When it rains it pours.  For three months straight we had not a single referral.  As of tonight, for the month of January I believe we are at 6 referrals.  Tonight’s was for 2 girls, a 4 year old and a 1 1/2 year old, who needed an adoptive home for a same-day-placement – i.e., if we’d said “yes”, they’d already be here.  I was kind of surprised when Katie said we could submit our profile for it (though with questions), but then as the phone calls mounted I realized I didn’t want to answer the next one and was too scared of the prospect, so we said “no”.  Not a “no, never”, but a “no, not for a same-day placement – if you find a short-term home and wish to talk to us further we’d love to hear more about them.”  This process is not good for my mental health.  I’m thinking of taking up drinking.  Or maybe sniffing glue.

Eventually, though, the calm set in after we declined.  The boys finally cajoled Katie into leaving the dinner table and stopping chatting with Ryan, and got her to come to the play room.  I was doing dishes, and was still calming down and figured I deserved some damned Jelly Bellies, because.  I grabbed a couple, started munching on them, and then Nicky called to me.  I walked over to him, answered his question, then gave him a kiss on the cheek, and got up to go back to the dishes.  Nicky yells out, “you smell like cookies!  with frosting!  Daddy, why do you smell like cookies?”  Little snitch…  I plead ignorance and retreated to the kitchen. I heard Katie whispering to Nick and guessed what was coming.  I panicked, and since my drink was empty and there was no food out I couldn’t come up with any way out of it, so I grabbed the dish soap and drank some.  Then when Nick came over and said, “Daddy, let me smell your breath!” I let him catch a whiff of dish soap.  Possibly I burped out a bubble, I’m not sure.  He said, “huh, that’s weird.”  And then went back to playing.  Katie burst out laughing at me, and I had to go eat 4 more jelly bellies just to get the taste out of mouth, and the first one I grabbed was grapefruit which I think combines with dish soap to taste like gym socks, by which time I felt guilty so grabbed some extras and gave one to each of my little buggers (Nicholas, Dexter, and Katie) – which is the very thing I’d just drank dish soap to avoid.

So I think the moral of the story tonight is that I lose.  After which we played the game Quips before sending the boys up to bed.  Dex won.  Nic took second.  Katie took third.  I was in last.  Again, I lose.  <sigh>  On the plus side, in just 2 weeks I get some more narcotics, so maybe then in won’t hurt so much…

Sometimes, life happens not the way you want or expect. I know you all look forward to our blogs but sometimes, we just don’t want to write. As most of you already know, we would like to add another member to our family. However, I am not blessed with being fertile. So, we became licensed foster parents with the hopes of meeting our future daughter through the foster system. So far, that hasn’t happened but we did get a referral for a little girl that broke our heart. We’ve spent the last few weeks agonizing over whether or not we could meet her needs and she could meet ours. In the end, we decided not to accept this referral. This is a very hard process and I think Joel and I would both say we hate it. In the meantime, we have escaped through playing with Nicholas and Dexter and after they go to sleep, we’ve become addicted to watching a show called True Blood. True escapism.

We are all alive. We are all recovered from having a nasty cold. I am officially no longer employed by Boeing. I quit so that I could stay home with the boys for the next couple of years. Joel has another upcoming arm surgery Feb 11th and then he will be taking time off to hopefully let his arm really heal this time. Nicholas and Dexter have made another cognitive leap and the thought process that goes into the drama that ensues is amazing at times.

Nicholas told me he wanted to grow up to be a girl. I asked him why. He said he wanted to be like me and I’m a girl so he needed to be a girl. My heart melted.

Dexter has taken up counting for us when we are counting Nicky towards a time-out. Joel or I will say “that’s 1, Nicky” to which Dexter will respond “then comes 2 and 3 and take 5.” How do you not laugh?

In January, we managed to take the boys bowling for the first time. Nicky had a great time. Dexter said it made him tired. I’ve never seen a bowling ball roll that slowly and still make it to the pins. They are currently enrolled in gymnastics and doing surprisingly well for being the only new boys in the class. We have our routine and I am enjoying my time with them. Today, I laid down on the floor on my left side because I had a bit of heart burn. Before I knew what was happening, my body became a race track for their lego cars. The races then turned into demolition derbies near my face and I got up.

Anyway, that is about it for now. More later once we get caught up on the remaining two seasons of True Blood.

Yes, Christmas is long since gone and we are behind in our posts.  So, in an effort to slightly document the month of December and still get to bed at a decent time in order to recoup from having a bad cold that has ravaged my whole family, I’m going to be lazy and put a bunch of pictures in one post.

