disappointed.

when we met with abuelo and step-abuela they wanted to commit to how often we would meet. paul and i weren't ready to commit to that and told them we'd like to keep it flexible. after our breakfast i got an email a couple days later thanking me for meeting. i wrote back. then i sent a photo album. then i sent a video of the kids opening the christmas presents they had sent. i have not heard back to any of the following 3 times i contacted them. i'm not sure what to make of it. but i'm disappointed. for some reason i thought we'd strike up this loving relationship. sort of meet the fockers meets guess who's coming to dinner. and now i feel like i went out for coffee with someone who was proposing and now i can't get them to meet me for a sandwich.
*sigh*
and then i wonder if it has bigger consequences. like they know something i don't know that i should know. or something.

karma baby.

tonight we went to kohl's to exchange some shirts i got paul for christmas. for some reason medium looked HUGE so i got him all smalls. every single shirt small. well, he tried them on today and whoa. he's not a small. we made our exchanges and checked out, and paid the difference put coats on the kids and headed out. as soon as i got karyssa in the car i said "you've got my wallet?" paul looked at me nuts and said "no!" that's when i realized something in the last 2 minutes had gone awry. i went through my kohl's bag. i checked in my seat. i checked all over around the car. i walked back into the store...correction...ran back into the store. i went up to the guy that checked us out and he said "no, if i'd seen it i would have told you." it seemed odd. i went back out to paul we searched the cart again. we searched under the car. we searched all the seats. paul went back in. again the guy wasn't incredibly helpful and we both began to suspect he knew exactly where my wallet was. he came back out and as we pulled away i looked at our spot one more time. no wallet. i said "did they take your number so they can at least call us?" and he realized no one had done that. he went back into the store and i could see from the car things were escalating. something wasn't right. i parked the car and hauled both kids back in side. at this point asher is screaming hungry. (he's not eaten well for days because he's getting teeth.) and by now i'm SURE our cashier knows full well what's going on. i said i'm about ready to call the police. i am getting more pissed by the second at this point. the manager (who was all of 19) watched the video and said he could see me pay and put the card back in my wallet then the wallet back in my left pocket. where i now have an empty cheerios container. why i put it in the only full pocket i have is beyond me. but lets get back to how it's all the cashier's fault. then he checks the video of the parking lot and paul watched it with him. all the way down the sidewalk i go with the wallet in my pocket. no one around me for steps. but then there's this blank spot over by the far doors that's not on the video. we searched and searched and searched. the bushes. the parking lot. the car. the kohl's bag. the shopping cart. the parking spot. everywhere. we finally had to come home and eat dinner. we called all the credit cards and bank cards and cancelled everything. then it dawned on me-at this point we know full well it is not the cashier's fault and we did not apologize. we walked in, he did his job, we shat upon his night and left. um. that's not good. so i pulled out the receipt and called the store to leave a message like a chicken. they gave me right to the cashier. ugh. now i've got to apologize "face to face". i told him in the tizzy of leaving we hadn't apologized and i was so sorry and he interrupted and said "ya and your whole family was watching me!" (we had bumped into some friends while leaving the store so they stood with us in a mob ready to bust some knee caps until we saw the video.) i said "i know! i realize-and they knew too that it was on the video. i apologize. i am so sorry! it was not your fault at all and i felt awful!" with that he chippered up. he was seriously still pissed at us - and, i must say, rightfully so. a few minutes later tatum started barking like a banshee. i took her outside to pee and a cop pulled up. um. this is not normal. i took tatum back inside and the cop said "are you sheri?" (i did not correct him-my name is pronounced cherie). "yes......did you find my wallet!!!!" a customer at kohl's had found it. "WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST GIVE IT TO KOHL'S!!??!!" "she didn't speak english...she took it home to her husband that did speak english and he called the police." she didn't know what to do! she found my wallet, complete with the $6 cash in it, didn't know it was safe to give it to kohl's, finished her shopping, went home and called the police.
and this is where i believe in karma. i was so glad i had already called the cashier BEFORE my wallet was found so i could clear my conscience. and then my wallet came back to me. THANK GOODNESS. now i just have to wait for all my new credit cards to come in. oh jeez.

a date with daddy

karyssa LOVES to have dates with paul. this morning he took her out for hot chocolate and a park date. she gets all dressed and i did her hair. she was so excited she was standing by the door jumping up and down. i LOVE to see her so excited and love to know it's because she gets to spend alone time with her daddy.
asher and i are staying home to clean and cook. he is wearing his dinosaur pajamas and they are so cute i might just keep him in them all day long.
can these babies GET any cuter? no. i think not. they are pretty darn impossibly cute.

i need to put on my big girl pants

*sigh*
sometimes it still hits me. infertility. passing on my genes. having kids that "look" like me. knowing where they come from in the gene pool. and it makes me feel sorry for myself all over again. and then it makes me mad that i feel sorry for myself all over again. i used to be a part of this infertility support group on line. it was a huge help for me in getting over and past my miscarriage and through the struggle of getting pregnant. and then one day i was just over it. i was doing acupuncture. i was on my sugar diet. i was tracking my cycles. we were already fostering karyssa. so i just stopped checking in. but some of my infertility friends spilled over into my facebook friends. i'm so happy for the ones that i still keep in touch with. it's nice to see where their lives go. what kids enter their world and how, whether it's through ivf, iui, natural pregnancy, and even foster-adoption.
but for some reason when they are pregnant, again, i wonder...am i a quitter for not continuing to try? should i have continued to stab in the dark? would i feel any more sense of hope? or would i just feel continual failure and frustration month after month of not being pregnant? i'm so happy with my life right now. i have my girl. i have my boy. i can't imagine life with out them or them with anyone else. i know i'm the best mom in the world for my kids. but it still stings to see a pregnancy announcement, or a sonogram picture. i guess if i had a clear diagnosis that i have ____________ and that's why i'm not getting pregnant it would help. but my eggs are so good i could be an egg donor if i were 2 years younger. and no one, not the doctors, not my acupuncturist, not my fertility friends, not books, can tell me what it is that i have that prevents me from carrying on this simple task. it's just a weird feeling that for whatever reason i can NOT create life. this simple task. the only reason we were really put on earth. and i can't do it. what's wrong with me? why can't i do that? and when will this feeling stop biting me when i'm least prepared for it?

ME!

tonight we went to the festival of lights here in town. afterwards it was time for me to take paul back to his car and karyssa started repeating from the backseat "me! me! me!" which, in karyssa-eese means "i want to go with you." so she got to go to the store for milk AND got to ride the horse afterwards. i love that baby girl more every day!!!!

touche'

today karyssa brought me the newspaper bag with her socks in it declaring its contents. i said "very good! what else can you put in the bag?" and she said "poop!"
yes...that is what we use for tatum poop bags but we typically don't put her socks in there with poop.

resident cheerleader

i never noticed how much of a cheerleader i was until i had a parrot in the house. now every time anything exciting or not-exciting happens we hear a "WOO!" come from below. i love when she does it in the car because i see her tiny little fists go up from her carseat.
the other day we pulled into our complex to hear "home! woo!" and at thanksgiving when it was time to open presents "woo!" and when we're getting in the car "park! woo!" or "church! woo!" i love that she loves church that much. i hope she's not disappointed when she grows up to find out that we don't have a huge play structure in the sermon.
ok-gotta run and clean the house. woo!

this is my life. ? ! * )

