February 5th was our GOTCHA DAY, Morelson is home!

 

 FEEDING THE STINGRAY'S AT THE AQUARIUM

When an event SO big has taken two years and a tragic earthquake to come to a happy ending  it's hard to find the words to summarize how you feel.  Our little boy is home for good!  The strength and perseverance that it took the two weeks prior to our big day is truly something that only Rob and I can ever really know.  It was a bonding experience like no other.  The two of us shared a gamut of emotions that no one should have to go through in such a short period.  Well more on that later........again our little boy is home!  Morelson is a treasure like no other.  He entered the U.S. with a smile and it hasn't left his face yet!  He could be the poster child for fun loving, inquisitive, infectious laughing "grab life by the horns" kinda boy!  Our family will never be the same and we wouldn't want it any other way!

Week One Run Down:

1. Bananas must be a super food, Morelson has put away over 55 of them in 7 days!

2. The "Machine" is a huge hit, there is NO keeping this boy home he loves to go, go, go!

3. Snow is acceptable, we can't say we love it yet, but it's all good in small doses.

4. School rocks!  M loves the kids, the routine, the songs, the activities and writing his name.

5. Bedtime not so much, other than the nightly bath going to bed is the day's low point.

6. A Big brother and two sister's are the best, ahh...so many people to shower me with attention!

7. Listening to music and dancing to an ipod comes first, lego building second.

8. Morelson has full blown Creole conversations ALL DAY long, I honestly think we have learned more Creole in a week than I ever thought I could learn!

9. The dreaded dog is now a good buddy!

10. Morelson laughs and giggles more than tickle me Elmo, MUCH MORE! 

Morelson early January 2010 at his orphanage in Les Cayes...he had no way of knowing that he would be home in America very shortly.  The earthquake that ravaged his homeland would be the very thing that sent him to us earlier than expected.  His and ALL of the other children's homecoming would turn out to be a bittersweet experience.

Monday, January 18th, 2010- Martin Luther King Day, a day we will forever hold so near and dear to our hearts.  This is the very day that we were told our son would be coming home to us very shortly, probably by the end of the week!  We have waited for this moment for two full years now, and now that it is here it is such a surreal feeling.  My mind is racing....will he come home traumatized by the events unfolding in his country, or will he come home feeling a sense of peace has been granted to him?  We love this little boy with all of our hearts and souls.  He has provided us with so much joy and hope already.  We have longed to have him here with us in our home, his home and soon that will be our reality, our new family will begin to unfold.  This day is marked with a tremendous amount of  sunshine, the kind that warms you right down to your little toe!  We love you MoHi, and our dreams for you on this very special day are as big as your precious eyes!  Mwen renmen ou pitit mouin!

 Dye Mon, Gen Mon.

An old Haitian proverb meaning, beyond mountains there are more mountains.

It is pretty impossible to even know where to begin this post.  It's Friday, the devastating earthquake we all have heard and seen so many horrific images from happened three days ago on January 12th, 2010 at 4:53 p.m.  I don't feel any different today than I did three days ago when first hearing the news coming out of our son's country.  I am bearing a grief that is the heaviest I believe I ever have known, and ever hope to know.  We have grown to love Haiti.  Not in the way you "love" Disneyland or the beach in Mexico, or your favorite hiking trail.  No we love Haiti as the homeland of our dear sweet son.  An island of tenacious people, with the biggest most endearing smiles I have ever witnessed.  A rugged place with a combination of beautiful mountains, bustling cities, oceans and plateaus, a few rich and privileged, and millions of poor.  

Thousands, many of thousands, of Haitians are now dead.  They are being dumped into mass graves w/ miscellaneous earthquake debris thrown right on top of them.  They are not being photograhped or identified in anyway, there is not the time or resources for such a thing.  They are still digging mostly with their bare hands to free the trapped people that have managed to cling to life.  Thousands of people are waiting for much needed medical care at make shift clinics, the majority of the people offering care are typical Haitians w/ no medical training.  There is help trickling in, and although the news channels report thousands of people coming in from numerous countries, the devastation and need is so widespread that the majority have to wait far longer than imagineable for any form of medical attention, and then that attention consists of Tylenol, cardboard splints, and some gauze.

Haiti a country all ready so broken. Tormented for years w/ mass poverty, political unrest, no infrastructre. It's only the hopes and dreams of the Haitian people that keep it clinging, just on the brink, but alive, hopeful and full of smiles, the Haitians have managed to "maintain."

Now their strength and courage has again been shaken, shaken by that of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.  How will they recover from this?  A "full" recovery, and I mean a recovery that could even take them back to Tuesday afternoon before the quake hit.  An afternoon that was still riddled w/ poverty that we don't have any way of truly grasping, you don't, don't even try. It's harsh, foreign, so far removed from anything we can deal with, and yet it's better than what they have now.  I wish we could go back to Tuesday afternoon, as dire as it was, it's better than it is today.  But of course we can't this is the new reality for Haiti.

This "new" post earthquake Haiti has left the Island of Hispaniola needing to find a renewed norm of surviving amongst such despair.  How or when will the government rebuild?  Will any kind of infrastructure be able to emerge?  Where will the children go to school?  What will happen to the most likely thousands of newly orphaned children?  Will our already matched children be able to leave Haiti and make room for more needy children?  We aren't going to have answers to these questions for a very long time I fear.

