easy as riding a bike. baaaaahahahahahhaaa!

we got the kids strider bikes for christmas. they rode them around the house christmas day and then we started venturing out. karyssa's getting pretty good. she'll lift her feet up as she glides down a hill. asher is finally walking easily while sitting on the seat now. he'll get the hang of it soon. tonight paul and i took both kids out and it's a good thing we both went. at one point i heard paul, from behind me, shout "HEY! NO!" and i realized it was one of those commands where he had to react faster than he could formulate a sentence. i turned behind me to see asher on the top of the railing of a bridge. *sigh* i was watching karyssa ahead of me. we went under a tunnel and were debating which way to take back home when both me and paul took our eyes off karyssa. she had gone up a hill just beyond the underpass we were standing under when we heard the "eeyayayayayayayayayaaa!" noises of karyssa coming DOWN the hill with her feet completely up. she had NO control but she was balancing!! i have no idea how she didn't land on her face but she made it. i've been giggling all night about the noise she made as she came down the hill. when she got to the bottom and flung herself off she got up, dusted herself off and cracked up laughing at herself along with asher. sometimes i still can't believe how fearless and brave she is.

in other how's-she-doing-with-the-birth-family-stuff news lately she's started asking me "you bought it?" or "you made it." at first i couldn't figure out where the questions were coming from but now i understand she's trying to figure out who gave her what. clothes, food, toys, you name it. if it's new she wants to know it's origins. *sigh*

two nights ago we let her play mommy of all of us. holy napolean syndrome, batman! it started with her putting daddy "to bed" on the futon in the family room. then she started tidying up the room. i'm not sure how she knew that's what i do when i put them down at naptime but it's exactly what i do. fine by me to have help tidying up! then it moved upstairs where she put daddy and brother man to bed in her bed. then i came upstairs and she put me to bed in asher's bed. i started calling for her, then as soon as she'd get to my room paul would call for her "MOMMY!!!" at the top of our lungs. then she walked into paul and asher's room and shouted "I SAID GO TO BED!!!!" and i said "oh my! is that how mommy talks to you?" i honestly wanted to know how i was being interpreted. but she said no so innocently. when it was time to stop and go to bed she threw a ROYAL fit. she was loving the power a little too much. tonight we let her play a teeny bit more of it but she got so violent we had to end it quick. i'm starting to wonder if i'm not the mommy she's imitating but i can't imagine she can remember that far back. i'm not sure if all the recent contact hasn't triggered some memories. time will tell and maybe i can find a way to ask her with out directing the conversation. oh my poor baby and how far she had to go to get to me. thank god we found each other.

continued backlash and more proof for liberating decisions

this morning i told karyssa we were going to mcdonald's to play with kaden, mason, noah and isabelle. and karyssa said "i don't want it." which means she didn't want to. i said "don't you like playing with isabelle?" and after prodding i said "does she touch you funny?" and she said yes and i asked where. she pointed to her head. *roll eyes* i said "does she say mean things?" and she said yes, i asked "and what does she say?" "sorry". ok...pretty sure at this point this entire charade is made up to avoid going to mcdonald's when it hit me...the last time we went there we met step-grandma and grandpa.

eventually she went anyway and we played and got lunch and came home. then i put the kids down for naptime aka quiet time because "we don't want it" for "naptime" either. she started sobbing. odd but not totally out of the ordinary. i left the room and came downstairs to tidy up and she was still sobbing. i went back up there and said "sweetie, what's wrong?" and she pointed to her sippy cup that she had thrown to the end of the bed. i got it for her and sat on the edge of the bed and said "i've been wanting to talk to you. did you not want to go to mcdonald's today because you were afraid step-grandma and grandpa would be there?" and she shook her head yes. i choked up and said "you know what....we're not going to see them again either. is that ok?" and she shook her head yes. "you don't ever have to see them again. and some day if you want to you just let me know. it might not be this year or until you're 18 or never...but if you ever want to see them again you let me know. ok? and if you never want to see them again that's ok too." and with that she calmed down and fell asleep.

in her mind they all had a chance to protect her and didn't. and she knows their only job was to protect her and they failed at that. i know meeting with birth dad gave her closure. i think she was starting to believe all of that was a bad dream from a past life or something and seeing him made her realize it was real. it WAS her life. it DID happen to her. and i think in her own way when she crawled up in his lap she was forgiving him in a sense, but she hasn't forgotten that he didn't do the one job he was given as a father. and even though she can forgive, she doesn't have to forget. and i don't want her to feel like that's a bad thing or that she's holding a grudge. she needs to learn to protect herself. and if forgiving but not forgetting helps her protect herself and speak up for herself in a way, than so be it. i couldn't be prouder of her for finally finding her voice. aaaaaand i'd be lying if i didn't say that it makes me glad to have more proof for our liberating decisions below.

liberating decisions!!!!

ok. so. i mentioned yesterday about us having birth family drama going on and i'm ready to share.

we have been trying to have an open adoption. we've been encouraged (polite word for: pushed) to do this and so we tried. this is the first time we've done this whole adoption thing so we figured we'd follow the professional advice.

well, i will tell you after a year of trying their advice sucks and it's not a one-size-fits-all answer.

i've gotten a couple emails from the kids step-grandma...yes...STEP-grandma and i ignored them. i was sort of hoping that they would forget and stop writing. teehee. bad plan. we finally met a couple weeks ago and i was amazed at how much they favored asher and didn't acknowledge karyssa. they asked ME questions ABOUT her but didn't ask HER any questions. red flag. and they didn't just ask "so...what is she into these days?" they asked "is she potty trained?" "can she talk yet?" WTF? you were sitting RIGHT HERE when she said "mommy, i've gotta go potty." 2 birds with 1 stone. seriously.

then the accidents started up again. no poop in the potty. it used to be food and now she has a new power.

ok...here's the clencher...and you're going to gasp but you can't judge me: we met with birth dad and let him see the kids again for the first time in 18 months. it was a. tear. JERKER! we met at a local restaurant and we got there first and when he walked in and sat down karyssa took one look and stopped dead in her tracks. i could see the wheels turning. there was practically smoke coming out of her ears from the gears in her head. then he put his hands down and she went to him. she remembered him right away but she couldn't figure out what he was doing there and what was going to happen next...was she coming home with us? would she have to go back with him? ugh. it killed me. he sobbed and sobbed right there in the restaurant. and she got really scared and looked at me and i said, with tears in my eyes "it's ok, honey." he cried for another minute and then said "thank you so much, you guys. this really means a lot to me." after that karyssa warmed up and sat on his lap until the food came! she opened her presents and he helped her put on some play earrings he had gotten her. at the end he picked up asher and looked him over. he couldn't believe how big he had gotten and that he was walking. it was a good visit. the man from the table next to us said "you have beautiful children" and while i sat their trying to figure out how this was going to play out both paul and daddy ******* said "thank you." i'm sure he thought i was a surrogate.

afterwards paul and i had some new unexpected feelings. i guess we'd never realized before that she'd bonded. with anyone. so in a way it was a relief that she HAD bonded and we can mark Reactive Attachment Disorder off our list of things to worry about in her future. but it also made us realize, before she was ours, she was someone else's. we hadn't considered that with either kid and it was actually easier to deal with with asher because he hadn't bonded with anyone else before. he was a day old when he came straight from the hospital. he didn't know birth dad. in his mind this man belonged to karyssa but he had nothing to do with him and who he was. i've realized a lot of things about that meeting. i've realized, with all my adopted family, i never thought about who their birth parents were, or what they looked like, or how they were doing with the fact that somewhere out there they had a baby that was adopted to another family. they were mine. my cousin. my aunt. my 2nd cousin...they were and always had been.

then this last week karyssa started having LOTS of accidents. PEE accidents! she hasn't had a pee accident in a LONG time. and she might as well just be in a diaper 100% of the time for naptime, which is typically finished off with a nice poop. (sorry-tmi) so finally i realized, every day since we had met with her birthdad she had had an accident. finally one morning she came to my bedside with fresh underwear and said "mine are wet." ok-i wanted to cry right then and there. i realized this decision to meet with birthdad, that we meant in the best interest possible for the kids, was the worst thing we ever could have done. i began to wonder how many weeks it was going to take us to get back to square one with potty training. i pulled her up on my bed and said "what did you think about seeing daddy *******?" i wanted it to be open ended so i didn't put feelings in her head. she just sat quiet. i said "did it make you happy, or sad, or anxious?" again no answer. i said "mommy and daddy wanted you to get to see him again because he misses you every day. but i think that was probably not a good decision. we won't go see him ever again. some day when you want to you just tell mommy and we can do that again. but for now, we won't see him again. and it's ok when you are ready to see him again. ok?" and with that she shook her head yes and has peed AND pooped in the potty 100% of the time. not a single accident for days now. and on christmas eve when we went out for breakfast she asked paul to draw a picture of her, then asher, then daddy, then mommy, then....daddy *******. she wants to know he's ok, but she doesn't need to see him to know that. the way the child mind works will always fascinate me.

so for all of you who said "trust your gut" or "they are with you for a reason" or "they are where they are meant to be" you were right. we did the best we could with the situation given to us and realize sometimes the "best interest of the children" cannot be predicted by a social worker who just finished a seminar on connections to the birth family. yes, they will wonder where they came from. yes, they will wonder whose toes they have or who their nose came from. and for those questions we have pictures. for the deeper stuff, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

but for now it just feels liberating to be able to make the decision with facts and proof and wet beds and poopy pants.

the MAGIC of it all!

sorry i haven't posted lately. been dealing with some heavy birth family stuff and was waiting for the silver lining to appear. maybe i'll post later.

