Positive Protest Post-Orphan the Movie

Some of you may have noticed the new Orphan movie ads on TV. The movie has not been well received by the adoption community and many others. A suggestion was made to defend the cause of the orphan by putting the truth on display. Here is my truth...

Warner Bros. new horror movie Orphan proclaims that it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own. Let me tell you about how an orphan changed my life...I am not sure how I can describe this. We haven't even gotten a referral and are nowhere near close. But somehow I am different already because of this experience. My eyes have been opened to a world I never really knew anything about. There are millions and millions and millions of orphans in this world, children living in orphanages, on the streets, everywhere, in every country. And I need to help. Not just want to, but need to. I hope I don't just stop at adopting one child, but that I can do more, help more. I am not eloquent enough to describe how I feel about this whole experience. I do know that this is the beginning of a new part of our lives...I am in love with a child I don't even know.

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The latest from Declan

So we are driving home from some errands today and Declan informs us that when he gets home he would be playing in the National Balloon Basketball Fight. Asking what that meant we were then informed that all the best balloon basketball teams would be playing. Now for those of you who aren't up on sports, balloon basketball is played in our living room with yes, you guessed it balloons. It consists of quite a bit of running around with balloons, throwing them, blocking and often wondering how you actually get points. But I digress...we were told there Declan's team, the Chick a Rock Band team was the best, in the whole wide, wide, wide, wide, wide world, all the way to Pluto and in fact the best team all the way to Heaven. I then opened my big mouth to ask if his team was better than God's team...of course yes his team was. This resulted upon our arrival at home of the Chick a Rock Band team playing God's team. Rich and I appropriately routed for God's team informing Declan (when he asked why) that we just had to...he's God. Later on we found out that God really wasn't playing, just some of his guys. It was hysterical to hear him say things like, "Oh, I just blocked God, " " God just got a point." The kid has a great imagination!

T shirts are in...sort of

Here is my model...that is the best we could do. At least you can't see the cherry juice he spilled on it practically minutes after putting it on. The kids shirts ended up being a different color than adult, hope that isn't a fashion problem for any of the kids out there! I only have the kid t shirts, adults should be here in the next day or two!

Summer activities!

Here is Declan and cousins Connor and Colin at the USS Cod, a WWII submarine docked in Cleveland that you can tour.

Celebrating my friend Dani's 40th birthday with friends (that is Lisa!).

Here is me and my teacher friends at Teacher Academy. Yeah, we are working hard aren't we. It is actually a great program here in NC...you spend about four and a half days at a hotel or college campus learning. We worked on differentiated instruction methods and got paid! Up above are Rebekah and Sue, they teach regular ed. And below is Angela, Melissa and of course me. We are the special ed crew at our school.

Here is Declan and our next door neighbor, Mary, at the fourth of July parade in Harrisburg, NC. It is as close to Lakewood's celebration of the fourth I have found.

Kids are cool!

Just thought I would share that I think Declan is pretty cool. At night, before I go to sleep, I have to look in on him. Don't know if it is a mom thing or what but I have to know he is okay before I can go to sleep. Often I just stand there and marvel at him. He is incredible. I love the fact that he loves music and knows the artists of way more songs than I know. This was evidenced by him saying, "This is Pink Floyd" today. I love the fact that he likes to cook and feels slightly insulted when you don't ask him to help. I love that he hates the fact that Maggie sheds so much fur and it gets all over him when he pets her. I love that he loves his father so much and can't wait to spend time with him. I love the fact that he likes to yell at me from time out to tell me how much madder and sadder he is than I am (I find it kind of funny). I love that after he has had dessert he will say that he is still hungry but won't take the offers of fruits or vegetables. I love that he loves to look at his scrapbooks over and over again...especially his 2 year old scrapbook. I love that he makes me chuckle over and over again each day!

Trip to Cleveland

Declan and I just got back from a whirlwind week in Cleveland with the Ely family. Thought I would fill you in on our exciting adventures! Here we are in flight. Froggie got to come on the plane with us. Declan hated the noise of the engines (for those of you who don't know, he hates loud noises that he is not in control of) but loved being above the clouds.

We spent some time at The Children's Museum of Cleveland. Here he is in the space section communicating with the astronauts on the "space station." Very cool to talk through the intercom to people across the room. That is my mom with him.
Spent an afternoon at a Cleveland landmark, the Memphis Kiddie Park. It is a little kid amusement park. Here he is with my dad on the train. I got tortured by having to ride the roller coaster with him. Should be a center of gravity lesson for high school students.
Uncle Evan (yes, he was a preschooler when we were in high school. Now, a police officer!) came home to visit and took Declan to a cool park.

Declan worshipped his cousins while we were there, chosing them to read his story at bedtime each night. This is Colin (for those of you at our wedding, he was 2, now going to be a freshman!) who shares my birthday!

Makes it all worth while

Sometimes teaching can be a thankless job, hugely gratifying yes, but at times a little thin on the praise. My customers don't really think they are getting a whole lot for what they pay. Tuesday, though, I had one of those moments. Those moments when you realize why you do something, why you get up each morning, stay up late doing work, put on a smile each day. A student of mine received some awards during an assembly...this was particularly unusualy since he has never been recognized for anything good in his whole life. His reaction was above enthusiastic, it was full of joy, pride, and total abandonment. Everyone in the audience, our administrators, teachers and students could tell and there was a resounding huge smile held on everyone's face that witnessed this event. I teared up as well as his classroom teacher, I tear up now as I write this. When he received his classroom award back in his classroom, his whole class cheered for him. He deserved all of these accolades as he has had an incredible year, due mostly to his spectacular classroom teacher. I beam with pride for him. As Declan once said, "It makes my heart smile."

Always makes you smile...

Minister: The reading will be from the first chapter of Genesis...
Declan: Mama, that is one of your favorite music groups!

Tee hee!

Speedstreet

For those of you who don't know...Charlotte is the home of NASCAR. This past week is what is called Race Week. Two weekends in a row there are races with Speedstreet in between. Uptown (most of you would call it downtown, but here it is called Uptown)Charlotte's streets are closed and they are filled with stages, free food booths, giveaways, race teams, race cars, etc. It is actually pretty fun. A total microcosm of America. You see every shape, size, and color which makes it a great people watching opportunity. Plus, there is lots of free stuff given away and we like free. There are goofy things to do like get your picture taken in the giant sundae...and if you click on the link, you'll see Declan riding a BMX bike! www.lunchablesstudio.com/3917

Another amazing adoptive family...

You can check out http://www.blessingsfromethiopia.blogspot.com/ or you can go to http://www.fourthwatch.net/ and watch a 3 minute trailer for a documentary about their amazing adoption journey. I am inspired by all these incredible families....