the most interesting thing i will ever find in bushes ever.

the other day i was looking at the new flowers that are popping up all over our yard. some of which i did not plant. and then i found this stray piece of paper in my bushes. dang it! i hate how the wind is pushing all the garbage all over...until i started reading what it was. this was no grocery list or note to self. this was almost the most interesting page i have ever read. and so i saved it to share with you:

page 533
...his son, so maybe it wasn't. if he was 21, he was just barely 21!

3-17-92
i called devere sunday night. his mother answered. he said his kids, his mother and aunts and ucles were there. wedding reception? i told him to call me back when he had time to talk. he hasn't yet, of course. the thing is, i didn't really believe he was getting married. i don't know if it was a bluff or if he was playing a card. whatever it was, he got me to fold! i'm certain it was for the best.

3-27-92
devere hasn't called. ray hasn't called. tom hasn't called. i shouldn't be depressed. i'm not.

we've been really busy. i worked last saturday and will again tomorrow. debbie and i worked until 8:00 or 8:30 three nights this week.

right after i got home saturday diane called. i went over and helped them move. sunday i went and helped her clean the house in [my neighborhoods name]. their house in berthoud is real nice.

sandy called me tonight in tears. she had yesterday off, michael didn't come over. he said he was going fishing. she thinks he lied and has taken his wife somewhere for the weekend. she says she can't take the loneliness. i told her she could if she made up her mind to live without him and live

page 534
her life for herself. when she decides to be alone, the loneliness comes seldom and is less empty. she also said she writes how she feels, i asked her if she wrote it with the intention that no one else would ever read it, or with the thought that someone else would. she said she writes it to michael. i suggested she start writing for the purpose of identifying her thoughts and feelings. she still thought of giving them to michael even when she thought she was going to write just for herself.

5-13-92
this is becoming a sex journal! i don't write until i've gotten laid!

on my birthday, debbie and scott and i went to the day races in loveland. we lost.

i went to an ABWA seminar in boulder (i've forgotten when it was). they auctioned a balloon ride. i bought it for $310.

the channel 6 auction was the end of april. i bought a lot of things. the most exciting was a $515 pentax camera for $275.

i was going to have easter because niki said "betty always has easter". on wedensday before mama called to ask me if i'd be mad if everybody didn't come to my house for easter. randy has had spots on his lungs for four years. when they first found them the doctors said it was...

seriously and for real i want the other 532 pages of this bad boy.

what daddy really spends all of our money on.

today was karyssa's first play therapy session. the therapist said "so where's daddy?" karyssa said "at work." the therapist clarified "oooh...makin' the big bucks 'eh?...so...what does daddy do with all that money? what's he bring home with it? ice cream?" karyssa answered "beer!"

*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* my first reaction was to cackle laugh (the laugh I hate that only comes out when i'm completely taken off guard and didn't have time to prepare my more reserved laugh.) i continued to giggle silently until i called paul from the lobby, still giggling. he was mortified! later i realized why she thinks that. mommy is the one that brings home the groceries. but i don't want to take the kids into a liquor store. i dunno...there's just something about a kid in a liquor store that sends all my foster-mommy-red-flags up. so when we get beer or wine i send paul to the liquor store...therefore, daddy is the one who brings home the beer!

yesterday paul had the day off so we decided to take the kids to tiny town so paul can get a lay of the land over there. paul got dressed in an outfit he'd wear to work, since his office is very casual, it's not out of place to wear it on a weekend. as we were coming downstairs asher said "it's saturday?" baffled that we didn't just hear that we both said "what?" and he said "daddy staying?" um...WHAT?!? he just started saying "hot" on thanksgiving...how does he know the days of the week? and when daddy should and shouldn't be staying home? complex little mind of his. these kids keep me guessing that's for sure.

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!!!

smiling bumper to bumper traffic

today we had our little buddy aidan over. karyssa and aidan have had a connection since they were about 18 months old. probably before that even. they are just over 2 months apart and he is her favorite person, just after our speech therapist emily, to come over. this morning i said "guess who's coming over today? 2 people..." and she goes "aidan!?!" and i was like "wow, ya...how'd you guess?...and emily" which ensued about a minute of yay's and woohoo's romped through the living room. what can i say, i've turned her into a cheerleader.
later when he was over he was having a hard time with chairs. i had rearranged the chairs and he wanted to sit in the chair i was in so he was on the floor mulling it over and karyssa climbed down from speech therapy and put her hand on his shoulder to console him and gave him a sticker. seriously...the sweetest thing i think she's done in months. it brought both me and emily to tears. the big crocodile kind that just stay in your eyes but don't really fall out. that kind of tears.
then tonight we had a meeting at children's hospital and on the way home we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. except i kept noticing cars would slow down right next to me for a while and then speed up smiling. stumped i looked in my rearview mirror to catch her tiny little hand waving to all the people in the next lane. so if you were driving on I-270 this evening around 5:00 wondering why everyone in the right hand lane was smiling...it was karyssa passing out love. *sigh* dang i love that little thing!!!!