Life in Haiti will go on, and it will again be full of those beautiful smiles we have grown to love.  Our son is safe, all of the children that we consider to be his "siblings" are safe.  Marie the orphanage director that is a strong, resourceful woman is safe and will care for our children in this roughest of times.  Our dear friend Veniel and his beautiful family are all safe, their guesthouse is destroyed and although five people lost their lives in the rubble at Wall's guesthouse that horrific day, they too will pick up the pieces and their spirits and find a way to survive.  Our hearts are heavy, but our hopes are yet again high.  I don't know what the future really holds for the only land our son has yet to know, but I do know we will NEVER forget, we will continue to love, and support and maintain pride in our hearts for this island of people that have granted us the most precious gift on the face of this earth!

Four New Haitian-Americans Joined Their Forever Families This Week!

Welcome To America!  We know that 2010 Will Bring Home Many Of Your Friends!

Lise Home In New Mexico!

 

Erickson and Lovekender Home In Kentucky!

 

Lovely Home in Wyoming!

 

 MORELSON'S LETTER TO SANTA!

YOU HAVE TO VIEW THIS IT'S JUST TOO DARN SWEET!  THANK YOU STEPHANIE FOR PUTTING THIS TOGETHER AFTER VISITING WITH OUR GUY EARLIER THIS MONTH!

http://smilebox.com/playEmail/4d544d794d5459334f544a384e7a59324e4451324d513d3d0d0a&sb=1

Sean Tuohy, Michael Oher and Leigh Anne Tuohy

The Tuohy's are the family depicted in The Blindside released this week.  They are played by Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw and Quinton Aaron.  

As an adoptive mom to be of a son of African heritage I read all of the hype centered around this movie based on the book The Blindside: Evolution of the Game, by Michael Lewis.  I'll begin by saying I didn't think I would like the movie, I figured along w/ plenty of others that it would carry a "tone."  That tone being one of "Only white people w/ money of the do gooder sect could possibly turn around and "save" a black boy from the wrong side of town."  Well that is ultimately what happened!  Whether you like it or not, Michael Oher is partly who he is today thanks to the Tuohy's.  Reality isn't always what we want it to be or wish it weren't!  Yes the movie comes across as very touchy feely, and I'm sure that not every single thing in the movie is absolutely 100% accurate down to each word, hug and look.  Yet in every single article or interview I've read when Michael himself is asked about the book and movie he agrees w/ everything that has been published or portrayed with the exception of his IQ.  If that is the only piece that is up for debate than I would say both Mr. Lewis and Hollywood have done an admirable job! 

Michael Oher was brought into this world under conditions that no child should ever have to know.  Born to a crack addicted mother of 13 who wasn't even sure who his father was at the time, he ended up living in many different foster homes, staying with whatever friend would take him in at the time or being left to find a warm floor to sleep on.  

My thoughts on the film are it can a teachable moment.  Let's not make it out to be a slam on the black community in the sense that they can't "save" their own.  In Michael's case he happened to be part of an immediate community that really was incapable of intervening.  That certainly doesn't mean that all members of the black community are unable or unwilling to adopt, foster or offer help to black children in need.  I don't think that the movie left people believing that is the case.  There are bad seeds in every walk of life.  People of all color, race and religion are capable of doing wrong by their children.  We have all heard of many cases where the black community has stepped  in and raised other people's children.  In Michael's case this just wasn't one of them, it's that simple.  The Tuohy's stepped up, saw a child of this world in need and did what it takes to make him successful!  That's where the teachable moment comes in:  when you see another fellow human being in need, and you have the means to meet those needs and your heart is in the right place, irregardless of color, religion, society's norms, etc.. you need to go for it.  It's no more complex than that.  A human being is a human being, and we all have far more in common than we do not in common.  


I have done a ton of reading on trans racial adoption and realize there are a mountain of things to be aware of.  I would never be so naive to think that as a white mother I can solely arm my black son with all that he needs as a black male in today's world.  In Michael's case his basic needs were not even being met, we can not fool ourselves into thinking that we can continue to ignore the fact that this is the case for millions of children world wide.  First let's give the world's children a safe, loving home, three nutrional meals a day, a predicatable routine, a solid education and an arsenal of extended community members that can help foster the child's whole being.  When that is being done on a large scale that's when we can pick and choose the homes these children in need go to, that's when we can really worry about whether a black family vs. a white family is best for any particular child.  Meanwhile we don't have the right to decide that a black child or hispanic child or asian child is better off being raised in a abusive home, foster home or orphanage because a family that shares the same skin color or cultural identity isn't stepping forward to raise them properly!  Nor should we worry about "saving face" of those that are abusing, neglecting, or in anyway harming the total well being of a child because it's politically incorrect or potentially damaging to a particular group of people.  


Watch the movie, enjoy the success that Michael finds and realize that the Tuohy's have learned much more from Michael than he will ever learn from them! 

Here is Morelson's November Smilebox.  He is getting SO big!  Our boy needs to come home!

http://smilebox.com/playEmail/4d5449304e5459794d6a42384d6a45324e5451314e44673d0d0a&sb=1