C'mon ride the train

or the scooter.  This thing is so fun.  And Safiya agreed, for the first pass through the kitchen. Then she was over it.

xoxo

RIP piece 'o crap washer

Our washer and dryer were new to us a year ago.  The price was right (I traded speech therapy for them) and the old ones were 70's gold which tells you how nasty they were.  Well, the ones we have now are serious pieces.  Like all knobs have broken off and we have to turn them on with pliers.  And then this weekend the washer stopped doing the spin cycle.  Not having a washer with 4 people, two of which are children, is not pretty.  Benjy took it apart and to fix it would cost 1/2 if not more of what a new one would cost.  So the pretty new floor model washer is in the car waiting to be installed tomorrow.  And we'll all have clean undies.  Which is more than you wanted to know.




This is Makenna and I playing peek a boo with Safiya through the doggie door.  Oh, and car seat is on back order for 3 weeks.  Figures.


xoxo

Neurotic? Lil bit

So, Miss Safiya had her check up today, which we will get to in a minute.  She is still in the little Graco carrier car seat and she needs to move up.  We have Makenna's old Britax which I knew was old.  I know you are only supposed to have a car seat for 5 years.  She is 5 years old.  The manufacture date on it is 2002.  Do the math.  But, I was talked out of getting a new one several times because the manufacturers just put that on to save their a$$,  there is nothing wrong, blah blah blah.  But, it has sat in the garage for a long time and in my land of 100% humidity, nothing ever dries, it molded.  Done.  New car seat will be here in 5 days.


These are the new stats:
Height: 27 1/2 (45%)
Weight: 18 lbs 10 oz (48 %)
Head:  18 1/2 (95%)
Safiya can:
crawl
pull to standing
cruise holding on to furniture, walls, dogs, anything really
point to her nose if you ask her to
sign: more and all done
open all cabinet doors she is not allowed to
eat paper like a champ
throw a fit when removed from areas she is not supposed to be in
look at you, smile, and continue doing whatever she is doing when you say "no no".
grow teeth (she has 2)
Safiya can not:
sleep through the night (insert little mommy whimper)
eat more than a little bit at a time
open previous cabinet doors because Daddy removed the pulls (and triumphantly declared he was smarter)
walk holding on to fingers surprisingly and happily (on my part)
Social worker is concerned with:
the fact that she does not give a rats ass if I'm in the room or I leave.  We're working on it.  Her words were "you have a long way to go".  And for some reason I have taken the whole thing very personally and just can't quite shake it.  Like she's choosing not to attach completely.  Sigh.  The stress of worrying about whether your adopted child is attached or not can feel like the weight of the world sometimes.

Happy Friday kids.
xoxo

Happy Birthday Papa Ray

Today is Papa Ray's 70th birthday. And he is celebrating as only he knows how.  He is having a party every night for 5 nights.  Three are parties with his friends (different friends each night), one with his family, and a HUGE party on Saturday.  He seemed purely happy tonight.  And we heard some great stories of what a wonderful man he truly is.  I know he doesn't read the blog (he doesn't even know how to send an e-mail) but just incase.  Happy Birthday Papa Ray.  We love you!



On a side note, WE HAVE A COURT DATE!  February 19th at 11 am.  I didn't realize how excited I would be but I was in tears today telling people.  After that date, Safiya will be a citizen (not just a resident with a green card)  Side note:  you should see her green card with her little 5 month old picture on it.  Too cute.   She will officially be Safiya Tigist Foster (not Tigist Robert Foster like all of her documents currently say) and everything will be finalized.  FINALIZED.  Let me say it one more time.  F.I.N.A.L.I.Z.E.D!!

xoxo

Heart Heroin

At Christmas at my house we have what we lovingly call "Christmas Crack".  They are white chocolate kisses with little pieces of peppermint.  Pure heaven.  We have gotten other people hooked on Christmas Crack.  We've even been known to drive to several stores looking for Christmas Crack at the end of the season.  And to buy multiple bags just to have the hook up after they are sold out.  Just when I thought I could overcome my addiction, I am faced with yet another weakness:  Heart Heroin.




