NEVER a dull moment

I was lying on the bed and Ben was saying PAPA! POOP! POOP! and I went to find out what was going on. He had waddled from the kitchen bathroom all the way through the kitchen round teh corner and halfway down the hall with his pants half off and his butt bare. POOP! he said. I didnt quite comprehend and asked WHERE? and he pointed to his pants. lol. he had a bit of an accident in his pants and was quite surprised upon finding it. He was up all night last night and I think he fell asleep awhile when I was gone and he was here with Daddy. he must have been so sound asleep he didnt even know! He tried to blame Mocha the dog but I said no I dont think Mocha pooped in YOUR pants. I reassured him it was ok and stripped him and put him in the shower. (yes that handheld shower I installed myself really came in handy.) He laughed I laughed. What else can ya do? I wasnt mad at him. it was just a mess that needed cleaning up, so we cleaned it up and moved on with our life. Maia was more interested in what was going on than Ben was worried. This is a good thing. Last time he only wet his pants and he was so worried and sorry. I was calm and just cleaned him up and told him it was ok and he was so relieved. this time it was just ok well we have a problem, lets fix it, and off we go. that is progress.

funnies

I pulled out the pack and play and opened it up. I put Sophie inside and told the kids they could play babies. They have been having a great time in there crying and laughing and talking baby talk. They took a break for lunch but had to have their milk in sippy cups because thats what babies do. Sophie doesnt want to take a nap though and be done with the game. So she kept telling me she wanted to go back in the crate. she was YELLING at me "I WANT TO GO BACK IN CRATE!" lol the crate is where the dogs sleep. I generally discourage them from messing with the crate in any capacity. so I promise, I do not put my kids in a crate. no matter what Sophie tells you!

fundraising efforts

over on ourgirlsbyheart.blogspot.com I have a fundraiser for our adoption. it is a set of really neat magnets made of a map of Ukraine.

what a great way to spend an evening.

last night was pizza night. wednesdays have become traditional pizza night because Eric is usually on call. Last night we also had salad. Maia, who sits next to me at the table, wanted ranch dressing. She opened it up, and then remembered to shake it. you can see where this is going cant you? she did shake it. what she did not do is close the cap first. so ranch dressing went flying across the table and in my hair. I figured I would just finish dinner and jump in the shower. By the time I did that it was GLUE! I couldnt get the ponytail out and ended up yanking out a lot of hair just to get the pony out. Then to undo the braid? forget it. so I thought once I get in the shower it will come out and then I can undo the braid. that stuff would not come undone! I finally washed with the braid still partially in and one major tangly mess going on. And I used lots and lots of conditioner. oh and did I mention that during all of this there was no hot water? our water heater is on its way out and everyone showered in the morning and then I did dishes and laundry so by 630 last night there wasnt hot water. so I got a nice cold shower while its 20 degrees outside and salad dressing in my hair. niiiiiiice.

my advice to anyone reading would be this, if someone pours salad dressing in YOUR hair, dont wait to shower. wash it out immediately! it should come right out. but boy once its dry its like superglu!

pants on Ben!

maia is helping ben on with his pants right now. both are laughing like crazy. it isnt going well. He is supposed to be doing it himself but she is doing it for him. she has him on his back legs up straight in the air while she says UP UP AND AWAY! his legs are twisting and turning and he has his clunky old afos on. this is a riot.
she is such a mother hen. WAHLAH!Ben's pants are on! after a wrestling match of sorts, but on nonetheless.

little chatter phone

Maia is playing with the little chatter phone today. she is talking on it and giving it to me to talk on. she said OH! daddys calling! and then the phone rang. The REAL phone REALLY rang. the look on her face was incredibly priceless. and she fairly FLEW out of her chair to answer it. Too bad it wasnt daddy it was just the dental office confirming appointment tomorrow. If it really was Daddy I bet she would have had something to tell him for sure.

She just pretended she was talking to him and she had a disagreement. she said "daddy I am a little nervous about kindergarten" I told her maybe he wants her to homeschool. She said daddy do you want me to homeschool? then she kept saying no dad I am not going to homeschool. DAAAAD! I am going to go to Kindergarten. NOOOOO daddy I am going to kindergarten, I dont want to homeschool. then she finally said goodbye and hung up.