Christmas cookies.  The months of October through December, I took a leave of absence / vacation from work and stayed home with the boys.  It was my trial run of “do I want to be a stay at home mom”.  Because of this, we were able to fully engage in holiday fun – making cookies, decorating, and getting things done early.   It actually felt like Christmas this year.   With the boys help, we made two different sets of Christmas cookies – the peanut butter / Hersey Kiss cookies and frosted sugar cookies.  Nicholas and Dexter had a fantastic time unwrapping Hersey Kisses.  They may have even consumed a kiss along the way.  Then came the sugar cookies.  Dexter wanted no part in the making of the cookies – just in the frosting of said cookies.  Nicholas, however, was fully engaged in the whole process – mixing the dough, rolling it out, cutting the shapes, and frosting the cookies.  When it was finally time to frost them, I called in assistance – Joel.  The three of them frosted while I documented.  As soon as Joel said that if frosting dropped on the table you could lick it up, Nicholas attempted to lick the table.  We also mentioned that it was ok if a cookie broke in the frosting process.  You could eat the broken part.  All of a sudden, there were a lot a broken cookies.  ;)  The boys did a great job and I think we have more cookie making yet to come.

Gingerbread house.  Here is a holiday tradition that I have no memories of – building a gingerbread house.  Joel was insistent that we build one.  I was like, why?  Why put all that candy on a house that you are not going to eat?  That is such a complete waste of sugar.  ”Because it is fun” was his response and by George, he was right.  Now, I have to admit, the boys did get to eat a lot of candy along the way.

Not much to say except the boys helped us to decorate.  They have their tree and we have our tree.  Someday soon, the two shall become one, once they stop driving cars through their tree and hiding Legos in it.  ;)  Currently, their tree is an object to play with and thoroughly enjoy.

Here are some miscellaneous shots from our attempt at getting a family photo in front of the Christmas tree.  It is really hard to get a good shot when Dexter thinks he’s a rock star.  Also thrown in – Santa Vader.

I am so very tired this afternoon.  Dragging in fact.  The last couple of nights/days have been hard ones.  As any superstitious parent knows, one never utters phrases like “they are being so good right now” or “now this is a dinner they will love”, etc…. because, if you say it out loud, the tide will change and you will be bailing water like your life depended upon it.

But if you think it, what will happen?  A few days ago, Joel thought “wow, we haven’t been to the doctor with the boys in a while.”  Famous last words because as of right now, ah, this is so hard to write because I feel like I am dooming myself, I am the last one standing.  A cold that started on Christmas Eve with the boys, slowly grew and mutated.  Wednesday was a bad night with Dexter – his ears hurt and he had a horrible cough.  I made Joel take them to the doctor Thursday morning.  Verdict – just a cold.  Thursday evening, Joel is hit hard and ends up on the couch, overcome with aches and pains.  Thursday night, I’m up with Dexter more than a few times during the night.  Friday – I stay home from work to take care of the troops.  Joel’s comment to me “I am so sorry Katie.  All I had to do was last 3 days and I couldn’t even do that.”  Friday night, after the walk in clinic closes, Dexter complains that his ears hurt again.  Lovely.  Nicholas coughs once or twice and demands medicine.  We think he is “crying wolf” because he likes the sugary taste of Tylenol and Dex is getting a lot of attention.  At 10:45pm, Dexter is HOT and shaking.  I start to panic, wake Joel up, we give him more medicine.  Once again, I’m up a few times in the night helping a cranky and coughing Dexter.  Saturday morning, I take Dex to the walk in clinic.  Verdict – ear infection in both ears and lots of post nasal drip which is causing the cough.  Ugh.  Dexter doesn’t want to eat anymore but the medicine call for food.  It becomes a struggle getting the bare minimum in him so the medicine doesn’t tear up his stomach.  Saturday is kind of a grumpy day.  Nicholas starts to bark like a seal around 8pm.  Not a good sign.  He wakes up at 2:30am sounding like Darth Vader.  I give him a nebulizer treatment.  He’s up off and on until 4:00am, when he calls out from the hallway, crying and complaining of not being able to breathe well and has a panic attack.  I have a panic attack too because of how horrible he sounds.  This time, I wake Joel up.  We go downstairs and put on the movie Cars while I neb him again, trying to calm him down.  It works, he calms down and we watch an hour of the movie before trying to sleep again.  The boys are up at 6:45am.  I kick Joel out of bed to go deal with it.  I hear Nicky bark periodically over the baby monitor.  The next thing I know, Dexter is climbing in bed with me at 7:12am.  The walk in clinic opens at 8am.  I turn on the light and the next thing I know, Dexter is coughing.  We both slept for another 15 minutes.  I jump into the shower.  Dexter comes into the bathroom with snot dripping down his face.  I jump out of the shower, throw my robe on and find him on our bedroom floor, moaning.  Hair dripping wet, I carry him downstairs to find Joel asleep on the living room floor and Nicky smiling at me from his chair.  Poor Joel, he hasn’t had much of a chance to recover from his cold yet.  I get the boys breakfast while Joel showers.  Then I get a chance to get ready.  Nicky and I head to the walk in clinic.  Feels like I’ve done this before.  ;)  There is a long line this time but I tell the admin that Nicky’s breathing is freaking me out.  We are next to go in.  Nicholas has croup.  Not much you can do but wait it out. Read online that night two and three are worse than night one.  Wish me luck tonight.  Thank God Joel’s mom and step-dad (Chris and Don) fly into to watch the boys this week.  Hopefully we don’t get them sick and everyone feels better soon.