com'on kids...we need to stop by the tattoo parlor on our way to music class.

seriously...some days i question why i got out of bed. this is how it all went down:
woke up realized my eye was still curiously puffy, but not as painful as yesterday.
put away the kids' laundry that i washed/dried/folded last night before bed.
called the doctor and got an appointment for late morning. perfect since i had a laundry list of errands to run today.
started a load of actual laundry.
fed the kids breakfast then went running so my mother-in-law doesn't leave me in the dust when we run the bolder boulder. ended at the park after the run so the kids could get a chance to play before heading home.
came home and changed laundry loads.
showered and out the door by 9:30 so i could get a chance to get a cup of free starbucks on my way to run errands.
took forEVER at starbucks and accidentally got caffinated but couldn't exchange it because i had brought my own cup with my own non-sugar/non-dairy additives. decided it would just be a really hyper and productive day after my doctors appointment...no more time to run errands first.
went to the doctors office just in time.
found out i have a sinus infection behind my eyeball and if it turns red or starts to hurt i am to go immediately to the emergency room.
joked with doctor about severity.
was corrected by doctor that "no, for real...it's really serious."
was given an antibiotic and told to take zyrtec, the antibiotic, nasal spray, cold presses and probiotics for the rest of the day.
and was told to rest.
didn't admit that i've already been running 3 miles today and had a list of to-do's before my head would hit another pillow today.
went to asher's pediatrician for the prescription he needs for his water thickener stuff. (not sure if i've mentioned that when he swallows a whisp of water goes into his lungs each time instead of all in his tummy.)
went to walgreens to get my prescription, his prescription and all the extras.
took baby g his pants back because last week karyssa wet hers while she was at his house for an hour while i went to the dentist.
came home and made ham and cheese grilled sandwiches for lunch.
changed laundry loads.
started feeling REALLY sick...hoping it's the coffee and not the infection.
laid down.
heard the HOA mowers come right past the windows.
so did asher.
waited for him to fall back asleep.
no luck. went upstairs and laid with him for a minute getting a glimmer of hope that he'd fall back asleep.
gave up and brought him downstairs.
took him to the basement to fold another load of laundry. started another.
heard karyssa get up.
decided i might as well sweep and vacuum. if they're up, i'm up.
swept the kitchen and bathrooms....almost.
straightened out my nose ring completely....while it was still in my nose.
sat on the toilet glad i didn't pass out but pretty sure i blacked out the last minute of pain throbbing from my nose.
found out i was still able to stand up so i decided to clean up the blood with rubbing alcohol.
vacuumed entire house.
then i heard these words come out of my mouth: com'on kids, we gotta stop by the tattoo parlor on our way to music class.
stopped by the tattoo parlor and told them what i'd done...except for the part where i explained exactly what i'd done because for a million bucks i cannot tell you how i straightened out my nose ring sweeping the bathroom.
they winced, fixed my nose ring, and informed me that my nose looked "pretty angry" about that.
hurried the kids to music class, where they ran circles around the other kids and parents listening to music.
went to target to get a few last supplies for easter.
called paul to see how late he'd be to find out he was already home.
drove home...stuck in rush hour...took a short cut....got stopped by the train...for 10 minutes....realized this was no longer a short cut.
called paul and asked him to put dinner in the oven.
finally got home, unloaded groceries and the kids from the car.
made brownies with karyssa super fast.
pulled dinner out of the oven, put brownies in the oven.
ate dinner and brownies and played with the kids a little bit before letting them fall into bed.
now i'm blogging and hoping they fall asleep soon because this girl needs her head on a pillow.

now that's just gross

i don't have a weak stomach. i can handle scars and puke and even some talk about medical procedures. but you know what's just gross? when you lean over the banister to ask your husband to bring up the diapers you just brought in from the store, turn around and find your potty training 2 year old sitting on the toilet saying "poop!" and just the minute that you get excited that she's really turned a corner from only being potty potty trained to actually being fully potty trained, you realize the floaties the baby is playing with in the tub is the poop your toddler is talking about. *sigh* ga-ROSS!!!

