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.