Today is the day designated to bringing awareness to the OVER 15 MILLION CHILDREN ORPHANED BY AIDS.

It’s kind of a tough day, quite honestly, because the results of this disease have kind of swept me away. I’m simply overwhelmed by it all. How in the world can you even grasp that many children? Erin wrote about it really well, which I’ll copy and post below.

All I know is that I haven’t slept much the last few nights. Zach keeps telling me I can’t put my values and such on other people. Which is great, and true but absolute crap. I don’t really know how the world has stood by and allowed all of these people (not just children, obviously) to die of a perfectly manageable disease. We’re all, “It’s not in our backyard,” when in reality it is in our backyard and we’re still turning our backs on it.

I’m not perfect, I’ve certainly not given nearly enough of my time, money or energy to this global pandemic. I’m learning, as is everyone else. I just wish today everyone would become obsessed with educating the public on HIV/AIDS. I wish, as I watch the Today show, that they were spending every 30 minutes with at least one spot on AIDS. There are certainly enough stories to last multiple hours for that.

Alas, the 50% chance of rain here is getting more air time than a disease that will wipe out entire countries worth of people.

I digress, Erin says it best so listen to her.

Tomorrow, May 7, is World AIDS Orphans Day. World AIDS Orphans Day is a grassroots campaign to draw attention to and advocate on behalf of the millions of children orphaned by AIDS.

Here are some of the staggering facts. Please read them… please really stop and think a minute about these statistics.

–There are over 15 million children orphaned by AIDS living around the world RIGHT NOW. 15 million is the equivalent to the number of all of the people living in New York, Paris, and Bangkok combined. That is an awful lot of children.
–Well over 12 million AIDS orphans live in Sub-Saharan Africa, alone.
–Experts believe that millions more orphans remain unaccounted for in India, China and Russia.
–At least 10 million more children will be orphans by AIDS by 2010.
–Do you know how many TOTAL global confirmed cases of the swine flu there have been? As of today (May 6), there have been 1,516 cases. Do you know how many people, world wide, have died of the swine flu as of today?? 31. And look at all the hype… all the action… all the caring.

Do you know how many people around the world DIED of HIV/AIDS in 2007? An estimated TWO MILLION people. That is over 5,400 people a day, dieing of HIV/AIDS. It has been estimated that now, in 2009, 6,500 people will die every day from AIDS, and an estimated 6,000 of those people will leave behind children when they die.

So today, another 6,000 children will be added to the already 15 million children world wide who have been orphaned by the HIV/AIDS crisis.

The result of being orphaned by AIDS is heart-breaking for these children. From the World AIDS Orphans Day website:

In addition to the trauma of losing a parent, orphans are often subject to discrimination and are less likely to receive healthcare, education and other needed services.
In HIV affected households lacking community support, food consumption can drop by 40% putting children at risk to hunger, malnutrition and stunting.
Impoverished and often without support to educate and protect them, orphans and vulnerable children face increased risk of HIV infection. (And there are already an estimated 2 million children currently living with HIV).
Orphans are often easy prey to many forms of exploitation: forced labor, prostitution and child soldiering.
In the United States, if a child loses a parent to accident or illness, it is considered a terrible tragedy. Such stories are covered by the media, communities mourn and show their support, etc. In Sub-Saharan Africa, parents dieing is a normal part of life. It is still a terrible tragedy for those children, but it happens so often that no one else really pays any attention.

And do you know what makes this really, truly horrible? Do you know what makes my gut twist and my heart ache? HIV IS COMPLETELY TREATABLE.

If a person contracts HIV in the United States or another country where there is treatment readily available, they have an excellent long term prognosis. Most HIV+ people receiving treatment now have close to normal life expectancies and can live in good overall health. With treatment, HIV+ children can be healthy and happy. They can go to school, grow up, go to college, have (healthy!) children, and live long enough to raise them and beyond. Without treatment, an estimated 50% of HIV+ children will die before the hit their second birthday. My Solomon was almost one of those 50%.

HIV does not have to be a death sentence, and yet for thousands of people every day, it is, because the world doesn’t care enough to really do something about it.