this is my life. ? ! * )

i'm not sure how to punctuate that statement. today we had breakfast with our birth mom's dad and stepmom. i have no idea how she feels about it because she doesn't write back to my letters and she skipped out of every meeting social services set up for us to ever meet. this is very hard. it's hard to predict how someone you've never met might feel when the only thing you know about them is the back of their head in court.
needless to say, all day long i've been mulling our meeting over time and time again in my head. sometimes i think: this is my life. other times i think: this is my life? and then again: this is my life! or: this is my life* literally any of those endings will do with how my feelings are today.
karyssa couldn't come because until today we didn't know exactly how much contact they had with her. we found out today-it's not much. which is sad, but on the other hand that clears the whole how-will-she-react-to-seeing-them-again fears. she's going to think we're eating breakfast with another mentor couple probably.
it was tough. it was amazing. it was eye opening. it was affirming. it made me question all kinds of things i hadn't questioned before. it was a blessing. it made my heart ache. it warmed my heart. it made me feel confident. it shook my confidence. it was all kinds of things. but mostly it was 2 hours giving to a man something that no one else on the planet could give him. the gift of meeting his first and only grandson. we didn't have to do it. we could have left it at pictures and emails. we could have told them too little too late. but we didn't.
we met them for breakfast and got there first. i sat asher, intentionally, between me and an empty seat at the table. after a few loooong minutes of waiting with my teeth clenched and my heart getting heavier with every passing minute thinking "are they really not going to show up for a meeting they requested with their grandson!?" they came. smiling, late and lost. they came. abuelo (his new bloggie name) laid eyes on asher and i picked him up out of his highchair and handed him over. abuelo's hands were clammy. he was so excited. and so nervous because they were late. later step-abuela admitted that they had gotten into it because he was trusting that she knew where she was going. he held on to asher until the food came. he ate quickly, the whole time playing with asher, then he picked him back up from the highchair. i am not sure he took his eyes off of him the whole time. if it's possible for a man to have a pregnancy glow, abuelo did. we finished breakfast after an hour and a half but it wasn't for 41 more minutes before he was ready to hand asher back over to part ways. at one point i asked him "so, what do you think?" and through tears in his eyes and his wife translating he said "this makes me so happy to get to meet him. you have made me very happy and i really appreciate you doing this." *ugh* rock in my heart! and i realize this isn't about me and how i feel. it's about the kids and their connection to where they come from. this man is where they come from. don't get me wrong-they are still MY babies (paul would say OUR babies) but regardless of how much they are mine, they come from his blood. asher does this thing where he does the left handed smack, as we call it. on everything. the tub, the table, the floor, his exersaucer. all the time the left handed smack. what was the first thing abuelo did when he put asher down to eat? he reached over and smacked the table. not AFTER asher did it-BEFORE asher did it. asher smiled real big as if to say "finally! someone who speaks my language!" and smacked back. in all the months he's done the smack not once did i think to smack back. not once! what is wrong with me? when we met for our ice breaker he couldn't keep his hands off of that little wirey toy with the beads? you know-they're in every waiting room that anticipates children. it's got all these wires that go in every direction and it's got beads on each wire....couldn't stop touching it. guess who else can NOT leave those things alone? karyssa! i told him today that i had noticed that. although i'm not sure it was translated exactly. i think it was translated as "karyssa likes those wire and bead toys." i don't think it was explained to him that i had noticed how much he was like karyssa. which leads me to my next epiphany. *sigh* i need to learn conversational spanish. shameful that it has taken me this long to come to this conclusion but i realize as long as i don't abuelo will always be an outsider for our meetings. and for the sake of our kids and his relationship to them, i don't want that. not sure how i'm going to hurdle that desire but i'm putting it out there in the cosmos as a hold-me-to-this kind of thing.
anyway. today was a big exhausting day. all in all i feel like paul and i have gotten thrown into an arranged marriage where we got to meet and fall in love with the groom and THEN met all of his family.
i'm not sure why god gave this life to me...but this is my life!

why you should always ALWAYS wear shower shoes.