BUT today is christmas and that means SANTA....and jesus. it's true. we're christians and that's the #1 reason but when you've waited and waited to have little people to celebrate with it's SO exciting to smother them in gifts. all season long when karyssa would ask for something i would tell her we'd have to tell santa. and when it was finally time to go see santa to tell him her greatest desire was a cinderella castle she said "i'm gonna ask santa for TWO cinderella castle's!!!" i quickly nipped that in the bud and said "we don't want santa to think we're being greedy, so we need to just ask him for one." last night we gave them their pajamas and when she opened her hello kitty pajamas i said "how did santa know? you told him you wanted a cinderella castle but you never said anything about hello kitty!?!" and she said with christmas magic oozing from every pore "he just KNOWS these things." oh my gawd she is so funny!! tonight at dinner she said "let's go to bed again so santa will come again!" again...nipped it in the bud and told her she was going to have to wait 365 days for him to come again.

asher got a paint pad from uncle brock and aunt liz and today when karyssa went to touch it he started screaming "MINE! MINE! MINE!" he also ran laps around the house with his new wheel-barrel full of stocking stuffer toys. after dinner he took off his pajamas and said "potty!" and ran into the bathroom and went a full potty on the potty and then ran out of the bathroom to tell grandma and grandpa who were on the phone. he was SO proud of himself he leaned into the speaker phone and shouted "POTTY!" ugh! i love that little boy and his achievements. he then ran around the house like a naked banchee and i've got to say he really does have the cutest cheeks ever. i think it's the way the front of his thighs stick out so far you can see them from behind. and then get distracted by the sweet cheeks. mmmmm....have i mentioned how much i love these kids?

both kids got strider bikes and wow karyssa is good on it. she can already pull her feet up and glide. asher will sit on it and push himself along so i'm sure it's just a matter of time before he's cruising on it. good thing because i lay awake at night excited about them riding their strider bikes along the trails as i run along with them. UGH! can't wait to get running regularly again. ps-it's my turn to run a marathon next year and i can't WAIT!

aaaaaaaaanyhow...that's all i can remember for today. so glad to finally have little people to smother with christmas magic.

she makes me GIGGLE!!!!

on sunday the kids and i went to petsmart to get dog food and a couple toys for tatum for christmas. on the way in the door karyssa said she wanted to walk. this is her new thing. walking in the stores instead of sitting in the cart. so the deal is, if she stays with me she can walk. if i have to tell her not to touch or to keep up or keep with me, in the cart she goes. and i'm usually pretty good at just getting what we went in for. but. i do love fish. so when she got the idea that she'd like a fish i had a hard time saying no. we got the cheapest set up we could get. a simple bowl, and one fish. i let her pick it out. she picked a blue beta and i said "so why did you pick that one?" and she said "because he's blue!" good reason. we went to check out and i said "so what are you gonna name him?" "fishy raditastic" (for privacy reasons i don't post our real last name.) it was the first time i realized she knew her last name. i call her by it all the time. but i never realized she was recording that. i was so excited. i love hearing her say her last name because we gave that to her, like a stamp on her heritage. i love that!

tonight we had a sitter for a couple hours and when we came home paul went in and i took her home. then when i got back paul told me they had convinced her that they could sleep in the same room, in the same bed! he had gone up there and when he opened her door they sat up shoulder to shoulder in the bed. we ate dinner, opened mail, then i started making a pie for dinner with our casa tomorrow night and that's when we heard karyssa calling for me from upstairs. What the?? i went into her room and we got to giggling...pretty quickly...and i said "you sure schnookered paige into quite a few things tonight didn't you?" and she giggled and said "yep!"

oooooh she makes me LAUGH!!!

proof she "doesn't remember"

the other day i was talking to a therapy group on the phone and they asked me a little about karyssa's history. so i explained "she was 13 months when she came to us through foster care and before that she was highly neglected." she was watching a movie so i got up and walked to the other room so i wouldn't bother her. lately when i go through a drive-thru window or talk to someone on the phone she'll ask "what did you say to that lady?" a little while after the phone call she asked "why did you say that to that lady?" not "what" but "why". i said "do you mean why did i say you were neglected?...do you know what that word means?" and she said "when i was a baby." *tears* yes...exactly like when you were a baby! i didn't know what to say or how to approach it. we want to be honest but i don't want to paint a bad picture of her birth parents for her. if she comes to that conclusion on her own than so be it, truth be told, they deserve it. but i don't want to be the artist of that. so i said "they didn't know how to take good care of you, that's why you got to come and live with mommy and daddy. and i'll make sure you're never neglected again. i'll take very good care of you." not sure if that's a good or bad way to approach it but...i was a little surprised. i mean, she's 3. but now that she can talk all kinds of new information is coming out.

in cute news: asher's been trying to climb stairs like he's just walking up them instead of doing it one foot at a time on each step. it's so cute. and bonus: he finally slept through the night last night. the night before he got up at 4:15 and i went in there and put him back in bed and he screamed bloody murder and paul went in and told him to stop that and get back in bed. and with that we didn't hear another peep from him until after 7:00. little booger. not sure why he listens to daddy and not mommy. i love him. and the other day i was looking at a christmas card a friend had sent me. it had pictures of her 3 girls on the front and i was examining how much they'd changed since their card last year. he was sitting in his chair next to me and saying "i wanna see!" which sounds more like "ionasee!" except that he doesn't just say it once so it was more like "ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!" and when i finally caught on and turned the card so he could see the girls he stopped, examined, and said "aaaaawwweeee." it was SO cute! he is such a little character. last night after dinner we were decorating cookies for desert and i went to take pictures and said "say cheese!" and he said "cheese!' and i got my first on-cue picture of him-SMILING! so excited about that development. and lately i've noticed when i say "give mommy a kiss" he hums as he's coming in for the kill. teehee...yes, yes i do that.

*sigh* i love these kids.

more for me than you

asher has been babbling in paragraphs for a while now but not a single word. sure, he could say momma and daddy...well technically he could say "monny" and "daddy" but then on thanksgiving he started saying "hot!" it was more like "hoh", not really the "t" on the end. well today he said full sentences numerous times. he said "i wanna see" and "see christmas lights". don't get me wrong - i fully do not expect any of you to make out these sentences but when you question him if he really said what he said he says "mmmhm." i'm a little bit floored tonight.

two weeks ago today i caught him up on the end of his crib, riding it like a horse, leaning forward and giving his window raspberries. needless to say we moved him to the big boy bed that weekend. last thing i need is for him to fall from 5 feet in the air onto hard floors. he did not like the move. he had a few nights of straight sleep and then went back to crying during the night. for 2 1/2 hour blocks of time. exhausted we set up the toddler bed in the nook in his bedroom and that seems to be helping. i hate the feng shui in that room now. but i'll figure that out after a few more nights of uninterrupted sleep.

he's been flirting lately. OH it is so cute. he squints both of his eyes and then tries to look at you through all the eye lashes. then he blinks a little bit. adorable. and then he morphed into this shoulder thing where he shrugs just the left side 3 times...he does it when he's teasing or being mischievous. oh my it's adorable.

he loves airplanes the way karyssa loves trains but then the other night in the middle of one of his sleep boycots a train went by (we live in a town where no matter where you live you are within earshot of a train) and at 4:00am, with daddy taking that shift, clear as a bell, i hear from my bedroom *thuck* "choo-choo!" *suck*suck*suck*. he had pulled his passie out to say choo-choo and then stuck it back in maggie simpson style. so it was surprising to me that he had noticed a train when normally he's an airplane man.

i can not kiss his cheeks enough.

he is ALL boy. tonight i set up the train set and made a figure 8 for each of them to play with. on karyssa's side there's silent playing except for the occasional command to not touch her set or to give her yet another coveted train car. and from asher's side i hear a low grumble of "mmmmmmmm-mmmmmmmm-mmmmmm" like a car noise would make. only in his head it was completely appropriate for a train. is that a natural boy thing to make such a noise when playing with something wheeled?

he wants so bad to potty train but he loses interest after half a day. the other day he sat up on the potty and pushed and pushed and when we looked in again there were 3 little turds. karyssa got excited and squealed "he pooped on the potty!!!" only to squeal her gum, freshly earned from her own poop on the potty, right between the 3 turds. bless her little heart. thank god i had more gum.

he FINALLY likes playing in the snow. which is a good thing considering we live in the great state of colorado and there is currently plenty of snow to play in. i think they go outside twice each morning and twice each afternoon, even if it's dusk he'd rather bundle up and play outside than stay inside with me making dinner or tidying the house.

