Favorite Quotes

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  • "I'm so busy.... I don't know if I found a rope... or lost my donkey! - Unknown"
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

I Hate it When I Have Dead Hair


Madi was staying with Granny the other day, and Granny was brushing out her long, curly hair. She casually mentioned "Your Mom needs to trim the dead ends off."

Madi got it stuck in her head that she has "Dead Hair" that needed to be gotten rid of. Granny and Papaw came down for the school carnival this weekend and in her best Diva voice Madi told Granny "Oh, Granny!!! You really need to cut all this dead hair off of me....its making my head hurt Sooooo bad!!!" So we trimmed a couple of inches off.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Good Hygiene is Important

One of my indulgences is taking long whirlpool bathes in our giant garden tub. The little girls frequently like to join me.

Lst night I had settled in with a book and was hoping for some alone time. But the girls discovered me and begged to join me. I couldn't resist, so they climbed into the tub with me. It took about two minutes before they were squealing, splashing and sloshing. So much for my quiet time or reading my book!!!

They decided that I needed some TLC, so they were soaping up my back, arms and legs and then washing it off. They were having a grand old time. And Carlie told me "Mommy. I'm going to make sure you have some goooood Hygiene!!"

Bet I was the cleanest Mom in town last night. LOL.

Professional Rock Picker

Two days ago, JB and I were working on laying brick pavers on the patio. The younger kids were very interested and Frank and Carlie wanted to help. I set Frank to sorting broken pavers for me. And he was excited to help.

Carlie wanted to "help" too. So I asked her to pick up small rocks where we'd dug out the soil for the patio. She was so excited to have a "job" and she told me. "Mommy, I'll be very good at this job." So I told her "I bet you will."

And she responds "I know I'll do a very good job, because I AM a professional rock picker, ya know!!!"

I am so glad that we have a professional rock picker in the family!!!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

My Two Boys are Feeling Sorry For Themselves

It's hard to watch....but they are the only ones who can fix the situations.

JB still has no money....no job and no prospects. This weekend JB had explained to me that I was not his “REAL” family and hence would never come “FIRST” to him when I had asked him to attend some family events this weekend which he blew off.

I paid JB $10 for an hour’s worth of work on laying our brick patio two nights ago…mostly because I wanted to talk to him about a few things. I mentioned while we were going to get the sand and supplies that I hadn’t seen him chewing in a while. And in a pitiful voice he said he wasn’t chewing because he had no money to buy chew. So at 9 o’clock he came up stairs and asked me to go and take the money I’d just given him and buy him some chew. I told him that I was tired and it was 9 o’clock and I wasn’t going. He asked me again and said please, but I told him I wasn’t going. I asked him why he didn’t go…and he said he didn’t have enough gasoline to go to the store.

So he was pouting when I went to tell him good night that night. Poor baby. No one loves him, I guess.

And he’s been hateful with us and with the Nanny over getting him up in the mornings. Well no one woke him up this morning, and he didn’t set his alarm. So he was late to school yesterday. So that’s an unexcused absence. Since we aren’t his “REAL” family….no one saw the need to get him up this morning. Hmmmmmm. He was sent to ISS the rest of this week for skipping classes.

He asked me again to go get chew for him last night...I was going to the store anyway, and told him to give me his money and I'd pick it up for him. He'd already put the $10 in his gas tank, so still no chew for JB.

He's moping around. According to him his life sucks.

We are still at war with Frank over the homework. He refused to do his math in school....so therefore had alot of it to bring home. Refused to do it for the Nanny before I got home. So he sat at the table from 5:30 - 10:30pm last night NOT doing his homework. And he's feeling sorry for himself too. No one loves him either....because if we did we'd not make him do all this work.

Guess I am a mean Mom.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Six Years Ago Today, They brought Madi to Me



The day they brought her to me will be etched in my mind forever. As a little background, Bob and I had been married almost a year, and we'd recently discovered that we had significant fertility issues. We'd been told that we had a less than 5% chance of getting pregnant without InVitro Fertilization. We'd had Frank and Libby with us as Foster children for almost a year. The Social Worker had told us that it was looking like they would return to their Biological Father pretty soon.

Bob and I knew that when they left our house was going to be really empty plus it wasn't likely that we'd be able to have bio kids. So we decided to take another child in as Foster-to-Adopt. So we asked for placement of an young child who had a high likelihood of becoming available for adoption.

I had been laid off from my job in March of that year, and I was looking for another job. The state had called us about several kids, but etiher they hadn't worked out or we'd turned them down for various reason.

On April 22nd, the kids had a visit scheduled with their Birth Dad and Birth Grandma. I was supposed to drop them off at the visit and then return to pick them up. But the social worker did not show up for the visit, and I ended up supervising it. The kids were restless and aggressive during the visit . Frank threw a huge temper tantrum. I put him in time out, and Mr. Robey had gotten angry and had let Frank get out of time out. So when we left the visit that afternoon, I was mad at the social worker, mad at Mr. Robey and mad at Frank.

We got hom about 4pm. I walked in the house, and the message light on the answering machine was blinking. The message was from DHS. They said they had a newborn girl available, but that they had to place her immediately...and if I wanted her I needed to call them back by 4:30pm that day. I looked at the clock and it was just after 4pm. I called back breathlessly hoping that they still had her. We'd been thinking of a child around age 18 months to 3 years old. I really had planned for a newborn...which is unusual to find in DHS.

They said she was still there...that she was white, born drug free and her Birth Mom had given birth at the hospital and had left her there and requested that she be placed for adoption.

