WELL...it's been an interesting span of my life....just about 7 years actually, and I am leaving it. I'm leaving my job. I never thought I would be saying this. But it's time. My girls need me.
I'm going to be returning for approximately a month or so on Dec 18th. My mother and husband will split up watching the girls until I am finished working.
While I have been off of work, I have been working towards being licensed as a daycare provider. My licensing is just about complete. By mid January, I will be a licensed daycare provider in my home. My plan is just to take a few kids in to supplement our income. We will go on my husbands health insurance, and I will stay home with the girls this way.
I never saw myself as a stay at home mom - so hopefully being busy all day will keep ME busy enough! I am looking forward to this. It is a decision I threw around when Noelani was a baby. I never decided to do it because the cost of daycare didn't really outweigh the benefits of working full time. However, it is now apparent that to send my 2 girls to daycare, I will be handing my paycheck over for someone else to raise my kids. I also started throwing around the idea of home schooling Noelani, and so with ALL of these things going on, the best way to handle it all is going to be for me to be home.
Noelani went to a really close friends daycare, which I am thankful for because I never had to worry! She developed SO much better than I could ever have imagined as far as her skills of knowing her shapes, numbers, letters, etc. I credit that to my friend, because she really works with the kids at her daycare. I hope that I can provide those skills for other parents and their children.
I absolutely love and adore children, so I know that I will be completely ok in that aspect of nurturing all of the kids! I worked in a daycare for quite a few years back in college, and it was my favorite job. Unfortunately, I had to grow up and get a real job back then, or I would probably have never left that field.Noey went part time up until the baby came home, but Antoine is looking for a new job. That means I would have to put both girls in full time 40+ hours a week. YIKES!
Hopefully this is going to be the best fit for us for now. If not, well, it will work out. I am not going to stress over it. This is what seems like the best decision, so we shall see!!
If anyone needs daycare, pass the word and give them my info! Oh - and wish me luck. I sit behind a desk for 37.5 hours a week and program computers....this is TOTALLY going to be a change in pace for me!
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
This is not how I want things to happen
Why isn't our daughter home yet? Contact issues!!!! Her birthmom, mom, whatever people may label her at this point has not contacted our agency back in a week. Let me make it clear that if you are speculating shes going to keep the baby or change her mind, she has not seen the baby since Aug 24. It is impossible for me to imagine her changing her mind at this point.
It is driving us crazy because the agency has to follow certain protocols before they can just show up at her house. Antoine and I are concerned that something may have happened to her but i know that is just me being pessimitic AND me thinking "how on earth could she not call and ask about her baby for a week?!". BUT i must look at things in her point of view. I would imagine she must separate herself from this to some extent or she would go crazy.
I also found out today that the agency took a week to call us after the baby was born to "sort things". It had nothing to do with birthmom or any thought of her changing her mind. It was simply them making sure the baby was healthy and then them digging through paperwork for our contact info It kind of makes me wonder what birthmom does with our pics and letters since we always put out address and phone info in there. Ah well i could wonder 100 different scenarios. At this point they are waiting for her to call back responding to their letter. Prayers that it doesnt go further. They discussed getting DCFS involved and that is REALLY not how i want things to happen.
We offered through email tonight to pay someone at the agency to go to her home by Wed if no contact was made. Legally i am not sure if they have to send the DCFS letter first. Again, this is totally not how i want it to go. I think she really does not understand the urgency of this paperwork.
I have to admit tonight, Antoine tried texting the # we have for her. No response. We tried to call the # and blocked our number and again no answer. No voicemail picked up either. So i have no clue if that is even a valid number, nor do I know if its not working properly.
All we can do is wait and let the agency do what they must. At this point i hate to be negative towards birthmom but she is really making me feel this baby would be safer with us. Again, I want her here asap. But i also want birthmom not to feel pressured, nor do I need or want her changing her mind when she signs (NY has a 30 day period after signing). It isnt as simple as her saying gee i just want the baby back, BUT she could challenge it within that time frame. SO it is best to know this is everything she chose and was not forced into feeling.