*whew* all this to say i LOOOOOOVE my little boy. he is the most handsome thing i've ever laid eyes on and looking at him makes my eyes dance. i tell him so all the time. i love the way he sits still if i whisper how much i love him in his ear.

apparently i don't play well with others

some of you are not surprised.
the other day karyssa wanted me to play drive-thru window with her. it's a strange game, especially since we hardly EVER eat from drive-thru windows. paul's work gave the kids this door toy for adoption day. i don't know how else to describe it. it's this...here's a picture of paul and karyssa building it...
somehow the little window next to the door that opens and closes has become her drive-thru window and she is not only the cashier and order taker but also the cook. i come up to the window and ask for coffee and donuts or a cheeseburger or whatever comes to mind and she scurries back there stacking blocks and coming up with different items that become my order. then i pretend the food is delicious and eat it up cookie monster style and then play it all over again. all the while asher is in the background laughing at the way the the blocks fly all over around me when i eat. so the other day she wanted me to be the cashier/cook and pulled up to my window and said "i would like a cheeseburger with extra pickles and a doctor pepper and salad....apple salad." i scurried around and handed her a stack of blocks for each item and she scooped each stack into her arms and pretended to pay me. takin' it up a notch. then she said "thank you, have a nice day." and i realized i say that to EVERY cashier i see. i never noticed that i do that. but she did. i say it at the grocery store, restaurants, the post office, the gas station. i just never noticed that i did. it's so funny the tiny body language she picks up on. and so scary the tiny body language she picks up on.

coup for two, please.

tonight paul and i walked out of a restaurant before we even ordered. it was the first time in my life i'd ever done it.
not that i'd been counting down the last 300 minutes until eating out or anything. you see, normally on saturdays we put the kids to bed and have some sort of restaurant lunch while they nap. but we're on a tight budget this month. my friend sarah is keeping me motivated. so today we decided instead of eating out for lunch AND dinner we'd be good and eat left overs for lunch and go out only for dinner. so when we sat down at the mexican restaurant and opened the menu we were both highly disappointed to see "american breakfast" and "burgers" on the menu. paul folded his menu closed only to realize their slogan was "homemade food". not that i'm a bad cook, i'm ok, but when we go out the last thing we want is something "homemade". not to mention the only burrito on the menu was handwritten in! the waitress came and asked if we were ready and i said we needed another minute. she walked away and i said "i just don't feel right ordering a burger from el sabor grande." and he said "let's just pay for our drinks and go." that's when i fell in love with him all over again. this boy knows how i love to eat out. so when he said to just pay for our drinks and go to 3 margaritas like aliens to the mother ship i knew he loved me. *sigh* i handed him the cash and no sooner had i done that i noticed a couple ladies at the next table (the only other occupied table) lean towards each other shaking their heads no saying "mine's not good either." *gasp* time to GO!
paul paid for our $4 soda's (hello!!! way too much!!) and we hustled the kids for the door. i had prepped karyssa "we are going to that restaurant that gives us chips and salsa." to which she gleefully headed out the door with out fuss. she loves to eat out as much as i do so i was afraid to leave with out her understanding there were greener pastures in our near future. i giggled all the way to the car as i watched asher climb back into his carseat. what kind of errand his 20 month old mind must have thought we were running to just have sodas and leave i don't know. (btw-happy 20 month birthday, buddy!!) we drove to another place on south main that we had been wanting to try but when we drove up and saw the menu glowing from the front of the restaurant we knew we still weren't at the mother ship. when i go out sometimes i just want to be served. i don't want my butt to move from my seat until dinner is done. if a drink is spilled i don't want to have to be the person to get up for napkins. we finally realized we needed to go where the craving is always put to rest. 3 margaritas. not just any 3 margaritas. there's a certain one that has a better chef, or better salsa maker, or better magic wand. i'm not sure what it is about this particular location but everything is better there. once we pulled in we knew we were in the right place. the mother ship 3 margaritas. mmmmmm. salsa and chips, spicy mexican food, not white people mexican food. no offense, i'm white...but it's not delicigrosso. that's what we call delicisoso. they actually have spinach and gravy on the menu. separate dishes. excUSE me?? i am not eating in no mexican restaurant with spinach or gravy on the menu.
it was so good we even had desert. 2 deserts. one for us, one for the kids. and gave the waiter a 20% tip. some things just call for splurging! *whew* i feel better tonight.

in totally unrelated good news; the other day my neighbor/new friend told me her daughter has been showing interest in potty training. since i'm still at the tail end of training karyssa the last thing on my mind was training asher so i didn't really take it to heart at all. besides, girls and boys develop at completely different rates and her daughter is a few months older than asher. i was excited for her but that was that. no other interest. but then i noticed every time i put asher in the tub he'd look down at his little manhood and pee. 3 times this last week i had to empty the tub and start all over with baby oil and water. then on wednesday karyssa peed on the potty and asher climbed up there. she gets 5 marshmellows for pooping. as soon as she was handed her dowry asher climbed up on the potty and squirted out a little squirt squirt. i said "yay!!! you get 2 marshmellows buddy!!" he climbed down, ate his marshmellows and climbed back up for a few more squirts. what the what?? so i got just as excited, gave him 2 more marshmellows and thought what a stinker he was that he really can control it. tonight was bath night again. i am done emptying the tub repeatedly so i put him on the potty and said "go potty on the potty, buddy." he squirted a half squirt then i put him in the tub, let him warm up for 5 seconds and stuck him back up on the potty and said it again "potty on the potty" and that little thing went POTTY!!! a full potty!!!! i know this is not exactly potty training but i'm gonna keep doing that for a while. when he realized more marshmellows were on the line he pushed and pushed until a little fart came out. i'll keep you posted what this means for my immediate future but let me tell you, if our diaper budget goes down our 3 margaritas budget is going right up!

i should get a free pass

today was the worst day on record for this momma. asher had a fever yesterday so i couldn't check him into childcare at the rec center when i went to take karyssa to swim lessons. he woke up SUPER late anyway so i brought his cereal in a little snack cup and figured he could just sit on my lap. we got there 5 minutes early and like always i let her play around in the water a little bit. unlike always i was not RIGHT by her side. i told her to stay close to me by the fountains. i kept an eye on her the whole time. i looked down at asher's snack cup, i looked up and she was WAY across the pool. she was bobbing...i thought for a half a second she was ok but then i realized her bobs were getting slower and she was not getting her full head out of water and she was not getting any closer to the edge of the pool. i RAN around the pool towards her. as i got a third of the way there i heard the lifeguard blow her whistle. we got there at the same time but when she lifted karyssa out of the water she was limp. this is when i broke into sobs. i couldn't speak before i got there. i couldn't think fast enough to leave asher with one of the other mom's i sit and talk to twice a week. all i could think was GET TO HER! accidents happen in seconds in the water but with karyssa they happen in nano-seconds. i looked down at asher, or the edge of the pool or something and when i looked up karyssa was fine again. she was alert and breathing. no cpr. i cried and cried. i wanted to take her and just go home but then i don't want to foster a fear of water in her. at this point the head life guard was at the side of the pool to take asher from me while i got a towel for karyssa and the lifeguard carried her back to the edge of the pool. then we had to fill out a form in the lifeguard room and after we were done the head lifeguard asked karyssa if she was ready for swim lessons and took her by the hand out into the water with the other kids. it's such a good thing she did because i still wanted to scoop her up and carry her home and never let her go. the other moms comforted me and told me stories that each one of them had of their kids' near-drowning incident. i know i'm not alone. i know it's not because i wasn't paying attention. the only thing i could have done differently is not let her enter the water to begin with but then, isn't that why we're there at swim lessons??
i'm pretty sure, since i had to deal with infertility, the least god could do is give me a free pass until their 18th birthdays. or give me a pass that says i'll never have to bury my children. when you work so hard for them and have to fight so long isn't that the least he could do? although i'm fairly certain every parent, no matter how you got here, feels the same way. but god, if you're reading...which you may be but you're not a follower *hint*hint*, i'll take my free pass anyway you want to send it. preferably in writing. xo *sigh*

yehdahday

karyssa has been figuring out yesterday, today, tomorrow, the other day, next week, etc.
so i take her to the calendar and i say "see this square? that's yesterday. yesterday we swam. see this square? it's today, today emily is coming" or whatever. so she's been testing it out. she said to paul "tatum got sick the other day." and i was a little shocked. tatum DID get sick and it WAS the other day. not yesterday. it's so hard to explain because i can't say "one sleep, two sleeps" etc because she still takes naps so when she said "the other day" and not just "yesterday" i was excited. she's finally getting it! and her words are coming out more and more. today paul was working on his new shed and was painting some pegboard. karyssa walked in and said "*gasp* you painted. it looks so nice!" HA! she says SO many things that are exactly what i would have said. i looooove that.
asher has figured out zippers. as of 7:30 this morning. i put him to bed in jammies that zipped all the way up and when i went to get him he had taken off his jammies, except for one foot that he couldn't get off, and his diaper. thank GOD it was not a poopy diaper. UGH! then tonight we could not get him to keep his jacket on because it had a zipper. i remember when karyssa figured out zippers and i realized how much freedom i had just lost in that moment. i could no longer just zip her bows, my makeup, backpacks, etc. away because now she could get into them. well, my friends, asher has now arrived at that moment as well. ha. we wait with anticipation for him to make strides towards growing up and then whamo he does and i can't take it back. he's been babbling in sentences and a couple weeks ago i asked karyssa's speech therapist if i could tell friend-emily something with out her telling therapist-emily and it was that i was concerned about his lack of words. well all of a sudden he's started mimicking sentences. it's sooo cute. today he said, clear as a bell, "up up up!" as he was trying to climb into a chair (that he's not supposed to climb but that's beside the point.)
i love getting to be their mommy but even better: i love that i get to stay home with them every day and see every teeny tiny development. it's worth every penny that i don't make.

my little soccer stud/cheerleader/flirt???

