Children Count Too!

Every child loves a good game of hide and seek. There are the fun butterflies they get in their tummies when they’re waiting to be discovered and the pride they feel when they’re able to count to ten and then yelling, “Ready or not, here I come!”

But children who are hidden from the U.S. Census counts (taken only once every 10 years) are not a laughing matter. So, ready or not, here comes 2010 Census … and you have an important role to play!

Many parents may not realize the importance of accurately reporting the number of children in their family, including newborns. The truth is that the undercount of children means that we do not get a true picture of our nation and our communities do not get their rightful share of public funds.

Why Children Count Too
Children have been undercounted in every census since the first one in 1790. Local communities rely on census information in planning for schools, child care, health and other critical services. Babies need to be counted today, so they can benefit tomorrow from community services.

Census counts are used, in whole or in part, for more than 140 programs that distribute more than $400 billion of federal funds to states and localities, including such child-focused programs as:

• Special Education Grants to states ($10.8 billion)
• Head Start ($6.9 billion)
• State Children’s Health Insurance Program ($5.9 billion)
• Foster Care Title IV-E ($4.7 billion)
• Improving Teacher Quality State Grants ($2.9 billion)

Unlike adults, who may bear some responsibility for making sure they are counted in the Census, children are dependent on others to make sure they are included. Yet in 1980, 1990, and 2000, Census Bureau data show children, particularly young children, are one of the groups most likely to be missed in the Census. In fact, in the 2000 Census, there was a net undercount of more than 1 million children under age 10.

When playing hide and seek your children have the opportunity to be found after ten seconds.

The Census only comes around every ten years. So when you receive your Census form in mid-March, make sure your child (no matter how old) is counted!

**I am helping to spread the word about the Census as a partner with the Global Influence network.  I may receive a gift card for my participation in this campaign.**

Suffer the little children…

As most of you know I have a passion for parentless children.  Whether that be orphans in Haiti or foster children here in the United States, I believe in the promise of Psalm 68:6 where the Bible says:

God sets the lonely in families…

I love that verse.  If you want to be further inspired about this important topic, my friend Kim is guest posting on @RealLifeSarah’s blog.  You can read her touching story here.

Then read below to see how you can get more information about an organization that finds forever families for children that need them.

Last year AdoptUsKids hosted two adoption chats on Twitter.  As a result, some Twitter users actually made the decision to move forward with the adoption process.

If you missed our earlier events, please join us for a live Twitter party later this month, sponsored by AdoptUsKids. AdoptUsKids is a national project whose role 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, AdoptUsKids hosts a national photo listing website contains photos and information about children in foster care waiting for families to adopt them. You may have seen some of the Public Service Announcements with the message “You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.”

Each year the campaign has a specialized target, based on the needs of children in care.  This year’s focus is finding homes for African-American children in care, who make up 31% of the children waiting to be adopted. 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.

To learn more about adopting from foster care and how to help spread the word about children in care waiting for a forever family, please visit AdoptUsKids. To search for children in your area, visit the AdoptUsKids Child Search.

Please join us Tuesday, February 23rd from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST on Twitter for a safe and open informational chat about the benefits of adoption, as well as adoption from foster care with representatives from AdoptUsKids.

To participate, please follow @AdoptUsKids and @resourcefulmom, and use the hashtag #AdoptUsKids. Facebook users may also wish to become a fan of AdoptUsKids on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdoptUsKids.

This campaign is brought to you by Global Influence Network.

From bliss to blizzard

I went from this:

photo courtesy of Secret Agent Mama

to this:

the view from my front door (last night before more snow came!)

Crazy with a capital C!  This storm, blizzard, whatever you want to call it is ridiculous!  The federal government has been closed for three days in a row! We are happily snowed in (meaning the house is cleaner then ever, I am unpacked, we have watched every movie we own) and the kids have made snow tunnels, caves and a whole snow family.

Just a quick note to Mother Nature…you can stop now.  Thanks!

What are you doing to maintain your sanity in this snowstorm?

This post is linked here and here.

A little bit ’bout me…

I borrowed this blog game from Tami at Hearts Make Families.

As if y’all wanted to know any more about me, right?

Here I go….

