More on the toxic toy issue

First I want to apologize from my recent lack of posts. I've been afflicted with a post-turkey malaise. Now, though the tryptophan has worn off, our tree is up and we've started our Christmas shopping. I'm back.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the Consumer Union's campaign to improve toy safety. I also sent emails to both senators and our representative (all three whom I voted for and all who ignored my previous messages about the I-171H). This time I did get a response from one (the one who I like best, by the way). Here's his response:
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Dear [My Name],

Thank you for contacting me to share your concerns about the inspection and safety of imported products, particularly those from China. I appreciate hearing from you.

I share the concerns I have heard from many [people of our state] about the safety and quality of imported food and products. These concerns were highlighted recently by contaminated wheat gluten that has been found to be responsible for the sickness and death of thousands of pets across the U.S. and by the recall of Chinese-made toys that were contaminated with lead paint or otherwise found to be unsafe.

I supported an amendment offered by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) to S. 1082, the Prescription Drug User Fee Amendments of 2007. The amendment would establish an early warning surveillance system for pet illness; require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to improve its data collection and reporting requirements for firms that find adulterations in food products; and encourage the Secretary to enter into memorandums of understanding with high risk trading partners and commit to working in the future on improving Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) ability to regulate imports. The Senate passed this amendment on May 2, 2007, by a vote of 94-0.

I also joined Senator Durbin and several of my colleagues in sending a letter to Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Ranking Member Richard Bennett (R-UT) in support of adequate funding for the FDA's food inspection services, particularly the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, in the fiscal year 2008 Department of Agriculture appropriations bill.

You may be aware that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is responsible for ensuring the safety of imported consumer products, including toys. In July 2007, Thomas Moore, Commissioner of the CPSC, released a statement stating that budget cuts have limited the CPSC's ability to carry out its mission and recommending that Congress reject the Administration's budget cuts proposed for fiscal year 2008.

I will closely monitor funding for food and product inspection when the Senate considers fiscal year 2008 appropriations bills for the FDA and CPSC. In addition, several legislative proposals have been introduced to address inadequacies in the current inspection system, and I will keep your thoughts in mind should any such legislation come before the full Senate. On September 12, 2007, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee held a hearing on CPSC funding and the recent recalls of toys. If you are interested in more information about this hearing, I encourage you to visit <http://appropriations.senate.gov/hearings.cfm>.

Thanks again for contacting me. I look forward to hearing from you in the future about this or any other matter of concern to you.

Sincerely,
[Our Senator's Name]
United States Senator

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It seems like a form letter - but, of course, what I sent him was also a form letter and I'm sure that senators cannot personally respond to every concerned citizen who writes to them. Overall, I'm pleased that I received a response.

I've also read some of the testimony on the senate appropriations site (link in the senator's email above). It's pretty interesting. If you read just one, this would be a good choice - it's Senator Durbin's opening statement from the CPSC hearing.

Puppet play

A while back, I read in Bright From the Start that puppet play is a good attention builder for young children. Since then, I've been looking for a puppet for Nora.

We've seen a few, but none seemed soft enough, cute enough, expressive enough ... until today at Borders where I found a Folkmanis baby dutch rabbit puppet. Rob and I named her "Dutch" because she's a dutch rabbit. Yes, I know "Dutch" is a boy's name, but the rabbit looks like a girl and we thought "Duchess" would be too hard to say, so "Dutch" it is.

Maddie really likes her. I think she thinks Dutch is a puppy or something because Maddie sniffed her, then nuzzled her, then gave her kisses. Rob thought that Dutch might look a little too much like a dog toy, though, so now she lives in Nora's room, three shelves up and well out of Maddie's reach.

Thank you secret pal!

Thank you very much to our secret pal for the Mulan doll for Nora. We've never seen Mulan, but I saw some movie clips here (click on the word here). It looks like a pretty good movie - we'll have to rent it. Disney princesses are another area in which we need to educate ourselves!

I also found lots of information on the story of Mulan online. This site (click on site) has a nice summary. It sounds like Disney took a bit of creative license, but you've gotta like a story where the "princess" is the hero! I'm looking forward to learning more!

National Adoption Day 2007

Every year, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the National Adoption Day Coalition sponsors National Adoption Day to finalize the adoptions of thousands of children in foster care and to celebrate all families that adopt. On National Adoption Day 2006 – Saturday, November 18 – hundreds of courts and communities across the nation will come together to finalize thousands of adoptions of children from foster care. The day brings together hundreds of judges, attorneys, adoption agencies, adoption professionals and child advocates who are dedicated to creating forever families for waiting children.