I don't even want to tell you how many days it takes us to go through a bag.  Let's just say it is far from double digits.  This particular bag kind of stinks because it is full of those blue hearts.  Which I think are supposed to be blue raspberry but they taste horrible.  Maybe they are my anti-drug.  And what is coming up....but Easter.  Oh boy, I'm in for it.

By the way, could someone just give a little shout out so I know I'm not talking to myself here?

xoxo

I'm effing tired

I'm so tired.  So so tired.  So tired, in fact, that I have to have a coke at 8:58 pm to stay awake for the next 2 hours to feed the baby.




I took this picture with the little camera thingy on my computer.  During which, I found some pics of Makenna.  Look at those cheeks.




xoxo

Is this OK?

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of 2 do not watch TV.  I wonder, has anyone at the American Academy of Pediatrics every actually lived with a child under the age of 2 for any extended period of time?  Have they ever gone days without a shower?  Or actually wondered if they have brushed their teeth.  Cuz if they had, they would know that this recommendation is B.S.  She actually stood still for 5 minutes and watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The child who never stops moving was mesmerized by the man.  Who isn't, really.



Can we take a moment and talk about Haiti?  Not in the way that you are expecting, but in a happy ending sort of way.  Bare with me as this will probably be a stream of conscious type of post.  So much in my brain to get out. First of all, adoption.  Benjy and I also looked in adoption from Haiti as he is forever scarred by a news report he saw on the children there.  Adoption there is pretty difficult.  Not as stable, can take years, and is a little risky.  And although we didn't do it, we have never ruled it out as another possibility.  But, so much would have to change.  First of all, no social worker is going to approve for another body to live in my 1400 square foot home.  And then there's the whole money thing.  Oh right, that.  It's still in our hearts and hopes for our future.  With recent developments, it has become even more difficult for me to imagine not adopting again.  And for this reason, I have had to distance myself from all things Haiti.  I had to stop reading the news, watching the news, and our house was banned from the telethon.  Ostrich?  Maybe.  But that's how I roll. Side note:  What do I call the people I have met through this adoption.  We've never actually met.  For most, I haven't even had a phone conversation.  We've talked through e-mail and Face Book, exchanged pictures and that sort of thing.  For many of them, I was able to love on, play with, and hold their children before they were.  That's a relationship I don't know how to classify.  Do I call them friends?  I don't know.  Back to my point.  One of the girls who I fell in love with in Ethiopia just came home.  She is 7 and has the biggest, most wonderful heart.  I could not be happier to see her home.  Her parents also adopted a little boy about a year ago.  Through our conversations I learned that they were pursuing an adoption through Haiti in 2006.  They had his referral for 2.5 years before the government changed the laws and they were no longer eligible.  They had to release their referral.  I can't imagine the pain.  Last Thursday they received a call that he was eligible for adoption now through they humanitarian rules that were recently passed.  Because the agency still had his paperwork from 2006, they were asked if they still wanted to bring him home. They had 3 hours to decide.  Of course they said yes.  How could you not?  As of today, he should be boarding a plane, headed for Florida to finally come home.  I've been thinking about his family for days. I am so excited and happy for them, I get tears every time I think about it.  What a wonderful story in a time and place when it is sometimes difficult to see anything happy. Congratulations Melissa and your rapidly growing family!

 I hope that someday we are able to journey down the adoption road again.  The ethics, logistics, and basic details of adopting there are completely impossible right now.  I won't bore you with the details.  Give me a call if you want to chat about it someday.  :-)

Tomorrow is my last Monday off.  :-(

xoxo

Waves

We always love going and watch the waves after a big storm.  This one didn't disappoint.


xoxo

Hyper focus much?