Wait – one more thing.  Joel is following Nicholas around, asking him to say things like “Luke, I am your father” and “I find your lack of faith disturbing”.  If you have the voice for it, be Vader.  It’s the humor that gets you through.

This post is way too may days late, but there is a little story here that is very cute.  My mom’s birthday is on December 7th.  As a dutiful daughter, I invited my parents (& brother but he was working) over for a delicious dinner, followed by cake and presents.  Dinner went well and the boys provided the entertainment.  Then it was time for cake.  I grabbed a mish mash of candles, poked them into the cake, lit them up and set the cake down in front of my mom.  We all sang Happy Birthday.  As the song softly came to an end, my mom took a breath in, in preparation to blow out her candles, as Nicholas started to blow them out.  He got two of them out before the rest of us knew what was going on.  Oops.  Joel kindly reminded me of the presents we had for Grandma.  As soon as they were set in front of her, the boys were helping her rip off the paper.  On the second present, they just grabbed the wrapped present out of her hands, moved it to a different location, and unwrapped it for her.  She didn’t even have to help.  How incredibly kind of Nicholas and Dexter to help out.

I think they are ready for Christmas, don’t you?

I think any parent can attest that having one child or more greatly affects one’s memory skills.  All of a sudden, your brain is filled with less useful information, like recalling every single scene in the 6 Star Wars movies because your children are too scared to watch Darth Vader on TV but are fine reading all about him and deeply concerned about the fate of the monster in the garbage compactor in the maintenance level.  Or recalling all of the funny combat stories you can from World War II because the boys loving hearing about Americans throwing potatoes at the enemy submarine….  Then distraction also enters into the picture.  You start a task, get interrupted, start the request, are interrupted again, begin the third request before finishing the first two and suddenly, the laundry room has flooded.  It really is the little things at that do you in.

Four days before Christmas, Joel and I had no intention of cleaning the den carpet or moping the laundry room floor but things happen.  We built our to do list that morning and were alternately playing with the boys and completing a task.  It was late afternoon, when I looked outside and noticed it was not raining and the temperature was moderate (in the low 40′s).  The trees had finally stopped dumping leaves all over our backyard and if we wanted to avoid major moss growth come spring, it was time for me to rake them all up.  So, I put on my cold weather gear and headed to the laundry room to get some gloves.  I opened the laundry room door and my feet were instantly soaked by a tidal wave of water.  I stepped into about an inch or two of water and yelled for Joel.  I’d been doing laundry all day so my first thought was that the hose had come out of the wall again.  Then I looked at the utility sink.  It was overflowing with cold water.  I turned it off, unplugged the drain, and I yelled again.  Joel appeared.  ”What do we do????!!!!!”  He had spilled medicine on the upstairs carpet earlier that day so the carpet cleaner was already set up outside.  ”Let’s use the carpet cleaner to vacuum up water” I suggested.  Then I noticed the one load of laundry that hadn’t been done yet – towels.   Those were immediately thrown on the floor.  The boys came running to see what all the commotion was about.  ”STAY BACK” we both yelled.  I slogged out to the garage to grab the carpet cleaner and Joel started sucking up the water.

It was about this time that Joel noticed that our house slopes toward the den – WHERE ALL THE ELECTRONIC DEVICES ARE KEPT.  He had also set charging on the floor, the battery for his new lawn mower.  Very quickly, we moved items up and out of the way.  Then began in earnest, the drying out of the den and laundry room.  In the end, Joel probably sucked up 8 gallons of water with the carpet cleaner, and God only knows how much the towels and carpets absorbed.  For the next 2 hours, the boys played very well in the living room while clean-up occurred.

It was quite an exciting time and good nature water jokes abound.  So, lesson learned, Joel is not to be trusted with helping me with the laundry.  That’s how the whole thing started.  He was soaking some pants of mine in water in order to try to get a stain out.  (small price to pay…  Now, what can I do to get out of dishes???)