Andy's review...

is on Friday. Abba, please be with him in his review. We pray that it will go well. There has been talks of not being able to do salary increases this year. I pray that's not the case, but am grateful that he has a job no matter what. Please always give him job security there. He really enjoys it there and they have been very good to him. I lift up my husband in prayer as he prepares for his review this week. Amen.

Calgon take me away!

Andy's working late tonight (rather he went with another co-worker to another co-worker's house to fix her computer) and I'm dealing with a 2-year old who has been testing me all day long and the girls keep arguing over every stupid thing. Little A's birthday is tomorrow and she is practically rubbing it in Deidra's face. Deidra asked to go down to the neighbor's for some time out so I gave her an hour to play down there. Now it looks like some storms are blowing in and I'm wondering if I should go down and get her a few minutes early. We had a bunch of ebay auctions end and I'm trying to invoice everyone. We ran a summer clearance sale and Andy put all of our store items on auction to try to clear out some stuff and I literally have about 50 people to invoice. I'm cramping and cramping and my PMS is just horrible and all these little things are just making it worse. I think once I get the kids in bed I am going to run a hot bath and relax in the bubbles for awhile. I'm on the verge of tears and I feel so stupid because of it. I'm not normally like this...I blame it all on PMS. lol.

Just 40 more minutes and then it's bath and bed time. Then once I get them down, I just have to feed Baby L some cereal and a small bottle of formula and give him a bath and he'll be ready to go down for the night too. I can do it!

Busy Day...

my van is in the shop getting fixed, Andy's working from home, I babysat this morning for a 15-month old baby boy. Then, I just ran and ordered Baby J's birthday cake (Thomas the train), I need to wrap his presents, I've been trying to get laundry put away and the house cleaned up. We had our pop-up visit from our caseworker and then I had to go up to the agency to drop off some stuff I had to make copies of before I could turn them in. Then, I had the intake worker that had some questions for me as they were confused on if we wanted another placement of just anyone or whether we wanted it to specifically be from the compound. I said we'd take anything...we just wanted to let them know that we were willing to help with the compound (LDS) stuff too if needed. They're trying to put those kids in large group homes and stuff though so they're not exposed to our cultures and stuff, so it's not your typical foster care settings. So, I'm doubting we'd get picked anyway. But, I told her what we were wanting and I gave her permission to say yes for us and so hopefully we'll have another little one soon. Then, I ran and get the girls from school and now I'm going to try to do a few scrapbook pages.

Hurtin Update and a Bonus

Well, I soaked my foot in ice water last night after I put the kids to bed. Then, I came down and laid on the couch and elevated my foot. Andy came home and woke me up to tell me to go to bed and so I hobbled upstairs. I had to sleep with my foot hanging off the bed so I wouldn't roll over and touch it on the bed or I wouldn't have a cat step on it. I woke up this morning with bad stomach cramps that were making me want to throw up, so I had to hobble to the bathroom. Andy decided to stay home today and work from home so that I wouldn't have to be throwing up and hobbling after the kids today. Thankfully, he can do some work from his laptop and if anything needs to be fixed that he can't walk someone through at work, he has the ability to access their computers and take control over their computers from his laptop here at home. It'll be nice to have him here too since Baby D has speech therapy today and we have an IEP meeting for Little J this afternoon as well.

Andy called me last night too to tell me some good news. He's getting a Christmas bonus this year! He asked me to guess how much it was going to be and I didn't even come close. I guessed very conservatively. We were both pleasantly surprised since this is the first year that they rolled this program out and gave out a Christmas bonus. His company takes such good care of their employees and he's very blessed to work there. Thank you, Abba, for your blessings!

Ever feel like you've just stepped into a tornado?

The transition from 1-2 children really didn't phase me much...although it did take me about a week or so to get used to his schedule. The transiton from 2-3 has been a tad overwhelming, especially with the babies only being 5 months apart in ages. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of everything, their therapy appoints started and Andy went out of state. I do fine when it's me and the kiddos at home. I'm getting a schedule of how to do everything. It's when you start adding in worker visits, therapy appointments here at home that they want you participating in, doctor appointments, stuff out of the house that we have to go to that I start majorly stressing and feeling overwhelmed. It's hard to focus on that 4th dimension (whatever it may be) when I'm chasing 2 babies around the house, trying to keep E from bullying the other ones, and trying to keep everything flowing nicely and yet I have to focus on some other thing that is going on here. Not to mention, that usually they're here when it's the kiddos nap time and they get into everything they're not supposed to when they're tired way more than normal.

