other than just dedicated time for the three of us be together with no distractions or need for any multitasking from mom. That kind of time can be hard to find which would make today special enough regardless of anything else.

Today surprised me.

Johnathan started by climbing up to the platform in order to slide down the pole. I assisted with the slide down the first two times, but then it was clear that he could do it so I stepped back. My little boy has always been what we shall call "risk averse" and hates, hates, hates doing new things by himself so my stepping back for him to fly solo was a big deal. It always is.

Emotional drama ensued, as expected. I held firm that he could slide down the pole by himself, or not slide down the pole if he preferred, but either way it was his choice and I wasn't helping him do something that I knew he could do. That prompted the negotiation process to commence. Johnathan is an extremely effective negotiator. Final agreement was that I would stand in the general proximity of the pole so that if he fell I could leap to catch him. That led to a discussion about the definition of "general proximity". End result, I stood about 6 feet from the pole and looked attentive, like I was ready to dive forward if necessary, while he proceeded to..... totally astonish himself by sliding down the pole. The way he lit up with pride was so awesome!

Then of course he had to do it a bunch more times.

I was bursting with pride myself thinking of all the times in the past he has chosen not to do something rather than try it himself.

Meanwhile, Atinafu was working on climbing skills on the jungle gym. It was a weird jungle gym with wobbly bars and chains and he's wearing his new leg brace so it was a pretty challenging thing for him to tackle. I was cheering him on, offering a little guidance and a safety net in case he fell but basically making him do it himself. As he was figuring out a particularly difficult part, I heard him whispering to himself "I'm doing a good job. I can do it." And he did and lit up with pride just as bright as his brother's as he got to the top.

Then of course he had to do it a bunch more times.

I was a happy that we had the playground to ourselves because I may have gotten little teary thinking of the baby who, when he was placed in my arms a little more than two years ago, had little useful function on the left side of his body.

As we were heading home, Johnathan on his bike, Ati on his trike and me trailing along, I realized that today is the also the day that, two years ago, I landed with Atinafu at Tucson International Airport and we made our way home to Johnathan. And became a family of three.

A very special day.

Overheard in our house today -"On behalf of the Crocodiles, The United Nations protests recent actions by Horsie. Sactions will be imposed..." and... "The international community of Frogs is outraged!". Representing Horsie, Johnathan refused to be intimidated by international pressure. Peace talks were proposed and firmly rejected. Horsie was eventually exiled to an island barn where peace reigned by virtue of Horsie being the island's only inhabitant.

Playtime with an Au Pair who's long term goal is to be a human rights lawyer can be a little different.

Coffee Ceremony at Hossana

Those who have been to Hossana will get the emotion evoked by this photograph.

Pay It Forward

A few years ago, I attended a wedding that the officiating minister referred to as having been "a long time coming". At first the congregation was a little taken aback by that comment because the adorable couple had had one of those "on again, off again" relationships over a span of seven years and I think that many of us were thinking "wow, dude... that's blunt". But then he went on to elaborate that these two people were standing there as a result of the love, devotion and committment of their parents, their grandparents, and all those that had come before them. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief...

Over the past few days, I've had been involved in several unrelated conversations that have given me reason to think about how lucky I am in the many blessing that I have in my life. I am reasonably healthy, well educated, financially secure, (or at least as secure as any regular person is in this day and during this economy), and graced with two amazing little boys of which I am probably most undeserving. I've worked hard to get to this stage in my life. I have. But there are also so many people, so many circumstances, so many examples of "luck of the draw", that have allowed me to reach this place in life that really have nothing to do with me or my own efforts. I did not get where I am on all by myself and I do not owe the what I have in life entirely to myself. I reap the benefits daily of the society I was born into and the blessings of the loving family who raised me. I am lucky beyond all measure.

One of the conversations that got me rolling on this thought process came through a discuss with a few other adoptive mother about our children and some emotions related to how they came to us. The specifics of the conversation are personal, private and fairly intense, but what I distilled from my own thought processes has to do with feelings of responsibility. The feeling of needing to embrace some kind of way to "pay it forward".

The Wikipedia commentary on "Pay it Forward" states: The expression "pay it forward" is used to describe the concept of asking that a good turn be repaid by having it done to others instead. In contract law, typically there are two parties but there is the concept of third party beneficiaries. Pay it forward merely applies this contract law concept so that third party beneficiary be a stranger to the creditor (or obligee). More specifically, the creditor (obligee) offers the debtor (obligor) the option of "paying" the debt forward by lending it to a third person instead of paying it back to the original creditor. Debt and payments can be monetary or by good deeds.

I need to "pay it forward". It's not just about my little boy, it's about my whole life. I'm taking baby steps. We'll see how far I get. But imagine what the world could accomplish if we were all trying to "pay it forward."

Totally random...

-Really fun filled visit to the Renaissance Fair in Mesa, Arizona last weekend with Chris, my best friend since 4th grade. I've been trying to get her to come visit for several years and I believe the RF ended up being the enticement that she could not resist. The original plan had been to rent costumes when we got to the fairgrounds, however the required deposit on each costume was $350 and apparently the Discover Card was not around 500 years ago so that was a no-go. I told her if she comes again next year, I will make us costumes.

The fair is populated with actors who randomly engage the crowd in various activities. Chris was a MAGNET for these people. Among other things, we ended up as "minions" of Lord Victor who was trying to unseat the Lord Mayor through some sort of complex political intrigue that may or may not have involved broccoli. Secret messages were delivered, skulking was required. And by "we", I mean Chris, because no one was interested in me. I was totally along for the ride. I decided that next year Chris will be Lady Christina and I shall be Patsy, Lady Christina's faithful servant. (10 points to those of you who get the reference.) All in all it was a very successful day.

-Atinafu had his first "gymnastics" class yesterday. Parents of veteran attendees followed their little ones around the circuits cheering budding young gymnasts. Those of us with newbies participated in an exercise similar to herding cats.

-Johnathan picked up from Theodore of the 'Munks, that saying you had a nightmare greatly increases your chances of getting to sleep in the big bed. Unfortunately for him, he had not yet calculated the proper amount of time that one needs to stay in bed before the concept of having had a nightmare becomes plausible. Pitching a nightmare to mommy after 1 minute and 27 seconds for some perplexing reason does not produce the desired reaction. Tonight I asked with great interest for him to tell me about the nightmare. He was completely non-plussed for about 30 seconds and then launched into quite a creative little story that was very entertaining and not the least bit scary. End result? A kiss on the head and a gentle nudge back to his bedroom. I'm curious as to how he will adjust the strategy tomorrow night.