HUH??

Maybe I am just jaded by living with a doctor. But I heard this story on the radio the other day. A child had been born. I dont recall the diagnosis but the child was very sick and they were very upset. Now they are talking about a time like maybe 6 years ago when their child had been born. And that now she is amazing. but at that time the doctors were saying it looked very grim for her. and the interviewer asked what precicely were they predicting. The father said oh it was terrible. very very grim. They said she might have to spend her life in a wheelchair. and they said she might have to live in an institution.

I got fed up and turned off the radio. First of all, no child is sent to an institution when their parents are wanting them at home and caring for them. and WHAT institution for that matter? the US doesnt HAVE institutions anymore. there are group homes. there are hospitals. but more and more is done outpatient and a child with disabilities would NOT be locked away as they would in the 50s or as they are in other countries.

and a WHEELCHAIR? THAT is grim? so your kid has legs that dont work and she has to use a chair to get around? THAT is grim? that is equivalent to death? when someone says grim to me I think death. I dont know about you. so it was grim for his child to need a wheelchair? HELLOOO! your child is ALIVE! why isnt that enough? why is it that a wheelchair in her future negates her very life! And I dont know about you but I have NEVER seen a newborn babe in a wheelchair. they are carried, they are in strollers(huh a stroller...which IS a kind of wheeled chair). so this far in the future possibility for his child was grim.

my child may well need a wheelchair. I know a bit about this. it is slightly different because I CHOSE this child knowing full well it was a possibility. but when you CHOOSE to give birth to a child you really are saying come hell or high water I will take care of this kid. no "unless they need a chair" opt out. Im happy that it worked out for them and I dont know if she ever did need a chair but I think that needing a wheelchair is not the worst thing that could happen to a person. and I feel compelled to let people know that. It is not the end of the world. just because they cant walk doesnt mean they cant enjoy life! they can go places see things do things. they just do them differently. nothing wrong with different. it is no better or worse, only different. so next time you see someone in a wheelchair dont think to yourself that its the end of the world for that person. you might be surprised at the things they can do and the way they feel.

wheelchairs=legs and I for one am glad we have them.

update

uncle bob and aunt jeannie are supposed to come for a visit today. everyone is SO excited! They raised 3 boys so I imagine they can relate to a house that is not spotlessly tidy. We can walk without stepping on things but not everything is in its place. In fact not everything even HAS a place. Still waiting on the carpeting downstiars so we can move a lot of this crap down there. but alas it is what it is. And I know jeannie and bob wont be judgemental. they just arent like that. so I am not worried at all.

I surprised my mom with a visit yesterday. She was happy to see me. I was happy to see her too as I had been in tears for days thinking she is slipping away. She was up and at em when I got there. She doesnt actually get dressed but she was up and at the table having had breakfast and coffee with dad. then she stayed at the table a long time until she had to get out of her brace and went back to the chair. I left her to take a nap for couple hours and she was back in the kitchen when I got back and she was still there when I left. so she is "up" most of the day. I made sure the drapes were open and some sun came in too. She so needs that. she is getting depressed.

When it rains....it pours in my basement

another )#*$)#*$(#* flood. this time it didnt come through the floor and walls from the outside. it came from the ceiling above. Apparently the toilet float that sticks didnt float and the toilet ran and ran and flowed and flowed over and over....into the bathroom, into the closet, down to the bathroom, hallway, and family room below. you know the family room I just finished painting and refinishing? THANK THE STARS and anyone who will listen that the new carpet wasnt down yet! its still on backorder. I was going about my business having a very productive day, having already showered the dogs because they peed in the crate and ran all over maias blankets on the way to the door. I went to the bathroom in teh kitchen bath and something posessed me to go into my room my bathroom via the closet and it took me minutes to comprehend the wet closet the wet throw rugs wet everywhere. I went downstairs to do something else and there was water everywhere down there too. and one ceiling panel had soaked so much it got too heavy and fell in. (ON MY NICE CLEAN BATHROOM DOWN THERE! that bathroom is usually a disaster, think kids, but I just cleaned it last week and was so happy that it was sparkly) at this point I think the bulk of the damage is the old carpet piece that was going to come out anyways, and some ceiling panels. and a lot of wet towels and one pissed off woman. All I could think about was this is going to keep us from our girls. but it doesnt look too bad. we might even have a few extra ceiling panels to fill in the wet ones. or we could let them dry as they arent SOAKED just wet in spots and live with the spots until time comes we would want to try and sell. not sure yet on that. I cant really get up there to get them down. I am not tall enough.