Benjy has this great little habit of hyper focusing.  It first came up when he was finishing his degree and I would go down to the office in the wee hours of the morning and tell him to knock it off and come to bed.  Now, it is Wii.  He spent and entire week hyper focusing on "going pro" in tennis.  Seriously.  Like dropping "f" bombs and everything.  He finally did it tonight.  Thank goodness.


xoxo

And this is Thursday

Benjy went to bed saying he was hoping and praying for a reprieve in our life today.  Not so much.  When I'm feeding the baby I mess around on my iPod to stay awake.  Stupidly, I checked my e-mail at 1 am and found out that someone had hacked our PayPal account and transferred money from our checking.  Fixing stuff with them is an effing nightmare.  So, today's picture is the screen capture.  Cuz that was my day.  It's a bunch of B.S.  That's what it is.

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xoxo

And this is Wednesday

So Benjy and I kind of have this ongoing joke where, when you are sitting in the  middle of something that you truly can't believe is happening we say "And this is Wednesday."  Which also means, "this is my reality".  Today was one such day.  We live on a river.  Well, across the street from a river.  And it floods about every other year.  Our house will never flood but the road will be washed away, so we leave when it gets high so that we don't get stuck here.  We've been slammed with rain which causes trees to be toppled over.  Those trees, apparently, created their own little damn today.  That damn broke.  The river rose 6 feet in an hour.  After helping our neighbors pull in their sheds so they didn't float away, having our power turned off by the sheriff and packing a suitcase,  he took some pictures and video.

This is the house two doors down and across the street.


At the edge of this grass is a wall.  When I stand on the beach the wall hits about my chest.




This is a propane tank.



The quality of the video is pretty crappy because he used the little camera, but you can see what the river can take down.




In the summer, living on a river rocks.  When it is 100 degrees I can take my little lawn chair down, plop my ass in the river, put up my umbrella, drink from my red dixie cup, and watch Makenna play.  In the winter, not so much.

This was Wednesday.

xoxo

I hate Tuesdays

I no longer acknowledge them.  But, I love these girls.

Not sure why Safiya has crazy eyes.

P.S.  my hours and pay were cut today= Tuesdays suck

xoxo

Dance party

We had a dance party after dinner tonight.  To the most random song.  Mombo #5.  Remember that one?  Crazy.  Many things are disturbing with this picture.  Let's just discuss a few:  1) baby playing with the electrical cord, 2) 5 year old dress code:  all red with hot pink socks  3) papers on the end table pushed to the center just out of reach 4) dog butt on the bottom losing her hair IN THE WINTER.  She is the dumbest dog ever 5) dog toy on the 1/2 wall in the back also just out of reach.


Here is the second picture with her hand placement for dancing.  He is trying to move it.  Let's just hope she finds a new placement before school dances start to happen.



Sorry about the video.  I didn't know I had checked "private".  I also noticed that she is babbling a little in the video.  She doesn't do that much. So it was nice to hear some noises.  I think because she is working so hard on moving she can't work on talking.  In less than a week she has learned to crawl, go from laying down to sitting, pull to standing, and cruise holding on to furniture.  I don't know what to do with a kid who moves.  Makenna was perfectly happy sitting and playing as a baby.  We didn't even baby proof the cabinet with the cleaning stuff because she wasn't interested.  This place will be like Fort Knox with this one.

xoxo

This one is for Papa

In August we started talking about giving Makenna an allowance.  Then came to our senses and realized we didn't need to add one more thing to our plate, with the whole traveling to pick up a baby we have never met thing.  Then, at Christmas Papa, the retired VP of a major company/financial planner, began talking to Makenna about her being ready for an allowance.  Many a conversation was had about this.  Do we make the allowance dependent on chores, or give her an allowance and still require that she do her chores?  On one side is not wanting her to learn that you only do things to get something at the end.  On the other is that you have to work for anything you want in life.  Nothing is free.  So, she has 3 chores (make her bed, set the table for dinner, and feed the dogs dinner) and she gets a quarter for each one she does.  Sounds good in theory, right.  And for her it's quite the deal.  She just earned five freakin' bucks.  But, she picked out a toy she is saving for and knows it will take 3 weeks to have enough money to buy it.  We also made sure to tell her that you still do things because you have to, not because you are getting paid.  You still help people when they need it, you still pick up your toys in the living room.  We'll see how it goes.