Tuesday went fine...that was our free day and we just played around the house. When the kids napped, I used that as my down time and I stayed up way late after everyone went to bed to have some time for me since Andy was gone and couldn't give me a break.

I'm learning that Wednesdays are my rough days...not sure why...not sure if it's just because that's the half way point through the week or what. But, it's been a hard day to get through for whatever reason. Anyway, Deidra was feeling out of sorts (probably because Andy was out of state and that was a change in her routine), we had the therapy coming out for a major appointment, I was trying to get in the shower and the house cleaned during the boys morning nap time, they didn't want to go to sleep. I asked for her help in cleaning up the toys and she was fighting me on everything. She destroyed her room and I had to put her in time out until she cleaned it. Daddy called in the middle of her tantrum, asked to talk to her, and she willingly cleaned everything up then...which tells me she was desperately missing Daddy. The therapy people got here, she was wanting attention to and to be included, I was answering a zillion questions, trying to keep the boys out of everything, Deidra and E wound up getting into it and that was so unlike her...normally she's so patient with him. I think she's just tired of getting bit and her hair pulled. But, she was too agressive with him. Anyway, after they left I wound up putting the boys down for a nap and I told her that I needed to have a serious talk with her. I told her that she is in no way to ever put her hands on the children again, there are serious rules about this stuff, and that she wouldn't be going to gymnastics or to the play place to play and that we would be staying home until she could get her behavior back on the good side whether Daddy was here or not. Talk about majorly stressing me out. I worried all night about it.

Thursday morning, I knew that the end was in sight as Andy got home later that night. However, I didn't know how I was going to make it through the dentist appt with all 3 kids by myself and that was worrying me. We still don't have a double stroller and the waiting room there is like a shoe box. Anyway, I was still worrying about the incident between E and Deidra and I wanted my caseworkers opinion about it all so I called him to talk to him about it. Deidra woke up crying and asked if we were going to have to give the kids back because of her. I spent the morning trying to comfort her with her kept saying that she was sorry. I knew she didn't hurt him, but I just kept trying to tell her that if he did anything that she just had to keep telling Mommy so that Mommy could deal with it. I try to get to him when I see that look in his eyes to reiterate the nice behavior but I can't see everything. Not to mention that sometimes he barely touches her and she freaks and it's hard to tell what really happened. It's come down to now that I have to check for bite marks and he's got her good a couple of times. Anyway, the caseworker reassured me that these things are going to happen with their ages...they understand that, but that we really have to reiterate with Deidra that she cannot touch them or that will eventually get us in trouble if it keeps happening. It's only happened the one time and she feels immensely bad about it, so I don't really foresee it happening. She didn't really understand about the rules before now either (other than me telling her not to do anything back to him when he first did that stuff to her and she never really tried. Anyway, I found out a good thing with E to try for when he does the "bully" behavior. He can sit in time out forever and it doesn't phase him (he's still in the living room with the other kids). However, I started putting him in the playpen in his room for 3 minutes and he hates being alone. Then, I go back to get him, tell him that if he can play nice then he can come out and play, and I take him to the kid that he has hurt and make him give him a hug. When he does nice behavior I have also started to really play it up by telling him what a good boy that he's being and we all clap for him. It seemed to work much better and I think he is slowly getting it. Being in the car is a whole other story though...I still have to think of ideas for that one. We really need to get a van and then it will be a non-issue because he won't be able to reach anyone.

Anyway, we survived the dentist appt. I put J in the stroller since he was the only one who didn't have an appt. D and E played...well E got into everything he wasn't supposed to. I had paperwork to fill out on D and E and it was horrible trying to fill it out with him running and getting into everything. It took me a half an hour to get E's paperwork done before they could see him. Then, his appt was literally 2 seconds. I was hoping for a reprieve while they cleaned his teeth to be able to get Deidra's done without having to keep an eye on E at the same time. They took D back while I was doing hers and I literally just finished it about 5-10 minutes before her appt was done. However, things did quiet down once I was actually able to concentrate on both boys and didn't have that dreaded paperwork to try and get done. Both kids had good appts and nothing wrong with any of their teeth. We wound up going to McDonalds afterwards because they got free french fry coupons from the dentist along with their new toothbrushes. We came home to eat and then I had to take them all to a training up at the agency that we had to go to on SIDS and Shaken Baby Syndrome. That gave me an hour to myself to wind down a little bit. I was able to talk to our caseworker again and I felt a lot better about everything. I went and picked up the kids from the rec room after training and then we had to run to the store for more milk. Got home and got the kids ready for bed, in their jammies and gave them their medicines, and put them down to sleep. Deidra asked to stay up to see Daddy since he was supposed to be landing soon and I told her that she could cuddle with me on the couch. There turned out to be a major delay in his flight though...I was worrying about why he didn't call and then Andy's dad wound up calling me asking if I had heard anything from Andy and when I said that I hadn't he informed me that the flights out of NY were delayed due to weather. He wound up landing shortly after 10:30 although he never made it home till shortly after 1 am. I was just relieved that he was finally home.

