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!