i'm not sure how to punctuate that statement. today we had breakfast with our birth mom's dad and stepmom. i have no idea how she feels about it because she doesn't write back to my letters and she skipped out of every meeting social services set up for us to ever meet. this is very hard. it's hard to predict how someone you've never met might feel when the only thing you know about them is the back of their head in court.
needless to say, all day long i've been mulling our meeting over time and time again in my head. sometimes i think: this is my life. other times i think: this is my life? and then again: this is my life! or: this is my life* literally any of those endings will do with how my feelings are today.
karyssa couldn't come because until today we didn't know exactly how much contact they had with her. we found out today-it's not much. which is sad, but on the other hand that clears the whole how-will-she-react-to-seeing-them-again fears. she's going to think we're eating breakfast with another mentor couple probably.
it was tough. it was amazing. it was eye opening. it was affirming. it made me question all kinds of things i hadn't questioned before. it was a blessing. it made my heart ache. it warmed my heart. it made me feel confident. it shook my confidence. it was all kinds of things. but mostly it was 2 hours giving to a man something that no one else on the planet could give him. the gift of meeting his first and only grandson. we didn't have to do it. we could have left it at pictures and emails. we could have told them too little too late. but we didn't.
we met them for breakfast and got there first. i sat asher, intentionally, between me and an empty seat at the table. after a few loooong minutes of waiting with my teeth clenched and my heart getting heavier with every passing minute thinking "are they really not going to show up for a meeting they requested with their grandson!?" they came. smiling, late and lost. they came. abuelo (his new bloggie name) laid eyes on asher and i picked him up out of his highchair and handed him over. abuelo's hands were clammy. he was so excited. and so nervous because they were late. later step-abuela admitted that they had gotten into it because he was trusting that she knew where she was going. he held on to asher until the food came. he ate quickly, the whole time playing with asher, then he picked him back up from the highchair. i am not sure he took his eyes off of him the whole time. if it's possible for a man to have a pregnancy glow, abuelo did. we finished breakfast after an hour and a half but it wasn't for 41 more minutes before he was ready to hand asher back over to part ways. at one point i asked him "so, what do you think?" and through tears in his eyes and his wife translating he said "this makes me so happy to get to meet him. you have made me very happy and i really appreciate you doing this." *ugh* rock in my heart! and i realize this isn't about me and how i feel. it's about the kids and their connection to where they come from. this man is where they come from. don't get me wrong-they are still MY babies (paul would say OUR babies) but regardless of how much they are mine, they come from his blood. asher does this thing where he does the left handed smack, as we call it. on everything. the tub, the table, the floor, his exersaucer. all the time the left handed smack. what was the first thing abuelo did when he put asher down to eat? he reached over and smacked the table. not AFTER asher did it-BEFORE asher did it. asher smiled real big as if to say "finally! someone who speaks my language!" and smacked back. in all the months he's done the smack not once did i think to smack back. not once! what is wrong with me? when we met for our ice breaker he couldn't keep his hands off of that little wirey toy with the beads? you know-they're in every waiting room that anticipates children. it's got all these wires that go in every direction and it's got beads on each wire....couldn't stop touching it. guess who else can NOT leave those things alone? karyssa! i told him today that i had noticed that. although i'm not sure it was translated exactly. i think it was translated as "karyssa likes those wire and bead toys." i don't think it was explained to him that i had noticed how much he was like karyssa. which leads me to my next epiphany. *sigh* i need to learn conversational spanish. shameful that it has taken me this long to come to this conclusion but i realize as long as i don't abuelo will always be an outsider for our meetings. and for the sake of our kids and his relationship to them, i don't want that. not sure how i'm going to hurdle that desire but i'm putting it out there in the cosmos as a hold-me-to-this kind of thing.
anyway. today was a big exhausting day. all in all i feel like paul and i have gotten thrown into an arranged marriage where we got to meet and fall in love with the groom and THEN met all of his family.
i'm not sure why god gave this life to me...but this is my life!

on with life and such.

yesterday asher climbed the stairs. he got half way up. up on the landing before i realized life was WAY too quiet. i had put karyssa in a time out and when i called her to tell her she was done she came up to me smirking. hmm. i thought. that's an odd post-time-out look. that's when i looked around the corner just in time. tonight i let him climb up to show daddy how he could do it. he's starting to understand commands. i said "asher, come climb the stairs and show daddy how you do it." and sure enough he crawled over to the stairs and climbed on up. sweet little bug.

karyssa has started dressing herself. on tuesday she was sick with a fever so i was just going to let her stay in her jammies all day. around 10:00 she went upstairs and came back down wearing a shirt (backwards) and then i went in there and helped her pick out pants. the last couple days she's dressed herself again. each day with her shirt backwards. the first day i left it, the second day i fixed it for her, and today i showed her wear the tag is so she can do it herself. tonight after dinner (spaghetti night always requires stripping down to diapers) she redressed herself with the tag in the back but inside out. one step at a time. she'll get it.

while i was making dinner she came up to me with a kleenex and blowing her nose. THANK GOD! i was beginning to think we'd never get past the picking the nose phase. so i gave her a smartie and told her how proud i was that she used a tissue instead of picking it. then she wanted another candy. i told her "no more candy until after dinner. remember why you got the other piece of candy? because you blew your nose instead of picking it." she turned around and toddled off to the bathroom and came back with a fresh kleenex blowing her nose again. d'oh! smart little thing.

heartache

yesterday i had a conversation with someone from the county. she's not a case worker but she's in the mix.
i'm so discouraged.

SO discouraged.

they've all been spouting to me the past few months that "studies have shown that children do better with birth family." i do not agree. plain and simple. do. not. agree!!! there are exceptions to this. i have seen it and it can be successful to have birth family in the mix but it is not an across-the-board-blanket-statement kind of thing. selected members of selected family MIGHT be appropriate but i do not believe that ALL children do better with ALL birth families.

i ask my cousins and adopted family questions all the time about how they would feel if ________. they all disagree with the "studies have shown..." comment. i told my case worker "i know 'studies' show that...but no one in my real life shows that." and her response was "well my question would be how open was their adopted family to contact?" to which i stood up, scratched her eyeballs out and kicked her out of my house. ok...so i didn't do that last part. i bit my tongue and counted the minutes until she left.

so what was so upsetting yesterday? i have been put on probation for the mentoring. supposedly she just wants to meet with all of the mentor families...but she wanted to talk to me about a certain instance where karyssa hit one of our mentor moms and got a time out. i explained that karyssa is a child that if she gets to do something once she'll expect to do it everytime. for instance, if i let her touch the christmas tree, that will be something she expects to do every time. i have to be very consistent with her. i can't give her a time out once for hitting and not give her a time out the next time. to which she responded "is your tree tied down?" i said "what do you mean?" and she told me that she had a hook in her wall and every year she tied the tree to her wall. i'm imagining the kids climbing the tree while it flops from one side to the other. why would you not just tell your kid to leave the tree alone? my 9 month old already knows the rules about the tree. give me a friggin' break. (ok-friggin is NOT the word that comes to mind there but i'm trying to keep in PG.) so i asked if they have plenty of foster families right now? and she said "well, we're using family." meaning birth family. meaning they don't need us sub-par foster families because birth family is so great.

so i realized 1-i don't want anyone else from the county in here watching me raise my kids anymore than i have to. 2-a LOT of kids are going to go back to birth family and have no chance at a stress-free life. i know-it's happened for years, decades, like this that kids live in sucky environments...but if there's some way we could prevent that, wouldn't we want to? and 3-taking in more babies might be even more NOT on option that i already suspected.

this is not going to be a long term option. it's been said to me before, and the ghetto proves it time and time again: dysfunction runs in the family. if you grow up seeing dysfunction you don't have any other views of how things could/should go. most of your friends from the ghetto live in homes just like yours where violence is the first resort. i can promise you that kids who spend the first year in trauma filled homes spend YEARS getting over it. so it breaks my heart to think that there are babies out there (and by babies-i mean anyone under 18 years old) living in homes where they see no chance of hope, no semblance of normalcy, no way to get out and no way to stop the cycle and it breaks my heart for these babies. there is nothing i can do because my genes are not tied to theirs. and it makes me wonder why there are any foster parents left if we'll never be anything more than "foster".

life goes on

i keep thinking i'll get a chance to catch you all up on our staycation. well, it's been a busy two weeks. so if i ever get the chance to go back i will. but in the meantime. life keeps happening and i think "oh, but first i wanna put a post about staycation." ah. scrap it.
last night peanut was sitting by the potted plant. AGAIN! pulling dirt out and onto his lap. i told him numerous times "no no!" and then moved him to another part of the room. then it got quiet again and i came out and this time i said (real firm) "BUDDY!!! you are NOT to be playing in that dirt!!!!" and he looked up and smiled at me like i'm the most beautiful thing he's EVER laid eyes on. *gasp* what am i gonna do?! i turned around so he couldn't see me smiling only to catch paul smiling huge. then he turned around as quickly as i did! i was in shock! what am i in for. both kids are fast as lightning now. i'm afraid for when he fully walks. as i type this he's sitting next to me blowing raspberries and giggling from his toes every time i make eye contact. UGH! I love this baby!!!!
sweet pea has become SO affectionate. i don't know if you other fost-adopt mom's have seen that but man it warms me up inside and out. she always accepted it but now she initiates it and it's so cute. this morning she woke up and tip-toed into our room like she does every morning. then she climbed into bed with us and "went spelunking" as paul called it. she loves to "hide, mom!" under the sheets. her words are coming out more and more. when i look back in the journal i realize how much more she's talking now than she did even a month ago. more words and a more confident voice. there's more gusto behind it. she even said "asher" clear as a bell the other day. clear. as. a. bell! and she said "ffffat!" (we were reading the hungry caterpillar.)
anyway-enough for now. i gotta go get my cup of coffee for the day going.

Officially Official.