Can you imagine for one minute if some terrible disease struck the United States (or whatever country you live in) and was killing thousands and orphaning thousands every day? Can you imagine if another country had treatment that could lead to good health and a long life, but it just was too expensive or too difficult or too much trouble to get that medicine to us? We wouldn’t stand for it.

So why do we stand for it now?

I can’t wrap my head around what 15 million orphans looks like. I can barely wrap my head around the 100 or so HIV+ orphans that I am trying to find adoptive families for. The numbers are staggering, and so is the need for action. Children are the future of our world, and I shudder to think about what this world will be like with so many millions of children growing up without the love and security of a family… and way too often growing up without adequate food, education and medical care. Where does that leave all of us?

Rich Stearns, President of World Vision, US said,

“I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation. I look at my parents and ask, where were they during the civil rights movement? I look at my grandparents and ask, what were they doing when the holocaust in Europe was occurring with regard to the Jews, and why didn’t they speak up? And when we think of our great, great, great-grandparents, we think how could they have sat by and allowed slavery to exist? And I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?”

I know that it feels like the problem is way too big for us to really do anything to make a difference, but I know with all my heart that touching the life of just one, just ONE, child can truly make a difference. And if everyone touched the life of just one child, we could reach them all.

Here are some ways that you can help touch the life of an AIDS orphan this World AIDS Orphans Day.

– Get educated. One of the biggest roadblocks in getting people to care and take action is the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. This is not a disease that only strikes those who “deserve it” (yes, that is really how some people think!). This is a disease that strikes men, women and children… it strikes heterosexuals and homosexuals, it strikes people of all races and social classes and it strikes people in all countries. HIV/AIDS is a HUMAN problem.

Fear is another big roadblock. HIV can not be transmitted in any casual way, and people that are HIV+ are not a threat to those around them. HIV can only be transmitted through sexual contact, birth, breastfeeding and blood to blood contact (such as sharing needles).

I have written a ton about HIV/AIDS, and you can find those posts here. Once you are educated, join my Tell Two Campaign and share the truth about HIV/AIDS with others.

Two excellent books to read about the HIV/AIDS crisis and the orphan crisis are There is No Me Without You and 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa.

– Sponsor an AIDS orphan. There are many wonderful organizations out there that allow you to sponsor a child for a very low cost per month. Doing so makes a great difference in the life of that child, and getting to know the child you sponsor through pictures, updates, letters, etc. will have a great impact on your life as well. I promise. Two wonderful organizations that I work with are AHOPE for Children (which supports AHOPE Ethiopia, a home and community support program for HIV+ children in Ethiopia) and Hardthaven, a home for AIDS orphans in Ghana. I know that financially times are hard for many right now, but we live better than most people in the world and would have to sacrifice very very little to sponsor (and truly help) an orphaned child.

– Consider adopting. Adoption is only an option for a tiny percentage of the 15 million AIDS orphans around the world and it is certainly not the solution to the AIDS crisis or the orphan crisis, but for the tiny percentage of children who do get adopted, it changes their world and their future dramatically (and for the adoptive parents, it is equally amazing). There are agencies and programs placing healthy and special needs orphans from all over the world with new families. If your heart may be open to adopting an HIV+ child, I have about 100 amazing children of all ages waiting for a second chance at love, family and life.

You can read here why I believe in adoption, and you can read here why I feel so passionately about adoption for HIV+ children.

– Support From HIV to Home, an organization that helps provide care for HIV+ orphans and supports and helps parents adopting HIV+ children. They have a wonderful program to help raise money for parents adopting HIV+ children called Kids Walking Kids Home.

– Support Project HOPEFUL, whose mission is to “encourage, educate and enable parents adopting children with HIV/AIDS”.

– Visit the World AIDS Orphans website for other ways to touch your heart, get educated and get involved.

Please feel free to share this post anywhere you see fit. Thanks for reading.