Hopefully by next week we will for sure know something if it makes it as far as the agency visiting her home.
It is driving us crazy because the agency has to follow certain protocols before they can just show up at her house. Antoine and I are concerned that something may have happened to her but i know that is just me being pessimitic AND me thinking "how on earth could she not call and ask about her baby for a week?!". BUT i must look at things in her point of view. I would imagine she must separate herself from this to some extent or she would go crazy.
I also found out today that the agency took a week to call us after the baby was born to "sort things". It had nothing to do with birthmom or any thought of her changing her mind. It was simply them making sure the baby was healthy and then them digging through paperwork for our contact info It kind of makes me wonder what birthmom does with our pics and letters since we always put out address and phone info in there. Ah well i could wonder 100 different scenarios. At this point they are waiting for her to call back responding to their letter. Prayers that it doesnt go further. They discussed getting DCFS involved and that is REALLY not how i want things to happen.
We offered through email tonight to pay someone at the agency to go to her home by Wed if no contact was made. Legally i am not sure if they have to send the DCFS letter first. Again, this is totally not how i want it to go. I think she really does not understand the urgency of this paperwork.
I have to admit tonight, Antoine tried texting the # we have for her. No response. We tried to call the # and blocked our number and again no answer. No voicemail picked up either. So i have no clue if that is even a valid number, nor do I know if its not working properly.
All we can do is wait and let the agency do what they must. At this point i hate to be negative towards birthmom but she is really making me feel this baby would be safer with us. Again, I want her here asap. But i also want birthmom not to feel pressured, nor do I need or want her changing her mind when she signs (NY has a 30 day period after signing). It isnt as simple as her saying gee i just want the baby back, BUT she could challenge it within that time frame. SO it is best to know this is everything she chose and was not forced into feeling.
Hopefully by next week we will for sure know something if it makes it as far as the agency visiting her home.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Another day
And another day goes by. Our baby girl is stuck in interim care while she could be home with her big sister. This really breaks my heart.
A letter went out to Noelanis birthmother requesting she responds asap. If there is no response, they will then follow up with a letter stating that DCFS is going to be called. They are hoping that will make her respond since she currently parents 4 children.
Prayers are needed, so this little angel can come HOME.
This is Not how I wanted to see things happen, but it is clear to me that she. Is not going to respond any other way!
A letter went out to Noelanis birthmother requesting she responds asap. If there is no response, they will then follow up with a letter stating that DCFS is going to be called. They are hoping that will make her respond since she currently parents 4 children.
Prayers are needed, so this little angel can come HOME.
This is Not how I wanted to see things happen, but it is clear to me that she. Is not going to respond any other way!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Waiting
Thats all there is left to do. Noelanis birthmom last had contact with the agency this past Friday. She said she would call monday (2 days ago) and set up a time to sign surrender this week. She stated on friday exactly what i had assumed. Life was overwhelming for her as a single mom of 4 girls returning to school.
They have left two messages with her this week and are going to be mailing a letter and stopping by. Since we have been through this with her before, while I am a bit concerned, I am not shocked.
With Noelani, as you all know, she was in care for nearly 3 months. The entire time, she would take on average 3 days to return calls. I dont know why. I hate to judge. But as humans i think its normal to think "what the hell could she not be calling back for?!"
We heard the intake report tonight. Her BM found out she was pregnant 3 months along. From day one she knew she would place this baby. That makes things a bit harder of a pill for me to swallow. She did nothing to plan placement.
On a brighter note, she was elated that we said we would adopt the baby and keep the girls together. She did not name the birthfather this time around. Many have asked. HOWEVER I did get a description of him in the intake letter. I believe it is the same birthfather as Noelani. I will not post details, but if it isn't, she was dating the same type of guy with the same profession.
Another good note is that the agency will accept our foster care homestudy - yay to saving $500!!!!!!!!!
Now all we need is for her to return the call.....which Antoine feels confident will happen shortly.
