The Mamahood

How to Help

A huge aftershock hit China, heaping more destruction onto an already devastated area. There are so many stories coming out of there that make my heart so heavy—parents losing their only child, children losing their parents (just yesterday, one orphanage took in over 2 dozen children affected by the disaster). And so many people still missing, so many people without food or water, living under a tarp or the bare sky.

We get daily updates on how the orphanages are faring. There are still nearly a dozen orphanages that no one has been able to contact, and they fear the worst. Fortunately, at the rest, no one was injured; but buildings are unsafe and supplies are dwindling or gone.

There are several organizations that are on the ground right now, trying to help in the earthquake zone. Here are a few that I support and would recommend as good charities who will do their best to help those in need, if you're feeling so inclined:

Love Without Boundaries
Half the Sky
Spence-Chapin (our agency, which is working in conjunction with Americares; specify Earthquake Relief)

Sneaking in the Good Stuff

I'm lucky that my daughter's a pretty good eater. She's willing to try new things, and has some pretty exotic food preferences (hello, sushi!). But her diet still balances out to a little too much EasyMac, and a little too little broccoli for my taste.

So this week, I've been secretly spiking some of her favorites with a little extra goodness. Tonight it's spinach pureed into tomato sauce—tomorrow I'm adding pureed broccoli (stems only) into her EasyMac. We'll see if she (or my husband) notices the difference. Consider this the Folgers crystals bait and switch. But without the fancy restaurant.

A Little Shaken Up

Yet another unfruitful day of work, as I'm spending much of my day watching stories about the earthquakes in China. I am very fortunate that the people I care about most in China...my daughter waiting for us there, and the people who cared for my oldest daughter...live far enough away from the epicenter that they were unharmed.  Please send positive thoughts or prayers, though, for those who weren't so lucky...there are thousands of people dead, and thousands more injured, and likely millions who lost homes and livelihoods in the disaster.

Mother's Day Goodness

Today is my third Mother's Day as a mom, and the best one yet. So far, it's included everything a mom could want:
1. A nice long sleep-in (past 10!)
2. iced coffee
3. a little girl screaming "Happy Mother's Day" at the top of her lungs as she hurtles toward me with a bouquet of flowers
4. an adorable handmade purse with a picture of my daughter and "I love you" painstakingly written on one side, and the reasons she loves me on the other, highlighting my culinary skills and fashion prowess..."She makes me good food" and "She buys me pretty clothes" are among them. (You know I'm going to carry this purse with pride!)
5. two cute sets of pjs (AKA my work clothes)
6. a delicious breakfast, made with love by my husband (and my daughter)
7. Dozens of fierce hugs and kisses and lots of "I love yous"

Wishing all the moms out there a Mother's Day filled with laughter, love and lots and lots of hugs.

A Tale of Two Companies

As my regular blog readers know, over the past several months I've had major problems with two essential pieces of equipment: my laptop and my dishwasher. Both are around the same age. On both, I'd paid extra for extended warranties. But the treatment I received at the hands of the companies couldn't be more different.

First up: Sears. When the dishwasher failed to work, I called their customer service. And discovered it would be two weeks before anyone could come to look at the darned thing. I asked if I could be filled in at any point if there was a cancellation. I called every day to see if someone could come out and help. The customer service people were by turns indifferent and rude. The guys at the store suggested I buy a new dishwasher (to replace one that was less than two years old). I found the e-mail addresses and mailing addresses for Sears executives, and sent out letters expressing my concerns about their lack of service. I never heard back. When the repairman finally came on the appointed day, he didn't even have any parts for the dishwasher (because he was a washing machine guy who'd been filling in for the dishwasher people for the past few weeks, and despite his requests, his bosses hadn't given him parts). Because the appointment wasn't put in with our warranty, he nearly walked out without looking at it, because I refused to pay for the service. Total grade: F.