That's right folks. We are official! I know what you're thinking....why didn't you post it earlier? Well, honestly...I was afraid of a couple things. 1) I don't know who all reads this blog. I can see what city people are from...but I can't see WHO is really checking. And 2) until we were official, we weren't official. And a little, ok, a BIG part of me was having trouble believing it was really going to happen. I mean all the way - the kids have our last name - happen. In fact, in court when it was happening, I didn't believe it until the judge said "Congratulations...it's signed." and honestly, from the moment we stepped into the courtroom until she said those 3 little words, I couldn't tell you what happened. I literally had to watch the video 3 times before I could believe that I was even in the room when it all had happened. The first day it didn't seem real yet. We've had sweet pea since last summer, and peanut since birth, and they've been our "foster" kids. This whole time...foster. And all of a sudden, they're OUR kids. I mean, forever and ever and ever no matter how much they want different when they are going through the teen years, they will be OURS. Our lives were always permanently intertwined with their birth families but now they are forever permanently intertwined with their birth families. it feels weird. it feels nice. it feels....permanent.
so you might as well see some faces huh? here's you go! introducing our forever kids karyssa katahdin faye and brandon asher cole.

is this what it feels like? because it's amazing!

i just checked the mail. these days all kinds of fun stuff comes in the mail. today i got the kids' new medical cards from the state with not only their new last names but their middle initials changed. since peanut is going to go by his middle name it's really exciting to see his. and since we got to give both kids their middle names it feels more real. this is the one section of their name that i got to have a say in. our last name came with paul. but their middle names-those we got to pick ourselves! this is so exciting since i've never gotten to name anything besides our dog! :D can't WAIT for adoption day!! it's all starting to feel so official. i've had a hard time, honestly, calling peanut by his middle name because it just wasn't feeling real yet. but it's starting to.

the cheeks of which i speak

these are the cheeks you can see from the back that i love so so so so so so so so much. adorable! can NOT wait to post pics from the front! soon, my friends! soon!!!

affection

lately sweet pea has been initiating affection. it's amazing. i tell her that her hugs and kisses are like breath to my lungs. it feels like i've never breathed before when she hugs me and all of a sudden i can breathe. she's always accepted affection, but she's never initiated it until this last month. it seems the more final everything becomes the more safe she feels and the more confident she is in her place in our family. i love it. every night we lay down together and read, all 4 of us in her bed. and then she kisses brother man and we kiss her and then we take peanut to his crib and we turn out the lights and leave. sometimes he goes to bed before story time. last night he was sick so he didn't make it to story time. so it was just me, sweet pea, and paul. after story time we both kissed her cheeks at the same time. she LOVES that. she lays there grinning when we do that. and we kiss her approximately 500 times on each cheek. then she pulls her face back so that we kiss each other. and then we kiss her again. and then she kisses us. and then she kisses just paul, then just me. then we kiss her all over again. she loves it. she loves to feel the affection, she loves to see the affection, she loves that paul loves her and she loves paul and paul loves me and i love her and she loves me and on and on it goes and she just soaks it in. i love the way she loves. i tell her how amazing she is and how she's perfect and then i go through and touch her and tell her how her hands are perfect, her cheeks are perfect, her lips are perfect, her eyes are perfect, her legs are perfect and on and on i go. and she just lays there grinning as if not to grin loving to hear how perfect she is. i love that baby girl.

strong and growing....and growing!!

both kids are having growth spurts. the best thing ever about growth spurts is that sweet pea gets these enormous cheeks you can see from the back. i mean-they are the CUTEST! the worst thing is that peanut is awake every 4 hours through the night. wakes up starving crying. ugh!
this weekend i bumped up his foods to the 3rd level...which means they are thicker than level 2 foods. i started giving him mashed up bananas. i moved up (in the same day) to cookies and crackers. i made his bottles even thicker with rice cereal. all of it was just a snack to his little tummy. every 4 hours regardless! paul slept on the couch last night. which i find a tiny bit hilarious. he's so tired and after peanut eats he continues to moan for about 30 minutes. then later when he wakes up with a tinge of hunger he begins to moan some more. for up to an hour when he finally builds up to a cry and will eat again.
the funniest part...his moans have now worked their way into my dreams and i don't even hear him anymore. i hear him when he cries...but when he moans, i don't even know it until all of a sudden he's crying and paul's elbowing me to go feed him. LOL! oh i find this so funny because paul's the one who needs sleep. since he works and i stay home we have this sort of silent agreement that i'll get up with the kids and let him sleep since i can take a nap the next day. but, it's sort of not working out since i now dream through the moans. i can say all this because paul never reads my blog. it might as well be my diary. he's sitting right next to me while i post and he's watching tv completely oblivious to the fact that i'm writing about him and laughing that i know i have a good night's sleep ahead of me with a moaner in the corner of our room. and he'll probably end up on the couch again.

the latest

we have an adoption date! the beginning of next month! which means we have an adoption party! the very next day! my mom and dad are coming to town. paul's parents are taking off work. paul gets the very next week off. and we're gonna have a staycation. can. not. WAIT! for all of the above! so you KNOW i'll be posting pics asap after the adoptions are finalized.
i'm so relieved. i really needed some form of permanency after the last couple weeks shenanigans with our birth family. still not sure what to do there but a good fost/adopt friend said to just get through the adoption and then deal with that. and she's right. first things first. once they are mine i'll have a clearer vision of what we want the future to look like. *sigh*

in other news: i combined the kids' rooms. i put peanut in sweet pea's room in the pack-n-play for a couple nights and he did great. then i committed and put his crib in there. naptime was a disaster but i was sure the novelty would wear off and he would settle in. unfortunately that's exactly what happened. he settled in and just started to moan and groan in there instead of in our room. monday night was the last straw when out of the moans we heard sweet pea scream his birth name...not his adoptive name. i've figured out that's turning into his "trouble name". sooooo he's back in with us. worst. roommate. EVER!!! but it's hard enough to be 2 with out being a sleep deprived 2. i'd rather me be tired and grumpy than her. poor baby. can't WAIT for that 3rd room next spring! come on house!

why you should always ALWAYS wear shower shoes.

this weekend we took the kids to the local rec center. they have an amazing indoor pool with all kinds of kiddie features and a couple slides. one actually goes outside the building and then back in. WAY cool. on our way in we changed clothes in the family changing room and i noticed there was sand in the toilet. curious as to where there would be sand in an indoor pool but whatevs. we swam for about an hour and a half. both kids were literally pooped. we went back into the family changing room and paul took the kids one by one into the shower to wash up. as i was pulling sweet pea's diaper off i noticed tons of sand in her diaper. now i know she went down the kiddie slide and i know she went down the big slide (which was very fast and very dark fyi) but i'm pretty sure she did not come in contact with any sand that i know of. so stumped. until i noticed little bits of carrot from her lunch up by her hip. and then all of a sudden paul and i, at the same time, realized that was not sand but was in fact, watered down poopoopydoo. oops! i have no idea at what point that happened but i suspect it might have been the first time we went down the slide and it was so stark dark you couldn't even see your thoughts. and that is why, my friends, you should always always ALWAYS wear shower shoes no matter how clean a shower looks.

love this little outfit

lately sweet pea has been learning her letters. she cracks me up. she babbles on the phone, sometimes for entire conversations with real people, unbeknown to me...sorry suzanne! and they usually go somewhat like this "mmmmmm i. k. j. elmo. hahahhahaha. f. g. k. E!!! hahahhaha." soooo funny because it sounds like a babble version of me on a phone call.

so the other day i gave her this huge sheet of paper and came back and said "oh! what are you writing?" "i. k. elmo. pete." in that order. pete is a foster friend that we mentored which means he had to listen to me tell him about the foster world for 20 hours. boy do they make our foster couples earn their certificate. anyway sweet pea LOVES pete. isn't it so cute that she's not just scribbling anymore but writing little tiny letter scribbles? she's so smart.

guess what..

guess what's for dinner:

mmmmmmm. PIZZA with fresh homemade dough.


















you pervert! did you think that first picture was something else?!

getting hitched

i have had lots of people tell me they want to foster since we became foster parents. some of them really mean it. some of them have very logical reasons for why it will and will not work. some people need to reconsider their intentions. while you are technically saving the life of a child who may not have other options if the state didn't have foster parents, you have to keep in mind that the child is not going to come into your home and love everything about your good intentions. they won't like your smells. they won't like your cooking. they won't like the clothes you dress them in. they won't like your church, your kids, your extended family. there is more to it than simply signing up, getting a baby and living happily ever after.
AFTER the roller coaster of months and months of documenting reactions to visits and going to court date after court date with your heart in your throat and a lump where your heart should be you get to this magical date when you get to adopt these babies that you fell in love with months or even years ago. and then family starts to request contact. and then you realize just when you thought the roller coaster ride was over, your roller coaster is now permanently (no matter what last name you give the child) connected to their roller coaster. and it won't be for just 18 years. for.EVER. you go up, they come up with you. you go down, they go down with you. you have no choice over who they are or where they come from or where they're going. the only choice you have is how often you chose to ride that roller coaster and then with guilt you chose not to ride and you're the bad guy. i don't know if what i'm saying even makes any sense.
i guess what i'm trying to get across is that fostering is not a flippant idea. it's not something you can do lightly. it's a huge responsibility. your attitude toward the birth parents is paramount the the success of your kids at all times. whether the kids stay with you and get adopted or go "home" or get adopted by kin-every word you say about the birth family is heard by the universe.
just imagine if your child all of a sudden got ripped from your home and put in, let's just say for arguments sake, a Buddhist home. you have no say over what your kid is exposed to, you can ask the county to not let your child go to their buddhist temple. you can request that the foster parents refrain from doing whatever buddhists do to worship their god. but the fact remains that all of the underlying tones and beliefs and pictures and values all come from a buddhist standpoint. are you willing to put away your bible, not talk about your god, take down all christian pictures and bible verses and stop thinking in the christian ways you've been taught to think your entire life? then the buddhist family probably isn't either. now imagine that buddhist kid comes to your house. do you think they are going to embrace your bible, your values, your sayings, your verses, your opinions. NO WAY! they are going to be so afraid because all their lives they've been taught why buddhism is right and why all other religions fall short. everything you've taught your kid about christianity, they have taught their kid about buddhism.
now. are you still willing to open your home and your roller coaster to just anyone from your county? and then NOT judge them. and then hitch your roller coaster to theirs? it's a scary scary day when you are able to swallow all of these things and say yes. i will hitch my roller coaster to yours, not just today and tomorrow but forever and with my opinions to myself and all of the love in my heart for these kids, i will remember that first and foremost, before they were mine, they were theirs.