this weekend we took the kids to the local rec center. they have an amazing indoor pool with all kinds of kiddie features and a couple slides. one actually goes outside the building and then back in. WAY cool. on our way in we changed clothes in the family changing room and i noticed there was sand in the toilet. curious as to where there would be sand in an indoor pool but whatevs. we swam for about an hour and a half. both kids were literally pooped. we went back into the family changing room and paul took the kids one by one into the shower to wash up. as i was pulling sweet pea's diaper off i noticed tons of sand in her diaper. now i know she went down the kiddie slide and i know she went down the big slide (which was very fast and very dark fyi) but i'm pretty sure she did not come in contact with any sand that i know of. so stumped. until i noticed little bits of carrot from her lunch up by her hip. and then all of a sudden paul and i, at the same time, realized that was not sand but was in fact, watered down poopoopydoo. oops! i have no idea at what point that happened but i suspect it might have been the first time we went down the slide and it was so stark dark you couldn't even see your thoughts. and that is why, my friends, you should always always ALWAYS wear shower shoes no matter how clean a shower looks.

an hour as a stay-at-home mom

i was skyping with a friend when sweet pea got stung! i have no idea by what. i asked her if it was a bee? "no." a spider? "no." a bug? "bug!" so i have no idea what stung her. she calls flys bees so i'm wondering if it was a bee but she doesn't know what a bee is and when i asked her if a bee stung her she was thinking i was asking if a fly stung her. so then i went to put dinner in the oven and it's frozen solid. so then i made pizza crust, thinking i'll just switch tonight's menu for tomorrow night's but we didn't have cheese. then i remembered we're going to be in boulder for dinner tomorrow night so now i have half thawed chicken and rising pizza dough. UGH. so we went to the store to buy cheese and ran into the old receptionist, nina, from her daycare and i told nina sweet pea was crying because she got stung and she started sobbing all over again instead of just crying. then she sobbed her vitamin, that i gave her "to make her finger feel better", right down her throat and i had to give her the heimlich in the store parking lot. really? is this really what happened to me in just one hour of this afternoon? yes. yes it is.

highly inappropriate game

lately sweet pea has been wandering up to me with her eyes squeezed shut and her arms out in front of her like a zombie. i figured out that she's acting blind. where she came up with this i have NO idea. to my recollection she hasn't seen any blind people...and she certainly hasn't seen them stumbling around like zombies. but she LOVES it when i say "oh it's my blind child! come her blind child!" and then i scoop her up and kiss her all over. it's the FUNNIEST and most inappropriate game we have come up with to date.

elmo visits the firehouse. and sweet pea has the firehouse come to her.

we have a bedtime routine, for the most part. we brush teeth, change diapers, put on jammies, then me and daddy and peanut crawl into sweet pea's bed and we all read a story together. then, it's time for night-night. last night, we did the drill and came back downstairs and 5 minutes later we heard "CRACK!" on the bedrails then sweet pea screaming waling crying. i ran up there in about 3 steps-i seriously think i missed about 85% of them on my way up. i ran into her room, flipped on the light and saw blood gushing.
for the record, i have been known to pass out cold at the thought of maybe breaking my arm-turned out to just be a big bump and a bruise-but that's beside the point.
i grabbed her up out of her bed and ran her into the bathroom, called* for paul [*read "screamed my head off"] and grabbed a towel to catch the blood. at that point i couldn't tell if she'd broken teeth out, if she'd bitten through her lip, if it was a bloody nose...all i knew was the blackest/reddest blood i've ever seen in my life was pouring out of my tiny 2-year old's face. paul came up in about as much time as it took me to get up there and as soon as he was holding her i ran for the phone and called 9-1-1. at that point i was pretty sure she was going to need a blood transfusion before the ambulance could get to the house. i was shaking in my boots to say the least. the operator was frantically going through her pages "ok...put all family pets away and turn on your porch light." "ok.....um....let me see....um.....if she seems groggy or sleepy turn her to the side but do NOT let her fall asleep." !!!! OK !!!! "ok.....uh...let me see here.....hold the soft part of her nose...not the bridge of her nose but just below the bone and lay her all the way back." by then i handed the phone to paul and went downstairs to watch for the ambulance because i could hear it coming. i flagged them into our place and told them the rundown, she's 2, she's our foster baby, we've had her since last summer, she's gonna be scared of you at first...and he said "how old is she?!" "she just turned 2." ya-my thoughts exactly mr. fireman!"
all in all she did great. the bleeding stopped shortly after they got here. there was one paramedic that was asking me how it happened and i showed him the blood on her bedrail and the laundry hamper. from what we can tell by the amount of laundry she had hauled into her bed, she had been leaning over her bedrail into the laundry hamper and pulling clothes into her bed. she tends to do this often. and i've caught her doing it and she's on her knees...not standing up. but what they weren't sure of is how FAR did she fall onto the bedrail because apparently her face caught her fall. (ugh-i can't think/talk about it too much or i start to get woozy.) we didn't end up having to take her to the E.R. but i'm waiting for all my nieghbor ladies to ask me what happened. i saw 3 of them peering through different curtains through out the neighborhood. today it's discolored-a little yellowish, but i think we're gonna get off with out black eyes. the paramedic said give it a couple days...she still might get them. eesh! this girl is gonna keep us on our TOES!!!

