Giving it ALL to You...

Lord, so much is weighing on me lately.  I went to a retreat at the end of September and came back with a changed mindset.  Listening to those mamas talk and listening to their stories and hearing tidbits that sounded like my own children in the middle of it all...it spoke to me.  One mama said her therapist told her "when you start running your house like an institution, it's time for that child to be IN the institution."  It resonated with me...I cried over it to that mama the next morning...but I realized the truth.  It's ok, if they need to get help somewhere else...I came home with that in my mind.  I shared it with my husband and I also had a big heart-to-heart with my son about it.

I prayed for each and every one of my children, and God gave me each and every one of my children.  I am so thankful for the gift of being Mom and I can only hope and pray that one day each and every one of my children will have a healthy attachment to me and Andy and truly want to be a part of our family.  I want that SO badly.  It's eating me up inside with what we're dealing with and not knowing how to cope with it all.  Josiah comes off that bus and is a ball of anger from the minute he walks into the door until the time he goes to bed.   My head and heart hurt from listening to him squeel because he's not getting his way.  He thinks he is the one in control all of the time...when he's told to do something and he plain and simply doesn't want to...we have a battle of the wills and he rages.  Lord, take the angerness out of this precious little boy.  Heal his hurts and his heart and let him accept our love.

The holidays are coming....my heart doesn't want to deal with it all.  We have company coming in...I don't want to deal with making dinner for everyone, having to push our schedule back and dealing with the effects of that on the kids for dinner, dealing with triggers for having extra people in our house.  The holidays are triggers in of itself for our family.  I'm trying not to be selfish and whatnot, I just wonder sometimes "what are you preparing us for?"  What is in our future?  We find ourselves in the role of being the center of our family...it's something I've always wanted...I just didn't think we'd be in this role until we were grandparents.  I didn't expect that we'd be taking care of our children, parents at times, and siblings at times.  I didn't expect our house to have a revolving front door on it...I struggle with wanting down time with just my husband and having him all to myself...I struggle with feeling lonely...I struggle with not knowing what next step to take with my kids...plain and simply I'm struggling and I feel the weight of things on my shoulders.

I just want all of my kids to be healthy in body, mind, and spirit.  I wish sometimes that we would be asked to do things, instead of "hey, we're coming in and we'll be at your house for thanksgiving" and then "hey, so and so want to see people so they're coming to your house for turkey dinner too."  I wanted to do the holidays low key this year...now we're in this different place and I'm trying to find it within me to do it all...I just don't want my kids to be triggered even more than what the holidays normally bring.  I don't want judgment from people who have chosen not to have kids and have NO clue about what we're dealing with and trying to cope with.  I don't want more drama and I'm scared of it.

I'm struggling with how the kids are behaving at home and struggling in school...I want to help them the best way possible...yet it bothers me that they don't seem to care about how they behave or that they're struggling.  The amount of things around here that are getting broken bothers me.  I realize that they're just material possessions...but it all adds up and I want them to start respecting their things and appreciating what they have.  I want them to care about learning and about doing things the right way...developing morals and a conscience.

I want the kids to start caring how they behave and realizing that they don't have to do every little thing that comes into their brain...that they have a free will and can choose to follow Your commandments and our rules.

I want SO much for them, but most of all I really want them to know You and want to do Your will for their life.  And I want SO badly for all of my kids to have a great relationship with Andy and I and to care about the sibling bonds with each other.  I want a close-knit family that is centered around You, Lord.

I don't want to have to send my kids away to get help...I want to keep them here at home and I want them to want to stay at home.  Please help me to do that.  Help me to break down the barriers and to help them heal.

Also, I pray for my health...please help me get my diabetes back in check...help my knee to continue to heal...give me daily time with You to pray for my family and for my spiritual needs.  Help me with my weight loss.  Help me be thin and healthy again and give me will-power to stick with it.  Amen

My ministry page...

An announcement...

