I count myself and my children among the blessed in this world. We all have a roof over our heads, food to eat, some extras along the way, and most importantly, a family that loves us and is there whenever we need them. Sadly, not every child grows up with even the most dysfunctional of family units. There are thousands upon thousands of children, waiting in foster care for a family to call their own.

November is National Adoption Month, and the Global Influence Network (formerly Momfluence) is partnering to spread the word about AdoptUsKids.org, a group which works to help find real families for children who are waiting in foster care for a permanent home.

The mission of AdoptUsKids is to recruit and connect foster and adoptive
families with waiting children throughout the United States. Funded by the
Children’s Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families, the
national photolisting website contains photos and information about children
in foster care. A national adoption public service advertising recruitment
campaign was launched in July 2004 in a partnership of the Children’s
Bureau, the Ad Council, and AdoptUsKids, with the goal of raising awareness
of the significant number of children in this country waiting to be adopted.
New PSAs have been developed as an extension of this highly successful
campaign. The latest series of ads in this award-winning campaign target the
African American community, in keeping with the effort to diligently recruit
from communities representative of the children in care. Thirty-one percent
of the children in foster care waiting to be adopted are African American;
African American children are overrepresented in the foster care population
relative to their percentage in the U.S. general population. Because of
this, African American children often wait longer to be adopted.

If you would like learn more about AdoptUSKids, please take some time to visit their website. Take a look at the kids nationwide in need of homes, or search for children in your area that are in foster care. Or join us on Twitter, Tuesday, November 10th at 2 PM EST, for a Twitter event with representatives from the agency.For more information about the Twitter Party, read this post.

This campaign is brought to you by Global Influence, the former Momfluence network.

My middle baby’s first dance (with his cousin)

However, my kids do have brief moments that make hysterical tweets and I am occasionally struck with moments of wittiness. I’ve decided that I have a much more tweet-worthy life, than blog-worthy. Here are a few of my favorites from the past few days:

3.5 yr old has figured out wedgies. His lil brother is lucky that he’s still in diapers.about 10 hours ago from web

Don’t play me, kid. I invented some of these “Why my homework didn’t get turned in” excuses. And obviously your teacher isn’t buying either.2:58 PM Oct 30th from web

I just mistyped “Have fun” as “Have gin”…I think my subconscious knows it’s Friday.10:55 AM Oct 30th from web

Dear person in neighbor’s driveway, Turn your bass up a little more. There’s dead people 3 counties over who can’t hear it.11:54 AM Oct 29th from web

2 1/2 trying to do the lick-lips-slurpy thing in anticipation of his snack, but doesn’t have it down. Looks like really bad dubbing…4:58 PM Oct 28th from web

It is official, I am old. Watching BET awards, wanting to pull people’s pants up. Motherhood killed my cool.8:04 PM Oct 27th from web
See?! My family do have the ability to be entertaining and funny. Just for some reason it disappears when I try to think of something to blog about. Maybe tomorrow will be a blog-worthy kind of day.

Where: Twitter - please tweet with the hashtag #strollerbrigade to participate in the conversation. New to hashtagged events? Try Tweetchat for ease of use.

Who: Please follow moderator @ResourcefulMom and MaryLee Allen, Director, Child Welfare & Mental Health at @ChildDefender.

What: Children’s Defense Fund has been working hard to ensure a level playing field for all children for the last 35 years. The Champion’s for Children’s Health Stroller Brigade is working to demand that Congress and the President must support changes that provide comprehensive, affordable, accessible care for all children no matter where they live. Join us to learn more about how you can get involved in this movement, what the goals are for the Stroller Brigade, and about the Children’s Defense Fund in general.

Non-bloggers are welcome as well, to find out what they can do to join the Stroller Brigade in fighting for Children’s Health Care.

To RSVP, just sign the Linky at ResourcefulMommy – Hope to see you there!

Yep, that’s almost a full four years of zero alone time outside after the kids are in bed. Unless you count the exciting 15 hours of labor with D. Cause K-man wasn’t there, so we were technically alone and not at home.

Until today. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, hubby and I LEFT THE HOUSE. ALONE. And went to dinner and a movie…thanks to last year’s Christmas gifts from my lovely sister and nephew. Yeah, it took us almost a year to coordinate a movie we both wanted to see with a sitter. Sue us.

My always so charming stepson (who is now living with us) babysat the little two for a few hours and let us escape. I don’t think either one of us realized how badly we needed it until we were alone, in the car, discussing how we felt like we were doing something wrong.

We hit the movies and caught a matinee of This Is It, the Michael Jackson documentary. I’m not a huge movie fan, but even if you are remotely interested in MJ’s music, this one is definitely worth a watch. Seeing his creative genius at work was worth the price of the ticket. It makes his passing even sadder, after seeing all of the hard work that was going into preparation for those concerts. They truly would have been amazing.

We ended our night with dinner at the Olive Garden. Not only did I get to enjoy a guilt-free glass of wine with dinner, but I didn’t have to beg anyone to eat or cut up anyone’s food. It’s the little things like that which you take for granted when you have kids in tow 24-7.