I think Tariku and hotflawedmama have officially hit our stride. It’s strange how comfortable it’s getting. How I thought it was great a month ago and then it gets better. The last few weeks it’s as if he’s come to terms with the fact that I’m not as pretty, funny, nice or good smelling as the mommy he had dreamed about. He’s all, “You’re not who I thought you’d be but I think you’ll do just fine.”

My sister commented on how he doesn’t give hugs and kisses just because you ask him to anymore. You really have to work for them (just like most 4-year-olds). He’s really letting his personality come through more and has dropped the pretense of having to be the cutest kid in the room (though, as it turns out, most of the time he just naturally is).

With that said, part of his personality is still to just make people happy. People might say that is a natural middle child thing (we do so enjoy making you happy!) or a result of his upbringing in Ethiopia. Either way, today was cleaning day. I came up the stairs to see him organizing the Wii area. I hadn’t asked, he just did it for me. I told him, thanks but he could go outside and play since it was so nice. 10 minutes later I come back upstairs to find him organizing the shoe closet. “I know how much you don’t like to do that, mommy.” Seriously, he said that.

And no, I don’t like to do that.

But I do so love that boy. He melts in my arms and it’s just the most perfect fit.

The last few days I’ve reflected on the awesomeness of God with regards to my little habesha. Most of you know I miscarried between Trysten and Dailah. I don’t think I’ll ever get to a point where I’m thankful for that miscarriage but I’ve gotten ever so close recently when I realize we would’ve never been open to a boy up to 3 had I not miscarried. And what a blessing he is!

Then there’s the fact that we were open to Hep B. There were couples waiting for a child up to 3 when we turned our dossier in. None of them were open to Hep B but us. Thus, after a few days of our dossier being in (without even our homestudy complete!) we received our referral for Tariku. When we got home we were shocked to learn he wasn’t, in fact, Hep B+ and even more so to find out 2 other couples in our travel group found the same of their newly adopted children. But it took both us being open to it and a false positive for Tariku for us to find each other.

There are more, certainly, but some of it is his personal story that he might choose to reveal on this here blog at a later date.

All this to say there is so much thankfulness in this body of mine for that boy. So, so much.

Lately, hitting our stride has never felt better.

Cathy, since you asked and the new Harry Potter movie will be out in less than 100 days I thought I’d do this post for you.

You remember this post about ants, right?

It got worse. Much worse.

Opened the oven door today to cook an extravagant dinner (or a Tombstone pizza, you decide which is true) and found this. It was like a family of ants. Not just any family, it was like the Kennedys or something. They were flippin everywhere. I would have dry heaved but I’m kind of tough. Anyway, Cathy had wanted pictures from my last ant post so I thought I’d do this.

That ant guy is full of crap.

Dailah was equally impressed with the sheer number of ants.

Zach might have been the most precious person ever. He decided to trap them in a ball-o-ants in a wad of paper towels. Then left said paper towel on the counter (time for them to tell their American royalty family) and then took the ball-o-ants to the fire pit. And burned it. I could hear the ants scream and I giggled. And I’m not even a mean person.

going on in this head of mine…

Sometimes it’s hard to talk about anything else than what’s on my mind. And those thoughts are not ready to be told, or processed or both.

I’ve never been good at the in between. You know, at having all of the proverbial balls hanging in the air. For those that were with me through Tariku’s adoption you will remember this about me, vividly.

I wish I would get better at this; and truth be told I have gotten ever so slightly so.

Alas, I’m not good at hovering. At the space between settled and unsettled. Between knowing and not knowing.

But it’ll get better, it always does. And my life right now is pretty darn great. So I’m in a pretty fantastic spot. Even if it’s in between.

That’s it. That’s all I can say without telling all my secrets.

But when it’s time you’ll be (one of) the first to know.

Trysten: Tariku, why do you like Superman?

Tariku: That’s a great question, Trysten.

I’m sorry but that is just hilarious. My little Habesha with superb English.

Saturday my brother graduated from college. When I was watching the processional I realized how much we take an education for granted. In my family it just kind of went that way. Graduated from high school, went to college, graduated college, etc.