I also thought I'd tell a story of what she recently wrote on a piece of paper. Disturbing, yes. But if you look past that briefly, you can see how smart she is. She got in trouble for bugging her sister for the 5 billionth time the other day. Seriously, it is survival of the fittest around here sometimes. Her uncle actually caught her hanging the baby upside down by her ankles once. Anyway, she got in trouble and she came up to me about 5 minutes later and handed me a piece of paper and told me to read it. It said:
LEMEBULON.
Did you figure it out yet? Let Me Be Alone. I know, right. Freaking genius. Ok, yes disturbing on so many levels and yes, I have started a fund for her future therapy sessions.


Finally, here is a video of miss thing cruising. She made her way all the way to the tile today from the couch and I realized 1/2 a second too late that her socks don't have grippers. Which is weird. Until you consider that typically children of this size aren't walking. Oh, I can't fix the typing on this. I don't know why it is messed up and I can't fix it. Sorry.





xoxo

Sum it up Saturday

Benjy said he thinks I should still do regular posts, not just the photo of the day.  So maybe we'll sum up the week on Saturdays.  Let's see, this week I did Safiya's hair twice into three little puffletts.  It's actually pretty cute and when her hair is down it's pretty puffy.  After two nights of not sleeping (probably 6 hours total) Tuesday brought a pretty significant meltdown.  Nothing except no sleep was the cause.  But Carson's incident, coupled with the vet bill, a teething baby, and finally my salon canceling my hair appointment that I have been looking forward to for weeks made things appear worse than they probably were.  And the poor receptionist at the salon is the one who took the brunt of it.  But she got me in the next day, I slept 6 straight hours, and my hair is a few inches shorter.  Much easier.  Wednesday I spent an hour and a half shopping for jeans.  90 minutes.  Unbelievable.  Why can't they just keep the same title with the same style for more than one season.  Seriously.  It's like some messed up conspiracy to make people crazy.    I don't remember Thursday and Friday, Friday was a rough day.  Have I mentioned I am going back to work on February 1st?  The girl who took my place quit.  Which is good cuz she was horrible.  And how can I be upset.  I've been home for 5 months with the baby.  That's more than most people get.  And she's doing well.  Back to Friday.  A friend of Makenna's is adopted from China.  And her mom will be watching Safiya three days a week while I work.  It's the best case scenario.  She understands adoption.  She knows the attachment rules.  But it's hard.  And Friday I took her over to visit so that she could start to get to know her.  We're doing a little bit at a time.  It was hard.  Hard to watch another person hold her hands to walk, and play with her.  I imagine Benjy will be taking her for awhile when I go back to work.  The second lesson of the week was the ongoing teaching of crying and comfort.  Learning to cruise comes with many falls.  Some pretty big ones.  The first one caused one of the biggest cries we've seen. And it came with pushing me away and not letting me comfort her.  My initial response was to distract or give her a binkie, like I did with Makenna.  But I realized what was going on and fought with her through it.  Hugging her and kissing her owie and trying to let her let me in.  She finally did.  She finally put her head on my shoulder and calmed down.  But it took awhile.  And every owie requires the same treatment.  I'm hoping eventually there will be less resistance and more willingness to let us comfort her.  And now we're to today.  Benjy was able to clean the fireplace with tools he bought for $18.  We've been putting off having the fireplace cleaned because it is so expensive.  But until today smoke poured into the house every time we started a fire.  And now that's all fixed.  So here is the picture of the clean fireplace, which I am now enjoying at a balmy 78 degrees.  A little much, maybe.



