ROAR!

tonight i called the cops on our neighbors. i've never done that before in my life. well, actually once i did on that neighbor in denver who had video gaming parties at 2:00am. i called the cops on him. tonight we got together with some neighbors and grilled out. afterwords we took our pooches to the open space to play. it's so cute to see them. then on the way back another neighbor's dog came barreling out at us. first he went after tatum to which tatum turned to all fangs. then he went after chuckie who is a chijuajua. he's built more like a polish sausage-but he's a chijuajua by breed. THEN he went after sweet pea's feet. THAT'S when i screamed bloody murder so loud and long that i had to take two breaths. i came right back inside and checked for tears in her pajamas. she was so scared she was crying-she'd never heard me scream like that before, especially not right in her ear. i settled down and gave her a bottle and put her to bed and thought "that's it, i'm calling the HOA." then i thought-what are they gonna do? send her a letter? i had been pushed to far. this has happened with tucker before, but only with tatum, no babies. i don't do well when i'm pushed too far. much like what happened here. so i decided i was calling animal control but not like a weenie. i was going to do it right. i was first going to tell her that i was calling and the reason is-as a foster mom, my job is to protect my kids. and if sweet pea had gotten bit i would be in big trouble. i asked paul if i was being over the top. he said no. he ALWAYS brings me down to earth so when he said no i realized i had every right to be as pissed as i was. i put my sweater on and headed out. only to find tucker standing in the middle of the street between me and my neighbors house. i RAN back inside and called animal control. i explained everything right down to the part where i was going back out to tell her why i was going to call them. the cops showed up. took all my notes and went over there to talk to her. she felt really bad and actually already had him on craigs list. there's a link to his ad if you're interested in a crazy chocolate lab with a cute face.
so the cops came back over to me and asked if i wanted to press charges which of course i do not. but then told me she'd like to talk. !! to me? right now?? yes! she was on her porch waiting! so i went over there and she's in tears. i felt so bad. but not so bad that i regretted it. the cops told her to call the lab rescue or the humane society but she had to do something. they then told me that if she doesn't do something within a month to call them back. all in all it ended in me hugging the neighbor and telling her i didn't want to add anymore stress to her life but as a foster mom i HAVE to protect my kids and i don't want to lose my baby! how WEIRD was my night?!

big strides. ok, not BIG strides, but strides nonetheless

this week i took sweet pea for a weigh in. 15 pounds 11 ounces. YAY!!!! ok-so she's still not on the charts for gaining BUT she's gaining AND she's starting to walk AND she's teething. so when you add in those factors it makes my measley 8 ounce gain look like i'm raising godzilla. she's actually chubbing out of her 3-6 month pants. i'm so ecxited. i would LOVE if one week someone said "ooh look at that! a whole pound" or something ridiculous. or even if they didn't have to go back to their office to "check the charts." she's just so small that she doesn't fit any of them.

this week was a little bit rough for me. i got news about how things are going and it made me shake in my boots a little bit. i know she's not mine until the judge says so. and i know we are so so freaking far away from that that i can't even see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. but i still read into every little move and over analyze every report that comes back to me. and i know the case workers can't tell me so much stuff because of privacy and they can't mislead me in any way and i understand and even appreciate that. but if i could just get my hands on a genie bottle or a crystal ball. *sigh* i got to acupuncture friday night and molly said "so how are you doing?" and i just broke down into a pool of sobs. it was right after the shaking in my boots phone call. i feel so ridiculous. i KNOW what to expect. i can tell people exactly what has to happen between here and then. but my heart just refuses to follow suit.

which brings me to another update. acupuncture is coming along fine. but the sugar part of the diet is getting hard. it's still not hard to avoid sugar, but it is getting hard to avoid things like white flour, and potatoes that turn into sugar once they hit my metabolism. that part is getting frustrating. it cuts out pizza crust, french frieds, mashed potatoes, bread, crackers, sweet breads and treats that every office has sitting around. it's just getting hard. and i'm not doing good avoiding dairy. DAIRY. i gave up dairy YEARS ago because it made me sick. but now knowing that someone else says that i can't have it has me feeling like i need yogurt or american cheese. all these great little treats we have laying around to fatten up a certain sweet pea. (see above if you've already forgotten our fattening up mission.) i don't know. i hate to bitch and moan through this whole post of a pity party. and there's all these pregnancy announcements around me and i think "how'd SHE get pregnant?" i have to remember my problems are not everyone else's problems. and my journey is not hers. and i have to keep trying the path i've chosen because i don't know what else to do but give up. oh forget it. i guess i'm going to bitch and moan through this entire post. whoa is me. go on, give it to me. let me have all your pity.