Next up: Apple. I've been having problems with my laptop, nearly from the get-go. So far, the battery has been replaced twice, and the hard drive crashed a month back. The customer service people were all super nice, walked me through a few attempts to set things right, then set up appointments, always for the next day. At the store's Genius bar, the people took me seriously. Repairs were made within a few days. And this week, I escalated it to the executive level, because I was so frustrated with my computer: The fan was going on a lot, and I was having some real issues with slowness again. A few hours after sending an e-mail to Steve Jobs' address, I received a call from Mark in executive customer service. After a little phone tag, he called back after hours, and spent a half hour talking to me about my computer and what I needed to do to get it working right. (Turns out, I didn't have enough RAM to support the Leopard operating system.) Mark even suggested going to a cheaper place to buy the RAM and installing it myself, but since I wasn't too keen to take a look at my computer's innards, he arranged that I'd have the Genius bar install my RAM and waived the service fee. It was taken care of in less than an hour. While I wish the Geniuses had suggested the upgrade earlier, all in all, a fine example of their customer service. Total grade: A-

Non-Mom Update

As you can see from the comments on my previous post, after a deluge of angry blog posts, e-mails and calls from the other adoptive moms out there, the sponsors of the "America's Favorite Mom" contest apologized and changed the category name to adopting moms. Which makes it slightly better.

My problem with the new wording? We should never have been singled out in the first place. Adoption is just a means of creating families...but once that family is created, it's no different than any other family out there. Adoptive moms should have been nominated in the other categories--we're working moms and "CEO" moms, military moms and single moms.

We're just like all you other moms out there, worrying about whether our kids are eating enough vegetables, jostling for the front row at the school performances, kissing and bandaging the tiniest boo-boos. We may have social workers instead of stretch marks, but underneath it all, we're the same.

And we're tired of being portrayed otherwise by the unenlightened.

Apparently, I'm a Non-Mom

So, NBC is running a contest for "America's Favorite Mom." There are semifinalist categories, where people can vote for their favorite military moms, working moms, single moms, etc. And my favorite category: the "non-mom" mom. Which is for "mothers of adopted children, grandparents and stepmothers." Because, you know, you're a non-mom if you don't actually grow the baby in you for 9 months. Because all those sleepless nights, all those hours of Candyland, all those hugs and kisses, all that time I've been caring and worrying and  loving my daughter...that's all just babysitting. I'm not a real mom. I'm a "non-mom."

Guess my husband can call off the celebration this weekend, and my daughter can give the gift she made to someone else. No need to celebrate me...I'm technically a "non-mom."

Family Finances

For my recent birthday, I received a number of cards, with a number of checks in them. And thus far, I haven't cashed a single one. I feel funny cashing a check from my grandmother on her fixed income, or from my parents (who are in financial straits right now), when my business is doing super well and my husband is making a good salary.

I worry sometimes that I'm insulting them by not cashing the check. But we don't need or want for anything here, and $25 is going to help them out a lot more than it will me.

Obsession

My daughter loves Fred from Scooby Doo. Not in a crush sort of way, but in a scary, "I need to be him" sort of way. The way that requires wearing white shirts and blue pants every day, and results in temper tantrums if the only white shirts in her drawer have flowers on them. The way that requires us to call her "Fred" and answer to "Shaggy" and "Daph-a-nee" or again, meltdown.

So we tried banning the Scooby gang from our TV, and requiring her to put some color back in her wardrobe. We were doing pretty good...she wore purple and orange and pink, and Fred joined her posse of imaginary friends, instead of being her. Until we decided to let her watch just one episode last night.

Zoinks! We're back at square one this morning. White shirt, blue pants. (Thank God she hasn't asked for that weird orange scarf.) Tantrum because Mommy wanted to be Mommy, not Shaggy.

So we're hiding her Scooby book, and putting Scooby out to pasture. And we're scanning the channels for a healthier obsession....we like Super Why! and Ni, Hao Kai-Lan around here, but both are past their prime as far as she's concerned. Suggestions?

One little distraction...

All it took was a single e-mail to completely throw off what had been a really productive day. In the e-mail? Updated (as in from yesterday) pictures of our little girl. She's now really steady on her feet and has a lot more hair. It's so hard to concentrate when there are those beautiful pictures beckoning to me on the computer screen.