so now we have to get that carpet out and let the concrete dry. still another week or more before the carpet would come. I guess its good timing if it had to happen. stupid toilet tank.

school

wondering if I should have put Ethan in grade 1 instead of K. he does like 10 worksheets a day. as near as I can tell that's what they do all the day long. he reads like crazy now. everything he sees he tries to read. unless he is feeling lazy and wanting you to do it for him. wishing I could pull him home again. But I don't think that will go over well. He does LIKE school. even though he doesn't really have good friends there. when you say friends he still thinks Charlie Mary Levi and Maggie. I told Eric we could get a curriculum that would be able to be passed down from kid to kid and hs the lot of them but he isn't convinced. Something like calvert. he is worried that they aren't doing enough learning enough getting enough doing hs. but gosh doing 10 worksheets a day isn't learning a ton either. and its like tracing words and letters and numbers. Of course I am just getting Sophie and Ben to where they will get services but heck its taken them MONTHS to get this far and I can get whatever they need elsewhere. I miss hs. I might go bonkers with 10 plus kids in the house nonstop but hey there is the great outdoors they could enjoy! I don't know how to get Eric on the same page as me. and I don't know how to home school 10 kids including 2 with disabilities. but I don't really care for school. at least not this one. and the only other option is even worse. I just need me a big ass van so I can haul them all and then we can do whatever we want whenever we want.

ha! I am listening to incredibles and he was so right "he is not graduating, he is going from grade 4 to grade 5! they keep finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity!"

two different worlds. how to get the two worlds together as one.

A sad sweet Ben story

Ben still uses sipper cups a lot of the time because he just cant hold a cup and drops it and spills it all over. His little hands are getting stronger and sometimes we give him an open cup. the other night I had finished dinner and was doing something in the kitchen when he spilled his milk. Papa was still at the table and called for a towel. I came with a towel. we calmly cleaned it up. the whole while Bens worried little face and big eyes were wondering what would come next. he kept saying I love you Papa! I sorry Papa! I sorry Papa! I love you Papa! we told him it was ok and we love him too and we would just clean it up. he didnt say anything, but a minute later said I sorry Papa. I love you Papa. poor thing was panicing about what was going to happen next. At our house if you spill the milk what happens next is that you clean it up. and after that we go back to whatever we were doing before it spilled and probably give that child a little more milk in his cup. this is clearly not what he was expecting. Poor little pumpkin was trying to talk his way out of punishment or being spanked. yes ben we love you. and if you spill your milk, no one is going to hurt you. Mama wont let anyone hurt you ever again.

A funny Ethan story

I told Ethan his lunch was in his lunchbox for school. He asked WHICH lunchbox. I showed him the deigo one, the one he always uses(except for one day when I couldnt find it and used a different one). He was very agitated. He told me NOT THAT LUNCHBOX! Mrs. G wants that one! I thought it strange that a grown woman would want a diego lunchbox but thought maybe she made a comment about ohh I like your lunchbox I want one like that. Later bits and pieces came out. Things like Mrs G took my lunchbox away. I called the school and they told me that he had been winging it around after he finished eating and didnt stop when they told him to so they took it away and set it on the floor behind him. now the mrs G wants my lunchbox is histerical. He thinks she really wants his lunchbox and it has nothing to do with his behavior. so a different lunchbox would solve the problem, rather than changing his behavior. that is so classic Ethan.

yesterdayyyy

yesterday was my husbands birthday. I always try to do something special or memorable for him. I got him balloons as I do every year. and as tradition dictates, today, the day after the birthday the balloons are up for grabs. so right now I have 4 kids ramming around bopping with baloons and swinging them around and having the time of their lives. thankfully the dogs are completely uninterested.