I felt God stirring my heart...I started a ministry page this week. Don't worry, I'll still be posting here about my daily life as well. However, if you are thinking about adoption or have already adopted. Please join me at The PEA Garden...a community of Parents Embracing Adoption. I am hoping to get some guest bloggers and maybe a book study going...if you're interested in posting once in awhile or suggesting some books...leave me a comment and I'll get back to you. :-)

Come join me at
http://www.thepeagarden.blogspot.com/

On my heart...

I've heard God telling me to write on adoption. I thought he was leading me to writing a book and I wrote a few chapters, but then I hit a stand still. I have been a part of some adoption communities that have grown very bitter about their parenting battles and their children's problems and I just feel like God is telling me to keep close to Him in prayer and to bring him everything concerning my children. I feel like He wants me to be a light and to hold on to hope and to keep holding on. I feel like I finally know what He's calling me to do with the adoption community...stay tuned. I'll have an announcement to make soon when I reveal His plan through me. :-)

Day 4 of Summer Faith Adventure

We learned today that families stick together and pray for one another and help each other...we talked about sacrifices that we could make to help each other and that God is the happiest with us when we're thinking about others instead of ourselves. We made rice krispies to reiterate families stick together. We talked too about honoring and obeying our parents and how that not only makes parents happy, but it makes God happy too. We made family trees and we talked about how we could pray together for one another and that God puts us in families so that we can help one another and pray for each other so that we can help one another get to Heaven. We talked about how the Mommy is here to take good care of us and the Daddy is here to protect his family. We talked about how marriage is the start of the family and what happens in a wedding. This sparked some questions from Emma about her birth as she knew her birthmom wasn't married. We talked about God's will for us is to wait until after marriage to have kids. It led to a good discussion about their adoption and a good family talk and how they were safe here and that we would always be here for them. I really felt that they understood a lot of what we talked about and it felt good to be open with them about some things. I also wanted to tell them that although they grew in my heart, that I would always love them and be there to help them the best way that I could. I am so thankful to have them in my life. Thank you, God, for these precious children!

Melina had to get in on the fun too...we gave her a bowl and a spoon and she wound up putting a fake lizard in her bowl and we told her that she was making lizard soup...she would giggle and carry it around in her bowl...



Emily helping with the cereal...



Josiah pours in the cereal...



Tracie helping to make the rice krispy treats...



Deidra helping to make rice krispy treats...



our morning started out with a little boy with a tummy ache and he fell asleep trying to eat his cereal...we prayed for him and he rested for a bit and then felt better. PTL!