I must say that spending just a few hours alone has really done wonders for our relationship. We were able to reconnect a little and remember just a bit of what it was that made us fall in love in the first place.

Even if it has been awhile, just a few short hours alone can be just what the doctor ordered for your relationship. I know I have a renewed appreciation for my own marriage tonight.

I am far from being strict and limiting on my kids’ interaction with technology. The TV is almost always on, tuned to one kids’ channel or the other. They have tons of toys that have gadgets and buttons and talk and move and everything else you can dream up. I don’t set limits on how much my kids watch TV or play with video games or anything like that, though.

My reasoning for not setting limits is not because I don’t care how much they watch TV or play video games or stare at a screen. It’s because they simply don’t need limits. K & D are self-regulating when it comes to that stuff. Even if the TV is on, they prefer it to be there for background noise, or as an accessory to their play. One of their favorite things to do is to watch Thomas the Tank Engine and recreate the scenes from the shows with their own trains. They watch from time to time, but they are more often lost in their own fantasy world with each just other and their toys.

At this age and stage, they play just as I did when I was growing up and there was very little daytime TV for kids. We had no cable, very few movies on the VCR, very primitive video games, no computer. We played with our toys. We dressed up and created our own fun. We acted out characters from our Saturday morning cartoons, or from the most recent family movie that we had seen. We fought over who would use which Barbie and who would be the teacher in our game of “School.” Until I hit the actual teen years, this kind of pretend was the norm for us. Sadly, I think today’s kids are losing that innocence a bit younger.

I won’t ever ban my kids from paying video games or watching TV. I think they have gotten a solid head start on learning from many of the shows and games that they enjoy. But that said, nothing makes me smile more than watching them make their own fun from a few pieces of wood and plastic and their own imaginations.

I know this phenomenon will not last forever. I have two teen boys that have proven that fact for me, and I hear the message loud and clear. Watch your kids as they play and marvel at the wonder of their imaginations. Shake of the inhibitions of adulthood and sit in the floor and play along. You’ll end up transported back to a world that seemed to be lost forever.

Is it just me, or did that excitement over the holiday specials seem to die out in the past couple of generations? Just as video killed the radio star, have DVDs, 24 hr kids channels, and On-Demand movies killed the fun and excitement of waiting all year to watch a favorite holiday show? Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE all of the options and choices that our kids have for entertainment, but still miss the innocent excitement that I cherished as a child.

Tonight is the yearly installment of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” I plan on sitting down with K and D to enjoy what was a treasured part of my own childhood. I can only hope that they enjoy the show as much as I did and look forward with anticipation to watching it again next October. ‘Cause we all know that it means that “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is just around the corner, with “Frosty the Snowman” nipping closely at it’s heels.

September has always been a crazy month for me, with both of my parents’, plus hubby’s and my own birthdays in quick succession. This year, however, September threw some curve balls my way that I could have never seen coming.  Some in the form of fantastic opportunities, others were life events that I simply wasn’t prepared for.

The fun opportunities I’ll be talking about over the next few days. They include trips to Pennsylvania for A Day Out with Thomas, a weekend away from the family at the Type-A Mom Conference in Asheville, NC, and a day in New York City at the Time to Play Holiday Showcase. I think I traveled more miles in the past few weeks than over the past five years combined!

The major life event that still has me a bit off-kilter was the permanent addition of my stepson to our household. While I have always entertained the idea of him coming to live with us, having him literally dropped on our doorstep with no notice was a bit of a shock to everyone’s system.  We spent a week trying to figure out exactly how to make all this work, get him enrolled in school, and making sure that the legalities were at least in the works. No simple task, I must say!

So much for my formerly boring life! Now I have an even fuller plate at home, tons of work-related projects to juggle, and something that resembles a career-related social life to keep up. Things are certainly hectic, but I’m starting to work out all the kinks and get into a groove that works for everyone. Or so I like to convince myself…

Our town had one of those world-changing moments this week, as one of our town police officers was shot and killed and another wounded. In a split second, not only were the lives of his family and friends changed forever, but our quiet little town lost its innocence. A little girl, days ago being raised by her single father, is now with grandparents and other family members, telling people how her daddy is with Jesus, but she wants to see him now. Parents must live the rest of their lives with only memories of their son. Friends, family, and simple acquaintances now with a hole in their lives that may never be filled.  So many affected by the millisecond it took to squeeze the trigger of a gun.

In just a few hours, the body of Chad Spicer will be laid to rest. After the service, he will be taken on a last ride through the town he grew up in, the town he protected…the town he gave his life for. The town that will never be the same, because of the split second decision of the man who chose to pull that trigger and rob a little girl of the father who loved her. People will line the streets, saying a last goodbye to a fallen friend, with the familiarity that you can only have in a town of 5,000 people.

Most of us will never be faced with the same choice as the man who is now sitting behind bars, charged with capital murder, but we still need to think about every choice we make and how our decisions will change the lives of others.

I’ll be tweeting on Wednesday night and I hope to see you all there, as well! RSVP and join us!

Amy Lupold Bair, founder of Momfluence, is acting on behalf of NHTSA’s child passenger safety efforts.