glimmer

tonight was a little better. i had more patience anyway. this morning started pretty rocky but it got better. i'm going to bed now. pooped.

i talk too much

so tonight after dinner we tried to take a walk but tatum was ridiculously naughty. so we couldn't get very far. i had to practically put her in a headlock to get her to quit pulling on the leash and we finally gave up and came home after about 5 minutes. i was SO mad. i put her in her crate when we got home and left her there until i cooled down. what in the world? and to make matters worse she is licking her paw pads off. today i put away all of her old toys and gave her 5 new toys and that's it. i was hoping she was bored. it helped for the most part. but then after dinner and after our ridiculous attempt at a walk, we came back inside and she started at it again. i'm so mad. i spend half of my night telling her "leave it" or "stop licking" or "tatum NO!" ugh! i'm about to go to the store and get that stuff that you put on kids fingers to make them stop sucking their fingers!!!!!

worst cake EVER

a few years ago when we had NO money I tried to make Paul a birthday cake from scratch. it tasted like flour with a side of flour. awful thing. i vowed to never do that again. but this weekend i got a vegan cookbook from another foster mom and it had a chocolate cake recipe. not too bad of ingredients. i acutally had all of them in the cupboards. so after the girls went to bed i decided to make them a surprise and bake them a chocolate cake for tomorrow night. i worked my way through it and 30 minutes later pulled it out. it actually looked and smelled good. i thought, well i'll just take this teeny tiny bite from the side. awful. as awful as the first made-from-scratch cake i made a few years back for paul's birthday. sooooo...tomorrow i will make some vegan icing to go with the vegan cake and see if i can make it taste ANY more edible.

rulez of the house

today we sat down and made up our rules. yes, we were told to have these posted BEFORE we got kids. but we were also told we'd have respite care first and that didn't happen either. we then sat the girls down and talked about the rules and what is expected of them and clarified the "not fair" stuff is stopping as of yesterday. wooohoooo! thank GOD that monkey is off our back. i know what you're thinking "boy she sure is dooped into thinking that was easy." well, no, in fact it wasn't. BUT the ingenious idea of rewarding the good behavior IS easy. so now we earn points and at the end of the day we total up our points and for every 10 points we get a dollar that we can spend on lip smackers, (which, if you haven't been informed is THE best chapstick this side of the sun), cd's, special shoes etc. we will provide them with everything they need like clothes, food, shampoos. and then they can buy anything extra they want with the dollars they earn with their points. making the bed, 1 point; setting the table, another point; picking up after yourself, one more point; GOOD ATTITUDE, 2 POINTS! oh ya, bam! that last one was a divine inspiration from the lord god almighty himself. today we earned 4 points on good attitude ALONE! the girls are THRILLED to have a way to EARN the special things they want and we are THRILLED to be able to say "i have a feeling you are about to earn 2 whole points with that attitude!" i am LOVING IT!!!!!
and we bumped into some family friends at the resale shop today. it was SO neat to meet people from real life. it was good for the girls too. we were getting in the car and they pulled up and the girls said "i think that's so-and-so!" and i said "would you like to go say hello?" and they both ran to check out their car and sure enough it was their friends. so we said hello and i could tell they didn't know the situation and finally he said "so are you their social worker?" and i said "no, i'm their foster mom." and i could tell that everything fell into place for him at that moment. i could tell that the couple really loved the girls and i got their names so we can give it to the county and see if we can have more contact with them. the girls talked about it for the rest of the afternoon. and best of all, when we went to leave, he lunged towards me to hug me and told the girls to mind me and paul. so i know they could tell that we were loving on the girls for the good of the girls. it was just really neat to get a glimpse into their "real lives" for a few minutes. and i just have to think, as nice as it was for me to see a glimpse of normal for them, what a sigh of relief it must have been for them to also get that glimpse of normal for just a few minutes today.
and we have grandpa's phone number so we get to call him every night at bedtime to say goodnight.
and one more thing...i made vegan empenadas today and they were a hit. they would be even MORE of a hit if i didn't have to use that awful whole wheat flour but we're getting there. maybe the next batch we can put more white flour in there. let me know if anyone wants the recipe.