karyssa had another soccer game this morning and in weeks past i've heard other fields cheering for "asher" so i knew eventually we'd meet this "asher". well today was the day. and at first we couldn't get karyssa to get on the field...then she finally did and i noticed she was running up and down the field holding hands with this little boy. then i heard people calling for him and wouldn't you know, it's the other asher. and he did not object to holding hands with her up and down the field either so the feeling must be mutual. at one point she ran over to me on the sidelines and had me take off her gloves so she could get a better grip on asher's hand hold. WHAT IN THE WORLD?!? she's THREE!! the after the game she says "big asher got a haircut." um. what?? has she been noticing this other little boy for weeks now?? i've never known which kid it was, apparently she's already had her eyes set on him somehow. yikes. getting a teeny bit nervous about the next 15 years.

i hate when i cry. HATE IT!

today we spoke at the banquet for our local CASA group. we were the main attraction. us. our family. our story.
i wrote out my script weeks ago. i read it over and over. i got up there and said something completely different and cried. in front of almost 300 people. i HATE crying in front of other people. i don't mind public speaking. i love it. i love telling people what's on my mind. but ugh. i HATE crying. i would have done fine but i mentioned how karyssa would let us know when she was hungry when she first came to us. and a woman on the front table burst into tears. UGH! if someone else cries, i cry. no matter how much i can't stand them, i cry. my mother-in-law and husband say i did great. but i could tell my voice was shaking and then when i burst into tears i'm not sure i did ok. and i didn't say anything i wanted to say. UGH! is there a re-do button around here somewhere?
just had to get that off my chest.

another set of in-laws

i haven't posted in a while because i've been hiding.

when we were just weeks away from adoption day social services sent us an email that the grandparents had contacted them and were wanting to know when visits with the kids would start. uuuuum....a year and a half ago! where have they been??? i shook in my boots all the way to the courthouse just sure the adoptions wouldn't go through because they had re-entered the picture. we met with them and laid as low as possible until they were officially ours.

now it's almost a year later and i still don't know how to process this new set of in-laws. that's how it feels. they aren't quite my family, but they are related. i've been told i have to love them, but i have nothing in common with them. don't get me wrong, i love my real in-laws. but we've been working on this relationship for over 9 years now. and now all of a sudden i feel like social services handed me another set to break in. and i'm not really happy about it. paul and i met with them alone and then we met with them with the kids. it went well. their grandfather is a sweet sweet man that both paul and i would like to get to know better. but he speaks no english. which means, we have to have step-grandma come everywhere we go to translate and i know a teeny tiny bit of spanish...and it's enough to know she is not translating everything we say. and i want him to know some of these stories. and i want him in our lives. and i'm sure the kids will want him in their lives someday too but with out being able to talk to him we're stuck with this extra grandparent that honestly makes me unsettled. i don't know what it is that makes me unsettled about her. she tries, she really does. but there's just something that makes me want to stay quiet and not say anything when i'm around her. i don't like that feeling and i have spent enough time in my life with people that make me feel uneasy like that and i don't trust them. i'm quick to judge and very often wrong.

earlier this summer my case worker, who encouraged us to have this relationship, mentioned that one of her kids was terminally ill and i asked if it was one of her birth kids or adopted kids and she said "it doesn't matter...but it's one of my biological kids." and it took me a while to process why did i ask that? what did it matter? why did she respond that way? and then i realized...if karyssa were terminally ill the first thing i would want to do is get her birth dad back in her life. for him to have closure. she is his baby too. wouldn't it be fair to give him closure just like i would want if the tables were turned? and i realized this woman, our case worker, who guided us through this potentially torrential relationship chose to do the exact OPPOSITE that she encouraged us to do. and i feel wronged. i listened. i obeyed in a way because i didn't know what else to do. and i gotta be honest, my adopted family all encouraged me not to pursue this relationship and now i understand why they said that.

so. all of this to say...we're still muddling through this in-law thing and i've been hiding since i got an email from them 2 months ago that still remains unanswered. i know i need to respond but i don't know what to say other than to send a gift certificate for rosetta stone. *sigh*

we're moving on up (sing it in the george jefferson voice)

we're back. and we've moved. i am lovin' the new digs like you would not believe. Tatum hasn't stopped smiling since we first showed her the back yard and I'm pretty sure both kids would burst into tears if we pulled up to the townhouse ever again.
the space is awesome. our moving help was even more awesome. i was beginning to freak out that we weren't going to have enough help but as we were pulling away in a caravan of 6 SUV's, trucks and station wagons, complete with 3 LOADED trailers i was humbled to tears that we would have that many people love us enough to come help us move in 90 degree heat. we got possession at 9am and by 2pm were sending people home with their bellies full of pizza.
the first night i had a breakdown. the man who used to live here smoked but we were told "only in the basement, by a window, with a fan blowing out the window." but i turned on the a/c that evening and was overwhelmed with the smell of .... not quite smoke it was more like foofer cigarellos. when we looked at the house i noticed a kind of smell but our realtor didn't notice it. then at inspection we asked her to unplug her foofers 2 days prior and again i asked the realtor and again she couldn't smell it. then i asked the inspector, he's a friend of mine from when i worked with m'lady, and he couldn't smell it either. i was shocked. but because i was the only one convinced and paul was only half convinced i didn't make a big deal about it. until move in night. we were heading out to dinner and i couldn't get out of the house fast enough terrified of what we had just bought. we did some research while we were at dinner and came home and began tackling unpacking boxes. the backyard neighbors left their dog out to screech/bark for 20 minutes straight. i really started worrying about what we had just bought. feeling totally duped on all sides i went to bed with bleach soaked fingertips exhausted, but still hopeful.
i'm happy to say that we've been in the house 10 days now and the smell is completely gone. my mother-in-law helped me bleach down our bedroom walls and karyssa's bedroom walls and the hallway upstairs. asher's room was finally tackled last weekend. it took me all morning to pull all the screws out of the shelving and rods that had been installed ALL the way around the room. i had to replaster the walls in some spots, oil primer them, tint primer them, trim them, paint the ceiling with killz ceiling paint and finally, paint the walls. it's a whole new room in there. it looks so refreshing. i'll get some pictures up soon. i don't have a good before pic because it was so full of clothes you really couldn't see the forest for the trees in there.
the basement was our biggest project. i bleached the ceiling (it's unfinished) with a sponge mop and we've killzed 2 of the walls but got delirious with fumes and had to stop. the main floor has been bleached on the floors only, we've also cleaned the carpets (that will soon be replaced with hard wood floors) and the kitchen has been bleached from top to bottom. ugh. that thing was only surface clean and that grosses me out. the built in shelves around the fireplace have been cleaned and somewhat arranged but i'm a little stuck until we get the basement finished so we can set up the desk so we can get the office stuff unloaded and off the shelves. the upstairs closet has been totally reshelved since the old stuff smelled so bad like a cheap hotel i couldn't even put a toothbrush in there with clear conscience.
it's coming along.
last night karyssa and i began baking, sort of. i let her stay up late since asher was cranky and now they have seperate bedrooms and can go to bed whenever they want to. she helped me make cookie dough balls and today i made ice cream with goat milk and only egg yolks and no whites so asher can FINALLY enjoy some ice cream. it's pretty tasty but still quite mushy so i'm hoping it finishes freezing in the freezer that stands open 50% of the time because it's on the bottom and asher can open it and it's become his #1 hobby. *sigh* and time outs are an absolute game for him so now he's started getting time outs in the pack n play. cute little stinker.

i wanted you more than you will ever know...

ugh. you're not gonna believe this.
my cousin has recently announced that she's pregnant for the 4th time and it's actually pretty exciting for me. she told me last year that her oldest son, who was moments from making his arrival at the alter at my wedding, told her "you're going to have a girl and you're going to name her cara, with a "c"." so i wasn't surprised to hear they were pregnant again this year.
and she had mentioned that she is already showing, but let's face it. it's her 4th. not THAT big of a surprise. but then yesterday they went to the doctor and the tech said "you're going to have two!" then my cousin said "and what's this spot down here?" uuuummmm....that would be the 3rd!!!
that means she is going to go from 3 kids to 6 kids. SIX KIDS! SIX! 1-2-3-4-5-6!!!!!!!!!
how in the heck is she pregnant with triplets? no drugs. not really trying trying. like charting trying. i guess when i think about "trying" it involves pee sticks and timing and charts and temperatures and doing it just right on the right day and holding your breath and your legs together for the next two weeks so to my knowledge they weren't "trying" and yet....triplets are on their way?! i'm happy for her but HOW is this humanly possible for this to just hApPeN????
*sigh* stupid ovaries. or eggs. or cysts. or gene mutation. or whatever it is exactly that keeps me from conceiving. not that we're "trying" anymore...i'm still way too tired for all that business!

congrats merry & sammy!! i don't say that lightly. love you guys!

and as i waited for the picture on this post to load i heard a *clunk* come from above me. the room karyssa is supposed to be sleeping in. i ran up there to see what mischief she had found and she's laying in bed. huffing and puffing. no sign of mischief other than a drawer pulled out and all the contents crumpled around. so i kissed her good night and went to pull away and she hugged me so tight. we do this thing where i don't pull away and i let her hug me as long as she wants or needs to. then after she had been hugging me for so long i was crying and wondering if someone was going to come looking for me i whispered my favorite line from my favorite children's book: "i wanted you more than you will ever know." she poked at my tears for a while then rolled over to milk the love for all it was worth by lifting her jammies for a back scratch. *snicker* i love that little girl more than she will ever know, no matter how she came to become my daughter.