an hour as a stay-at-home mom

i was skyping with a friend when sweet pea got stung! i have no idea by what. i asked her if it was a bee? "no." a spider? "no." a bug? "bug!" so i have no idea what stung her. she calls flys bees so i'm wondering if it was a bee but she doesn't know what a bee is and when i asked her if a bee stung her she was thinking i was asking if a fly stung her. so then i went to put dinner in the oven and it's frozen solid. so then i made pizza crust, thinking i'll just switch tonight's menu for tomorrow night's but we didn't have cheese. then i remembered we're going to be in boulder for dinner tomorrow night so now i have half thawed chicken and rising pizza dough. UGH. so we went to the store to buy cheese and ran into the old receptionist, nina, from her daycare and i told nina sweet pea was crying because she got stung and she started sobbing all over again instead of just crying. then she sobbed her vitamin, that i gave her "to make her finger feel better", right down her throat and i had to give her the heimlich in the store parking lot. really? is this really what happened to me in just one hour of this afternoon? yes. yes it is.

this is exactly how i feel

a friend of mine sent me this article about why a couple chose to adopt instead of trying again. this is exactly how i felt about it. and remember that my experience with pregnancy ends 100% in miscarriage. but now it's ok because i've arrived.

highly inappropriate game

lately sweet pea has been wandering up to me with her eyes squeezed shut and her arms out in front of her like a zombie. i figured out that she's acting blind. where she came up with this i have NO idea. to my recollection she hasn't seen any blind people...and she certainly hasn't seen them stumbling around like zombies. but she LOVES it when i say "oh it's my blind child! come her blind child!" and then i scoop her up and kiss her all over. it's the FUNNIEST and most inappropriate game we have come up with to date.

hickey thumb

here's a picture of the hickey thumb i told you about two posts ago.

love me some good hickey thumb.

elmo visits the firehouse. and sweet pea has the firehouse come to her.

we have a bedtime routine, for the most part. we brush teeth, change diapers, put on jammies, then me and daddy and peanut crawl into sweet pea's bed and we all read a story together. then, it's time for night-night. last night, we did the drill and came back downstairs and 5 minutes later we heard "CRACK!" on the bedrails then sweet pea screaming waling crying. i ran up there in about 3 steps-i seriously think i missed about 85% of them on my way up. i ran into her room, flipped on the light and saw blood gushing.
for the record, i have been known to pass out cold at the thought of maybe breaking my arm-turned out to just be a big bump and a bruise-but that's beside the point.
i grabbed her up out of her bed and ran her into the bathroom, called* for paul [*read "screamed my head off"] and grabbed a towel to catch the blood. at that point i couldn't tell if she'd broken teeth out, if she'd bitten through her lip, if it was a bloody nose...all i knew was the blackest/reddest blood i've ever seen in my life was pouring out of my tiny 2-year old's face. paul came up in about as much time as it took me to get up there and as soon as he was holding her i ran for the phone and called 9-1-1. at that point i was pretty sure she was going to need a blood transfusion before the ambulance could get to the house. i was shaking in my boots to say the least. the operator was frantically going through her pages "ok...put all family pets away and turn on your porch light." "ok.....um....let me see....um.....if she seems groggy or sleepy turn her to the side but do NOT let her fall asleep." !!!! OK !!!! "ok.....uh...let me see here.....hold the soft part of her nose...not the bridge of her nose but just below the bone and lay her all the way back." by then i handed the phone to paul and went downstairs to watch for the ambulance because i could hear it coming. i flagged them into our place and told them the rundown, she's 2, she's our foster baby, we've had her since last summer, she's gonna be scared of you at first...and he said "how old is she?!" "she just turned 2." ya-my thoughts exactly mr. fireman!"
all in all she did great. the bleeding stopped shortly after they got here. there was one paramedic that was asking me how it happened and i showed him the blood on her bedrail and the laundry hamper. from what we can tell by the amount of laundry she had hauled into her bed, she had been leaning over her bedrail into the laundry hamper and pulling clothes into her bed. she tends to do this often. and i've caught her doing it and she's on her knees...not standing up. but what they weren't sure of is how FAR did she fall onto the bedrail because apparently her face caught her fall. (ugh-i can't think/talk about it too much or i start to get woozy.) we didn't end up having to take her to the E.R. but i'm waiting for all my nieghbor ladies to ask me what happened. i saw 3 of them peering through different curtains through out the neighborhood. today it's discolored-a little yellowish, but i think we're gonna get off with out black eyes. the paramedic said give it a couple days...she still might get them. eesh! this girl is gonna keep us on our TOES!!!

my friends are getting annoyed.

you know that facebook friend that talks about the same thing so incessantly you can hardly stand to see their updates so you end up clicking that "hide" button on them? i'm becoming that friend. i know i am. i talk about the kids and the adoption so much i'm annoying people, i just know it! but i can't help it! i got the freaking cutest kids on the planet and every day it's something new. this weekend it was that peanut has given his thumb a hickey from sucking on it so much. he sucks on that right thumb like nobody's business. when he's hungry, he's sucking. when he's getting sleepy, he's sucking. when we're feeding him, he's sucking...literally...i have one hand spooning food in his mouth and the other hand holding his right hand so he can't suck his thumb! when he's moaning at 3am, yep, you guessed it...he's sucking! the poor thing is gonna have a blood blister before long.
today it's that i've finally started thinking about our adoption party. i went to michael's to get idea's for the invitations/announcements. i just ordered 65 prints of my favorite recent picture of the kids. i can't wait now. now all i need is the date to drop into the invites for our party and we're good to go. that and i need my friend lisa to continue reigning in my "creativity". you see, i'm a hippy on the inside. not in the pot-smoking-peace-loving kind of hippy, but in the dude-we-need-10-more-colors-in-that-square-inch kind of hippy. and sometimes my stuff tends to get tacky because of my love of color. you know, less is more? well, in my mind that holds true for everyone else. so i want to be careful not to let our adoption party get tacky! it's hard when you just want to throw 10 more colors in there!
anyway, this weekend we took 167 pictures of the kids just so we could get ONE good picture of both of them smiling. and we got it. so i have my adoption announcement picture all picked out and ready to go! now i just need a date!!

skiing vs. snowboarding/backpacking vs. car camping

my poor in-laws. i rope them into all kinds of trouble with me. i feel bad. i don't mean to but somehow i get them to say yes and then half way into it i see the look on my father-in-laws face. it's somewhere between "why did he marry her?" and "how am i gonna live to the end of this?" my mother-in-law, i think, secretly loves it. because i'm roping them into things that she loves to do anyway but never had an accomplice to carry through with.

skiers always ask "skier or snowboarder?" and when you admit that you truly love to snowboard and not ski they usually say "well, it was fun being friends for a while." skiers hate snowboarders because apparently we ruin the ski runs with our boards. especially moguls (those bumps that skiers love to maneuver around). i've found this summer that much like skiing vs. snowboarding it's the same thing with backpacking vs. car camping.

and i discovered i'm not a good car camper. in fact, i gave paul permission to divorce me if he felt the need because i completely understand. i just don't have the energy to car camp. i like it to be condensed, just what you need, on your back.

this last week i called my in-laws and said "hey-wanna go camping with me and the kids next weekend while paul's gone?" of course they said yes. today in talking we discovered my father-in-law was under the impression he had signed up for car camping. (pulling up near a camp spot, pulling everything out of your trunk, and camping right where you are.) i was under the impression we would backpack. (putting everything on your back and hiking in somewhere and setting up camp in the woods.) my mother-in-law says in the background "we can give it a try" which i think means "ya! let's do that!" (she loves to backpack) with a hint of "if you want to" implied for my father-in-laws benefit. i'll update you next weekend after the escapade to let you know how it went. i'm sure they'll have something to tell their co-workers about by monday morning.

here's a picture from the last time i schnookered him into camping and really we hiked from breckenridge to copper. this picture was taken shortly before i started questioning if he'd ever say yes to me again.

sneakasauresrex

tatum has become quite sneaky in her old age. every day i put the kids down for a nap and she waits. and waits. and waits for the phone to ring. and as soon as my back is turned and i'm busy on the phone sneak quick as a bunny she's up the stairs. then she lays against the kids' doors until one of them opens where she spends the rest of her afternoon sleeping under peanut's crib (her first choice) or sweet pea's bed (her second, but not sloppy second, choice.) little booger.

loudest roommate EVER!!!!

sooooo peanut has this habit. i may have mentioned it before. he moans in his sleep. when he's hungry or waking up and other nights it could mean "hey-yo-over there-mom and dad-my diapers dirty/wet/still on" or whatever. so last night was a "hmmmm....i've got the runs so i'll let'm know every time i fart"...or should i say "shart"? (for definition watch along came polly.)
anyhoo. last night i decided to count how many seconds his moans were lasting. seriously i think he can hold his breath underwater longer than david blaine. his average is 8 seconds. oh come on now, you think, 8 seconds isn't so long.
ok, imagine for this long: 1 [one thousand], 2[one thousand], 3[one thousand], 4[one thousand], 5[one thousand], 6[one thousand], 7[one thousand], 8[one thousand]. ok-as long as it took you to truly read all of that-we are trying to sleep 3 feet away from mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for that long. and i'm not talking once or twice. i'm talking for a half an hour every exhale. and i said 8 was the AVERAGE. not every single one. some are 7 seconds. others are 10. some are 2. seriously! i get up every 5 minutes and try to shove the passie back in his mouth only for him to spit it out again to get a full moan going. oish! can not WAIT for that boy to have a room to himself. and we can't combine him with sweet pea because HE'S WAY TOO LOUD!!! that said i wouldn't trade him for the moon and the stars. he is the cutest thing even while moaning. LOVE that little man with all my heart and soul!

wheels are turning

today i met with our case worker and she told me our adoption day is going to come sooner than she thought. i said "so like november?" and she said "no...even sooner!" it made me think back of all the different times and ways i've prayed and it reminded me of this post when i had a laundry list of things to pray for. and then i had to go back and remind myself of how all of those requests got answered. so, to not leave you hanging...let me tell you how they were answered.