poor little Maia

my poor little Maia has been sick all week and last night was up all night crying with an ear ache. poor kid. I put drops in. that didnt work. I gave her tylenol. that didnt work. she just cried for hours. gave her motrin and then she threw up. THAT seemed to work. she was able to sleep a few hours after that. which means I was able to sleep a few hours. until the boys got up....I am dragging today for sure. I was up with her until 1130. she was in my bed at 2 and crying crying and then all the other stuff, and then I was back in bed at 430. so some pretty big sleep disruption there!! the boys were up at 7ish. at least it was daylight. she is laying on the couch now pretty feverish and tired. I suppose she has an ear infection now. Im ready for everyone to be healthy for a week or two. is that too much to ask?

more outrage

I got this email about a postage stamp that celebrates muslim hoidays. and how no one should buy it because after all lets remember all the bad things muslims have done to us. here is what it says

REMEMBER to adamantly & vocally BOYCOTT this stamp, when you are purchasing your stamps at the post office.
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All you have to say is "No thank you, I do not want that Muslim Stamp on my letters!"

To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of Pan Am Flight 103!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Military Barracks in Saudi Arabia !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the American Embassies in Africa !

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the USS COLE!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on 9/11/2001 !

REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in those vicious MUSLIM attacks!
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ok first of all was it a MUSLIM attach on 9/11 or an AL QUAIDA attack? they are not interchangable any more than christianity and abortion bomber are interchangable.

so lets think about some of the crimes Christianity has wrought upon society.
Priests who think they have absolute power over young people and sexually abuse them using their power of authority to take advantage.

salem witch trials

persecution of the Jews in WWII

Catholic monks and priests condoned and participated in executing Serbians in Croatia

Christianity orignially viewed disability as due to sin.

People bomb abortion clinics and kill abortion doctors in the name of Christianity.
(how is this different than bombing planes in the name of muslim?)

so lets remember that Jesus said, Thou shalt not kill
and yet all these things happened in the name of Christianity.

by that same token
The Prophet Mohamad said to his army before going to a fight "Depart in the name of Allah, and by his help. And kill not any old man nor young boy nor child, nor woman, But be good doers for Allah loves those who do good.
and all these things happened in the name of muslim

so if all muslims are bad due to the actions of some, then all christians are bad due to the actions of their members.

you cant have it both ways. if you CHOOSE to believe in Christianity that is your CHOICE. If others choose to believe in Muslim religion that is their CHOICE. how does YOUR choice negate someone ELSE's right to choose? because you choose one doesnt mean the other is wrong. Religion preaches tolerance and its members somehow translate this to intolerance in the name of their religion.

I make no secret that I choose no religion. But here I am in my non religion with a passion for human rights. while the religions spend their time attacking each other.

a little photo fun

sophie looked so darling in her jeans and pink tshirt I had to get out the camera. here is the fun that ensued






and one special one just to see those pretties.

why is it?

why is it that you wait and wait for a phone call and the second you sit down on the toilet and engage in bathroom activities the phone rings. and of course your 5 year old who loves to talk on the phone to everyone and loves to answer it is otherwise engaged in a movie and doenst even notice the phone ringing. sigh.

ramblings of a mother

way too much to do today, starting with getting out of my cozy, warm, fluffy, pretty, pink robe and getting dressed. (so what am I doing HERE?) Then I suppose I ought to move on to dressing Sophie for the day. Ben and Maia both can dress themselves now. Ben was COMPLETELY incapable of doing ANYTHING for himself just a few months ago. he could not go to the bathroom alone he could not wipe his butt take off clothes put on clothes and just barely feed himelf, could not open doors or the baby/puppy gate. he could play cars and count "leben leben leben" and thats about it. and now he can go to the bathroom alone (AND with the door closed) wipe his own bottom, take off pjs or clothes and put on pjs or clothes(including finding and picking them out) he is working on putting on his shoes and coat and can put on his hat. He can count to 10 quite easily but usually forgets 7. he feeds himself too every meal. occasionally we will shovel a bite or two for him just to get a few more bites into him but generally he takes care of it. he can open doors now too and knock down the baby gate. still working on that sharing thing but heck I am 38 and still working on that! working on colors now. he doesnt know them very well but a bowl of fruitloops works great!