Yellowstone

Everyone's been telling me that I should save Yellowstone for last because it's so beautiful. Well it is beautiful, but even if I went every year for 10 years I could still not see everything there is to see there. It was really beautiful. The first day we hit old faithful and some geisers because i didn't want to get to the last day and not have seen it. we met a geiser groupie and she told us all about this particular geiser. she went on and on and squealed in delight with every spout of steam then begged it not to leave her when it started to dwindle. passionate, yes. odd, very much yes. she was thrilled when i asked her if she was the groupie for that particular geiser and told me she sneaks into the park every chance she gets since she lives close by and times it so she can see it fill up, go off, and drain. she was full of some very helpful information.
then we saw old faithful, which really had me puzzled since it wasn't near as big as some of the other geisers but it was very reliable thus the name old faithful. not old big and faithful.
the next day we went to manmouth springs. paul had been telling me how gorgeous it was and no matter what we did we HAD to go see manmouth springs before we left. it was quite a drive. it's 30 miles between spots and we were staying about an hour away from manmouth springs. i told him it'd better be some spring for the drive because sweet pea was sick and tired of her car seat and it was only the 2nd day. we got up there to find out that it's different week to week, month to month, and year to year. i thought well, surely it's more beautiful from the bottom. let's go down there and hike up instead of hiking from top to bottom. well. um. it was one of those weeks apparently because it was pretty dry. as in bone dry. except for a couple trickles. we did get some cool shots nonetheless. it was kind of a let down to Paul and i laughed and said "is this your central city?" when my parents came out to colorado my dad kept RAVING to my mom about how wonderful central city was. the last time he was there was in the 60's and it has since become a gambling town. it's great for those who vacation in vegas. it's not for anyone else. it was a major let down to my dad when he went as an adult. paul suddenly felt his pain.

in sweet pea news-she did very good. she's a very good traveler. she did get bored saturday on our way between yellowstone and casper. i caught this shot of her, which i can share, when she got ahold of the paper towel roll.

she loved camping and sleeping in the sleeping bag. i wrapped her up in her quilt, then shoved that down into the sleeping bag so she was a little burrito. here's another shot i can share. tatum got to come along at the last minute and she was very certain to stay close to sweet pea. the first night sweet pea slept in the pack and play and tatum slept right next to her. no blanket or sweater. she froze. but would not leave sweet peas side. after that i kept sweet pea a little closer so i could check on her easier during the night.
she did really good every night but one. one night she had some night terrors and screamed bloody murder. i picked her up-she was sleeping right next to me-and talked to her and paul talked to her and finally i turned on the light and realized her eyes were still closed. as soon as she woke up she did fine.
everywhere we went i would hear women cooing and talking baby talk and wonder "what language is that?" and i would glance over my shoulder to catch them talking to my backpack. sweet pea loved it. soaked up every bit of it. one time i heard "oh there's that cute baby again." it was so cute. no matter what nationality you are or what language you speak this baby melts your heart. she learned to smile for the camera this week-which people thought was adorable. and she learned to wave and have people wave back. that was especially a thrill for her. she has started saying "hi" when she waves now, but it comes out as "eye!" it's super cute. but then, everything she does is super cute. so all in all for our first family vacation i wouldn't change a thing. it was sooo sooo sooo much fun.

Holy Frijoles!

I was on my way home from the fabric store (no lie, that's how this story starts) when I passed a guy with one hand on his bike and one hand holding up a dead dog. I did a quick u-turn and asked if we could give him a ride. this happened while my mom was in town a couple weeks ago.) he took one look at us, one more look at the dog and said "ok." so we put his bike in the back of my honda civic-those things really can hold alot-and he got in the front seat. the whole time we were asking him "what happened?" "is he ok?" "did he get hit by a car?" and the guy kept saying "it's my nieghbor's dog. she got out and i chased her on my bike all the way here." then we realized two things. the dog was very much not dead. and the guy was bleeding. "oh no! what happened?" "well, she bit me, she's not normally a biter." i couldn't help but notice that the dog he was holding up had, um, i'll just say boy parts. but the guy kept saying "she" and calling the dog "cocoa". i didn't pressure him. i thought, shoot, the man is bleeding, he seems to really know this dog-maybe their neighborhood calls all dogs "she" sort of like all cats are "he"? so he directs me to his house and we pull up to the neighbors' house and they came out puzzled. his wife came up on her bike at the same time. he got out-still holding "cocoa" by the scruff and his wife said "well josh, that's not cocoa. cocoa's in the back yard!" to which he calmly responded "well then who is THIS?!" another neighbor carefully flipped the tag over trying to stay away from the fangs and read "frijole". yep, you guessed it, "cocoa" was a boy. and frijole is a much more fitting name since it means "beans". a little more manly, even for a chijuajua.