Adoption Stuff

I guess I never realized how hard some things were going to be with this adoption stuff. I don't regret adopting the kids for a minute, that's not what this is about. I just never thought that dealing with the birthfamilies would be so difficult. I always thought that Josiah's birthmother would be difficult and that the girls birthmom would be the easiest to deal with. However, it's turned out to be the opposite. Josiah's birthmom has never been anything but grateful. She says thank you all of the time through his blog for taking care of him and for providing her with pictures and updates and tells us all of the time how thankful she is that he is with our family. The girls birthmom and family started out being really nice and visits went pretty well. Then Christmas came last year and she started needing to reschedule the visits all of the time and she went against all the court paperwork. Since the adoption wasn't finalized yet, I went ahead and changed the visits for her, but after a couple of months doing that and catching her in some lies, I finally went to CPS and asked what I should do. The supervisor told me that if she wasn't following the court papers on what we set up for visitation on the weekends that the visits should be cancelled and not rescheduled. After that, I started sticking to if we didn't do them as scheduled, then we weren't doing them. That made her upset that I wouldnt' reschedule a visit for the week that we were going to be on vacation and I wouldn't let her see them when we got back. Well, it just so worked out that a couple weeks after we got back, their adoption happened anyway. We were supposed to have a visit the week that I got put into the hospital for Melina, so Andy explained to her what was going on. She was fine with it. I was going to give her a visit soon after we got home, but she asked to do it a couple months from then instead. Right before the scheduled visit, CPS called me and told me that some things had happened that she violated her contracts with them and their attorney said that was also grounds to end our visits as well according to our agreement. I didn't ask for a whole lot of details, although some were shared with me. I let the birthmother know that according to our agreement and what had just occurred that the visits would be ending and if she had any questions she could talk to CPS. She did that and tried to tell me that they were lying to me and a huge sob story and how it was up to me whether she saw the kids or not. I quit responding to her texts for a few weeks. Fast forward to about 6-8 weeks later she texted me wanting to know how the girls were, I thought maybe enough time had passed that she had accepted the terms. I started talking to her again, she asked about visits and I stuck to our decision. Then, I became a thief and a liar. I stole her children. Nevermind, the fact that she voluntarily gave them up and that I never lied to her...it was our contract agreement that she openly agreed to and signed. Yet, because I was holding her accountable, she had a fit. Some things had started happening with the girls making themselves sick over visits and whatnot anyway, towards the end of our visitation and this is what is about the best interest of the girls anyway, so she's not going to make me feel guilty. I've continued to send her pictures and updates and we told them that they were still welcome to send the girls letters, cards, or gifts as well and how to go about doing that. That's another argument in of itself...anything to try and make me feel guilty and manipulate me into doing what they want. Not going to happen. Anyway, I don't have to even send pics or updates anymore due to the fact that she violated her agreement, but I was trying to ease her mind and let her see them grow up. Yet, she's still pushing for visits everytime I send pics now. I never expected all of this...I'm a compassionate person, but when all of this starts effecting my family...I have to put my foot down. Abba, just please help me know what to do in this situation and guide us along the way. The girls best interest is what I want to keep in mind and that is what I agreed to do by adopting them in my opinion. I did tell her that when the girls got old enough and if they wanted to see her that I would come to her then. She just can't seem to understand that these visits are NOT going to happen right now.

Introducing Emily and Tracie...

Our family adopted Little E and Baby T this morning...let me introduce you to our 4-year-old daughter, Emily, and our 3-year-old daughter, Tracie. :-)

Pregnancy Induced High Blood Pressure and Gestational Diabetes

I went into the hospital Friday evening because I had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for 2-3 hours and wanted to make sure nothing was happening. I had called the nurse and she said that if drinking fluids and laying down wasn't helping, that I probably should go in and get put on the monitors and see what was happening. I put out a call to my Mom and to Andy to see if someone could meet me up at the hospital with the kids. Couldn't get ahold of anyone, but thankfully Deidra was a huge help and she got them all in their shoes and in the car and sat with them while I got all hooked up to the monitors. I was SO proud of her. She really stepped up to the plate and was such a big help. Andy got stuck in a huge traffic jam on the way to the hospital, but was able to inform me that my Mom was on the way.

The nurses informed me that they didn't think I would be going anywhere as my blood pressure was really elevated and my urine was full of sugar. I told them I had just done my gluclose test in the office but that I hadn't gotten my results back yet and that was the first urine check that I had done since I found out that I was pregnant. Sure enough, she put a call out to the doctor and he wanted me admitted. They did an ultrasound that night to check on the baby...they measured her and she's right where she should be. They said she's about 3 lbs and 7 oz and that she even has hair. I was so surprised that they could tell that she's got hair already. I didn't know that you could tell that from an ultrasound.

I met with the doctor the next morning (not my own, but another doctor in the practice) and he said it was hard to tell what was going to happen, but that we needed to get a 24-hour urine specimen and that they may need to send me to Dallas to be monitored up until I had the baby. He ordered some tests and said we'd go from there. I instantly started worrying about the girls upcoming adoption and Andy told me to quit worrying and that we'd get it all figured out even if he had to do court with them himself.

Deidra spent Saturday night at the hospital with me. It was SO nice to have her up there and she was trying so hard to look out for me. The nurses all got a kick out of her. I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of her and she sat up on the bed with me and told me that she loved me and that she loved Melina too. I knew she was worried,but I kept trying to reassure her. So, I think it did us both some good to spend some time together up there.