Sophie has a better time with sharing. she is able to get one shoe on and socks off. She cant yet dress herself but its no longer like dressing a floppy baby. She can push her arms into the arms of shirts after I get them into it. she feeds herself(which just a few months back she couldnt/wouldnt do at all) she NEVER and I mean NEVER wets her pants. Not even once. She can count to ten knows her body parts and working on colors. she is very bossy and very smart and very loving and very sweet and she snuggles into my shoulder when I pick her up. I love that. she is trying to learn to crawl even! All she needs is a little confidence and she would go go go!

they are just coming so far so fast. It is truly amazing to me what a couple of months in a home have done for them. they have blossomed into these bright little sponges that soak up everything. Speaking of soaking it up,,,, yesterday Maia said "what the hell?" lol. and Ethan said the dog was bitchin. so yeah they soak everything up!

Mocha has a regular trail beaten into the snow as she runs her rounds around the house perimeter. Making sure her sheep are safe from danger. She is so funny. but I wish she wouldnt eat cat turds! those are NOT TOOTSIE ROLLS! blech. barf. ew. disgusting. I suppose if the cat owners cleaned the box it wouldnt be a problem....
but the chance of that happening isnt realy high as the cat owners can barely remember to flush the toilet after their own use of it. The cat owners live downstairs, where the cat box is. I try not to go there. but since one noncat owner lives down there as well and always wants to be tucked in I sometimes and forced to endure the trip downstairs. I cant wait till summer so cat can go outside all day and night (her choice, she likes to roam the woods and fields...all two and half acres of them)and the cat box will stay clean.

Ethan told me that Jaxon at school isnt being nice to him. he hits him every day in the lunch line. I told him to stand at the front or back but not by jaxon. while ethan struggles at home to do whats right and to control his temper he told me a story yesterday about jaxon and I was able to praise him for doing the right thing. Jaxon had money. what kindergartener has money to bring to school? he tried to give it to Ethan. Now it would be SO like Ethan to say cool thanks! but no, he did not accept the money as a gift, he brought it to his teacher and gave it to her and told her Jaxon had been trying to give it to him. SOOO proud of him. of course after our nice little talk he was great for a couple hours and ended up back in his room flipping out just about dinner time. sigh. I just dont know what to do with him some days.

so my house needs cleaning. and here I sit. stop talking to me and let me get dressed and get something done around here! Eric is rounding and not home yet for his day off. When he gets home we can work together on clean up. I finished the kitchen counters and half of our bathroom. the living room has laundry needing to be put away and vacuuming to be done. and the basement...well its the basement and no amount of tidying is going to fix it until we have carpet and can put the furniture in plae and access the cabinets again. (carpet on backorder)the boys room is cleaned and carpets cleaned even. Cody cleaned and vacuumed his room. so that leaves basement/girls room, my room, my bath, downstairs and kitchen bath, vacuum, sweep and finsih/put away laundry. well heck thats not so much! but I guess it wont get done at all if I dont get off of here.

We DID IT!!

or rather SHE did it! Sophie got her ears pierced today!! She is soo darling! she says I princess! Ears pretty! golly she is cute. and she cried at first but they gave her a sucker to hold and said dont move and she was fine. went on to have lunch out together(with maia and ben too of course) do some shopping and drive home again. I had to get creative in getting two HUGE laundry soaps to the car while still pushing a double stroller and bringing 3 kids to the car. SO I put them in Bens seat on the stroller and he walked holding on to the stroller. worked out alright because we were in handicapped parking so we didnt have to go far. If I had parked normally I would never have made it because ben was already wandering off when we got to the car and Maia kept tripping over the stroller. NOW we are all home again. Mocha is being a BRAT today. eating from the cat box. YUK! GROSS! and she stole codys sandwich off the kitchen counter. she is much brattier than any of my kids!! but she is so sweet and loving and soft and cute.

sick sick and sicker

no preschool today. because I have three little sickees. ben is getting over a cold and coughing and was up crying in the night.(crying in the night is not unusual for him) Maia was up coughing half the night. Sophie is just plain sick. wont eat. just LOOKS sick. tight wheezy snotty and CRABBY! Up all night coughing crying complaining. She fell apart this morning because I asked her to blow her nose. Either she doesnt know how and isnt willing to learn while feeling sick. and I just had an entire post and it disappeared. GRRR that bugs me. Why does that happen? so I guess I will leave it at that rather then try to recreate my thoughts. the kids are sick. no school. which is fine I dont feel like going on in the snow anyways.