____________________________

November is also National Adoption Awareness Month. To honor the occasion, the theme for this month's adoption network meeting at work was "How Can I Help?". Our presenters were Dr. Jan Adams from Maria's Children International and Dina Fesler from Children's Culture Connection. Both are fundraising organizations.

Maria's Children International supports Maria's Children which is a Moscow-based organization that provides arts therapy and training for Russian orphans.

Children's Culture Connection raises funds for a number of children's charities around the world: Half the Sky Foundation, ASHA: Better Life Education Program, Afghani Model School, Children of Vietnam, Orphan Sponsorship International, War Kids Relief, Nyumbani Children's Home, Numan School Project, Life of Hope Ministries, Angels of the Amazon and L'athletique D'Haiti.

Below are some of the cards that I purchased from Maria's Children International. The artwork is beautiful and they have something for every occasion. You can visit their online store at http://www.mariaschildren.com/WebStore/orderform.html

22 months

Unbelievable. 22 months today.

In honor of the occasion we received a letter from our social worker informing us that it is time for our annual home study update. This is our third. More paperwork. More doctors appointments. Yawn.

Dangerous toys

This afternoon I received the following email from Consumer Reports magazine:
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Dear Jennifer,

Consumer Reports testers just identified high levels of lead in a toy blood pressure cuff, part of a Fisher-Price kid's "medical kit."

Every week, stores pull more toys off the shelves for excessive lead: toy garden tools, toy boats, Sesame Street's Elmo, Dora the Explorer, Winnie-the-Pooh play sets and more!

Holiday shopping starts soon, yet we have a long way to go before we can trust the safety of the items we want to buy for our friends and family.

Send a message urging your members of Congress to hold manufacturers, importers and retailers accountable for the safety of their products.

More than 20 million toys have been recalled this year, alone! More dangerous, imported products may be sitting on store shelves. Worse yet, in our homes. Come this holiday season, will unsafe toys be caught before they are bought?

Too long, we have relied primarily on recalls to get dangerous products off the market, but shouldn't corporations make sure the toys they manufacture overseas are safe before they arrive in our local stores?

Click here to join us in sending a message urging Congress to keep Americans safe this holiday season.

Once you've sent your letter, please forward this email to your friends and family and ask them to join you and thousands of others!

Thank you for your help in protecting consumers from these dangerous products.

Sincerely,

Jim Guest
President Consumers Union of the U.S.
101 Truman Ave.
Yonkers, NY 10703

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Please take a moment to support this very important cause. If you don't want to write your own letter, there is a form at http://www.notinmycart.org/ that you can use to send a standard letter to your representatives in Congress.

Thank you!!!

Now we're cooking!

We've had this cookbook for a while, but hadn't tried any of the recipes until last night. Our friends M and B were coming over for dinner so we thought we'd try something new.

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Our menu:

• Vegetable Bird Nests (from Trader Joe's - yummy!)
• Rainbow Salad
• Steamed Prawns in Mixed Bean Sauce
• Stir-Fried Scallops in Oyster Sauce
• Stir-Fried Broccoli and Chinese Mushroom
• Tsing Tao beer

We messed up a little the scallops (a little over cooked and some mistakes in following the recipe), but everything else was wonderful. Next I want to make the Eight Treasure Vegetarian Assemblage shown on the cover of the book.

We had a great time at the Asian grocery yesterday afternoon and I'm feeling pretty comfortable that we can find just about any ingredient we might need. By the way, we found some delicious bottled iced green tea with honey - very refreshing and just slightly sweet. If I'd known how good it would be, I'd have bought more.

On the way home we also had a good discussion about whether we were being cultural tourists by shopping at this store. I think it's borderline, but leaning toward believing it's ok because we went there because we wanted to and liked it for itself. I continue to struggle with how to best provide Nora with experiences of Chinese culture that are meaningful and real ... and in ensuring that we are properly motivated in seeking these connections.

Infant/Child CPR - just in case!

Yesterday Rob and I took a CPR for infants and children class. It's a scary thing to think about, but I feel better knowing that we are prepared in case of emergency.

If you want to learn CPR, you can locate a class in your area by contacting the local chapter of the American Red Cross.

New addition for Nora's library

I was at our local Target the other day and stopped by the children's book section, which I almost always do, and was happily surprised by a new addition to the shelf - Whoever You Are by Mem Fox.