1. well, obviously, he made it.
2. brace yourselves....i found out in a meeting last week that she began to gain weight "somewhere in the first week of december."
3. so far, so good.
4. it seems to have been a miracle because he is JUST as perfect as Sweet Pea.
5. she was instrumental in keeping the kids together. it was her request, not that he be placed with us, but that wherever the kids go, that they be together. it was dad's request that they stay with us.
6. well, he's here isn't he?
7. that's EXACTLY what happened. EXACTLY.
8. he was born "at term". it was shooting fish in a barrel to figure out the due date but he showed all signs of being born on his exact due date.
9. we handled it. somehow it always works out.
10. paul's has gotten a major promotion and with it a raise that is exactly what i would be making if i had gone part time where i was and worked like a slave.
11. hallelujah! we're able to adopt through the county!
12. she is the sweetest, most caring big sister ever and knew from the moment he entered the door that they were connected. their bond is erie to say the least. even the case workers see it and comment that they know they belong together.
13. he's almost crawling already. he sat up for the first time on sunday. he's 6 months and way ahead of "schedule" for any of his benchmarks.
14. i think she was thrilled because my quitting put money back in her pocket. she's since replaced me twice. we'll see if #2 holds out any longer than the poor first girl.
15. done. and done.

it all has my wheels turning. how soon can they have our last name? how in the world did god answer all 15 of my crazy requests? how could this have been more of a puzzle and it's solved today as i write this standing in my pajamas unable to sleep due to excitement and awe? we know we are beyond blessed. needless to say, when there's a gap in my posts it's because i am processing more than i can write. sorry for the gaps...sometimes i just have no words. but tonight-i can't help but go back and see how it all came together like a magical puzzle.

sweet pea wanted to type so...here you go:

cvujremjotgcnhdskf,vvuuuuuuuuuuuuhjkmi,mn ggggffxxvxxv b

usually when she touches my computer my fonts are huge and my windows are overlapping in ways i never knew possible. she can pull up the hardware settings in a matter of 2 button pushes. this time...she put her fingers on the keyboard and tried to "type" like do by wiggling her fingers and brushing them over the keyboard. (i type almost 100 words a minute w/out errors.) i had to push her fingers down and show her how to get the letters on the screen. doesn't it figure...when i give her permission she can't get a single letter to pop up. if i walk away to get myself another cup of coffee, she'll be corresponding with south korea on a chat i didn't know my computer even had.

girlfriend can HIKE!

today i took the kids hiking. i have realized if i don't write something on the calendar, we don't do anything. so on days that are blank i'm writing in "hiking" or "swimming" or some activity. i gotta keep these kids moving.
anyhow-today it said "hiking", so we went hiking. me and the kids and tatum tu-tu. i put peanut in the back pack and decided this time i'd let sweet pea hike on her own two feet. she has tons of energy-why should i carry them both? she did AMAZING! we went just over a mile and all of that (except a couple little parts where i carried her because it was uphill) she hiked on her own two feet! i was amazed. gravely, rocky cragy, dusty, solid rock, all of it-she hiked. it got pretty windy and she loved the way the weeds waved in the breeze. she went to walk into them and i told her she needed to stay on the trail. i wasn't sure if there would be snakes in the weeds. we then spent the next 5 minutes pointing to the weeds and saying "nake!....nake!....nake!" finally i said "let's talk about something else." i kept thinking she'd just seen one and was tired of jumping out of my skin. then later a HUGE gust of wind came and about knocked us over. i said "whoa! windy!" and then everything was "ndy!....ndy!....ndy!"
tatum thoroughly enjoyed getting to go and take a nice looooong walk.
seriously, i couldn't ask for more perfect kids for me.
here's a picture i took on my cell phone of us looking down on our car.

seriously....is there anything in the world cuter than this...

i'm pretty sure the answer is no. i could put him on his back 400 times a night but as soon as peanut hits the mattress he rolls right over onto his tummy like this. LOVE. IT!

we're renting. ssssshhhhhhhhhhh!

our landlord asked us not to be home tomorrow from 11:30-12:15 because she's having a realtor come by to look at the place to list it and she "didn't tell her the situation" of us living here and her being our landlord. and then she said it should take "about 45 minutes i suppose." ??? i am pretty sure she's retarded. as soon as the realtor finds out she has tenants she's going to know our landlord's lying to her. AND she bought this place using affordable housing program and she's not supposed to have tenants so once she told me if anyone from the city every came by and asked to just tell them that she lives here and we're visiting. yes. us. our two foster kids and our dog. just HAPPEN to be visiting. are you nuts?! and our toys and pictures are plastered all over the place. like the realtor's not going to ask her, as a single woman, why she has half a closet of men's clothes and kid toys/clothes/bedding all over the house and some strange families pictures. uh-huh! suuuure that's a good plan. how 'bout TELLING HER THE TRUTH ya nutjob.
oh - and she doesn't have a copy of the lease because i printed it out off the internet myself two years ago, filled it in, signed it and sent her a copy twice and she kept mailing it back to me and we never reprinted and resigned a new one when our lease was up. so she has nothing to even prove we have to pay her each month we just do because we're honest people.

ice for owies

in our house when you bonk your head on something or get hurt you get a piece of ice in this little mesh pocket pacifier thing. i can't find a picture of it on-line...i'll have to take a picture. anyhow, when sweet pea hurts herself i say "you wanna piece of ice?" and give it to her in that thing and she sucks on it. no matter where she's hurt, the ice is best in her mouth. i should probably warn babysitters that's how she gets ice when she's hurt because i can't imagine how frustrated she would get if they offered her a piece of ice and then put it on the back of her head.

i love a tease

last night when it was time to head to bed peanut was already in his crib since he wasn't feeling well. sweet pea was thoroughly enjoying her alone time with mom-mom and da-ee so she was very reluctant to head upstairs for night-night. even with the bribery of reading books and brushing teeth. she loves to brush teeth. as i headed up the stairs in front of her i looked back to see her taking 1 inch steps across the living room floor to draw out coming upstairs as loooooooooong as she possibly could. ugh. she cracks me up!

like sister; like brother

this weekend peanut's eyes have been watery and he hasn't been eating like normal. we chalked it up to teething. today though, he began throwing up. it's like spit up amounts but it's thick, not like spit up. and then finally he broke out into hives and then threw up and then the hives subsided. in february right before he was born sweet pea went through this weird week long virus where she'd break out into hives, like 20 hives, in a spot about as big as a plum. and it would be on her cheek. then within minutes the 20 hives would move to her leg, then her tummy, then finally she'd throw up. so knowing that, i decided not to wait and to call the doctor right away. they sent me to urgent care and i went through the whole story again. hives, throw up, hives go away, his sister did it in february when she had a virus. sure enough, he's got a virus. but this time, no meds. in february it was when swine flu was going around and they put her on antibiotics right away. this time, we just gotta wait a couple days and see if it goes away on its own. blah. poor little bug! he's miserable. but he smiled through the whole appointment. i told them don't be fooled by the smile-he's really miserable! they must think i'm crazy complaining that my smiling cooing baby boy is "miserable".

movies and graduating from the elmo phase

sweet pea is beginning to grow out of the elmo phase. she doesn't sit down on the couch every day and say "elmo" now. instead she brings me the iron giant video. and whenver harry conic jr's character comes on the screen she points and screams "da-ee!" which means "daddy". and then she smiles and looks at me and screams and points again. it's so funny! i have no idea how we even came about to watch that video. but she watches it DAILY lately. if it's not "gine" it's "cats" (aristocats). and lately instead of turning on sesame street when she asks for elmo i tell her "no tv, we're gonna use our imagination today." and with that she goes and gets her shopping cart and says "mom-mom! mom-mom! mom-mom!" (i'm not mom or mommy, i'm mom-mom) and when i look at her she puts her hand in the air and squeezes a fist in and out and says "bye!" and walks away from me with her cart. UGH she kills me!

i need a glass of water!!!

