Lux et umbra vicissum…

Today, our lives will change forever.  Today, life as we know it will be done and a new way of life will have begun.  Today, our priorities will be changed, our hearts’ sources will be tapped, and our hands will be full.

Today, we get our puppy.

I have a good husband.  He’s my helper, comforter, and best friend.  And he knows when to tell me to stop with the saving money thing. [Read more →]

It’s a good thing I’ve learned to laugh at myself over the years.  If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be able to post about this sort of thing. 😛

You may know from a previous post that we received some court papers in the mail, but I wasn’t sure what they were or why we got them.  At the time I was waiting to hear from our social worker, thinking maybe she would know what we should do with them.

I hadn’t heard back from her yet when the phone rang Wednesday afternoon.
“Hello, is this Mrs. Fouse?”

“Yes…”

“Mrs. Fouse, when you turned in your adoption petition, you weren’t supposed to turn in the final orders.  You should have held onto them until the social worker’s report came in.  The judge didn’t look too carefully and signed the orders, BUT YOUR ADOPTION IS NOT FINAL.  You still need the report.  And there are a couple of papers I have here that you need to fill out as well to go with the final orders.”

At this point I started laughing and told her that I wondered why we had gotten the papers that we had.  She loosened up a good bit when she realized I wasn’t going to try to push it (you know… “But the judge signed it!  It says it’s final!”).  After that she was really nice and helped walk me through things from this point out.

So here’s the exact boo-boo I made: the petitions our kind friends gave us included several different sections.  Our friends may have mentioned that the final order goes in later, but if they did I had forgotten that part. 😛  I took the entire packet, updated it for our children, and handed the whole thing in with the other copies the court needed.  As it so happened, the final order (which was the last part of the petition files I had) I should have held onto until after the court let me know they had the social worker’s report.  Well, I wasn’t the only one who made the mistake, because apparently the people at the desk try to check through to make sure everything is in order and they didn’t catch it.  Anyway, not a big deal, but slightly more paperwork.  So don’t do that.

We’re signing a paper today that rescinds the early (and illegal) final adoption, then we have to destroy the papers we received before (though Joel said he’d rather frame them).  Our social worker said she should have her report in to the court by March 25th, so when we know the court has it we can turn in the final oder along with the couple of other papers the clerk gave me to fill out.

Actually, when she gave them to me I think she said we could drop them off any time and they’d hold onto them until the social worker’s report came…. but I should probably check on that.

I was planning on posting today about the way I muffed a bit on the re-adoption (nothing major… no worries), but I’m too tired and cranky right now.

Instead, I’ll simply state that I think UTI’s are the most annoying of all of the infections.  Queezy tummy, a little extra tired, and having to pee all the time.  No, it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to the flu or strep or any of those when it comes to pain, discomfort, and downright feeling like you’re on your death bed.  But it’s really, really annoying.

Off to the bathroom…

You know, sometimes I think that she’s very aptly named. Our “white raven” is certainly intelligent and good at problem solving, her relationships with others are often quarrelsome yet she has a strong loyalty to her family, she has the beautiful flaxen hair of Aphrodite, and she maintains a strong individuality refusing to be drawn in where she doesn’t want to be. She’s a complex little person. [Read more →]

Two year olds tend to fit the things they hear into what they understand. For example, when our two year old watches Dora and hears a Spanish word, instead of learning it as a Spanish word it becomes whatever the closet English word is to it. She learned an entire Dora song that way:

“La they shoes-ah, la they shoes-ah

I say shh, I say shh,

I don’t know a pencil, I don’t know a pencil,

bo bo bo, bo bo bo.”

The original was in Spanish, but really, your guess is as good as mine.

I put some music on while I was on the computer this morning, and the two year old wanted to hear “Crazy the Lord.” It took a second before I realized she was asking for “Praise Ye the Lord.”

Desta does the same thing at times. For example, itsy-bitsy makes no sense to her, so it’s “The Itchy Itchy Spider.” Well, spiders can make us itch, I guess. *shrug*

I’m sure I’ll have more of these fine sayings to report in the future. For now I have to try to fit a shower in before running off to pick up the four year old from preschool. By the way, I’ll have to write more about her Sunday later. Time change aside, it was a great day for her. 🙂

It’s a sin that lawyers can charge as much as they do for things. At the same time, I can definitely understand why people use them rather than trying to do stuff on their own.