Only since coming home from Ethiopia where we were specifically asked to raise Tariku with a good education do I realize just how blessed we are to have such access to something that is not within reach to a good portion of the world. Though people complain about our public schools in this country quite a bit, I venture they would rather their kids go to the worst public school in America than in many other of the developing world.

So it was a bit more bittersweet Saturday for me. Proud of my brother, of course, as you’ll remember I’m uuber protective of him. But also humbled at the opportunities we have in this country.

With that said, the pictorals.

It took FOREVER to get started. So we all pulled out our Crackberries. It was slightly ridiculous but it’s nice to have a friend around when you’re bored.

And then there he is going to get his diploma. “Marcus J Dawson” pretty cool words.

We went back to my parents’ house because we were so schleepy. Here my sister went up to give Tariku a kiss before naps and just…couldn’t…go…any…further.

Once the graduate came back, it was picturetown. Here he is with my youngest.

And then with my grandparents.

My side of the family here.

My sister (Kara), Marcus and hotflawedmama.

These people are the Pedersen’s. They are great family friends. They babysat the kids during the ceremony. They have made my parents happy with their friendship and thus made me happy too. Plus they have kids our age so that always helps too.

Marco with my babies.

After pictures my parents treated us to Spagetti Works in Des Moines. MMMM carbs. Dailah was equally excited.

This weekend we went back to my parents’ house because my baby brother graduated on Saturday. My mom also enticed us by offering manicures and pedicures on Saturday morning. Since the last time I received a mani/pedi was possibly in the Clinton Era, I happily agreed. Mom even begged me to bring Dailah along so we could get her nails painted. This made me feel even better knowing she was going to receive her first mani/pedi exactly 12 years before her mom did.

And knowing Dailah as well as I do, I knew if any 2 1/2-year-old could sit through a morning of pampering it would be her. She’s worth it, obviously.

If I still needed any more encouragement to agree to the manis/pedis, my mom told me Mimosas would be involved. I promptly signed on.

The only thing I was nervous about was my injury from Pump launch. It turns out I should’ve been more worried about humiliating myself with how nasty my feet were. The poor women working on my piggies had to go into a locked closet to pull out the only-for-the-worst-cases tools, which in an extremely weird way made me proud.

Anyway, I have some pretty sweet looking toes and fingers to show for it and one proud little baby as well.

Dailah getting her toes painted. She looked up at me when our feet were in the cesspool, er foot spa, and says, “Mommy, this is so fun!”

And then her nails.

My mom and Doozie.

Lindsey, hotflawedmama and Dailah.

We were there for about 2 1/2 hours. Bumped right up against nap time. She did terrific the whole time and only hit the wall at the end where she calmly made herself a bed and rested for a bit.

My grandma and sister.

Mommy and daughter.

The gang (side from my mom).

A few months ago Julie showed a day in her life on her blog. Loved the idea, but that’s mostly because I love all of her ideas. So I had been wanting to do it since but kept forgetting to document the day. I finally remembered to do so on Thursday and I’m just getting around to posting it now. But it’s worth it, I’m sure. Without further ado…

6:30 am I arise before the kids to get in some “light” reading.

7:00 am kids get up and it’s a race to feed, clothe, prepare backpacks and lunchboxes; thus no time for pictures.

8:00 am I get home from dropping Trysten off at school and it’s time for this. Lately I’ve been trying to substitute at least one of my coffees with this.

But all I really wanted was this.

9:00 am the kids get their first shot of sugar in gum leftover from their Easter candy. Fittingly, pink for her and blue for him.

In between 7 am and 9:30 am about 3 loads of this is done.

10:00 am the kids are in the car to go look at a charter school we might be transferring Trysten to in the fall (more to come on that).

10:30 am we arrive at said school.

11:00 am. After a quick tour and a chat with the Principal, we rush to the North Family YMCA where I teach my class of Bodyflow.

12:30 pm we arrive back at home in time to rush order the kids food and tuck them into bed for naps.

1:00 pm I get around to eating. On the menu today is 3 pieces of Tombstone pizza and multiple glasses of water.

2:00 pm fill out some paperwork here and there, plot gardens, doze on and off and enjoy the scenery.