tonight we tried to watch a movie with sweet pea after dinner. our typical routine is dinner, bath, brush teeth, read a book, night-night. but tonight we decided to switch it up since it is friday. it didn't work. so half way through the movie i said "ok, let's go read some stories and go night-night." reluctantly she followed me upstairs. we didn't do a bath tonight because we did one last night. so i put her in jammies and laid down with her and read some shel silverstein. i warned her that i was going to read just one more but, of course, at the end she asked to "ree" one more. i said, "ok, but this really is the last one." after that one i stood up, kissed her on the forehead and she interupted with "teeth!" we had forgotten to brush her teeth and we're walking a tight-rope with her teeth. we're careful about sugars, we brush like banchies, and we're crossing everything hoping that she's got some adult teeth somewhere in that head of hers. so i said "ok-real fast we'll brush your teeth but then it's REALLY time for night-night." we brushed teeth and got back in bed. finally i was able to leave the room but pretty soon i heard her banging her sippy cup on the wooden bedrails much like a prisoner clangs their cup on the prison bars. it drives me crazy but i have to go up there and stop her because i don't want her to wake up peanut. ugh...she knows my buttons. so i go up and she's laying in bed holding the empty sippy up in the air. she kills me. i filled up the sippy, kissed her one more time and she finally fell asleep. what did i learn from this? i'd better just stick to the routine or be willing to be played like a fiddle.

your dog's missing his beer keg

yesterday i went to the store around 4:30. i prefer to go in the mornings when no one is there since i'm a traveling circus. i either have to put peanut in his car seat up in the kiddie seat in the cart and have sweet pea sit in the "car" part of the cart. i'm about 5'4" so for me to look over and steer that barge through the store is quite a site. my other option is to wear peanut in his carrier and then push sweets in either the normal cart or the car cart. it's just so dang hard for me to see over the car seat and the car part of the grocery cart.
anyway-all that to say...we finish up shopping, check out, go out to the car and there is a blazer parked next to us with all the windows open, including the back hatch and there's a mastiff/st. bernard in there barking his head off whenever we move faster than a snail. so i put the kids and all the groceries into the passenger side of the car because if i go to the trunk that sets him off all over again. and every one walking past is looking at me like "that's a problem." finally i think-ok-i've got my groceries in the passenger side of the car....i can't climb through there...so i push open the driver's side door by leaning over all of the groceries and think when i get a chance i'll hurry around and jump in real fast. um...no. a car pulled up on the other side of the mastiff and that didn't distract him. at that point he's looking at me thinking i'll taste good with ketchup, why give up a good thing and turn his head to see the other side of the car. then a young guy came past and i said, "could you please have the store page whoever has the rabid mastiffs in the blazer to come settle them down so i can get into my car?" he chuckles and goes inside. another woman walks past and looks at me and i said "mmmhm. ya. i can't get into my car until this guy comes back to settle the dog down. i'm about to call animal control." she goes "oh ya...that's not cool." then a store employee comes out and i said "i need help...i'm about to call animal control because i'm getting more pissed by the minute." and he said "i just heard them page him so he should be out any minute." i love that in all this time we all KNOW it's a man that has left this dog in the car. finally here he comes. i know it's him. i can see the smoke stains on his shirt from the parking lot that match the pile of marlboro packs on the dashboard. sure enough, he meanders through the parking lot and comes up, one eye crossed, hasn't shaven in days, showered in weeks and gives me a half grin, which forces me to give him a half grin back. i said "next time you bring your dog to the store you need to park at the end of the lot so other people can get in their cars." he reaches in and begins to pet the beast to calm him down/hold his collar while i get into my car. he said "awe, he's just a puppy." to which i rebuttled "well he doesn't look like 'just a puppy'." and with that i got in the car cursing under my breath so the parrot in the back seat doesn't repeat every word and head home. GRRRRR!

A year ago yesterday....

A year ago yesterday we brought our baby girl home for what we thought would be a few short weeks. Little did we know it would turn into forever! You've made our lives complete Sweet Pea and I can't imagine life with out you! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Yesterday as I was feeding Peanut, Sweet Pea came up and pointed to his eyes "eye!" and his nose, "no!" (the "se" part has yet to come), and his mouth "mouf!" and on and on it went through out his body and then finally right in his ear "ROAR!". He jumped a little. He doesn't appreciate being startled the way she does. I said "oh honey, don't roar in his ear while he's eating, he'll get indigestion." so she leaned down again and whispered "roar!"

oh that baby girl cracks me up every day!

sweet pea's new tricks

lately sweet pea has been playing more independently. it's really cute. except for when she should be sleeping. last night i was about to go run errands but before i went i decided to go tell her one last time to pipe down. i could hear kicking and singing and all kinds of business. one of her new tricks is to kick the sides of her bedrails. i opened the door REALLY quick and she turned super fast, saw me, and laid flat on the teddy bear that had been at eye level when i first whipped open the door. i told her that she was supposed to be going night-night. and left the room before i burst into laughter.
today we went down to denver to see a friend and she fell asleep on the way home. it was my fault. i stayed probably 30 minutes longer than i should have. so when we got home she was getting her 2nd wind. i was ready for my momma time. i put her in her bed and came downstairs to feed peanut one more time. then i heard singing and kicking and went up there one more time. put her back in the right position, instead of cross-ways across the foot of the bed, and headed out. pretty soon i had to go back up there but this time she was poopy-so i changed her and put her back down. i checked on peanut and he too needed changing and was "napping" about as well as sweet pea. after changing them both i came downstairs again for a little momma time. i emphasize on the little. a little later, same thing...kicking, singing, etc...but this time she was whapping that springy thing behind the door. it's on the wall that adjoins the room that peanut was napping in. i went up there and opened the door only to find her with all of her stuffed dogs behind the door and her elmo book cover torn to shreds, not the book, just the cover. i put her back in her bed with her dogs and told her, finally, that she needed to stay in bed, she didn't have to sleep but she had to stay in bed. went back in and found her diaperless, which sent me into a tizzy of giggles because the diaper she was wearing was wet, wadded up and sitting on top of the diaper geenie. she tucked her chin and smiled a big fat chubby cheeked smile and giggled too. at this point i realize she's just so darn cute why make her stay in bed any longer and we came down stairs and painted toenails. well, hers anyway. mine didn't quite make the cut before peanut decided he too needed to be downstairs. so that was naptime today.

**Edited to add that Friday morning she slept 2 hours later than normal. :)

brazen little brat

today we went to the library for reading time only to find out that our energy levels were not library levels, they were more like playground levels. so we went to the park. i noticed there was one woman with 2 girls that seemed to be her daughters. but there was enough voices for 6 kids! then i noticed all of the nice shady places had been taken over by amerian girl paraphernalia. and then i realized one park bench was their closet. one park bench was their bed. one picnic table was their kitchen and at the moment they had taken over a couple of those springy guys that you sit on and they bounce back and forth as their cars. so i set peanut down in the shade under a tree in his seat. sweet pea went to climbing to the top of the slides. the bigger the better, ya know. when she got to the top i realized the rest of the voices were coming from the slide. the remainder of her children had taken up camp in the slide. shoes off, totally camped in. sweet pea squealed with delight to which the woman finally looked up from her texting to say "come on kids-out of the slide". the first one comes down-no shoes. "where are your shoes?" she begins. then another one "you have to keep your shoes on, we're not the only ones at the park anymore." (anymore? i think...how long have you been camped out here?) the third comes down-still no shoes on and she continues "....you have to respect others that want to play at the park..." on and on she goes with blabber that sounds like she's parenting or babysitting but really i know she's just looked up from texting and has no idea what the situation is. we play for about 30 minutes and finally i start doing the countdown. "10 more minutes, pea pod, and it's time to go home" "just a few more minutes" "ok, we'll swing and then it's time to go home." with that i go pick up peanut from his post, put him in closer shade and head to the swings. as i go one american girl doll is in one swing and the other american girl doll is being swung on the other end. the girl at the other end calls down toward the swing she SEES us heading to and says "hailey! save that one for me!!!" i, however, continued to put sweet pea in it and begin to swing. the girl next to me says "no you can't do that!" and i said "yes, but my daughter is a real girl, so we're going to swing." and with that the babysitter realizing an episode is about to be on her hands calls across from her texting spot and says "hailey lynn! it's a public park." can you believe the balls? i would NEVER have done that when i was a kid. i would never have talked to an adult or called down from the opposite end of the swings to tell my friend to "save" me a swing. *gasp* where do kids get such nerve?! am i out of my mind thinking that's brazen? seriously-i want comments.

this is how i ate lunch today

come in from running errands holding the babyseat w/baby hercules on the left arm w/all bags and babybag keeping my right hand free to scoop up sweet pea in case of fits.

put peanut over the boppy pillow to get some tummy time in while i make lunch.

warm up sweet pea's hot dog and slice up her grapes.

check voicemails.

right another appointment on the calendar for 2 weeks out. thank god i had the calendar memorized for the next couple weeks because i get most business done in the car, then call myself and leave all the appointments on the machine. that's right-i am NOT a no phone zone. sorry oprah.

put bread in the toaster for my sandwich.

check peanut.

put ketchup and mustard on sweet pea's hot dog and get her in her booster seat.

start assembling my sandwich.

check peanut again. notice that somehow he has backed himself away from his boppy pillow by about a foot. not sure how he scooted backwards.