WHO left me in charge?

today i called my sister on the brink. since we have decided to buy the flip-flop house and not the fix-up house karyssa has been asking to wear underpants again. but she still choses to poop in her pants instead of on the potty even if she's given the opportunity to use the potty 5 minutes before pooping in her pants. it makes me so angry. and i'm not doing well hiding it anymore. so today with poop in her swimsuit i had to drag her into the bathroom and then try to salvage her swimsuit. when it's underpants i throw them away. her brand new swimsuit-i can't do it. this is when i decided i needed to talk to someone who's been down this road before and come out with a potty trained child, girl preferably. we got to talking about when karyssa decided to go back into pants and it really was when we took her to the flip-flop house and told her we were going to buy that house instead of the "blue house". and missy (my sister) said "well, didn't they smoke pot in the blue house?"


"........um. yes. yes they did." with out sharing too much information on karyssa's case, trying to think how to say this tactfully, ........she has smelled pot smoke before and it wasn't in a happy time in her life. there. that's the best way i can think of saying it. and smell is the strongest sense for memories. so everytime we went in that house karyssa's insides froze. and now i feel like the biggest doof for not putting the pieces together quicker. there's no WAY we could have bought that house and had karyssa have any sense of security. i told paul what me and missy put together...ok...what missy put together and we both felt awful that we didn't think of it.

somehow we forget she has a past. in our minds she's ours and she always has been. and i think because so many people tell us "she doesn't remember" or "she was too young" or "it's been too long" that we believe them. but what we have to remember is WE are her parents and WE know she does remember, she's not too young, and forever won't be long enough for her to forget where she comes from. the other night when i was putting her to bed i gave her a hug and whispered "you're my best friend." and she hugged me extra EXTRA long. it's times like that i realize she does get it and she does know where she's come from and what we mean.

and a little part of me gets a little mad at her birth parents for not taking better care of my baby before she came to us.

We HaVe A dAtE!!!!!

i've had a lot on my mind the last couple days since wednesday we decided to put an offer in on the flip-flop house and yesterday we came to agreement and are offically under contract. i am so excited and i'm a bit surprised at myself because we so weren't fans of that house the first time we looked at it. i think it's because i had my heart SO set on the fix-up house. but then with the sewer backing up and going back in there and feeling it's delapidatedness and thinking of all that work and all of our savings depleted the math just didn't add up no matter how hard we tried to force it.
we started questioning ourselves the other night after seeing both houses and i said "if we got the flip-flop house, would we ever look at the fix-up house and wonder what could have been?" we both like the idea of the sweat equity but both firmly answered ourselves with "no." and if we got the fix-up house i think we always would have said "i wonder how much money we would have now if we had bought the flip-flop house." and the math only ends up to be about $150 more. which is odd and amazing considering what we would be giving up for that $150 savings a month.
this morning asher woke up with a tiny cry at 5:30 and then paul's alarm went off and i woke up thinking "what color should we paint asher's room?" heehee. right now it's bright red. santa red. and it has closet rods all the way around the 12' x 12' room. and the closet is all shelves, which is actually pretty usable since he has about 3 things that i hang up and no dresser. BUT the red has got to go. we love that color-our kitchen in florida is currently that color but for a baby's bedroom it's a bit angry. we'll need to take down the clothes rods and patch in the holes and primer it and then....green? vibrant green or calm green? or brown? khaki or chocolate? or blue? slate or baby? but then the foster bedroom is a slate blue color and i LOVE it. our friends brian & christina have a slate blue kitchen and it is the most beautiful color of blue. seriously both paul and i have loved that color since we saw their kitchen and it's the closest i've ever seen to that color since. so it will not change one iota. and karyssa's room is already a pale lavender color which is exactly what we wanted. purple means royalty. which she is. and green means healing, blue means peace and brown means stabilizing but also a lazy person and repressed personality. um...i think brown is out.
and the best part is we don't have to wait months and months for a bank to decide our fate. i am so excited.

in cute kid news: they have been doing the cutest things lately i just have to share. on wednesday i took karyssa to see "how to train your dragon" and numerous times i had to remind karyssa we weren't the only ones in the theater as she was standing in her chair with both fists in the air screaming "WOOHOO!" or "THEY'RE FLYING!! MOMMY!! THEY'RE FLYING!!" and "HE DID IT!!" each at the top of her lungs. but seriously how do you not find joy in that. adorable. love that baby girl. she had so much fun she cried all the way home. last night we went to sears to return a microwave that we had gotten in preparation for the fix-up house and karyssa saw the theater door again. she has a CRAZY memory map in her head. and she began to sob all over again. we went in, did our business and came out and again she recognized where we were and started crying all over again. she is so funny!! here she is in her seat at the theater.

asher is getting so smart. when paul puts his shoes on asher goes to the shoe basket and picks out his shoes. not any random shoes-HIS shoes-and takes them to paul to put on him so he can go with him. aaaaaawweee! he LOVES his daddy. and i mean LOVES him. he's been squealing lately and it is so loud it makes my ears ring. i have sensitive ears anyway but with him squealing all afternoon OMG! i can't handle it. he gets a finger thump on the head but i'm not sure he's connecting "every time i squeal i get thumped on the head" because it's not enough to hurt him, just enough to surprise him out of squealing. love those babies.

and here's just a cute one of the little man doing what the little man does:

craptastic!!

the plot thickens with this dang house issue.
our realtor called and said the other realtor called her and told her to do an amend/extend changing the sales price and submit it to the bank. aaaaaaaaand...fyi...the kids (adult kids) went back to the house to get some of the last few items left and the sewer had backed up into the basement.
ok-there are a lot of puns for this but my automatic first response was "are you $h!++!ng me?!" seriously what else can go wrong with this house? and do we want to stick around and find out?
so we scheduled a 2nd showing for the flip-flop house for 5:30 and decided to go look at the sewer damage afterwards since the houses are 2 streets apart.
at 4:40 i'm doing the dishes and asher walks in from playing in the kiddie pool on the front porch with sand in his armpit. or is it dirt..wait...what's on his hand? then it hit me. oh gawd please be dirt! oh no, you guessed it. poop! and not his own poop! i've mentioned we gave up on potty training...well poop still happens and now that she knows what it feels like when it's coming she can target practice better than before when she wore diapers. UGH! UGH! UGH!
into the tub they went at 4:45!!!!! at 5:10 when i'm lotioning and potioning them up and drying their hair and trying to wash all the baby oil out of their hair AGAIN (i have to add tons of baby oil to their baths because of asher's eczema) it hit me: i've gotta have dinner ready for the minute we get back or the kids will go bonkers hungry! or we could pick up carry out. ugh! but the dining budget is so tight i can't stand having to cook over the weekend. so down to the kitchen i went and put empenadas in the oven with the timer thing. man that timer thing saves my life at least once a week. then out the door we hussled with snack cups and sippy cups and baby oil slicked hair. who cares? i figured she could just go with the fresh-out-of-the-tub look this time.
somehow we made it at 5:22.
and somehow this time i liked the house. i don't know. it may be because i've had months, literally 3 at this point, to get used to the first house that maybe i just couldn't make the house flip-flop in my head. paul met us there and looked again to see what our harley options are and he feels like we have a little more hope than he felt the other day when we looked at it. and the whole house radio was still playing, and still makes me giggle, but hey-i could listen to slacker and steve every afternoon while i make dinner. that's not all bad. maybe we could upgrade it someday. soooooo all this to say after a total crap filled day maybe we have found our future home. time will tell. i'm in no hurry to do anything tonight, er, uh, this morning, but clearly i can't sleep. it's 12:19am and i'm watching the videos i took of the house and looking at maps and over analyzing as only i do best. well, my friend jill is the best over analyzer i've ever met but i'm coming a close 2nd on all this house shopping business.

the house situation. the foster world. and other misc crap on my mind.