All I know is that it's hard work taking care of 3 kiddos with no break and I don't want to be a single parent ever. I hope Andy won't have to go out of town for work anytime soon either.

Thank you, Abba, for surrounding us with your protection while he was gone and for seeing us through this week.

He made it back...

Andy made it home last night from NYC. I was very happy to see him. He was supposed to land at 8:40, but due to weather delays didn't land until shortly after 10:30. He made it home a little after 1 am. My stress level went down a few notches when he came home. It's hard to take care of 3 kids with no help and no break. He was going to go in for a little bit today, but when his flight got in so late he just decided to stay home with us today. I can handle that!

Abba, thank you so much for watching over him while he was gone and for returning him home to us safely. He was worried yesterday that he wasn't even going to make his flight as they forgot to call for a car for him. He had to catch a cab and with all the traffic and getting a late start, he was really doubting that he was going to make his flight. Turns out they sat on the runway waiting to get permission to leave for 2 1/2 hours due to the weather, but they were all sitting on the plane when the delays started happening so it's a good thing that he did get there when he did so he didn't get bounced to another flight. I am just glad that he is home and hope he doesn't have to leave again anytime soon.

This whole business trip thing...

Ok, let's start from the beginning...Andy and I set a plan in place that we were going to wrap these last few things up that we needed to do for our foster/adopt stuff so that we could finally be done with everything. I told Andy before that if we could get our inspections done by the end of the month/first week in May that all we had left to do was to get our homestudy done in 2-3 visits and that depending on the scheduling of that we'd hopefully be done by the 2nd or 3rd week in May and then we'd be ready to go. I changed my availability at work as well. Starting May 14 I'm only working weekends. If they won't honor that, my last day with Home Depot is May 11. Hopefully, I'll find out about that next week.

Anyway, Andy called me earlier this week on his way home from work saying that they had talked to him about an "optional" trip to New York to do inventory in their 2 offices. Now, they had been joking about it with him before for the last few months and I had always told him that if he went to NY, I wanted to go with him. We were only joking. I never thought it would actually happen and he didn't either. I asked him when it would be and he mentioned that it would be the 2nd or 3rd week of May. I immediately brought up our foster/adopt stuff as this is going to play a part in the timing of our home study if he goes then and I really don't want to delay it any longer. Not to mention, he is leaving on a weekend and I have to work weekends. My Mom and brother who normally would watch her already have a commitment on the weekends through the end of May, so I'm a little stuck on who I'd get for a sitter for her. I asked him if they could have someone else go (the idea was already put out there for someone else to go if Andy wasn't available...the trip is "optional" for Andy to go) this time and he'd go next time so we could stick with our current plan of getting the foster/adopt stuff done like we had planned. He got pretty bent out of shape with me. We had our first argument that we've had in a long time and both of us are pretty adamant about our reasonings. He's afraid that he's going to make a bad impression if he chooses not to go. I don't know what he's so afraid of...his whole dept knows what we're trying to do...they had even talked to me about it at the dinner we went to a few weeks ago and they are very supportive of what we're trying to do. They are a very family driven company as well, so I don't see it being a problem really if he doesn't go. He just gets so worked up about work stuff ever since he got laid off. He want to leave no room for error on his part which I do respect...if this weren't an optional thing for him yes, I'd be upset, but I'd totally understand him having to go. Maybe I'm being selfish, I don't know...it's just that I don't want to have to keep putting off these last few things and he knows that I just changed my availability so that we could start accepting placements as well. But, we can't do that until our homestudy is done and I guess right now I just see that as being more important than him going off to New York for a week for an optional trip that he really doesn't have to go on. Anyway, I'm tired of arguing with him over it and I give the situation to You, Abba. I know that you know what is best here.