2:30 pm pick Trysten up from school.

3:00 pm attempt to teach eldest to ride the bike without training wheels. Notice how much he is like his mother in that he gets frustrated when he notices it will take more than 2 minutes to get hang of this. Promptly asks if he can be done yet. 3:10 pm mother makes mental note to teach child more patience.

3:30 pm the social worker comes for Tariku’s 1 year post placement for his readoption.

4:00 pm the kids are awake, the boys go outside and Dailah decides she needs extra loving from mother.

4:30 pm arrive at the Downtown YMCA where I teach Bodystep and then Bodypump.

7:00 pm we come home and it’s another rush to eat dinner, brush teeth and put littlest members of the family to bed.

7:45 pm start watching TV and don’t finish until…

10:00 pm when I go to bed.

My life is awesome. I realized after the fact that Thursdays are our busy days which ended up working out nicely because otherwise there would be a lot of pictures of us just hanging out and clearly you get to see those every other day.

That’s it in a nutshell.

(Cathy, though this may seem like a ploy to finally get your kids dogs, that’s not what it is. Now of course if that happens, then it’s just a happy coincidence!)

I love dogs. I talk about them a lot here, but I seriously love my dogs. Aristotle (obese chocolate lab) will be turning 5 in another month and Abe (HUGE great dane) will be turning 1 in a few weeks). My dogs are the best. I’m not sure I could have any other breed besides lab or great dane (though we’ve talked about our next dog coming from the humane society, so never say never, I guess). Anyway, I can’t tell you how much joy they bring to our house.

When we first started adopting we heard Ethiopians came home petrified of dogs. When we went to Ethiopia we realized why. The dogs were crazy and scary and wild. We actually walked by a heap of dead dogs on the corner of the street (akin to something we might do with a bunch of raccoons who came too close to the car). It was heartbreaking for us.

But not our Tariku. We gave him a few days at our house before we brought (then just Aristotle) back from our friends’ house. He got a little anxious at first but then we had Trysten pet him and it’s been this every since.

Dogs are seriously amazing people. My kids are a little too young to comfort me when I get sad at times. I remember when we were going through the wait to court and wait to travel with Tariku it seemed Aristotle was the only one who could make me feel better sometimes. He’d rest that big ole’ head on my lap and leave it there until I pulled myself together. They have amazing insights these animals.

But one of my absolute favorite things is when I go to wake Zach up for work and see this.

Couple things about the above picture that I love.
1) It shows we don’t believe in headboards or footboards. Footboards because Zach is tall and he actually likes to kind of hang his feet off of a bed and headboards because I like to hang my hands off of a bed. We’re weird but it works for us.

2) It shows I also don’t believe in matching sheets, or that little cloth that hangs over a bed to cover up the mattress. Once a sheet is just too gross to sleep on anymore we just switch it out for one that’s kind of in the same color family. And that cloth thing would just be one other thing I’d have to wash, besides everyone knows there’s a mattress under there, right?

3) My dogs are huge. Can you even see Zach’s head in there? That’s a Queen sized bed. We’re seriously considering getting a King just to make room for the dogs.

So after the quick trip to my cousin’s we went to the wedding. The bride is a longtime friend of the family. She is my sister’s age, she has a sister my age and a brother my brother’s age. We grew up playing sports together and carpooling and all of that good stuff.

Truly, the sister of the bride was a bit like a little sister to me (she was actually a year younger in school).

We hadn’t seen them in quite some time so it was great to catch up. What was even crazier was remembering how tall they are.

The bride is 6’4″ and the bride’s sister is 6’0″. Seriously. So if I look like a teeny tiny person you must first put this information into perspective.

My brother and his girlfriend offered to watch the kids during the wedding (a blessing!) but they never miss a good party so they came to the reception. Dinner and dancing? They’re always in.

The gang. Hotflawedmama. Amber, the one closest to my age. The bride, Nikki, with my sister in front of her. Emily and Kerri. All longtime friends.

My budding photographer.

Dailah preparing to eat candy.

Her dance moves.

And our dance moves (that would be an air guitar by hotflawedmama.)