xoxo

Cruisin' for a bruisin'

My youngest child has a strong will.  A very strong will.  And she has learned to cruise holding on to furniture.  And that is what she wants to do.  All. Day. Long.  Which results in many many crashes in just as many minutes.  Benjy caught this one.  Most don't end in smiles but face plants into hard surfaces....like the fire place.







xoxo

Oh Dear

We struggle every day with her stomach.  Too much food, not enough food, the wrong food.  Some nights she's up all night with an upset stomach.  Some nights she can sleep 7 hours. (never while I'm asleep, mind you.  But that's another post entirely).  So, I decided to try and skip the baby food.  This was night #1, chicken and peas.  I thought she liked it, but then she did this.

Sisterly love

Benjy brought the girls home, put the baby on the floor, and went to make dinner.  Makenna started playing with the baby on her own.  She actually taught her to roll the ball back and forth about a week ago.  Very sweet.

Poor Bubba

Today, as I was leaving to take Makenna to gymnastics, I noticed Carson licking his leg.  Lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick.  Since I have not slept in 2 days that sound, lick lick lick, was the LAST thing I could handle.  "CARSON STOP LICKING!"  Then I looked, and he was covered in blood.  Literally.  Legs up to his elbows were bright red.  "#*&$^"  I left for gymnastics and sent Benjy to investigate.  Turns out it was pouring from his mouth.  And I won't even share what he found on the floor.  $280, sedation, and 3 stitches later Bubba is back home and a little out of it.  He keeps looking at us like "what the hell did you do to me."  Apparently he had an inch long deep gash under his tongue in the back.  No idea whatsoever how he did it.  But, this is him post sedation.

Mini puffs

Dear Safiya,
I'm trying.
Love,
Mama.


(an attempt at mini puffs in her hair)
BTW:  pics can open big in a new window now

Daddy Daughter Date

Self portrait taken by Makenna on her date with Daddy.  Chipmunks movie followed by some crap fish and chips on the warf.

xoxo

Asleep?

For some reason Carson decided to sleep this way tonight.  Special.

xoxo

Elliot

Watching Pete's Dragon at Auntie Kalyne's house.




xoxo

Melkam Genna

Today is Christmas in Ethiopia.  I discovered that about 9:00 last night.  The tradition is to go to the church where a candle ceremony takes place, people are dressed in traditional clothing, dinner is Dora Wat (which is a chicken stew) eaten with Injara ( a porous bread), with homemade beer, and Genna is played after dinner which is somewhat like field hockey.  Hmmmm, alright.  So we used our Ethiopian table cloth, had chicken soup eaten with Nan and played "Trouble".  Oh, we ate popcorn which is a common tradition in Ethiopia.  It's the thought that counts, right?


xoxo

Golf

When I told Benjy I wanted to do this picture thing he said "I see a lot of pictures being taken at night on our way to bed." Close, this was the golf tourney they had before Makenna's bedtime. Papa would be proud.

xoxo

365 in 2010

I don't follow through with anything. Nothing. Well maybe some things. My kids get fed every day. As do the dogs. (can't guarantee that one). I shower most days. Teeth....yup. This blog....uh no comment. But I read on a blog an idea of taking a photo a day, every day, for a year. What you gain at the end of the year is supposed to be priceless. I like this idea. I like looking at my life each day. Thinking back to 2009 I would have loved to have a photo for some days. A photo when we got our referral, a photo when we all had the flu (maybe not so much this one), a photo when I decided to close my business. I may never be able to put into words what the year 2009 was like. But photos....photos don't need words. I wonder, can I follow through? I'll do my best. But I'm already 5 days behind. So we're going to go with 360 in 2010. See, I'm already a slacker. Here is the last photo we took in 2009. My living room Christmas morning.

xoxo