sooooo the house saga continues. we went to look at this other house that is the EXACT same house as the one we love and want to buy. it's just the flip-flopped version of it.
it's a really nice house. she's done some nice upgrades.
and then there's other parts about it that are.....well....just not things we would do. they aren't bad things. there's a whole house radio that she had set to light jazz while we where there. and it's the old 70's kind. i have no idea how it's still working but it is. like standing in an elevator for 30-45 minutes. there are speakers ALL over the house. the front porch, the back porch, every bathroom, the hallway, her bedroom...i mean all the heck over the house. and the wood floors that she laid down are pergo-ish kind of floors. very nice. wilsonart i think the listing called them. but we are more real hardwood kind of people. the kitchen is impeccable. spotless. clean white cabinets. we like a little bit of color. and the thing is everything is very nice-no point in replacing any of it. it's gonna be perfect. for someone else. and it may still be perfect for us. the only problem is we have a harley, a pick up truck and now the volvo wagon. (say volvo in a snobby voice.) and there's a cement pad in the back corner of the yard, on the opposite side from the garage, so it's not like we could pull the harley around the garage...we'd have to pull it around the other side of the house...it just doesn't work. and it's not on a corner lot so we would lose a lot of yard. a LOT of yard. and we need that space to make the harley work since the garage is too tight.
so...going back to the first house...there are a couple different loan options, neither of which lend themselves to making the fixes and the payment reasonable enough to justify it.
and i just keep thinking i want to be excited about it. why spend all of our savings and buy a house we're not excited about? this is the only time in our lives that we are gonna have this big of a wad of cash to put towards a house. i want it to be right!!!
anyway-enough about things in life that don't matter.
the foster world is sucking mud. they say it's "in the best interest of the child" but the need a caveat of "if the budget allows."
all the decisions in boulder county are being made based on the almighty dollar. and you would be hard pressed to find a foster mom that wouldn't give up the monthly stipend, the whole whopping $300 to spend willy nilly however you need {roll eyes}, if it meant their foster child could stay with them and be safe than to go to a birth parent or family member who has no idea or abilities to care for them. i don't care how thick they sayings say blood is. the love of a foster parent is far stronger than that blood. the same blood that allowed that child to get in harms way. they cannot take a child away from birth family unless they are in danger of death. which means the people these kids are coming from have put them so far out into harms way that they could have died. it is illegal for them to take them for anything less. and yet they are the same people the county fights to put the kids back with.
the boys we had in february are being split up. i've been sick to my stomach when i think about it ever since i got the email. apparently they have different birth dads. so instead of leaving them together in the loving foster home that they have with all the stability and therapies in place that they need to be successful in life they are going to rip one boy out and leave the other boy in the foster home. unless they can find some deadbeat that's blood related and then by god they might as well rip him out of his security too. they don't even split up dogs at the humane society when they are "brothers" how can they do this to real live human children? how are they not a package deal. and i just think back when they transitioned from our house to their new foster home and how i promised, the case worker for the boys promised, the case worker for me promised that they would always stay together because they are brothers and nobody would ever split them up.
oh except for the same people that made that promise because we found your sperm donor. give me a fucking break. i'm so pissed i just want to stand up and scream but who would listen? who can i scream at? he's the biological dad-he's blood. that must make him qualified. right? nevermind the fact that he has so many other children that this will be overwhelming to even the most educated, level-headed parent.
and then there's my friend who has been watching her foster daughter for months even though she went back to her #1 birth mom over a year ago. social services decided to close the case and the other day lovebug's mom called and said she was taking her to stay with her sister for the summer. hours away where she'll have no other support, not that she has any here, but at least lovebug has somewhere to go when her mom is unable to function for months at a time.
how can it be that all of these babies are left to fend for themselves in their best interest. that's what WE are here for. that's why there ARE foster parents out there. and i get it, there are some crappy foster parents. there are some real scary people out there. but the foster parents i have met are not those people. and maybe somewhere in boulder county there is a deadbeat foster parent, but they don't come to support groups. they aren't in my circle or any of my foster-friends circles because none of us have met them. i know fostering pays good money. when i left my real estate career i bumped into a woman from my old office. and either she thought i made pennies for pay or she thinks fostering is a lucrative business but she said "and it's about the same pay right?" i was so shocked. my mind said "or an eighth of it...something like that." but i really said "oh no! fostering doesn't pay that much."
anyway-i've derailed.
all of this to say if you pray please pray for miracles for lovebug and our foster boys.
i do realize how blessed we are that we were able to go all the way through to adoption with both of our children. it brings tears to my eyes in 2 ways...one: that we are so blessed and i do not, even for a day, take that for granted. and two: for my foster friends still in the roller coaster. my thoughts are with you continually.

work with me or shove it!

overnight a house came into our price range that is the EXACT same house but flip flopped in the EXACT same neighborhood with nice siding, yard, flooring, kitchen, etc etc etc just quiiiiite a bit more. it's still in our price range, technically but it's at the VERY top.
after talking to the lender and looking at pics and mulling it over last night paul and i are ready to move on.
i think blogging about it helped me sort out exactly the facts. it's not that we're throwing in the towel completely on the first house, but heck, if there's another option out there in our price range why not consider it.
i know i won't get back the inspection money or the appraisal money but i'd rather lose $1,000 to find out it's the wrong house than $200,000 and still have all those problems on my plate.
i'm biting my nails and waiting for our realtor to call us back to see how quickly we can see this 2nd house.
i've fallen in love before, i can fall in love again.

dammit! studies show cussing is good for your heart.

so i mentioned that we're buying a house. aaaaaaaand we hit a snag. it's not that the house reeks so bad of pot that i have to keep the kids in the back yard, or the fact that the front porch has a crack in it 4 inches deep that runs the entire length of the porch, or the fact that the radon came in just over what is acceptable, or the fact that the basement bedroom seems to be inhabited by an amazon woman with a fetish for cfm heels and finds no need to put away the jug of vaseline she seems to store on her bed, or the fact that the carpet in the entire house has to be replaced because of nasty cats. i hate cats. i don't mind other people's cats but as far as i'm concerned i will never say "my cat" in this lifetime. or the fact that the hvac needs a total upgrade, or the fact that the kitchen is on its last leg. seriously-i'm starting to wonder what, exactly, it is about this house that makes us want to move in tomorrow.
but the real reason why we've hit a snag is because it says on the sellers property disclosure that there was something with the sewer in 2010 so when the inspector suggested we get a separate sewer inspection we did it. but they couldn't get through the pipe. hmmm. curious. the sellers have to have the pipe cleaned out so we can do it again. that means $215 for the first scope, $130 for the cleanout, and $165 for the first guy to come back and rescope it. grrrrr! now i'm pissed. if nothing else, at least take care of your own poop for crying out loud.
i found someone else to clean it out for $125 AND scope it for $125. way cheaper than the other option. today he came and cleaned it out and got a little further than the first guy buuut still can't get through.
ps-the pipes are the old clay pipes. which means where the sidewalk has been marked to replace this week because of sinking is probably exactly where the pipes seem to have a blockage. aka-crushed. so the water, i think, is still following the cavity where the pipe used to be. it's still getting out to the street but not the right way.
that made us go inside and ask the grown son who lives there what happened to that sewer thing on the disclosure? this is what we were told: "we had this huge party and the next morning we woke up and a cast iron pipe had burst in the basement and there was sewage spewing into the basement." seriously?? so i clarified home owner's insurance covered it? "no...we had to have these people come in and chemically wash it down and replace the carpet and everything."
i have all kinds of theories of what's happened between there and here but that's a whole 'nother blog post.
needless to say our closing for next friday is off. i've called everyone to notify them to hold off until we know further. but this is almost a deal breaker for me. i'm fine with it. i'm bummed. i'm hoping it's still gonna come together...but the light that was at the end of my tunnel for getting into the house and having all the extra space etc is now sooooooooo much further away i can hardly think about it. and my new neighbor, whom i lovingly call foghorn, gets louder by the day.

rounding the corner....d'oh!

this morning karyssa came running past me "potty...mom...potty!" i said "great! let me know when you're done and you can have some candy." then she went into the bathroom and i heard a tinkle tinkle tinkle. i walked in to help her wipe only to find her dora seat on the toilet and her standing next to it tinkling on the floor. and it was her first morning pee-let me tell you that tiny thing can hold some pee!!! *sigh* good thing i'm taking my new stance of potty-training-can-wait.
neither one of us have said anything about the candy but i'm letting her enjoy a cup of coffee with me. i put about a tablespoon of decaf in her little toy mug.

the familiar feeling of loss

i know what some of you are thinking. where did she go? she was blogging every day and now she's gone again!
well...i've been busy.
we are buying a house. after 3 years of living in the same place (longer than we've lived anywhere in our married life) we're ready to buy a house and put down, *gasp* dare i say it, roots!
after looking and looking for months we found a house we loved. we put an offer in and it's a short sale. we waited FOREVER for the lender to sign off. they finally came back and so began our inspection and appraisal and paperwork and then another inspection for the sewer. i farmed the kids out to friends and spent 3 hours at the inspection but it went longer than we planned. i decided to go pick up karyssa to let her spend some time in the house to help her get used to the idea and understand what all the packing and boxes meant. um. turns out that was a mistake. she's been potty trained since we had the boys here this february...until...friday when i took her over to the house and showed her what room will be hers and explained. we thought she understood because she asks to drive "by house" or "buy house" every time we're on that side of town but now i'm wondering if she truly understood what we meant.
to karyssa, this place is home. it's safe. it's what she knows. and i kind of suspect she still remembers where she lived before she came here. and i'm not sure if she's in a panic about what the new house means. i explain to her that mommy and daddy and asher are coming too. and she adds "patuh?" (tatum, the dog.) yes, tatum is coming too. i pack boxes where she can see me. i've taken down our pictures. i talk about when we're in the new house and we can get a wading pool and a swing set....but i think for her moving into the new house is a loss of everything familiar all over again. when she came to us, even though our house was "better" than what she'd been in it was a new place, new bed, new room, new parents, new rules, new foods, new smells, and in all that new was a loss for her. much like people who lose everything in a fire, for her it was a loss of her place, a loss of her bed, a loss of her room, a loss of her parents, a loss of the rules she knew, a loss of smells she knew. *sigh* needless to say she's been peeing and pooping in her pants consistently since friday. poor baby. asher couldn't care less. if he thinks all 4 of us are together at taco bell we're home. not karyssa. she gets it. she's older and she's experienced this kind of major change before.
we've had talks about potty training, where to go, what the move will mean etc but i am going to just put her back into diapers and let her know it's ok to take a break from potty training. it's not forever, we'll get back to task after we get into the house and get unpacked and it's our new familiar. in the meantime i have to remember that for karyssa this feeling is not a new one but it doesn't make it any less scary to expect the feeling of loss.

focus on the family has very boring writers

we got into foster care because of the "wait no more" conference held by focus. they took surveys and then later followed up and have asked us if they can use our story. i said sure and sent them a brief story. ok...not so brief story...and they just wrote back with the "cleaned up" version.