integration

as I listen to my children play laugh and sing together it occurs to me that Sophie and Ben have fully integrated into our family. and that the kids (at least 3 out of 4 of them) have completely accepted them and treat them just as they would any other sibling. Maia and Sophie and Ben spend the most time together and it is incredible to see Maia play, laugh, be silly, haul sophie around, put Ben on her back, and even do things she knows will annoy them. The same things she does to any of the others or daddy or myself. She is just Maia with them. They are just Sophie and Ben to her. Not Sophie who cant walk, just Sophie. Not Ben whose hands are weak and falls down a lot, Just Ben her brother. To see her holding hands with Sophie while Sophie scoots along at an incredibly slow pace compared to Maia's normal run so that they can dance to the music together in the living room is so precious, so amazing. She doesnt think of them in terms of can and cant. And most of the time they Can.
but she just doesnt see that they cant do certain things. She has been most accepting of her baby sister and big brother(who is much smaller than she and much more delayed). I like to think this will serve her well.

COdy and Chrysta adore the kids so much. Cody is willing to do help out with them. and he always gives them kisses before going to school. Chrysta helps our with them and loves to sneak one of them away to her room to play with them. and since the basement is currently off limits they relish in this sneaky deliciousness(Chrystas room is in the basement) Last night Sophie sat on the bed while Chrysta hung her clothes and played silliness with her. Sophie had such a great time she was downright TICKED OFF when Chrysta brought her back up! She took Ben for awhile too while Sophie played up here with Ethan.

Ethan has had a harder adjustment to their arrival. He was very excited for them to come home but they werent exactly what he was hoping for. Ben is very immature(which should be perfect because so is Ethan!) Ethan, unlike Maia, sees all of his inequities and takes them as a personal assault. It doesnt help much that they share a room and Ben wakes up EVERY DANG NIGHT crying! Last night was FOUR TIMES! and at first Ethan tried to be understanding and find out what was wrong but now he just gets mad that his sleep is interrupted. Ethan has ADHD so sleep is already limited and lousy and he gets pretty contankerous when its interuppted! Ethan has his own issues. We just keep trying to work with him on having compassion.

I just find the whole thing amazing. here we are not even 6 months home and life with these two little angels is incredible. Sophie sleeps in our room and every night we marvel at her before going to bed. We love to grab Ben up and snuggle him.
and watching them grow and learn is so amazing. Sophie the little manipulater is starting to catch on. if I claim belly ache because I dont want to do something then I lose some other pleasant thing. but let me tell you those two are front and center when its time to clean up. they LOVE to help.

It really is just like labor. The pain of the wait and the early days when I felt like nothing more than a tool to them are gone. Replaced by days of hugs and kisses and love shining in their eyes and mine. Days of them coming to me to kiss their booboos or just for a quick snuggle. Days of them laughing and playing rather than shunning their siblings. Life is good.

carpenter, supplies, carpeter, carpet......

this all adds up. and its going to cost us close to 4 grand to fix our basement so we can live in it again. and we are finding problems as we go....little things like the closet shelves no longer fit because the builder used crappy fiberboard instead of sheetrock and now that the sheetrock is up the shelves wont fit. the cold air intake for the furnace is not insulated enough that the cold air hits the warm air and condenses and drips on the ceiling panels. not sure what we can do about that.

anyways this is a lot of money. We also had to buy a pump so this never happens again. that was a good thousand dollars. so all in all that rain fall last march 23 is costing us close to 5 grand to repair. thank goodness we did some of it ourselves. we took down the old sheetrock and carpet. put up the simple parts of the new sheetrock.

today the carpenter put the window sashes back on and baseboards back on in both rooms. the ceiling in the girls room is fixed. the ceiling in the girls closet is as well. but now that we cant put the shelving back in the closet he will have to put in a new closet rod and shelf and then that room will be finished except for carpet. and a place for the girls clothes.