On Friday we got mail from the county courts. We opened the envelope and found what looked like some of the paperwork we had submitted, but there was nothing else with it. There followed this internal dialogue:

“What’s this? Did we do something wrong?”

“Well, I don’t see anything saying something was missing…”

“Then why did they send us these papers back?”

“Um, I haven’t a clue.”

Note: The above was all in my head. I found out that Joel had a similar internal conversation when he looked at them. Joel, observant man that he is, finally discovered that these were photocopies and they included some extra signatures, one of the clerk of the court and one of a judge. Um… ok. So, the judge signed the things. Um. What does that mean?

We made up our minds eventually that this was just our copies of what they had sent on to the state system and our social worker. I guess. I’m going to go law hunting again today to try to verify that.

But they didn’t ask for any extra paperwork! That’s a good sign! Isn’t it?

My kids are excellent button pushers.  They love pushing the buttons for elevators, though so far we’ve avoided having them push all of them while we’re in there, thankfully.  The love pushing buttons on the microwave to the extent that they actually fight over whose turn it is to push “start”. 😛  And of course, they’re quite adept at pushing their mommy and daddy’s buttons to get them going on rants and the like.

That got me thinking.  I need to create something to wear over my other clothes – an apron? a belt of some kind? – that has various buttons on it.  When the kids say or do certain things, I can just instruct them to push the appropriate button (or I can push it if they can’t get to it).   Here’s what a few of my buttons would say:

Button #1: “Settle down!”

This would mainly be used at bedtime, but there are other scattered times during the day when it would come into use, too.

Button #2: “Inside voices!” right next to Button #3: “Don’t run in the house!”

I’d probably have to install next to them Button #4: “Skip slower!” since that’s usually the way they try to get around the no running rule.

Button #5: “Bathing is not a spectator sport!”

This would mostly be used with the two year old, but the others need reminding sometimes, too.  The two year old is just fascinated with water.  The others usually just want to go in the bathroom and talk.  (Girls!)

Button #6: “What just happened?”

This one would be used a lot. 😛

Button #7: “And you’re tattling.”

The “and” is in there because it’s usually in response to someone saying, “So-and-so did such-and-such.”  Even Eli can tattle at times, though his consists of pointing at his sister and crying. 🙂

My 8th button will just play the “Have Patience” song.  They’ll hate that button. *evil grin*

My buttons will probably change a bit as the kids grow, but those ones would definitely be useful right now.  I’ll probably think of others, too.  Oh, and we’re getting a puppy soon (yes, we’re crazy), so I may have some new ones to add then, both for the kids and for the dog.  Maybe I can even train it to push its own buttons!  I don’t know… would I then have a dog trained to the level of my kids, or would my kids be stuck at the level of a dog?  Hmm.

I was telling Joel last night that it’s just not fair that some people can do things like write one book and then have it become a best seller the proceeds of which they can live off of.  Or write one song and live off the royalties.  *sigh*

I wish I could write!  I don’t even want to live off the money that it brings in for the rest of my life!  If it could just cover our adoption I’d be more than satisfied.

Waa waa waa.

So I work on my jewelry when I can.  The problem with making jewelry is that I have to have a lot of small things lying around when I’m working on any given project.  This requires a decent amount of set up, substantial clean up, and a place out of the reach of small hands.  And once I get past the initial basic things I’m making and on to the more intricate stuff it actually takes some time and concentration.  It’s getting there, but much more slowly than I’d like.  I think that has something to do with having five small children.  Go figure.

I did send some ideas on to an artist friend of ours to make up a few Cafe Press t-shirts, so I may be able to link to that before too long.  I don’t know how much he has on his plate right now, though, so we’ll have to see.  He’s donating his services, so I certainly wouldn’t feel right hounding him.  He’s an awesome artist, so it’s very cool that he agreed to help us this way. 🙂

He told me he’d illustrate a children’s book for me if I ever manage to write one, too.

*sigh*  I wish I could write!

My two year old has apparently learned the fine art of lulling mommy into a false sense of security. The darling child will go for several days without getting into any real trouble. She’ll color only on the coloring books and papers available for such things, she’ll nicely look at books that are available, and she won’t go into a bathroom without company. Then, when she knows I’m not watching as closely, she’ll strike. [Read more →]