give sweet pea 2 chips (anymore and she'll eat all chips and no protein.)

finish putting my sandwich together and take it to the table.

check peanut. somehow now he's face forward OVER the boppy pillow. move him back to just his chest over the boppy.

sit down and take two bites then sweet pea needs a drink. grab a coke for me while i'm in there.

look at peanut to see he's standing on his legs with his chest on the boppy. no crying-so i leave him.

sit down and eat a little more. sweet pea wants another chip. negotiate that if she finishes her hot dog she can have more chips.

get myself more ketchup for my chips. (ya-it's how i roll-like crunchy french fries)

sit down and take another bite.

look up to see why peanut is screaming crying. notice he has face planted himself ON all the toys he was reaching to grab.

get a little excited that a) he's REALLY grabbing for things now and b) he's really close to crawling.

go put him in his exersaucer so that i might finish my sandwich without having to get up again.

come back to the table for sweet pea to push me her empty and very messy glass asking for more water.

get her water and come back to her saying "all done".

wash her off and tell her to go play so mommy can finish her sandwich.

tell her to go play and not climb on mommy's lap so i can STILL finish my sandwich.

finally get to finish my sandwich.

now it's time to get the kids up to naptime. but that's a whole 'nother post.

strong little man

peanut can now stand up in his exersaucer. it's a new thing this last week. he can stand for like a half an hour at a time-not just a minute. he's got the strongest little baby thighs i've ever seen. i put him in there while i was doing laundry and turned around and he was spinning circles and standing up. and now when i lay him down on his back he can roll over to his tummy in no time flat. and in his crib he just spins like a pinwheel. yesterday he was crying up a storm so i went in there to see what was going on and he had pinwheeled himself into the corner of his crib and his head was stuck in the corner. so he couldn't roll in any direction. and that made him mad. have i mentioned what a happy baby he is until he gets mad? he'll let you know when something is not right in his world.

gymnastics

tonight we had our first gymnastics class. oh. my. goodness. that little baby girl has the craziest strong little monkey hands. the teacher kept asking me how old she was. or what she hangs on at home. or what made me put her in gymnastics classes. she did amazing. and she's so freaking brave. if i had a nickel for every time someone said "she's fearless!" i'd be rich already! oh, i did forget to mention that it was me and a bunch of dads and the teacher is a little hottie. i told paul he should go next week but then i thought maybe it's fine if i just keep going by myself. lol. she is super cute and about the size of a minute. she said to one dad "oh ryder, you're taking class again?" and later i realized - it's probably more DAD that wants to retake the class.
little man slept all day. in his seat. during tummy time. he did not sleep during our play date-too much excitement going on ALL around him. but that was it. otherwise-he slept all day! love that beautiful little man!

FLORIDA!!!!!

we took the kids to florida to meet some of my family and relax for a week. it was sooooo nice. we took sweet pea to the beach towards the end of the week but peanut stayed with aunt missy (to be held all day). she loved the water. my parent's house has a pool and she learned to jump in the pool from the side with out holding on to anyone, go under water about a foot, right herself and come up smiling. she was amazing in the water! and peanut just grew and grew the whole week. i'd wake up and look at him and think where'd my baby go?! he is so beautiful. i hate to call my boy beautiful, but he is. his skin is like silk now. for the most part. there's still a couple patches of eczema here and there but his cheeks are perfect. i just want to kiss them all day every day. he's sleeping a ton right now and when he's not sleeping he's eating. he's about to GROW big time.
sweet pea's words are taking off. she's getting smarter by the day! this morning i heard a diaper rip open, then i heard the wipes open up and when i turned the corner and looked she was taking off peanuts diaper and wiping him! so funny! such a little mommy. and while we were in florida she learned to climb out of her pack and play. i found out when i came in after nap time to find her laying cross ways over peanut. jeesh. luckily i heard the commotion just seconds before i went into the room. something new every day with that little thing.

PTSD

today i'm suffering from a bout of post traumatic stress disorder. last night sweet pea pulled out the 2 of all 2's on me. in a RESTAURANT no less! omg. i wanted to MELT into my seat. i wanted to run out of there screaming from the monster she had become. i wanted to put a billboard above our heads saying "i'm just her foster mom-she seems to have been raised by wolves". ugh! i was SO MAD! paul said "what'd you do?" and for the life of me - i can't remember. i think i just froze. i know at one point i gave her a time out. but i also remember seeing her placemat, full with forks, crayons, water cup and straws go FLYING through our booth. shrapnel everywhere. under her chair was a wet chaos i've never seen her produce before. people were looking and pointing. some parents were smiling as if to say "been there. good luck." while others acted like i had brought tarzan to dinner. believe me, i felt like i had! we slithered out of there, forgetting our left overs for obvious reasons, and went next door for ice cream. there emerged the perfect ANGEL i am used to touting about. she crawled up on a bench and made friends with a nice couple with a labradoodle. she hugged all the dogs and waved and said "i'm TWO!" with such pride. i couldn't BELIEVE it was the same animal that had just come out of the saucy noodle just down the street. today we ran errands and i must say i was still in a bit of shock. i'm pretty sure i'm still suffering from some PTSD today. shell shocked is a good word for how i'm still feeling when i think about it.
thank god she's cute because lord have mercy-if she was ugly AND naughty we'd be hated all over denver right about now.

celebration!

we had a birthday party for sweet pea today. we've been telling her that 28 people are coming to celebrate that she was born. we've been getting decorations and cupcakes decorated and preparing all week and all the while telling her that we were doing it for her birthday party. so today when we went to the park to set up and wait for all of our friends and family she had fun playing in the water feature but still didn't understand that it was all in HER honor. until we sang happy birthday and we got to the part where we said "dear sweet peaaaaa" and she sheepishly smiled, looked around her, looked up at me and beamed. it was in that moment that every penny we spent putting this party, this "first" birthday party, together for her TOTALLY worth it. as we pulled away from the park she waved good-bye. she took a nap with her elmo balloons right next to her crib. tonight when i was tucking her into bed i asked her if she had a happy birthday party and she shook her head yes. tonight she went to bed with one of her new books from aunt dawn. i think she finally gets what having a birthday is all about.

here's a picture of her elmo cupcakes. my friend kristin gave me the idea. i added the oreo mouths because elmo needs a semi-circle mouth, dontchaknow.


and here's a picture of the aftermath of her cupcake.


it was an amazing day and i can't thank all of our friends and family that came enough for making it such an amazing and special day for her. it brings tears to my eyes to think of how special she felt today. and that will be with me forever.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Did I mention we had SO much fun camping this last weekend? LOVE camping. All 4 of us. The kids just smile the WHOLE time they are camping. It was Peanut's first expedition so I was relieved to see he loves it as much as his big sister. It was gorgeous and SO much fun to go with our extended family to have people to share in the joy. It looked like the Sahara landed at the end of the Rockies. AMAZING place.

on a more serious note....

sorry to all my bloggie friends for not updating more. i'll just be painfully honest in this post and those that get offended can get over it because it's my blog and it was meant to be my therapy.

i've gotten more pregnancy announcements than i can handle lately. i know. you're thinking "you've got two kids. get over it." shut up. you've clearly never dealt with infertility to the point of adoption so you can just shove it or open your mind to what i might be going through. even though "i've got two kids" doesn't mean i won't mourn the loss of the kids that have paul's genes. or never fearing the dreaded 18th birthday when birth families can come back into the picture. i don't know what to expect with our birth family so it's hard not to think as soon as the kids turn 18 they are moving back in with their birth families never to be heard from again. it's totally their choice. and it's a hard fact to face day after day knowing that if they chose that we're left, once again, childless. not that i know anyone who was adopted that did that...it's just my imagination going wild.

that being said, we are beyond humbled that we get to adopt these children and raise them as our own. they are more like us than their birth families sometimes. we got to meet with our birth dad last week. he told us he's not such a fan of camping. which made me giggle a little bit inside because normally people that like to camp have kids that hate to camp and then their grandkids love to camp. it seems the love of camping skips a generation. so i'm thrilled to know our birth dad doesn't like it. because let me tell you, his kids do. when i pull out the camping gear sweet pea SQUEALS with delight. this last weekend we went camping with our extended family and both kids smiled the whole time.

so...i kinda glossed over that little part where we met with our birth dad. *sigh* it was the most intense hour of my life. i cried. he cried. i cried some more. he cried again. paul just sat real quiet. (that's his version of crying.) but we explained a little bit more about ourselves. i explained that we can't have kids of our own so his kids are it for us. and he said shockingly "why?!" and i just explained "they don't really know. a little of this...a little of that. not real sure." it was interesting to me that he can't imagine why anyone CAN'T get pregnant since it seems to happen when he breathes in the general direction of our birth mom. let's hope he stops breathing on her because we have a little house.

there are days where i have a REALLY good attitude about infertility. but there's days where it still kicks me when i'm down and i can barely pretend to be nice. i'm sure pregnant friends expect a huge congratulations, and i'm terribly sorry i don't have it in me. but i don't. so please don't expect it. also don't expect that i don't want to be friends anymore. that's not the case. but for the next 9 months i won't be looking at your stomach. for some reason i'm still really excited when the babies come and they are out. but i just can't rejoice at the pregnant part. maybe i know too many people with emotionally painful pregnancies that it's hard to rejoice when it's just a pregnancy and not a real live baby. i've known women to lose pregnancies in the 40th week. so to be excited before it's a real live baby is hard for me. i don't know.