They have left two messages with her this week and are going to be mailing a letter and stopping by. Since we have been through this with her before, while I am a bit concerned, I am not shocked.
With Noelani, as you all know, she was in care for nearly 3 months. The entire time, she would take on average 3 days to return calls. I dont know why. I hate to judge. But as humans i think its normal to think "what the hell could she not be calling back for?!"
We heard the intake report tonight. Her BM found out she was pregnant 3 months along. From day one she knew she would place this baby. That makes things a bit harder of a pill for me to swallow. She did nothing to plan placement.
On a brighter note, she was elated that we said we would adopt the baby and keep the girls together. She did not name the birthfather this time around. Many have asked. HOWEVER I did get a description of him in the intake letter. I believe it is the same birthfather as Noelani. I will not post details, but if it isn't, she was dating the same type of guy with the same profession.
Another good note is that the agency will accept our foster care homestudy - yay to saving $500!!!!!!!!!
Now all we need is for her to return the call.....which Antoine feels confident will happen shortly.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
How did we get here?
HOW did this happen?! Everyone wants to know!!!! I am just as shocked as everyone who is about to read this!!!
As everyone now knows, Antoine & I worked very hard all summer to become foster parents. We just got the green light...and since Antoine works for the agency as a counselor in their group homes, he needed a special piece of paper signed. This paper was given the green light and signed by the director this past Tuesday. It is in the midst of being transferred to the foster care office. Our social worker is currently on vacation until Tuesday.
With that being said, knowing we are going to be foster parents, I've been collecting items for potential children who may enter our home. My biggest thing was clothing. Alot of children come in to care with nothing.On Friday am, as I was driving to work, I saw a garage sale. I kicked myself in the butt because as I passed by I saw TONS of little kid/girl stuff. I just told myself "well, I guess on lunch I will stop by". Lunch time rolled around, and before I went there, I stopped and sold a pair of Noelani's old curtains to someone I worked with. SO I thought well I will just limit myself to this $10 and not bother running to the bank. Off I went to the garage sale with my $10. When I got there, I saw a table of girls clothing. I kind of looked quickly, and noticed it said "$5 for everything on the table". I thought - WELL, even if I only keep 5 things from this pile, its worth it. So the guy asked if I had a girl the size of the clothing, and I said "no, just picking them up for foster kids"....he said "WOW thats great, you are a saint for doing that...I tell ya what, see all of that stuff over there? If you want you can have everything $10". The other table had 4 bins under it and another pile and a box. I left that garage sale with my back seat and trunk STUFFED with 6 boxes of baby clothes up to size 7/8 for $10!
I ran to McDonalds (yuk GAG) - since it was right around the corner and I had to FLY back to work. When I got back to work, I told the 4 ladies I work with about the great deal on the clothes I just got. They were all shocked and thought it was awesome. Next thing I knew, I approached my desk to charge my phone and noticed I had THREE missed calls and a voicemail. Funny I thought. My intial thought was that it was Walgreens or Target leaving me a message that SOMEONE in our family had medication to be picked up. For some reason, they always have auto systems that have out of area phone numbers. THEN it hit me.....WAIT....this is SPENCE CHAPIN CALLING (Noelanis adoption agency)!
I have to say, my blood from my body felt like it drained at that very moment. Everyone knows I long for an open adoption, and to have Spence Chapin calling - I just couldn't foresee good news. TRUTHFULLY I had flashes of them telling me something horrible happened to Noeys birthparents. For those 30 seconds (which felt like 45 minutes), as I was returning the agencies call, I had visions of how I was going to tell Noelani that she would never meet her birthmom because something happened. I got the workers voicemail. PANIC. This is NOT good I thought. I gained my composure and began leaving a message. WAIT I thought...maybe it's not so bad....maybe her BM just called Spence Chapin because we haven't sent her a letter and pics in a long time...SHAME on me I thought. She probably called and was upset and they are calling us to see why!!!!