I told them I needed to call my husband. We always make big decisions together. I started trying to call him, but he was on a practice field doing Spring Football practice, and I couldn't get ahold of him!! So finally I gave up trying and called them back and said we would take her. So they told me they'd bring her over within the hour.

I called my Mom and told her that they had a baby for us. My Mom immediately burst into tears and starting crying uncontrollably. My Dad actually had to take the phone from her because she couldn't talk.

I waited and waited at the window for them to bring me the baby. Finally an old ratty state own car pulled up in the driveway, and an older lady brought an infant carried out of the back seat. I looked in the carrier and there was this teeny tiny, BEAUTIFUL baby girl in there.

The Social Worker breezed into the front room, plopped the infant carrier on the floor and said "Here's your baby, Sunshine." All that she came with were the clothes she had on, a couple of bottles of formula and a couple of diapers. The social worker was then just going to waltz out the door. I looked up and said "Wait!!! You haven't even told me here name!!" and she said that her name was Madolyn.

Bob didn't come in until dark that night. When he walked in and saw me with a newborn, he asked "What is THAT and where did it come from???" LOL. I explained what was going on.

Since we'd never had a baby, I had no supplies. We did happen to have a baby bed in storage upstairs. I told Bob that he was going to have to stay home with Frank and Libby and the baby while I went to the store and bought clothes, and blankets and sheets and formula and diapers. Bob had never, ever taken care of a newborn alone. He said, "She's so TINY!!! Please don't leave me alone with this little tiny baby. I don't know what to DO!!!" I told him that I had to, because I couldn't manage a baby and buy all the stuff that I needed.

So at 10 pm that night we are trying to take care of a newborn and put together a baby bed!!!!

And we are so lucky to have her. She's a joy. And she LOVES to hear the store of the day she came to us.



This last picture is one of my all-time fav pictures. It just makes me smile every time I see it.






Story to follow

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire


The lengths to which my son is going to avoid doing school work are incredible.

Frank is a bright boy. He makes all As and Bs without having to work too hard at it. He's well liked at school. So I'm not sure how this all became such a big issue.

It started off with him telling us that he did not have any homework. We'd take his word for it. Then we'd get an email from his teacher that he was way behind in class and not handing in any work. So the teacher and I decided several months ago that she'd send an assignment sheet home with him every day that listed the assignments he'd completed.

The next problem we started having was that the assignment sheet wasn't coming home. Or he'd show us the assignment sheet and tell us he'd already done all of the work at school. He stopped doing any work in school at all. The teachers could not get him to do anything. So the amount of work was piling up.

So then the teachers and I decided that she would email us the assignments every day. But once again, Frank would tell us he'd already completed the work at school, and then he'd tell the teachers he'd left the completed work at home. Then he suddenly began "forgetting" to bring the appropriate papers and books home. Sigh.

So finally the teachers told me they would make sure that when he left school that he had everything he needed to complete his homework with him. And I agreed that I would send the completed papers to school with Libby to ensure that they received them.

So Frank came home from school on Friday. I'd already gotten an email from his teacher saying he had four math worksheets to complete. I asked him if he had any homework. He looked me right in the eye and said he'd already completed it turned it in at school. I told him that I wanted to see his backpack and notebook. He brought them upstairs, but there were no worksheets there. SO, I went downstairs to his room and started digging through all the crud on his floor. I told him that if I found the papers before he did that I was going to BEAT him. So he slinks over to his bed and digs out the uncompleted papers from under his bed.

He bawled for an hour while he worked on them. I had Libby take them back to school, and so we FINALLY got a set of homework completed successfully and handed in.
The next angle that he tries is being "sick". He begins telling the teachers that he's thrown up in the bathroom, but he flushed it before they got a chance to see. So the counselor and I told him that the only way he was going home from school was if he was running a fever or if someone SAW throw up come out of his mouth. So for a couple of days he laid on the couch in the nurses office. He finally gave up one afternoon and went back to class.
So I think we've finally got him cornered. He's going to HAVE to do his work, there's no way around it. Well I get a call yesterday that Frank had asked to leave class to go to the bathroom. The teacher became concerned when he did not return. They found him in the boys bathroom with his feet up on a toilet so that no one could look under the stalls and see that he was in there. So he was sent to the office again!!
Edited to add: Well he DiD manage to take it to another level today. His teacher had been initialling papers to indicate that he'd completed them. Today, Frank attempted to fake her signature. So now it is 10:10pm, and he's still working on the day's homework that he lied about.

Why couldn't he put all that effort and ingenuity towards something useful!!!! Like finding a cure for cancer or something!!!

Friday, April 4, 2008

March Quotes Archived

Look for every opportunity to go the extra mile. That's how you become extra special…and extra successful. -- Steve Ventura

Forgiveness is an act of self-kindness. It liberates your life force. It completes the past. Choose now to heal your old unfinished business. It is time to let go of the pain. Place your hurt on an altar and surrender it to God. Set your self and others free. Listening To Your Inner Voice - Bloch


RISK more than others think is safe
CARE more than others think is wise
DREAM more than others think is practical
EXPECT more than others think is possible


If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, and the dreams will come to you. Randy Pausch.


Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things. Randy Pausch.

Thursday

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I haven't posted in a while. It's been a rough couple of weeks. March always seems like a stormy month for me. But here is a quick glimpse of what's going on



The Good (I think anyway) - I got a sassy new hair cut





The Bad - Frank has a patch of Eczema in his eyebrow and managed to rub one whole eyebrow off



The Ugly - Libby had a bike wreck and broke off half of one of her permanent teeth





All of this happened on the SAME DAY!!!!! Calgon take me AWAY!!!!!








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