Every day it seemed I'd be told, well maybe we can get you home in the morning after we see what your 24-hour urine says, but there was a reason to keep me just one more night. I started insulin in the hospital and my sugar levels were still really high. My blood pressure is still up as well. My regular doctor came back from Haiti and came in to see me on Sunday and told me he really wanted to see if they could get my sugar levels down to a certain level before they sent me home. However, he understood that I had a lot of family responsibility at home as well. I went ahead and found a sitter for the little ones until we found out what was going to happen and asked her if she could keep them from Sunday night to Wednesday until Andy got home from work. Thankfully, she had no problem with that and she was a huge help. She even brought the kids up during the day on Monday to say hi after they played in the park.

Monday, I was hoping to be able to go home that morning, but the nurses told me that he wouldn't let me go home with a sugar level over 170. He wound up ok'ing another dose of insulin as the cafeteria messed up and sent me a breakfast tray that wasn't on the diabetic plan and then it came down somewhat. He told me he'd start the paperwork to get me out of there after dinner if I compromised with him and came into the office 1-2 times a week until the baby was ready to be born. So, I got to leave on Monday night around 6:30. I came home on blood pressure meds and the insulin. To say I'm a bit overwhelmed with everything else going on is a bit of an understatement, but I'll get it all figured out after a couple of days. Just going to have to be a bit more of a rigorous schedule with eating at scheduled times and checking my sugars first thing in the morning and 2 hours after I eat meals.

Homestudy

Abba, I pray that our homestudy will be turned into CPS very soon. It's been waiting to be signed off on since last Thursday. Please let CPS get it soon, so that we can do the girls adoption on February 2. I am just ready for them to be ours and the visits with the family so much is really starting to stress me out. Please let our homestudy be turned into CPS today or very soon.

Homestudy update

Our caseworker came out on Monday night and did our homestudy update. Really not much has changed since we just adopted Josiah in June, but we had to do it anyway. I don't know why I get nervous, but everything went well. She also did a session of adoption prep with the girls, one more prep session to do this week and then we're done with that part of it. I just have to sign some waivers and do another crim check and our part should be done. We also have to wait for one more reference to come in and then wait for her to type up our homestudy update and get it to CPS.

Just an update on how things are going...

My pregnancy is going well. I was 12 weeks on Sunday and it felt good to get to that mark. I can't believe that I'm already showing. (see picture). Still feeling very tired. I was really nauseated all week long. This was by far the worst week of nausea thus far. I had a few close calls of thinking I was going to barf while I was in the store or driving down the road. Thankfully, I was able to breathe threw them without any embarrassing incidents. Baby is doing well though. I've felt very faint flutters that I have been wondering if it's the baby, but I think it's still too early to feel movement and so I've been chalking it up to being gas. I am beyond excited about this baby and cannot wait for our big ultrasound to find out what we're having. I'm thinking about finding a place that does 3D ultrasounds too as I really think those are so neat. Deidra wants to go with me to see the baby. She's already informed me that she wants the baby to sleep in her room. I told her we'd just have to wait and see. She's been asking me little questions about the baby...how it eats and so forth. I'm hoping she doesn't eventually wonder how the baby got in there, but I guess the s-e-x question has to come sooner or later. She is 9 after all.

Speaking of being 9, my baby girl, Miss Deidra, turned 9 on Nov. 11. We took her out to Applebee's for dinner on her birthday and she opened her presents from us. We got her the movie UP and the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That's the only book series that I've seen her interested in and I really want to encourage her in her reading. Then, on Saturday we had a birthday party for her at the bowling alley, complete with a birthday cake that was done up shaped like a bowling ball. It was very cute! She had a few people from her class show up along with 2 of the neighbor girls. Grandma came too. It was fun! I really cannot believe that she is already 9. My how time flies! They grow much too fast!

Josiah is doing pretty well. I noticed that he is getting much better at transitioning from one thing that he likes to do to having to do something he'd rather not be doing. He is not throwing as big of a fit about it as he used to. He still is struggling with listening and following directions but the bribing of the gummy bears for completing tasks without incident is helping. I think mornings are the worst. That first hour until his meds kick in is hard. He's loud, cannot follow directions, he's running all over, I'm constantly having to remind him of what he's supposed to be doing and to stay out of the kitchen. I always have to tell myself that it will get better after the hour. That helps me to stay sane. :-) He is getting SO big. He is wearing big boy underwear as of last weekend. He still has a couple of accidents during the day, but for the most part he is doing great with using the potty. I am so proud of him!

