Cai's Best Friend

His name was Jiminy. He was just waking up from his winter sleep and was sunning himself on the sidewalk. In true Cai Cai fashion, he walked right up to him, said "Hello, friend," put his hand down, and Jiminy crawled right on. He and Cai hung out for about a half hour before Jiminy crawled up to Cai's shoulder, flicked his wings and flew away. Cai was devastated. He had lost his best friend. Ice cream was in order.

Best. Present. Ever.

Today, the mail lady brought what has to be the best. present. EVER. Our friend, affectionately known and heretofore referred to as "the Dood," had purchased this for us for Christmas. It's called the "Yacker Tracker." For those of you that grew up in the 80's with me, this may bring a bit of silly nostalgia. Crushing on Ricky Schroeder in Silver Spoons, I always wanted a real working stop light in my room. Now, I have one with a purpose!

This beauty is a noise level detection and deterrent system! That's right! Just plug this bad boy in, set it to the acceptable decibel level and let the quiet times roll! Those who know me know that I, in futility, utter the phrases, "Quiet down," "Settle down," and "Shush, shush please" (think the scene in Encino Man where the douche jock is hanging the sweet nerd from his undies on the wall of the cafeteria). I'm not thick, I know the futility of my attempts with 4 boys in the house. But this, this is my hope, my audio savior.


I set mine to decibel level 60. This seems acceptable for now. When all is good and the noise level is acceptable, the light remains green. When the noise level creeps to 15 decibels above what has been set, the light flashes yellow. Once it reaches 30 decibels above what has been set, the red light flashes and a siren briefly sounds. Now, with a noise monitor, one would question the decision of making a loud siren go off once the noise has already reached epic proportions, but I can appreciate the idea. It lets the kids know, without me saying anything, to settle down or the pain is coming!

To put this in perspective, normal conversation flows at around 40 decibels. A restaurant during rush hour, hits levels of around 80 decibels and roadside construction hits around 110. That's right, the noise in my house at any given time is between rush hour at a restaurant and roadside construction. But, not any more!

So, thank you to "the Dood!" A brilliant, funny friend who truly cares for our family, and my sanity! If you want to get one for your family (a Yacker Tracker, not "the Dood"), hit up Amazon.

Teach a boy to fish....

and one day, maybe he'll catch something instead of his mom having to draw imaginary fish hanging from his imaginary line!! See what happens when I get bored? Bored, you say? With 4 BOYS? Yes, bored.....it was VERY cold today and I made my son pose outside, BAREFOOT, for this pic in 45 degrees.....Yeah - I'm a good mom!

Brotherly Lurv

Trying...not.....to....cry.

They get it. The bonding has begun.

Our standing arrangement is that if the boys behave well all day, they get to play Rock Band with mommy and daddy before bed. Moise was good today. Logan however was quite disrespectful, mouthy and all together argumentative. After he completely ignored 4 separate requests I made of him after dinner tonight, Daddy made the decision that Logan would not be allowed to play. Then something spectacular happened. Moise, realizing he would not be playing with his brother and that his brother would miss out on the fun, interceded on his brother's behalf! That's right...INTERCEDED! He told Logan, "You must say you're sorry! Mean it!" Then Moise turned to Daddy and pleaded for a commutation of Logan's sentence. He insisted that Logan was sorry and would apologize."

It was beautiful. It was sincere. It was a moment. Much like the stirring moments earlier i the day...moments of change, so brief, so small but so significant. They have become brothers.

A Moment in History

Sitting down in front of the computer, explaining what Inauguration Day represented, what it meant and why this particular one is so very important, I didn't expect the tears that came. The more I told my natural born son and my Haitian son, who has just become a citizen of this wonderful country, about the great importance of this moment, the more choked up I became. To realize that for hundreds of years, black people of all nationalities have been disrespected, mistreated, made to live in a manner less than worthy....to witness this moment when equality has truly come. When a black man, has risen above, to now sit in the highest office in the land....That stirs emotions. It doesn't matter if you agree with his politics, or even if you personally like him. That one fact, the historicity of it all, is enough. As a mother now of black children, immigrated and now citizens, it is powerful. We watched the inauguration together, and though I doubt that either of them really "got" it, they will. Soon they will understand. Soon they will know that they lived in a time of change. They witnessed a historical turning point in our nation - one that will hopefully, prayerfully, bring about change for the good.

Tampa Zoo

Today was our first trip to the Tampa Zoo and Moise and phoenix's first time to any zoo - EVER. It was a GREAT time and Moise especially was overjoyed to be so close to the animals and able to touch them! I've been to MetroZoo and the Palm Beach Zoo and the Tampa Zoo is by far the BEST ZOO EVER! The weather was perfect, everyone had fun and we can't wait to go back! I'll be uploading more pic sinto a slideshow tomorrow, so check back for that.

My perfect nose

I have a complex about my nose. When I was growing up, everyone admired my "perfect Precious Moments" nose. It was the perfect shape, slope, slant and size. When I was 13 (or 11 or somewhere around there), my head collided with someone else's at a pool party and my perfect nose ended up on the other side of my face. It was shattered so completely that the x-ray at the ER showed it as a whole and complete, unbroken nose. Never mind that anyone with 2 working eyes could see that it was swollen, in 2 pieces and on the other side of my face. Anyway, 3 days later at the doctor, they determined that yes, it was broken, but had begun healing back together. This was BAD. So, now reconstructive surgery was needed. I now have my perfect nose back and yes, I suppose you could say that I've had plastic surgery. Long story short: lightning struck again. I mean, HOW RANDOM IS THAT?

I was putting Phoenix down for a nap today. He had already been outta bed once and was not happy that I was putting him back in bed. (This was out of character for him, but this is how it went down. He's been "off" the last 2 days. We won't even mention the bruised bite mark on my hand courtesy of his little vampire teeth. That's a different story.) Anyway, I was readjusting his narrow little behind to put the covers on him. While doing so, he decided to rear up and clobber me with his giant cranium right on the perfectly reconstructed bone part of my perfect nose.

I fought blacking out, shed a few tears and fought the nausea all the way to my room. No blood, which was good. I think the swelling is only as minimal as it is because hubby rushed home form work with one of those old-fashioned ice bags and took care of me. It's broken, broken, broken! Though hubby begged me to go to the hospital, I didn't. I mean, seriously - it's in one piece, it's straight and it's still where it should be on my face. All the hospital will do is take an x-ray to confirm what I already know ( we know how well the x-ray turned out the last time!), give me pain meds and tell me to keep ice on it. See, I just saved us $3000!

Out of respect, let's have a moment of silence for my dearly departed and heretofor no longer, perfect nose.

Unicef Photo of 2008

The beauty in the juxtaposition of this photo is truly breath taking and so close to my heart as the adoptive mom of two kids from Haiti. This photo won first place as the Unicef photo of 2008 taken by 21-year-old Belgian photographer Alice Smeets, the youngest person ever to win the competition. The place: Cite Soliel, Haiti.If this image encourages you to get involved and help in relief efforts or even goes so far as to make you think about adoption, please visit For HIS Glory's website. They are a non-profit organization that has an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and also helps fund and provide relief efforts for the surrounding area. If you have any questions about adoption, they currently have available children and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.