this post is sort of a heart-barfing post. there's just so much to update you on and they are so intertwined it's hard to post about adoption without the infertility.

as far as our case goes...it seems like it's all happening so fast i can hardly post fast enough. it feels like all these months of visits and documenting and doctor appointments and court dates and all of a sudden there's no more. no more visits, no more court dates, no more documentation of behaviors. there are still evaluations and therapies but that's a drop in the bucket compared to all the other appointments we've been up against. and then the emotional *whew* of it all being over with. our hearts ache for our birth dad and at this point we will not get to keep contact with him and that's very hard for me and paul. we understand the kids need separation but it doesn't make it any easier for us to know they will have that separation.

i guess there's no good way to wrap up this post. it's so random. but there's what's on my heart. sorry if you're offended. well, honestly, no i'm not.

bites

i remember when her bites were barely nibbles. now when she wants a bite of my food i have to think twice if i'm really willing to give up that much. of course, the answer is always yes. but i gotta think about it. where'd that baby go?! oh ya, she turned into an AdOrAbLe toddler!

is it really bad that....

i like looking at pictures of people who have had kids to see how fat they've gotten? now mind you, i'm no super model. but sometimes it's the only way i can one-up infertility. just to think of how fat others get that DO have babies and how i'll never have to say "i just gained 60 pounds!" my arms aren't defined hardly at all anymore but they aren't THAT flabby. and my tummy isn't an hourglass shape by any means but it's not THAT tubby. really...am i so wrong that i secretly gloat at these things?

the devil's in the details

yesterday was our mother's day re-do since last week i decided that i wanted to celebrate it.
paul was being extra helpful around the house. when sweet pea woke up from her nap he changed her diaper. then later told me she had gotten something on her shirt...he wasn't sure...it was either spaghetti sauce, or poop.

then it dawned on me...she had a turkey sandwich for lunch...not spaghetti.

CHANGE HER SHIRT!!!!! ack!

oops-need to clarify post below

i cried yesterday because of our poor little birth dad. not so much about having to cross t's and dot i's. i'm sort of used to that if there is such a thing. i guess i'm now expecting the unexpected. it just breaks my heart to think of our birth dad having to say "good-bye" to the kids and knowing the future is so unknown. we still don't know if and what kind of contact we can have just yet so i guess that's the part that breaks me the most.

a good cry in the courtroom lobby. yes. that was me today after court.

ugh. so today at court we had a little snafoo. it was realized that our birth parents relinquished too fast and in order for them to relinquish a treatment plan must be adopted. and since there's no treatment plan that will work for them our treatment plan is "there is no appropriate treatment plan." so now we have a new court date next week where the treatment plan of "there is no appropriate treatment plan" will be adopted and then the birth parents can relinquish in one foul swoop. they would have adopted said treatment plan today, except, in an effort to expidite the relinquishment they were instructed not to come to court. so they weren't there and it couldn't be adopted. *sigh* it's like we gotta go over here and dot this i so we can go back over there and cross that t. but basically-if they don't do it this way-then down the road it could be reviewed by a third party and discovered that they were never given the chance to work out a treatment plan in order to get peanut back and therefore appear that the birth parents were strong armed into relinquishing even though this is what they want.
afterwards the case worker, the casa and i went out into the lobby to talk over what all of this means and i burst into tears. suddenly it became so real to me what all our birth parents, particularly our birth dad, has to go through. i just don't want him to have to be asked all kinds of questions about his intentions. i want them to go easy on him. i've been told they will and if the judge isn't easy our birth dad will be protected by his attorney and the case worker. they all want this to be as nice and easy on him as possible. he's a sweet man. he tries. he loves his children. he just doesn't have the parenting skills it takes to raise one baby on his own, let alone TWO babies. i cried so hard the case worker cried. the casa reassured me that he's doing great and is happier now that the decision has been made. i left exhausted. you know how when you cry so hard for so long you just get tired? well i didn't cry so hard i was doing that gasping thing that kids do. but i cried so hard my eyes were all puffy and red and my tears wouldn't stop. i HATE when i cry that hard in front of people that don't know me.

ok....i'm ready to "celebrate"

so i told paul that he could go on that stupid* harley ride with his friends from work. and at the time i meant it. but i didn't realize a few things. i hate this "holiday". i just do. and i thought we just wouldn't celebrate it because the kids aren't officially ours. but as the day has worn on and i've realized that everyone else that has kids in their lives is able to celebrate, i feel a little...jealous...that's not the word. i guess...left out? i don't know. anyhow. now he's all the way down in stupid new mexico, actually he just called a little bit ago from stupid larkspur. so he won't even be HOME until it's time for sweet pea to head to bed.
but then i heard the jingling tune of the ice cream truck and i have cash. i NEVER have cash. but i do today. so for my very first mother's day i got to get ice cream from the ice cream truck for the very first time with my daughter. it feels so good to call her that even though we're not quite official.

*5 minutes ago you could have replaced all "stupids" with the f-bomb. but then the ice cream truck came by.

i've gained 5 pounds

5 pounds. since peanut came home. he's going to be 3 months next saturday. that's a LOT of weight to gain in that short of time. and i'll tell you why i gained it. but you have to promise not to laugh. ok...so i won't know if you laugh or not. i gained it because in my mind i was telling myself "i have a growing baby to feed. i need the energy" (aka-calories). what i forgot to remind myself was that I WAS NOT BREASTFEEDING and i don't need any extra calories. i know. it's ridiculous that i forgot to remind myself of that little tidbit but i did. so i fell off the sugar wagon with a thud and a giggle and i've been eating cookies and treats and worst of all: chocolate chips in a spoonful of peanut butter. UGH! should.never.do.that!ever!!
so now i gotta be really good again. and paul's been doing his p90x. he's been getting up at 5:30AM to do it too. i keep telling myself i'll go running in the mornings but then i'm up 2 or 3 times a night feeding mr. man and i'm so tired at 6am when i start rolling around and i end up falling back to sleep until about 7am when paul comes back upstairs to shower AND THEN it's too late because sweet pea starts waking up around 7:30am and paul's gotta head to work. i tried running in the evenings but do you have any idea how hard it is to run with your tummy full of dinner? it's hard. and i like to run far and there's not enough daylight left after dinner and bedtime. so. for now. i'm stuck. i could do the wii fit or do some of my workout videos or get out and go running no matter how tired i am. but for now i'll just remind myself that i don't need any extra calories.

the elephant in the room. aka. mother's day.

sooooo i hate mother's day the way old maids hate valentine's day. the always elusive, almost there, holiday that i swear was only created to sell more cards and only carried on for generations due to guilt. ok. i'm being dramatic.
the fact is. it's coming up. again. and although things are 99% sure and technically i "have" kids in the home it's still not official. they don't have my last name and therefore, i can't treat them like my kids. i still need permission to cut their hair or get them speech therapy. and until i can take the across state lines with out permission from everyone but god, it won't feel like they are really "mine". it's an awkward holiday. so to celebrate paul is taking a harley ride with some friends from work for the weekend and me and the kids will be alone for the great day. and it couldn't be better. we don't have to address the elephant in the room.
but for family and friends that felt like they needed to call or send cards - you don't have to. if you already have sent the cards - don't sweat it. i can't possibly expect everyone to know all the ins and outs of all my hiccups with infertility.

love this little baby!

sometimes i can't believe god gave us not one, but two wonderful babies.
yesterday i had my good cry. the they-grow-up-so-fast cry. i sing all the time at home and i just make up whatever song and i heard myself singing "she went from a baby to a little girl right before my eyes!" and i sort of stopped in my tracks and looked up at her and she's just such a little girl now. no more baby. whatsoever. no more toddler sometimes. just this little girl that grows daily and i can't get her to stop and i don't want her to because i know the more she grows the better job i'm doing. but ugh! so hard to know she'll never be as little and innocent as she was the day before. each day she learns knew things and says new words. it just kills me. in a good way.

we have a new worker-and she sees the chemistry

since day ONE the kids have known they are connected. they have a chemistry that i can't explain. when peanut wakes up and sweet pea runs over to see him he lights up. he smiles real big. now i know, i know, he's in the phase where he smiles at everything-but his smiles for her are different. he looks at her first. studies her for just a second and then smiles as if to say "i getcha."
well, the other day we got to meet our new case worker. the kids' case worker won't change...but mine did. i'm fine with it. it will be a good change. and while she was here peanut woke up from his nap. i went up and got him while sweet pea stayed downstairs and played. when i brought him back down sweet pea crawled up on my lap to see him right away, she always has to see him right away, and he looked at her, studied her for a second and then smiled his big smile for her. and sweet pea caressed his head and tilted her head to the side and smiled back. the case worker teared up and said "they really know each other." and i told her they've had that connection since the day he came home. she knew he was hers. and he knew her right away. they have a chemistry that cannot be explained. she said she wished i could tell more people about this. she saw it! and i love that there's someone else that can vouch for me and their chemistry! and now i know all the fighting i did to keep the kids together was worth it. just like the siblings in this post, i knew i had to fight for them.