loudest roommate EVER!!!!

sooooo peanut has this habit. i may have mentioned it before. he moans in his sleep. when he's hungry or waking up and other nights it could mean "hey-yo-over there-mom and dad-my diapers dirty/wet/still on" or whatever. so last night was a "hmmmm....i've got the runs so i'll let'm know every time i fart"...or should i say "shart"? (for definition watch along came polly.)
anyhoo. last night i decided to count how many seconds his moans were lasting. seriously i think he can hold his breath underwater longer than david blaine. his average is 8 seconds. oh come on now, you think, 8 seconds isn't so long.
ok, imagine for this long: 1 [one thousand], 2[one thousand], 3[one thousand], 4[one thousand], 5[one thousand], 6[one thousand], 7[one thousand], 8[one thousand]. ok-as long as it took you to truly read all of that-we are trying to sleep 3 feet away from mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for that long. and i'm not talking once or twice. i'm talking for a half an hour every exhale. and i said 8 was the AVERAGE. not every single one. some are 7 seconds. others are 10. some are 2. seriously! i get up every 5 minutes and try to shove the passie back in his mouth only for him to spit it out again to get a full moan going. oish! can not WAIT for that boy to have a room to himself. and we can't combine him with sweet pea because HE'S WAY TOO LOUD!!! that said i wouldn't trade him for the moon and the stars. he is the cutest thing even while moaning. LOVE that little man with all my heart and soul!

wheels are turning

today i met with our case worker and she told me our adoption day is going to come sooner than she thought. i said "so like november?" and she said "no...even sooner!" it made me think back of all the different times and ways i've prayed and it reminded me of this post when i had a laundry list of things to pray for. and then i had to go back and remind myself of how all of those requests got answered. so, to not leave you hanging...let me tell you how they were answered.

1. well, obviously, he made it.
2. brace yourselves....i found out in a meeting last week that she began to gain weight "somewhere in the first week of december."
3. so far, so good.
4. it seems to have been a miracle because he is JUST as perfect as Sweet Pea.
5. she was instrumental in keeping the kids together. it was her request, not that he be placed with us, but that wherever the kids go, that they be together. it was dad's request that they stay with us.
6. well, he's here isn't he?
7. that's EXACTLY what happened. EXACTLY.
8. he was born "at term". it was shooting fish in a barrel to figure out the due date but he showed all signs of being born on his exact due date.
9. we handled it. somehow it always works out.
10. paul's has gotten a major promotion and with it a raise that is exactly what i would be making if i had gone part time where i was and worked like a slave.
11. hallelujah! we're able to adopt through the county!
12. she is the sweetest, most caring big sister ever and knew from the moment he entered the door that they were connected. their bond is erie to say the least. even the case workers see it and comment that they know they belong together.
13. he's almost crawling already. he sat up for the first time on sunday. he's 6 months and way ahead of "schedule" for any of his benchmarks.
14. i think she was thrilled because my quitting put money back in her pocket. she's since replaced me twice. we'll see if #2 holds out any longer than the poor first girl.
15. done. and done.

it all has my wheels turning. how soon can they have our last name? how in the world did god answer all 15 of my crazy requests? how could this have been more of a puzzle and it's solved today as i write this standing in my pajamas unable to sleep due to excitement and awe? we know we are beyond blessed. needless to say, when there's a gap in my posts it's because i am processing more than i can write. sorry for the gaps...sometimes i just have no words. but tonight-i can't help but go back and see how it all came together like a magical puzzle.

we're renting. ssssshhhhhhhhhhh!