Little E still struggles with listening and following directions and she still needs constant redirection as well. Her hands are always into something. But, again, the gummy bear rewards are helping her to somewhat stay on task depending on her moods. I'll take it. Things are getting a little better around here. I have to tell them somedays "Mommy, has to use the bathroom or make a phone call if you stay out of stuff and are quiet while I do this, I'll give you gummy bears when I'm done." And most of the time they are successful. They do not like missing out on their gummy bears. She is struggling in school with learning her letters and phonics. I told the teacher she can't very well be expected to learn her phonics when she doesn't know her letters. This is something we've been working on for a long time. Learning for her takes a LOT of repetition and she still seems to learn very slowly. OT has been working on it with her as well. She's only got about 3 letters down and even still she doesn't know them every time she's asked. I'm trying to do something with her daily that is alphabet/phonic related, but her attention span is SO short as well, that it's hard for her to grasp what you're trying to teach her. Yet, we plug on and I know she will get it sooner or later.

Baby T was doing better with all of her whining, but she seems to have had a relapse. My OT got on her yesterday about it and she looked at me and told me that she doesn't know how I've been coping with all of her whining as it gets to her when she's only here for a couple of hours and all she does is cry and whine over every little thing. I told her that some days are better than others. She told me just to keep staying consistent and when she does that and the warning doesn't get her to stop, to keep putting her upstairs in her room. I asked her if she thought it was just her age, or the fact that she is still struggling with speech. She told me that with the way she can turn it onn and off that she thinks it's behavioral. I was just curious as to what she thought. She can be so sweet and affectionate, I wish she would let this whining go. She is such a good girl for the most part.

I've been working on our adoption paperwork too and hope to send it in this afternoon. Hopefully then, we can get their adoption rolling. I really want them to be adopted before this baby is born.

I have my quarterly monitoring tomorrow morning, so I'm just trying to do some cleaning and get my house decluttered as there is too much paper clutter around here right now that is driving me nuts. Then, I just need to do the girls' clothing inventory and a fire drill and then we're good for this month.

I cannot believe that we're already getting ready for Thanksgiving. These past couple of months have flown by. Wow!

One emotional Momma, but oh so very blessed!

I was driving Deidra to school this morning and thinking about how very blessed I am. I started thanking God and just praising Him for all of our blessings over our family. I just feel like God is holding me in His hands and is just pouring his blessings over our family. I have never felt more in God's presence and more loved and blessed by Him! I love my family...I love my children...I love how God has provided them with us as parents and given us our children that we have asked and prayed for how He saw fit. We are so blessed to have had Deidra, to have adopted Josiah, to be adopting Little E and Baby T, and now to find out that we have another baby on the way. I am one blessed Momma and I could not be more happier. I am just so thrilled!

We get to adopt the girls!

We had court on September 30 for Little E and Baby T. We get to adopt the girls! We are doing an open adoption with their birthmom and family. I feel really good about it! Now to do the paperwork and get that all turned in to our agency and wait our 90 days.