bwahahahahahahaha! i'm pretty sure i will never be selected to be a writer for focus for many reasons. i use the word "stirrups" when explaining why infertility treatments weren't for us. and i'm rather straightforward in my writing style. and i'm pretty sure focus cares if they offend people in their pamphlets and information. uuuuum we don't share the same writing philosophies. i figure if someone wants to read my opinion i can give my opinion. must not work the same for non-profit-bible-based organizations who have hundreds of people waiting to rip them to pieces.

just for kicks i'll give you the short focus version of our story...does this even SOUND like me???
“We had already filled out our international adoption application when some friends mentioned the Wait No More conference. We were not expecting it to be about adoption from foster care. The conference helped me see that every child needs the love of a family. By the time the last speaker spoke I was in tears and my husband was silent. We looked at each other and said "This is it." Three years have passed and we have been fortunate enough to finalize on the adoption of both our daughter and our son this past November. We feel like we have been called to wrap ourselves around these kids and love them and their families.”
so proper and polite. gag! but alas, i will sign so they can use our story for other hopeful foster parents.

just going to the park....seriously???

this weekend our HOA built this AMAZING play structure. there used to be a white barn that got infested with bees so they had to tear it down. in its place they put a sand pit. we loved it. then last tuesday i was sweeping the front porch and a guy walked up and said "sorry, i'm just getting these flyers out." and handed me a flyer. i think i heard angels singing a chorus about the same time. it has been something i've been dying for. a park within walking distance. it's awesome. saturday we went over to check out the progress and holy cow-i see i'm not the only one dying for a park over here. there were probably 20 families over there. dads helping out. moms watching the kids jump on the play equipment in heaps on the ground.
so sunday we scurried over to play only to find signs up that read, simply: "not until monday". ha!
this morning we ate breakfast, got dressed and rushed over first thing. it was awesome. there's only one piece missing...some sort of bridge but they'll get it installed later in the week. in the meantime we can play on it. it has 5 slides. 3 of which are all sorts of bumpiness.
they also are working out the kinks to the sprinkler system. um. we helped work out the kinks. there was water on the slides. water in the sand. water spraying every direction. i moved the boob stroller out of the way numerous times only to come back and find that i moved it right in the line of fire of the next cycle of sprinklers. i tucked my cell phone into the canopy of the stroller only to find that it was then sitting in a pool of water later. i had taken the dog and her ball thrower. she's now covered in wet sand and has been left on the front porch, along with the boob, to dry out. my cell phone crackles every time i open or close it or push a button. and when i looked over to tell karyssa, for the 5th time, to come out of the sprinklers, she was hunched over saying "mommy...potty!" "in your pants??" "yup" "do you have any left to go?" "yup" "this is why i asked you before we left if you had to potty!!!" at that point i realized i couldn't put her back in the wet boob or she'd just finish peeing in the stroller. so i took her pants off, squatted her over and told her to hurry and pee in the grass. (i'm pretty sure THAT'S against HOA regulations.) in my defense, when i asked her about going potty before we left she said she didn't have to go...she's sort of like a camel drinking when it comes to peeing. she really can go a LONG time before she has to go, so i believed her. but she is 2...i shouldn't have believed her.
after a few more minutes of all of that nonsense and i packed up our circus and came home.
now for our next trick we're gonna go to the store and try to use up some wic checks. *sigh*

edited to add: while we were at the store using those wic checks up my email got hacked. *sigh*sigh*

it's all my mother's fault.

well, i did it. in case anyone is wondering and you live in the state of colorado elevations credit union has my full endorsement. bellco...could use a little work. and maybe a few more processors or a few less marketers. it took bellco a week and still couldn't do what elevations could do in a day.
that being said, i am now the proud new owner of the volvo and i have to say......i'm LOVING it.
i did cry. and it's all my mother's fault. when we were little she personified EVERYTHING. i have to say she did raise 4 very empathetic children so she must not have gone wrong but seriously have i mentioned i can't even buy a christmas tree?
for real.
we have a fake christmas tree because year after year paul and i would go to the christmas tree lot only for me to leave in tears because of all the trees "that gave their lives to be picked and we weren't chosing it." it is nuts. i am aware. but when we were little my parents would take all 4 of us kids to the christmas tree lots and we would wander around whispering which tree we liked never mentioning the ones we didn't then we'd all climb back in the car choking back tears as my mom talked for all the other trees we didn't pick. she did this to lots of inanimate objects or animals. sometimes she'd get us rolling with laughter talking as if she were a cat. or get us just on the verge of tears talking as if she were a tree, or a park bench, or anything that she thought needed personifying. it is this reason that i had a hard time tonight. but i made out like a champ until we drove away, and i looked over to take one more look at my car and blew it a kiss and broke down into tears.
oh good god. i'm crying right now.
it was such a great car and like i said, i found myself in that car. it held a lot of memories...and even a couple secrets. this afternoon when i was cleaning it out i found a couple tokens from our little clepto foster daughter. oh how i miss her laugh. and the time i was making vegan ice cream for the above daughter and her sister and as soon as i got the tofu ingredients in the ice cream maker it went capoot. into the honda we went to ace to get the ONLY ice cream maker in town. that night it RAINED and RAINED. the next morning, late as usual, me and the 2 girls hopped in the car then hopped OUT of the car screaming "why are my pants wet?!?" we looked up and i realized in my haste to get the ice cream made before the ingredients went bad i had left the sunroof open. and then the most special memory of all: picking karyssa up from the hospital in that car. wrangling the car seat into that car with the case worker, neither one of us having a clue how to install a baby seat, in 95 degree weather in july. *sigh* (asher was brought home by the case worker.)
after i looked over and blew the honda a kiss i cried and cried. but then the light turned green and i took off in my new car that rides like a cloud! my little white cloud!! it's gonna be amazing!! and like my friend juju says "we're gonna make new memories in our cars."
ooo-and i might add my new mother's day bracelet shines beautifully in that car.

the dang camera keeps focusing on my dang freckles! it says karyssa and has her birthstone, then asher and his birthstone, then me, then paul. the stones look BEAUTIFUL together.

2 going on 17...and other bits of news

i took the kids swimming today. it's the 4th time we've gone swimming since i got asher his floatie suit. they both have one. they look ridiculous in them, like i'm terrified of the water. but really it's because they both go full speed ahead in opposite directions. karyssa is FEARLESS in the water. she does summersaults in the tub and i'm not exaggerating. so when i go by myself i put both of them in their little floatie suits. the first time i couldn't take my hands off asher. he just rolled around in the water bobbing with no particular end up. the next time he got that there was a method to the madness. then last week he realized he can keep his head above water and he figured out how to stand up once he fell onto his belly. today he swam. he SWAM for crying out loud. how in the world does a 15 month old figure that out?? i still have to plug my nose (although i don't let the kids see me do it because i don't want them to be cursed with that.) but i let go and he waved his little arms and he kicked his little legs and he GOT to where he was trying to go! if it's straight ahead of him. if it's to the side he tips himself over that way and then floop right onto his back. so we got some work to do but i'm so excited he swam today! i'm determined to take them every week so they will be comfortable in the water.

then i put them in babysitting and worked out myself. i accidentally got on a machine today that looked like an eliptical machine-my favorite-but it worked more like a stairmaster. it was sort of like i ran bleachers for 30 minutes. whoa. won't be doing those again until i'm ready for a butt blaster. last week i made the mistake of swimming only and boy that did not go over well with miss thang. each week i get a little better at this whole process. i got them out of the pool, gave them showers, lotioned them up, gave them snacks (that was my brilliant new idea this week) then took them to babysitting and they both did great! when i went to pick them up the woman that runs the babysitting said "wow she's quite a big girl huh?" and i was like "oh ya, she's going on 17. i'm scared." she said that karyssa was trying to play with the older girls, they were maybe 4 or 5, but they didn't want to play with her because she doesn't talk so they thought she was a baby. and she's tiny too so it's not like size helps her anti-baby appearance. *sigh* gotta work on that speech therapy stuff. not that i want her to be a big girl, but i don't want her to be shunned by other kids because "she's a baby". my poor baby. oops-wait...i mean, my poor big girl. and then we came home and she insisted on making her own PBJ for lunch and she did it! she needed help with the peanut butter but she did the rest herself. i was a little shocked. she's 2 for pete's sake!!

i love those little biscuits. they are my best friends.

oo-and side note-this is kinda random-i came home and my mother's day present was on the front step. although i have been instructed NOT to open it until paul gets home. this is gonna be a long afternoon!!!

i'm letting my brand new car go.

i hate to say "out with the old, in with the new." or "move over bacon...now there's something meatier." or "there's a little more to love in a plumper." there's just NO nice way to say it.
*sigh*
i'm letting my brand new car go.
after 11 years of INCREDIBLE service....it's time to (i can't even say it) upgrade. it's not that i want an upgrade...to say that is to imply that my honda is a lowgrade. it's been an AMAZING car. i still see it as the brand new car i drove off the lot. it was the summer of 2000 and my legs were itching for a roadtrip. so i went to the local honda dealership and slapped down $1,000 and said "i want a civic in plum with a sunroof and cd player." that was that. a few days later in came my car on a big old truck and off i went. i drove all OVER the country. boston, florida, colorado. that was when i fell in love with colorado. i'd never been here before. my parents always went to texas or florida for family vacations. and by the time i got back to illinois 20,000 miles and 3 months later me and my car had bonded. i mean BONDED. i think it's safe to say i found myself in that car.
i bought a 4 door so when i had kids it would be paid off. little did i know how long i'd have it paid off by the time i finally had kids!
a few years later it had it's first nose job. paul was driving and some idiot (i don't usually call people idiots unless they deserve it) pulled off on the LEFT side of I-25 south and "Mad Sexy" in front of us slammed on her brakes and in we drove to the back of her. i know she was "Mad Sexy" because the back of her window had a humungous sticker that told me so. we still joke about how neither mad (for our benefit) nor sexy (just an observation) she was.
i know about every service it's had or oil change it's missed...oops! i know EVERYTHING about that car.
so with great reservation, i announce the new-to-me car that will attempt to fill the honda's shoes.
it's a volvo. and i love how safe it is. it has an amazing carfax report. i have faith it will be a good car. it can fit one more car seat into the backseat and has 2 more seats in the way back that fold down. so when karyssa's 14 and no longer needs a booster seat she can sit back there. the boob stroller (my 2nd bob stroller) will fit in there with out having to wrangle its tires off. and we will have a way to drive extra kiddos around in the near future. and it still gets good gas mileage.
i assure you there will be tears when i have to hand over the keys to the honda and actually walk away and leave it at the dealership. it truly will feel like i'm leaving a child somewhere i'm not supposed to leave a child. i hope the next person loves that car as much as i have.
i do know that karyssa is loving the volvo. when we had to leave it at the dealership while we work out financing she cried "whiiiiiiiiiite!!" for about 15 miles. *sigh* girl loves an upgrade.

top 10 things i wish people knew about me when i'm using WIC checks

1. wic checks and food stamps are 2 totally different things.