our landlord asked us not to be home tomorrow from 11:30-12:15 because she's having a realtor come by to look at the place to list it and she "didn't tell her the situation" of us living here and her being our landlord. and then she said it should take "about 45 minutes i suppose." ??? i am pretty sure she's retarded. as soon as the realtor finds out she has tenants she's going to know our landlord's lying to her. AND she bought this place using affordable housing program and she's not supposed to have tenants so once she told me if anyone from the city every came by and asked to just tell them that she lives here and we're visiting. yes. us. our two foster kids and our dog. just HAPPEN to be visiting. are you nuts?! and our toys and pictures are plastered all over the place. like the realtor's not going to ask her, as a single woman, why she has half a closet of men's clothes and kid toys/clothes/bedding all over the house and some strange families pictures. uh-huh! suuuure that's a good plan. how 'bout TELLING HER THE TRUTH ya nutjob.
oh - and she doesn't have a copy of the lease because i printed it out off the internet myself two years ago, filled it in, signed it and sent her a copy twice and she kept mailing it back to me and we never reprinted and resigned a new one when our lease was up. so she has nothing to even prove we have to pay her each month we just do because we're honest people.

your dog's missing his beer keg

yesterday i went to the store around 4:30. i prefer to go in the mornings when no one is there since i'm a traveling circus. i either have to put peanut in his car seat up in the kiddie seat in the cart and have sweet pea sit in the "car" part of the cart. i'm about 5'4" so for me to look over and steer that barge through the store is quite a site. my other option is to wear peanut in his carrier and then push sweets in either the normal cart or the car cart. it's just so dang hard for me to see over the car seat and the car part of the grocery cart.
anyway-all that to say...we finish up shopping, check out, go out to the car and there is a blazer parked next to us with all the windows open, including the back hatch and there's a mastiff/st. bernard in there barking his head off whenever we move faster than a snail. so i put the kids and all the groceries into the passenger side of the car because if i go to the trunk that sets him off all over again. and every one walking past is looking at me like "that's a problem." finally i think-ok-i've got my groceries in the passenger side of the car....i can't climb through there...so i push open the driver's side door by leaning over all of the groceries and think when i get a chance i'll hurry around and jump in real fast. um...no. a car pulled up on the other side of the mastiff and that didn't distract him. at that point he's looking at me thinking i'll taste good with ketchup, why give up a good thing and turn his head to see the other side of the car. then a young guy came past and i said, "could you please have the store page whoever has the rabid mastiffs in the blazer to come settle them down so i can get into my car?" he chuckles and goes inside. another woman walks past and looks at me and i said "mmmhm. ya. i can't get into my car until this guy comes back to settle the dog down. i'm about to call animal control." she goes "oh ya...that's not cool." then a store employee comes out and i said "i need help...i'm about to call animal control because i'm getting more pissed by the minute." and he said "i just heard them page him so he should be out any minute." i love that in all this time we all KNOW it's a man that has left this dog in the car. finally here he comes. i know it's him. i can see the smoke stains on his shirt from the parking lot that match the pile of marlboro packs on the dashboard. sure enough, he meanders through the parking lot and comes up, one eye crossed, hasn't shaven in days, showered in weeks and gives me a half grin, which forces me to give him a half grin back. i said "next time you bring your dog to the store you need to park at the end of the lot so other people can get in their cars." he reaches in and begins to pet the beast to calm him down/hold his collar while i get into my car. he said "awe, he's just a puppy." to which i rebuttled "well he doesn't look like 'just a puppy'." and with that i got in the car cursing under my breath so the parrot in the back seat doesn't repeat every word and head home. GRRRRR!