I had seen this book once before and we had it on Nora's library wishlist. It is an exceptional book about diversity and humanity - and it comes in board book (which is the edition that they had at Target). Someday I'll probably get the hardcover, but for now, the board book is perfect and the message will never get old - people are much more alike than they are different. I know that race and racism are much more complex, but I think this is a fantastic introduction for young children.

Mandarin Chinese Committee

Today I went to my first meeting with the Mandarin Chinese Committee. It turns out that they did get the grant money, but weren't able to find a teacher in time for Fall semester. They would still like to start in January - either as a before/after school program or as part of the regular curriculum. We are all tasked with looking for potential instructors and will reconvene next month.

If we aren't able to find a Mandarin instructor, they will probably pursue some other language or culture program. The grant money won't apply, but the district, it seems, is committed to "global literacy". I left feeling pretty good about Nora's future school.

Has anyone read Languages and Children: Making the Match: Foregin Language Instruction for an Early Start Grades K-8 by Helena Curtain and Carol Ann Dahlberg? What about anything by Stephen Krashen? I think I need to do some background reading and these all came up in this afternoon's meeting.

Baby massage

Research has shown that infant massage:

• Helps Relieve Discomfort from Gas, Colic, and Constipation
• Improves Blood Circulation
• Aids in Digestion
• Aids in the Relief of Pain Due to Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Enhances Development of the Nervous System
• Stimulates Neurological Development
• Increases Alertness/Heightened Awareness
• Reduces Stress Hormones
• Improves Immune Function
• Stimulates the Release of Oxytocin, the Nurturing Hormone
• Relaxes & Soothes
• Deepens Bonding
• Improves Communication
• Regulates Sleep Cycles

The Bright From the Start book gives some high level guidance and there are also a number of instructional books and DVDs on the subject.

We're starting with The Ivy League Baby developmental massage DVD. I'm really excited to watch it - this is something that we could start while in China. All you need is a soft towel, some lotion or massage oil (I think we're going to try Baby Bee apricot baby oil) and calm state of mind.

Have any of you done baby massage? Thinking about it? It's practically free and the benefits are huge.

CCAA update

The CCAA updated their website today, confirming that they have matched through Dec 8, 2005. Congratulations to everyone who will be getting "THE CALL" today or tomorrow!! I'm so excited for you - this is the first month where families in our DTC group will begin receiving their referrals - SOOOO EXCITING!

There are now 39 LID days until they get to ours. Current pace, that would be April. If we're lucky it could be sooner. I'm trying not to think about the unlucky scenario.

Ni hao! Yo! ¡Hola!

So I'm a little bit behind in newspaper reading - I'm reading yesterday's Star Tribune - and noticed a great article about diversity in children's television programming. This was also mentioned in yesterday's transracial parenting workshop, but of course I forgot about it until I saw it again in the paper this morning.

It talks about how much more common diversity is in children's programs than it is in adult prime time television. "Sesame Street" included people of color from the beginning. I remember that from my own childhood. "Zoom" too - remember "Zoom"? Morgan Freeman was the Easy Reader. Yet prime time tv only has four shows that feature people of color in lead roles.

The other great thing about the new kid's shows like "Dora the Explorer", "Go Diego, Go!" and "Ni Hao, Kai-lan" is that they make multi-lingualism cool. How great is that?!

You can read the whole article here (click on the word here). You can also learn more about "Ni Hao, Kai-lan" on Nick Jr's website at http://www.nickjr.com/shows/ni-hao-kai-lan/index.jhtml

Transracial parenting

Today Rob and I went to a transracial parenting workshop at Children's Home Society. The main speaker was Deb Reisner who is the program director of The Harambee Village. Deb is a terrific speaker who is the mother of five transracially adopted children . It was a very good program and I'm so glad that Rob and I were able to attend together. More that anywhere else, this is one area where we need to be on the same page for the sake of our child(ren).

One of the resources we learned about today was a PBS documentary about race. It's from 2003, but is still very relevant. Here's a link to the companion website (click on the work link). Part of what's included on the website are ten things everyone should know about race:

1. Race is a modern idea. Ancient societies, like the Greeks, did not divide people according to physical distinctions, but according to religion, status, class, even language. The English language didn't even have the word 'race' until it turns up in a 1508 poem by William Dunbar referring to a line of kings.
2. Race has no genetic basis. Not one characteristic, trait or even gene distinguishes all the members of one so-called race from all the members of another so-called race.
3. Human subspecies do not exist. Unlike many animals, modern humans simply haven't been around long enough or isolated enough to evolve into separate subspecies or races. Despite surface appearances, we are one of the most genetically similar of all species.
4. Skin color really is only skin deep. Most traits are inherited independently from one another. The genes influencing skin color have nothing to do with the genes influencing hair form, eye shape, blood type, musical talent, athletic ability or forms of intelligence. Knowing someone's skin color doesn't necessarily tell you anything else about him or her.
5. Most variation is within, not between, "races". Of the small amount of total human variation, 85% exists withing any local population, be they Italians, Kurds, Koreans or Cherokees. About 94% can be found within any continent. That means that two random Koreans may be as genetically different as a Korean and an Italian.
6. Slavery predates race. Throughout much of human history, societies have enslaved others, often as a result of conquest or war, even debt, but not because of physical characteristics or a belief in natural inferiority. Due to a unique set of historical circumstances, ours was the first slave system where all the slaves shared similar physical characteristics.
7. Race and freedom evolved together. The U.S. was founded on the radical new principle that "All men are created equal." But our early economy was based largely on slavery. How could this anomaly be rationalized? The new idea of race helped explain why some people could be denied the rights and freedoms that others took for granted.
8. Race justified social inequalities as natural. As the race idea evolved, white superiority became "common sense" in America. It justified not only slavery but also the extermination of Indians, exclusion of Asian immigrants, and the taking of Mexican lands by a nation that professed a belief in democracy. Racial practices were institutionalized within American government, laws and society.
9. Race isn't biological , but racism is still real. Race is a powerful social idea that gives people different access to opportunities and resources. Our government and social institutions have created advantages that disproportionately channel wealth, power and resources to white people. This affects everyone, whether we are aware of it or not.
10. Colorblindness will not end racism. Pretending race doesn't exist is not the same as creating equality. Race is more than stereotypes and individual prejudice. To combat racism, we need to identify and remedy social policies and institutional practices that advantage some groups at the expense of others.

The website has a lot more information. I encourage everyone to check it out. You may also be interested in http://www.understandingrace.org/ which a project of the American Anthropological Association and is related to the Race exhibit that was at our local science museum last Spring. I could have sworn that I wrote something about that at the time, but I can't seem to find the post.

One somewhat unsettling observation I made today was that in a room full of people only very few had Asian or Latin American children. Most of the parents in attendance had African American children. I'm hoping that has something to do with the timing of families moving through the processes of the agency hosting the event. I would not like to think that parents of Asian and Latin American children do not realize that their families are multiracial. Racisim and white privilege are very real, important issues that will affect our children and it is our responsibility to educate ourselves so that we can support and advocate for them.

Another resource is Anti-Racist Parent at http://www.antiracistparent.com/ if you haven't already discovered this site.

Toy box - check. New project!!

Nora's toy box is just about done. I'm still waiting for the polyurethane on the lid to dry before we put the hinges on, but I couldn't wait to show it to you. Rob says that my lettering looks Dr Seuss-ish; I just think it is playful and fun.

Here is it with the cushion. I think I'm going to make a pillow too (probably with the fabrics reversed - green stripe for the body and pink butterfly for the piping)
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Now that the toy box is done, I'm ready to move on to our next project - Nora's dresser! I had an old walnut dresser that I bought at auction several years ago. It is similar in style to a dresser of my Grandma's that my mom refinished for us (top photo at left - don't worry, I'm not touching that one) and originally I thought that they could be a set. The auction dresser, though, isn't really in good enough condition for a natural wood finish and I'm not sure there's room enough in our bedroom for another big piece of furniture, so I decided to paint it for Nora's room.

I've selected a light green paint color and plan to do a medium green glaze on top (it's the top two colors on the paint chip in the photo to the left). I've never used glaze before, I hope it's not too hard. I bought the faux finish DVD at Home Depot, but it shows something fussier than what I want. So, I've invented a hybrid approach using a combination of the technique described on the faux finish DVD and what I read in the Ralph Lauren paint flyer I picked up. What I *think* I'm supposed to do is:

1. Prime the piece
2. Paint it the base color (light green)
3. Apply glaze (one part medium green paint mixed with four parts glaze) with a wide paint brush
4. Apply protective polyurethane topcoat
   

Will that work? Any pointers?

Playing with your food

I've been reading that Bright From the Start book and one of the activities the author suggests is playing with these kinds of interactive food books to help a child build focus. According to the book, this kind of activity helps develop connections to the frontal lobes of the brain. When we saw the books at the store this morning I knew that we had to get them for Nora. There are also M&M books, but as much as I love M&Ms I would feel better about feeding my child Cheerios.