Pre-k

So, I went up to the school to register Little E and Josiah for pre-k this morning. I ran around getting a couple things that I needed beforehand and Andy was very helpful as he worked from home this morning so he could watch the kids for me while I went up to register them. Anyway, I ran by the doctor's office to get Josiah's shot record (I could have sworn that I had a copy, but for the life of me I couldn't find it) and I ran up to get Baby T's birth certificate and social security card as her CPS worker thought I shoudl try to get her into some sort of pre-school as well since she'll be 3 soon. I figured I'd try, but I really don't feel that she's ready by any means so I figured that she could always go to MDO like she was doing before and I'd spoil her while the other kids were at school. Well, I get to the school and it was crazy busy. We had to wait in a line for someone to check their birth certificates and my driver's license and then she gave me a free lunch form to fill out. I went and filled that out and then I had to get back into another line. She checked their social security cards and their birth certificates and let me know whether they qualified for free lunch. Little E did just because she's in foster care and when they looked at Josiah's form and saw our income she didn't think he'd qualify. I told her I didn't really care about paying for lunch, but that I had a letter saying that he qualified for free pre-k because of the fact that he had been in foster care. She put down that just based on that he'd qualify for the free lunch program. Then, I go to the next line and they check our proof of residence and she said she couldn't take our phone bill, it had to be water, sewer, or gas. So, I get Andy to run me up a copy of one of those as she tells me if I leave I lose my place in line. I had already been up there for an hour and a half. Anyway, he brings me the water bill and I go back in and she looks at Josiah's birth certificate and says "um, he doesn't qualify for pre-k as he's not 4 yet." I showed her the letter that I had and she said "well, that must be for a district that has a 3-year program." I know other foster parents that have gotten their 3 -year olds in, but I ran into the same problem when I tried to get Little E in pre-k last year so I guess I'll just put Josiah in a different program. I don't have a problem paying for it. It just frustrated me that I had been up there so long and all these other people had checked off my forms and never caught that he was only 3 and wasn't eligible. Anyway, she finally told me to go have copies made of a zillion papers and then I could fill out the application for pre-school. I got that filled out and back in line I stood. Got everything checked off and I requested PM session for her since her visit is in the mornings and I didn't want to have to have her miss that school day since we have to travel so far. She said I could request it but there was no guarantee. Then, they give me some hand-outs...if you don't qualify for the free lunch program, then you don't qualify for pre-k. Oh ok.... I'm making sure to hold on to Josiah's letter from the state so they don't try to pull anything next year when we enroll him. He really struggles with his social skills and with listening so I was hoping that 2 years of pre-k would be good for him. Anyway, they told me at orientation if Little E got put in the am session, to talk to them and they'd see if they couldn't re-arrange it to get her put in the PM session because of her visit time. They said they've had kids miss one day of the week due to visits for a long time, yet they give you an attendance policy to follow and threaten to report you if you miss so many days...that doesn't make sense to me at all. It would make more sense to make sure that you get her into a PM session so not only can we make sure she gets to school, but that she accomodates her visits as well as her visits are court ordered. UGH! Anyway, she's excited about getting to go to school. I hope she does ok!

10 Days to a Less Defiant Child by Jeffrey Bernstein, PhD

I am really having some problems with Josiah on defiance. It's always been there since we first got him, but it's gotten worse. Little E is really struggling with this too. I stumbled upon this book and am going to give it a go. I'm going to post about our daily adventures here so I can look back and see the progress as we work on this.

Introducing Josiah...

Intoducing our toddling baby boy, Josiah! We adopted him officially yesterday! Sorry, I was so busy uploading pics to various places yesterday, that I realized this morning that I forgot to update my blog!

We had to be to court at 8 am yesterday morning. We waited outside the court room and met with our adoption workers and the attorney before court. Court began at 8:30 am and we were the 2nd family to adopt. Josiah was very excited about his adoption day, but once we got to court and in front of the judge he got a bit scared. The whole process took maybe 5 minutes and I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but when I was answering the attorneys questions the tears started. we got photos with the judge and Josiah thought it was cool that he got to sit on the judge's desk. The judge let Deidra and Josiah pick a stuffed animal afterwards and then we just had to wait for our copy of the adoption decree. We headed back towards home and went and got our family pictures taken. I'll e-mail those shortly. Then, we headed over to our foster/adopt agency where we celebrated Josiah's adoption with everyone. We did a candle lighting celebration and lit a candle for his birth family, for Josiah, for our family, for our caseworkers, for our foster agency, and for everyone else that had been a part of his life. Then, we walked out to the bell tower and our family rang the bell to signify that a child had found their forever home. Then, we came back inside and did gifts and cake. We took some pictures and then we wound things up. They put a leaf with his name and adoption date (however, I just noticed that they had his adoption date down as yesterday, so his date is wrong...emailing them to see about fixing that) and who he was adopted by on their wall. It was really nice.