brazen little brat

today we went to the library for reading time only to find out that our energy levels were not library levels, they were more like playground levels. so we went to the park. i noticed there was one woman with 2 girls that seemed to be her daughters. but there was enough voices for 6 kids! then i noticed all of the nice shady places had been taken over by amerian girl paraphernalia. and then i realized one park bench was their closet. one park bench was their bed. one picnic table was their kitchen and at the moment they had taken over a couple of those springy guys that you sit on and they bounce back and forth as their cars. so i set peanut down in the shade under a tree in his seat. sweet pea went to climbing to the top of the slides. the bigger the better, ya know. when she got to the top i realized the rest of the voices were coming from the slide. the remainder of her children had taken up camp in the slide. shoes off, totally camped in. sweet pea squealed with delight to which the woman finally looked up from her texting to say "come on kids-out of the slide". the first one comes down-no shoes. "where are your shoes?" she begins. then another one "you have to keep your shoes on, we're not the only ones at the park anymore." (anymore? i think...how long have you been camped out here?) the third comes down-still no shoes on and she continues "....you have to respect others that want to play at the park..." on and on she goes with blabber that sounds like she's parenting or babysitting but really i know she's just looked up from texting and has no idea what the situation is. we play for about 30 minutes and finally i start doing the countdown. "10 more minutes, pea pod, and it's time to go home" "just a few more minutes" "ok, we'll swing and then it's time to go home." with that i go pick up peanut from his post, put him in closer shade and head to the swings. as i go one american girl doll is in one swing and the other american girl doll is being swung on the other end. the girl at the other end calls down toward the swing she SEES us heading to and says "hailey! save that one for me!!!" i, however, continued to put sweet pea in it and begin to swing. the girl next to me says "no you can't do that!" and i said "yes, but my daughter is a real girl, so we're going to swing." and with that the babysitter realizing an episode is about to be on her hands calls across from her texting spot and says "hailey lynn! it's a public park." can you believe the balls? i would NEVER have done that when i was a kid. i would never have talked to an adult or called down from the opposite end of the swings to tell my friend to "save" me a swing. *gasp* where do kids get such nerve?! am i out of my mind thinking that's brazen? seriously-i want comments.

SeRiOuSlY loving staying at home

this is my day today:
8:00 woke up and fed peanut one more time (he's sleeping better this week)
8:30 sweet pea woke up and we headed down for breakfast (cream cheesy eggs & bacon)
9:00 cleaned all 3 bathrooms with a toothbrush! LOVE clean!!!
then a shower for me and baths for both kiddos and out the door by 11:30 to have lunch with a friend
12:00 lunch with a friend
1:00 headed home for naptime (oops-an hour late but all is good)
put the kids down and finished putting away the cleaning supplies then tore into the front closet. WOW. LOVE IT! i can even squeeze the stroller into it. i should have taken before and after pictures because i could have a career in organizing.


then i started my oven cleaning concoction. you turn the oven on to 200 for 15 mintues, then turn it off and put 2 cups of amonia in a 8x11 pan on the top rack, 2 cups of boiling water in another 8x11 pan on the bottom rack and let it sit for 2 hours. then you take the amonia, add 1/2 cup of baking soda and 1 cup of white vinegar and wipe the oven down with that mix. let that sit for 15 minutes....or just keep scrubbing (which is what i can't help but do) and wah-lah, it's like a brand spanking new oven.
3:30 peanut woke up for a feeding
4:00 sweet pea woke up and we loaded up the stroller (from the closet), took snacks for sweet pea and chicken livers (from last weeks crock pot chicken) for tatum. we are working on getting her used to the dang stroller. for some reason when she stands still next to it for more than a second it freaks her out as if it had just appeared there. ???? that dog puzzles me. took a looooong walk. threw the ball for tatum then...
5:00 came home and started making dinner. pork stir fry with brown rice
6:30 paul came home and we ate dinner then
7:15 started heading to bed for sweet pea
7:30 i finished cleaning the oven and it looks brand NEW.

8:15 sat down and started blogging
I LOVE BEING A STAY AT HOME MOM!!!! I think I've thanked Paul every day since I started staying home. i LOVE it!

SNOOKI!

today i went to pick up sweet pea from daycare and she was covered in orange from the chest up. it looked like she'd been dipped in cheeto batter. her teacher told me griffin, the little boy sweets LOVES to play with, colored all over himself with an orange marker so sweet pea followed suit. i said "oh my! should we bump up your hair and put you on mtv with snooki?" if you haven't seen jersey shore it's a must see train wreck. she just looked at me. i didn't even get her signature "ya!" i said "with all that orange you look like you've been fake bakin'." still nothing. so we came home and took a nap. i let her play in her crib (yes, she's still in the stupid crib) after her nap and when i went in there i startled her because she was taking the sheets off her crib and when she jumped up and looked at me i couldn't help but laugh all over again. it's gonna take days to get all that marker off!

wow...she's much smarter than i realized.