1. What color is your favorite hoodie? Red (My Maryland Terrapins hoodie)
2. Do you plan outfits? Most of the time.
3. What’s the closest thing to you that’s red? A Christmas catalog
4. Did you meet anybody new today? Yes, I met my friend’s new boyfriend, Michael
5. What are you craving right now? chocolate, of course!
6. Do you floss? Yes
7. What comes to mind when I say cabbage? Yum Yum, my mom’s ham and cabbage soup.
8. Are you emotional? Sometimes more than others
9. Would you dance to the taco song? I have never heard the taco song so I don’t know- not much of a dancer
10. Have you ever counted to 1,000? I have
11. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it? who bites ice cream?
12. Do you like your hair? No but the style is convenient for me right now.
13. Have you ever met a celebrity? Yes, Rosie O’Donnell (a loooong time ago)
14. What are you listening to right now? the dog barking, my son’s video game, America’s Funniest Home Videos and the sound of me typing
15. Are your parents strict? Depends on what year it was…
16. Would you go sky diving? No way in Hades would this girl jump out of anything moving!
17. Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush? I wouldn’t have much of an appetite but…
18. Is there anything sparkly in the room you’re in? the heart on my puppy’s dress
19. Have you ever been in a castle? Yes, when I lived in Berkeley Springs, WV I visited the Berkeley Castle- really cool!
20. Do you know your neighbors? I know our neighbors and love some of them
21. Have you made a prank phone call? No!
22. Do you own a gun? No but my hubby does
23. Can you count backwards from 74? I would certainly hope so….
24. Brown or white eggs? Doesn’t matter
25. Ever been on a train? Yes….
26. What year did you graduate? I dropped out when I was in 10th grade (1996, was pregnant with Jared) and got my GED in 1998.
27. Is your hair curly? Straight, no matter what I do
28. Last time you cried? a few weeks ago when I was having a pity party for myself
29. Ever walked into a wall? More times than I care to admit
30. Do you like your life right now? I love my life.  I feel blessed to be alive, watch my kids grow up, be Mike’s wife and experience everything God places in my path.  There are moments, in my flesh, when I wish I wasn’t sick but then I remember there are so many people worse off than me and I shift my focus back to my blessings.
31. How often do you talk on the phone? I am not a phone person.  I answer it (if I feel like it, to be honest) and speak as briefly as possible.  What is that about?  No idea.
32. What is your favorite animal? My mini schnauzer puppy, Chloe is my favorite pet.  I love pigs though, have since I was a very  little girl.
33. What was the most recent thing you bought? birthday presents for my best friend’s kids
34. Can you hula hoop? I use to…haven’t tried recently
35. Have you ever crawled through a window? yes… ’nuff

So how about you?  Feel free to copy and paste and answer these questions on your blog OR choose your favorite and answer in the comments!

Somebody to love me….

Wondering if you are worth anything to anyone…

Wondering if anyone cares about your future….

Wondering if this is what the rest of your life will look like…

Wondering if there is a point to even trying to do your best because no one is there to notice….

I will never forget the year+ that I spent in the US foster care system.  It was a scary and lonely time, full of disappointment, full of experiences I would rather not remember.  I was moved to three different homes in that short period of time (the last family was a sweet Christian family that I will always remember with fondness) and I was separated from my brothers for the first time in my life.

People forget that the majority of children in the foster care system are there because of something their parents did or did not do, not because of something the children have done.

These are not “bad” children, they are children that need to know what unconditional love and permanency look like.

November is National Adoption Month.  Obviously, children in the foster care system are close to my heart due to my personal experience as a child.  I am also an adoptive parent of a child who needed a mom after his biological mother’s parental rights were terminated due to her abuse and neglect.  I am proud to use my platform, my blog to tell you about an organization dedicated to helping foster kids find their forever families.

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.

Please take a moment and visit http://www.adoptuskids.org/adoption-and-foster-care-advocacy/ to learn more about adoption from foster care and how to help spread the word about children in care waiting for a forever family. You can also search for children in their area by visiting: http://www.adoptuskids.org/Child/ChildSearch.aspx.

If you are on Twitter you can follow @perfectparent (http://twitter.com/perfectparent or http://twitter.com/adoptuskids) and become a fan of AdoptUsKids on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdoptUsKids.

I was fortunate enough to have grandparents that were awarded custody of me so I didn’t have to spend a prolonged period of time in the foster care system.  There are MANY children that are not that fortunate.  Please consider how you can help them.

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