If you haven’t adopted children from a place like Haiti, then you might not understand the depths of what goes on in the hearts and minds of adoptive parents like us. In which case, you have no right to criticize us for our feelings and thoughts (i.e., to all of you who seem to get off on leaving hurtful anonymous comments on our blog: please don’t leave any nasty comments to this post– I’m just going to delete them anyway so it is just a waste of your time). Having said that… Braydon and I have minds that go-go-go non-stop ALL. THE. TIME. We can’t help it, it is just the way we are. One whole category of thoughts that we can’t halt is a running stream of consciousness of compare-and-contrast regarding our boys. We try to stay educated on what is happening in Haiti. We try to always be mindful of our boys’ roots. Especially now, as they are so young, it is important that we do that because they can’t do that for themselves yet. And so we do. There are thoughts — many of them — that we don’t share on this blog and that we rarely share with anyone but each other. Mostly though, we just try to remember. The photo at the top of this post was taken by Troy Livesay (link to the Livesay Haiti Blog by clicking here). Troy took the photo recently in Port au Prince. Not that it even matters (all things considered), but the photo was taken in a part of Port au Prince that is not even the “worst” part. K & O were born in the “worst” part — Cite Soleil. The photo below it is of K & O playing in our front yard on Wednesday evening. Click the photos to enlarge them. We try not to get up on our soap box… but for anyone who is considering adopting from Haiti — please always know that you can contact us for support and encouragement at any time. Compare and Contrast. ~HBJ