Yesterday when our nurse and infant worker were over they gave me some books and stuff for 24-36 month olds because I needed some of the resource advice on discipline and eating, but they think she's too advanced right now and needs to move on to the discipline for a 2 year old. Well today we were looking through this picture book and on one page it has cartoonish pictures and I said "which one's the toothbrush?" and she pointed right to it. Thinking surely it was a fluke I said "which one's the shoe?" "which one's the butterfly?" "which one's the train?" Do you know this little baby knows a TON of these things in this book already. And she's NEVER seen this book before!!! She just points RIGHT to them when I say them. !!! What the? I'm speechless.

introducing peanut

well. this past week was full of news from the foster front. i've come to grips with what is about to happen and i'm ready to get some more prayer warriors on the home front. i found out this last week that sweet pea is going to be a big sister. yup. our birth mom is pregnant again by sweet pea's dad which means "peanut" will be here somewhere in the march-ish area. i have no idea if it's a boy or girl. i have no idea if there will be mental delays. i have no idea if the new baby will be nearly as perfect and wonderful as sweet pea. but i do know that paul and i both feel called to accept the new baby into our home and try to keep the kids together. our birth mom does not want the county to have anything to do with the new baby. and rightfully so. i totally understand her thinking. in her mind the county came in and took her baby away and gave her a checklist a mile long of impossible things she has to accomplish in order to get her back. in her mind we, as the foster parents for sweet pea, are as much a part of the county as the case workers, attorneys, nurses and infant care workers that give her endless unsolicited advice. so i completely understand why she's lumping us in with her hatred for the county. she doesn't know that we aren't told of every unfolding development in her case. she thinks we are, in fact, one well oiled machine that always tells the left hand what the right hand is doing. her plan at this point is to get a private agency involved to adopt out the new baby to a separate home. she has yet, however, to crack a phone book and find an agency to get matched up with an adoptive family. she also hasn't been eating, drinking, getting pre-natal care, taking vitamins, getting proper folic acid, or gaining weight. from what i'm told she's about the size of a 9 year old and is TINY. i cannot emphasize the tiny part enough. i'm not sure if they are expecting both or either mother and/or child to make it to full term. what this means for us is that i will need to quit working in order to spend time in the NICU with the baby in order for it to know there IS actually someone pulling for it and hoping for it and wishing it to be here. financially we are far from ready for that prospect. but we also feel that god has called us into this whole fostering business and know that he won't lead us where he cannot take us. i'm scared. i'm very scared. i had my first good cry about it tonight. yes. 4 1/2 days after the news i had a good cry. i just know we have a good thing going with sweet pea and i hope i don't ruin it being selfish in wanting to have more babies in the house. and so many people have asked me (just recently) if she has any siblings and i've said "no, and her parents have split up so she'll always be the only one." and it made me sad that such perfection would never be duplicated. and now to find out that it can, and HAS, been duplicated makes me think of all the but-what-if's in the situation. what if it has mental retardation? can we handle that? what if it has physical handicaps? can we handle that? what if it's not as perfect as sweet pea? is it even POSSIBLE to be as perfect as sweet pea? what if sweet pea gets upset that all of her love and affection that she's been showered with now has to be shared with peanut? will she hate us forever for that? all of these, and more, are the questions that leave me tossing and turning deep into the night. and i realize trying to keep this secret under wraps until peanut gets here is too much for me. i'm a blogger. i gotta talk. i gotta get my aingst out there into the world. so here's what you can pray for specifically:
1. that peanut makes it.
2. that the birth mom gets hungry and thirsty and is forced to eat and drink.
3. that peanut doesn't have delays more than therapies can reverse.
4. that peanut is as perfect as sweet pea (this one would be a miracle).
5. that the birth mom realizes the need to keep the kids together and if she doesn't
6. that she forgets (yes, this is possible) to line up an adoption agency
7. that the county is notified by all the right people immediately upon her labor beginning so that they are there in time to file the paperwork necessary to get custody if the birth mom forgets to line up an agency.
8. that peanut holds on long enough to be healthy, but not so long that more permanent damage is done.
9. that we can handle what is coming our way.
10. that financially i can find a job that can work around all of this.
11. that we're able to adopt through the county and not a private agency because the services that would be available to peanut are so far greater than what we could provide i can't even list them all.
12. that sweet pea is able to adjust and we are able to give her all the same love and attention that she gets now.
13. that the all of the right therapists and doctors and nurses and case workers and adoption agency workers are put in the path of everyone involved to provide us and peanut with everything we are going to need.
14. that my boss will go easy on me when i'm finally able to explain all of this (which will be much further down the road.)
15. anything else that the previous 14 points didn't cover.
i think i'm beginning to wonder now if it's probably a good thing that i haven't gotten pregnant because i'm not sure i have the patience to wait 9 whole months for a baby. it IS still possible for peanut to not make it so i won't tell work until i know that they are going to make it. somehow, i gotta let go of it and just let god do his thing.