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*