Andy

Andy and I were sitting at Deidra's volleyball practice and he told me that he let work know that he wasn't going to go play disc golf with them next weekend. He said he got to thinking about things and he didn't want to have to miss Deidra's game in order to go and that's the weekend prior to Baby J's adoption and he knew that we had things to get finished up for that. And so, he said he'd catch up with them another time. I told him he didn't have to do that, I had it written on the calendar and I had a plan in place, but he said that our family stuff was more important. I asked him when the dates were for next month and I told him to let me know so I could put them on the calendar. I want him to have his "time out" as well.

Baby J's adoption...

will be on the 30th. Woo hoo! I so cannot wait!

Baby J's adoption attorney's office just called...

Baby J's adoption attorney's office just called. They need us to fill out paperwork and she asked if she could e-mail me the documents. She said we could either mail them back or bring it to our adoption staffing on the 22nd. I am so excited! I was relieved to hear from them too as his adoption CPS worker told us that she'd call them and tell them that we wanted to use them. I didn't hear back right away and so I was fretting. I hate not being the one in control...lol.

As busy as a bee...

So much going on, so much needs to be done. Flylady has me saying "you can do anything in 15 minutes." So, that is literally what I'm trying to do. I have a cycle that I'm trying to do.

15 minutes of sensory activities, 15 minutes of reading my adoption books that we have to read, 15 minutes of cleaning, 15 minutes of educational stuff with the kids, 15 minutes of reading my fiction book, and a 15-minute break for e-mail and 15 minutes of outside time and I'm trying to spend 15 minutes doing some stuff for me, my marriage, and to be a better parent as well. Then the process starts over. Granted, I'm having to stop in between there to make meals/snacks and I have other stuff thrown in there...and I'm always having to stop and get the kids out of something or stopping to discipline or whatever...but I am trying my darndest to do everything. Baby J has t-ball practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Deidra has volleyball practice on Thursdays too. Deidra's games start this Saturday and Baby J's games start next week on Tuesdays and Fridays and they're moving practices for his games on game days and he just needs to be there 30 minutes before.

The kids all have occupational therapy on Mondays for 45 minutes each child as well and I was just told that they're getting a part-time assistant and she asked me if I would be open to having Baby J do another session as she really feels he needs a session just devoted to strictly sensory stuff because he is so over the top. She thought they could give him 45 minutes of massages, joint compressions, and exposing him to different textures and other stuff that will help with his issues. I told her all that I've been doing lately but I think it will help and I'm willing to give it a try. So, that will start in the next week or two. Then, Baby T is still in speech twice a week as well, but I'm still having problems with the speech therapist not showing for appts and now they're starting to crack down on us for not having all the documentation on why appts are missed and they want us to reschedule as much as possible. She cancelled on me 3 times this week and Baby T only had one appt that we made it for. I cancelled the other day due to car problems. UGH! And the kids are all in play therapy every two weeks now as well.

I just got monthly paperwork done and I need to go get that turned in after I get Deidra from school. Summer vacation starts today!

Baby J's adoption...

Our homestudy was officially submitted to CPS on Monday. His CPS adoption worker called me last night to set up some dates. We're waiting for some paperwork to come back, but she said we could schedule his adoption presentation (they talk about us as a family to CPS, and we have the opportunity to ask any questions that we have on his adoption file that we got a couple weeks ago to read, we sign papers on our intent to adopt and he officially becomes an adoptive placement instead of a foster child, and we sign our subsidy papers) and so we go on the 22nd of June to go to that. She then told me that our adoption date was either June 29 or the 30th, she needs to wait to hear which date was better for the court and then she'll get back to us. So, Baby J will officially be ours by the end of this month. Just wanted to share our news! I told Deidra last night and she is a very thrilled big sister! She's been asking for a long time now if we were ever really going to be able to adopt him. On June 1, he has been with us for 2 years. Our very first foster placement and now he will officially be a Hoffman very soon. :-)