2. actually, yes, i am married to a mexican. just as much as i'm married to an american.

3. i love my "effin' half breeds" as much as you love your little wasps.

4. i get wic checks until my kids are 5 years old wether my husband makes $100 a year or $100,000 a year. if you've got a problem with it you can adopt your own child from foster care.

5. i will not apologize for choosing to adopt through foster care because of all the assistance that comes with them.

6. i bought these pants from a goodwill store in florida 3 years ago, these shoes are from target 5 years ago and my shirt is so old i have to wash it every time i wear it and yes, i'm wearing deodorant.

7. i don't buy the kroger brand because i'm so poor, i buy it because i'm so frugal and i found out i love kroger brand of everything.

8. i can hear you huffing and puffing when you see me give the wic check to the cashier.

9. i quit a job making more than i ever thought i'd make to take care of my babies, i did not have babies so i could live off the system. if you only knew my struggle just to get here you'd realize what a jerk you're being.

10. i know you're judging me because you are ignorant and that is why i am not screaming 1-9 at you. it's not your fault you have these thoughts about people using wic. there are a lot of people who do abuse the system, i just happen to not be one of them.

the little things i *LOVE* about my son

because karyssa talks she gets posted on the blog so much. some of you might be wondering if i even like asher. and i do. so here are a few of the little things i love about him:

>when he was a baby he had horrible skin which then turned into eczema when he was just a few months old. after we got some prescription creams his eczema went away but this little freckle/mole on his ankle stayed. i love it.


>he smells like honey ALL the time.

>he doesn't sleep as well as karyssa. this should be a negative but i love the alone time we get at naptime.

>he does sleep well in the mornings and when he finally wakes up and i come in the room i love the way he RUNS to the end of his crib to get to me faster.

>he growls all the time. it's so very very boylike.

>he can double fist a passie like nobody's business. watch below.


>his favorite toy is anything long and walkable. the bug net (although he walks with it in front of him like he's pushing a broom), or the play vacuum, or the kiddie broom, or a play lawn mower.

>he could kazoo before his first birthday.

>he lets you know when he's proud of himself.

>he is the happiest baby i've ever met. smiled and laughed non-stop until he turned 14 months. now he has opinions but they're not a downside.

>when you catch him doing something he's not supposed to do he leans over, with a passie in his mouth, and growls through the passie and smiles so big his nose scrunches.

>he. is. SO. tolerant!!

>even though the therapists picked on him for months before i'd had enough, he hit all his milestones way early. except teeth. he finally got his last 4 teeth in the last few weeks making a grand total of 6 teeth and he's 15 months.

> he sucks his bottles and his passies out the side of his mouth like a cigar. little mobster.

>when he's sick he's the best snuggler. otherwise you gotta get 'em on the run.

>i know i've already said this one but it's worth 2 points-he smells like honey. it's his natural smell.

>i love the way he sleeps on his tummy with his butt in the air.

>he plays with trucks and cars now and sometimes he makes the "rrrrrrrrrrrrr" or "mmmmmmmm" (when the passie is preventing the "rrrr") sound.

*sigh* there are so many more that i just can't think of at the moment. i love calling him "my son" and knowing that he's stuck with me forever.

the most tactful response ever

today i went to the park with my friend suzanne and baby g. and there was a woman there with blonde hair and her dark as night adopted child from africa. it was clear that she wasn't the birth mom because even if the birth dad were the darkest skinned man on earth it would be genetically impossible to have this dark of a child and be her birth mom. which, of course, leads to questions. which usually leads to more questions. and anyone that makes eye contact is then forced into the Q and A session of this baby's origin and then *gasp* a nosy nelly mom did it. she asked the dreaded question to all adoptive parents. we all know it's coming but most people with a shred of tact stop themselves short before asking "so...do you know her story?"
ok..this would be equivalent to me walking up to your best friend, with you standing there, and ask what the most painful/humiliating/rip the bandaid off moment has ever been in your life. i will only say this once: IT IS NONE OF YOUR FREAKING BUSINESS!!! if you want to know "someone's story" adopt a child yourself and know that child's story. if that doesn't clear it up for you it would be equivalent to me grilling you on the night of conception of your birth child. do you want to share that intimate moment? probably not. does it matter if you were doing it missionary or doggie? again no. NONE OF MY FRIGGIN' BUSINESS.
so next time you are at the park, or at the store, or at story time at the library and someone walks in with a child you suspect might have been adopted why don't you open with how your child was conceived instead of starting with how their child came into their family.
suzanne and i were both very impressed with the woman's response. as you can tell mine would not ever qualify for the most tactful response ever. hers was simply this: "we do know her story, and we want her to be the first one to hear it." and upon hearing that i wanted to be her best friend. as we all know, i could use a little more tact.

my american idol version of what happened

i know the other mom has her version of what happened on friday. so read this with a grain of salt.
our town does this thing on fridays, tiny town, and it is for toddlers/preschoolers to come and there's big wheels and tricycles and gymnastic equipment and blocks and balls and you name it - it's a sensory overload for preschoolers and an AMAZING way to get energy out of both kids. for that reason we like to go. buuuuut my only problem is some of the other moms.
once a woman i refer to as saggy tits mom, i know this because regardless of her size she refuses to wear a bra, warned all the other moms that karyssa liked to tear down the blocks. yes...yes she does. with fervor. they are blocks. i'm pretty sure it's half of their job, the other half being to be built up, of course.
then there's the gestapo. she's not a mom...she uh, er...actually works there. i found that out AFTER i told her i "appreciated her concern but wasn't open to advice that day." that was when i had baby huey with me and gestapo told me he shouldn't be allowed to cry for so long on the, apparently, hot commodity carpet square at the end of the gym that is there FOR babies his age. he cried for an hour and a half no matter what i tried and the second he'd almost stop another mom would swoop in to save the day. they were all well meaning. but as i said, he cried for an hour and a half. so if every 5 minutes when he was just about to stop you can do the math on how MANY moms were judging the fact that i was having to let him cry it out. he finally stopped crying when my friend amy held him for the last 20 minutes we were there. *sigh*
which brings me to last friday. there's a little boy that comes from time to time. he's known as being a bully. his mom is known for being a boss. she sits around with her eyebrows up and her mouth pursed together as if she's trying to keep a penny between her teeth and her lips. she has another son who's just a little bit older than asher. both of her sons were in scooters...the younger one was behind karyssa, the older one was in front of karyssa facing her and the boss was standing behind her older son, her feet were practically, if not definitely, touching the back of his scooter. i was keeping an eye on the situation because it didn't look good but i was hopeful that she wouldn't allow anything to happen since she was so close AND they were the only 4 people on that end of the gym. but then i saw him stand up, lean over his handle bars and begin to scream in karyssa's face. not scream words-just scream "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" karyssa just sort of looked at him trying to figure out what it meant. was it a game? was he mad? was she safe? was she supposed to scream back? i walked over and knelt down beside her and said "are you ok sweetie? that was kinda scary, huh?" and with that she got off her scooter and ran off to play somewhere else. i stood up, looked boss in they eyes and said "could you please not let your child scream in my daughters face like that again?" she snickered and said "what?" as if i were as nuts as she was innocent. i repeated myself and she said "i didn't even see it happen?" most people would walk away at this point but i've had it with her. i said "give me a break! you're standing RIGHT HERE!" she then realized i wasn't backing down. and i realized it was out there...i might as well finish it. then she said "they're just kids!" and i said "you can boss around every other kid in the place. watch your own kids!!!" she said "who?" and i said "my friends kids were right in front of us when you told them to go play with other toys. you do it all the time and i'm sick of it. WATCH YOUR OWN KIDS!" to which she had no rebuttle other than "chill out!" i'm pretty sure 10 years ago she would have put up her fingers in the "L" shape on her forehead as if to say i'm a loser. it was about that mature of a situation. myself included.
and i'm trying trying trying not to be like those american idol contestants that screech out their auditions only to come out in tears saying "they just don't know true talent." and i'm sure the other mom has her version that makes me look like the american idol contestant. but for now i feel like i have protected my little baby bear and NOBODY better mess with my babies.