It’s been 9 years since we launched MotherTalkers, and what a wild ride it’s been. We created a thriving community here that has experienced births, deaths, break-ups, new friendships, and terrible election outcomes together.

And the good news is we will continue to do so but in different ways due to other commitments by the moderators. If you are a regular poster here, please join the MotherTalkers 2.0 Facebook group. This is a closed group for regular posters – no lurkers, please.

If you are a lurker and would like to keep up with any of the original MotherTalkers moderators – Elisa Batista, Erika Bleszinski or Gloria Riesgo – please follow us on Facebook. Elisa also regularly blogs for MomsRising.org and in Spanish at MamásConPoder.org. Please keep reading –and writing! – to her there.

Various members of the community plan to continue to write for MotherTalkers — so please don’t stop reading and continue to support them!

Thank you for your loyalty and for making this community as dynamic as it has become. Much love – and see you on Facebook! xo, Elisa, Erika and Gloria

What’s up?

What are your holiday plans? My awesome employer has given us the week of Christmas to New Year’s Day off (paid). I plan to take of the 24th, too, since Noche Buena is when Latinos traditionally have our big meal and many families open presents, too.

In celebration of President Obama’s announcement on Cuba, I am planning on preparing a Caribbean feast this Wednesday: Puerto Rican pasteles (our version of tamales), which I plan to buy prepared. I will cook Cuban black beans, yellow rice, an avocado salad and prepare a non-alcoholic coquito, or Puerto Rican egg nog, so that the kids can have some, too. Of course, the rum will be on the table for the adults. lol!

My friend Amy is going to try her hand at Cuban cheesecake and fried plantains. A Caribbean feast with family and friends — what a blessing!

On that note, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday! What are your plans?

What’s up?

I am still on la-la land regarding Cuba. Following President Obama’s announcement to ease restrictions on U.S.-Cuba relations, I couldn’t stop googling speeches, reactions, and reaching out to family. I emailed a cousin on the island and began looking for photos from my visit to Cuba in 2002. I shared in great and painful detail my father’s immigration story and had my kids watch the President’s speech. Just as Cuba was a big part of my childhood in Miami, it is part of their history, too.

Here are the items that piqued my interest immediately following the President’s historic announcement:

• Video of President Obama’s speech
• Video of President Raul Castro’s speech (transcript in English)
• Video of protesters — divided along generational lines — in front of the historic Versailles Cafe in Miami

Here are two nuanced — and hopeful! — pieces by extraordinary Cuban-American writers:

“Sound bites don’t capture maturity of Cuban exiles,” Fabiola Santiago for the Miami Herald

“Cuba has always been a fantasy. Can it ever be something close to normal?” Cristina Garcia for the Guardian

For my family’s part, it is bittersweet. Yet necessary. It is a painful experience to be uprooted from your country when you didn’t want to leave. But we realize that the embargo hasn’t worked the last 56 years. It is time to move on.

The morning following the President’s announcement, I received a response from my cousin on the island. It was warm, inviting and she ended it with, “We are all family and we are all Cuban.” I am getting the itch to return to the island and take the kids.

On that note…Happy TGIF all! What else is in the news? What’s up with you?

What’s up?

Glad to see my holiday photos put to good use — including this fundraiser for MomsRising!

It’s that time of year, folks. I am sure I am not the only one approached by friends’ and friends of friends’ non-profit organizations asking for donations. But I do want to share with you why I gave to MomsRising long before I became a staff member here, and why I continue to give annually even though it is nowhere near required of me as an employee.

MomsRising is the one organization that speaks to all of the issues I most care about: healthcare for all, fair pay, food justice and immigration reform, to name a few issues. And our organizing model, both social media campaigns and lobbying in person in in-district offices across the country and on the Hill, is unique and effective. Just check out this list of 26 victories from 2014!

I feel incredibly fortunate to be a part of it all. Please do keep us — MomsRising! — in mind at any end-of-the-year charitable giving. We have a donor who has offered to match all donations dollar-for-dollar.

Thank you so much! How are you this morning?

What’s up?

I did it! I was rundown with a cold, but I managed to send out all holiday cards and package gifts to ship to family and friends this morning. Whew!

I can let down my hair and sip some wine — which I did, too!

And yet, one more reason Shonda Rhimes is a bad ass. Her speech accepting the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award is available in its entirety at BuzzFeed. Make sure that the tissues are nearby!

What else is in the news? What’s up with you?