OmegaMom

That’s a lot of acreage, dude.

That’s 468 to 1004 square miles.

That’s the size of the wildfires in the Texas Panhandle.

Holy cow. That’s huge. That’s in one day.

Any of my readers from that area? Stay safe!

OmegaDotter was a dog today.

She was boppin’ around on all fours, going, “Woof! Woof!”, bringing me and OmegaDad things in her mouth.

OmegaDotter developed a cold yesterday after our outing (OmegaDad blames the outing; I blame two weeks of germs festering in the body that suddenly decided to erupt). This is actually related to the dog thing, I promise!

See, OmegaDotter has a record of being violently opposed to medicine in all forms. My daydream has been that some saintly pharmaceuticals company scientist will finally develop The Child’s Cold and Flu Patch^TM, and she (or he) will immediately be hailed as a hero by parents of toddlers everywhere and nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by common acclaim.

Unfortunately, this remains a daydream. Thus, when the dotter is sick, the OmegaParentalUnits have to resort to bribes, ice cream, threats, and finally, when all else fails, physical force to get the dotter to take medicine. No matter what delicious kid-appealing flavor the medicines come in, there will always be The Aftertaste, which is, as everyone knows, just plain nasty. The end result is a horrid scene.

However! On three separate occasions, the doggie willingly and eagerly did an “up” command and got–medicine!–as the “treat”! Will wonders never cease.

(The doggie also got horsie stuff as a reward for being so good. OmegaDad has become quite the connoisseur of cheap plastic horsies, locating them for circa $2 at Target, Walmart [the Evil Empire], and other places.)

The Washington Post has an article about the Hunan situation, “Stealing Babies for Adoption”.

Brian Stuy, of ResearchChina.org, who was quoted in the article, has a few comments. He has written about the Hunan situation a few times in the past; it’s well worth searching out his other posts on the subject.

His contention is that the people trafficking to the orphanages are typically people who are, one could say, “liaisons” between found abandoned children and good orphanages and between parents looking for an alternative and the same orphanages.

From what I’ve read, the CCAA is ramping up to (a) encourage more domestic adoptions, and (b) really try to ensure that the orphanages that provide children for international adoption are on the up-and-up.

But the problem remains: an infusion of hard U.S. currency into countries with economic difficulties (or, in the case of China, areas with economic difficulties) is almost guaranteed to bring on the type of corruption and baby-brokering/buying that has caused other countries to close off their international adoption programs.

A lot of people who adopt from China do so because of the squeaky-clean reputation of the system. Large numbers of babies are abandoned, they are in orphanages, they need homes, the centralized system keeps all international adoptions on the same level, so there’s no unpleasant surprises for adopting parents once they get to China. And, of course, if you know you want a daughter, given that 95% of the babies adopted from China are female, it would be the logical place to go.

The question is, will the changes the CCAA is making keep the corruption level low? How many potential adopters are looking at the news and asking themselves, “Is this just the tip of the iceberg?”, and then turning away from China?

It would be nice if the government of China would practice transparency on this particular issue. The clampdown on news reportage (I seem to recall that the BBC reporter who ran the news on the trial wasn’t there “officially”) is a Bad Idea. Of course, it’s very Chinese to keep a lid on news stories that paint a less-than-rosy picture of a situation; in the same case, it’s very U.S.A.-ian to play “dueling points-of-view” with newspaper accounts.

For those who would like a deeper understanding of Hengdong, here’s a description written by a gentleman who made a special trip to China to learn more about the region where his daughter came from. Enjoy.

OmegaMom is really doing the Snoopy Dance now.

So far, we have gotten 24 inches of snow. We may get a little bit more; the Winter Storm Warning is still in effect until noon, but the sun has just peeked out from behind the clouds.

OmegaMom and OmegaDotter went out to play in the back yard yesterday afternoon with Dawg, who adores snow and shovels it with his nose…then we went off for a walk around the neighborhood. OmegaMom promptly slid on her butt a few times on the (extremely) slick road, as did dotter. Lots of snow was eaten, thrown, and packed.

Last year, a slide onto her bottom would have precipitated a very unhappy little girl who would want to go inside Right Now!, but this year, she stayed out until her cheeks were beet red and her sweats were soaked through and coated with packed lumps of snow. What a difference a year makes!

(Miss C.: Ahem. The “Southwest” encompasses a huge elevation range, from below sea-level in Death Valley, to the Rockies in Colorado. We live at 7000 feet; a typical winter will see us having about 90 inches of snow. This is the first snow we’ve had all year. CA, I think this will push the start of fire season out to the normal late May/June timeframe, for which I am very thankful!)