Just as I was leaving the message, my cell phone rang. It was Spence Chapins worker - "Hi Jennifer...I'm calling you because I have some news about birthmom (keeping her name out of this in the blog post)" *(omg omg omg I thought...I can't believe it...it's bad news....something happened)*....I think everything stopped moving at that moment. The room stopped, and I couldn't even feel my heart beating.
The next words were...."she delivered a baby girl last week".....My response? "oh....MY......GOD"
It was that very moment, the 5 girls I worked with that day, all jumped and said "WHATS WRONG!!!!!" I proceeded to hear the social worker say "well, BM wanted us to call you and see if you are interested in adopting this baby"...."YES YES YES OF COURSE!!!!!!!!" Here I had the worked on the phone and i'm yelling to my supervisor "CALL ANTOINE!!!"
She called Antoine and as he later told me, he thought I was in a car accident (what is with us being so pessimistic!!!!). She said "I have news for you but hang on, Jenn has to tell you". The social workers talking in my ear, and I'm waving my supervisor on "tell him tell him!!!!"
She proceeds to tell me the baby has been in their "supervision/care" since she was 2 days old. She has jaundice and is being monitored. Shes a healthy 7lbs and 21". Same exact medical history as Noey of course.
She asks me if I have any questions....NONE. I don't have a single one. This baby could have 4 toes and be blind in one eye and we would still say yes. This is Noelanis SISTER. She belongs with her sister. There's only 2 options for this little girl. Our house or BM's....and BM has made the decision it won't be hers - not because she doesn't love her. Because she loves her THAT much to choose this for her. She gave her life. The biggest gift of all that I could never give this baby girl!!!!
So, when she asks if I had questions....my response was "NO....but can you relay a message to her for us?? I want you to tell her that we love her...we tell her this in our letters...but we really really love her....and if she wants to be there for placement we would love her to meet up with Noelani and meet her....and if she is not comfy at the agency, we can meet her at a park afterwards!!!!"
How fast can we get her?!! Well, it was about 1:57pm and Spence Chapin was closing for the weekend until Tuesday because of the labor day holiday. BM now has to sign paperwork to relinquish rights. Once all of that is done, and our current homestudy is sent, we can get her!!! In all reality and truth....it won't be until late this week, EARLY next. I was advised to call our foster care place, and see IF they would release the home study, and if so, was it ok for a private adoption.
I spent the next hour on the phone TRYING to get ahold of someone at that office. AGAIN everyone was gone on vacation. AHHHH I wanted to scream. I left 4 people voicemails, called and was transferred everywhere. Someone finally called me back....he said they wouldn't refuse transfer of it, but they need to speak to Spence Chapin and are not sure if it's good enough for private adoption. I now have an email out to our original social worker who did Noelanis home study. I am PRAYING that since our fingerprints and background stuff all was done, that somehow the two can be merged by the end of this week!!!!
So, now we wait until Tuesday am.....at 9:00 when both places open. To say we are on pins and needles is a MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR understatement.
Oh and does Noelani understand? WELL....we told her she was going to have a baby sister...she replied "I'm a BROTHER" lol!!!! Tonight we asked her what did she want to name the baby?.....We said, do you want her to have a similar name? "Yes daddy" she replied....he said "What do you want to name your sister?"....She replied "Chicken nugget". Guess we will have to work on that one...hahhahhaha!!
EDITED TO ADD:
Two things I wanted to add that I forgot. When I got home after work, I unloaded the boxes of clothes. As I sat on the kitchen floor going through them, I just said...WELL I guess I will be donating all of these to the foster agency....as I went through the boxes....there were baby girl clothing in there....0-3 months and 3-6 month clothing. CRAZY!!!!!
Ok, I lied....3 things to add. SECOND...tonight, I sat down to braid Noeys hair, and she asks if she can watch Dora. WELL, I turn on Nick Jr...and what episode starts? The "Dora's going to be a big sister" episode!!!!!
I believe in fate, and these are just signs to me!
LASTLY....I would like to put this out there. YES, I'm sure it may have crossed peoples minds. And, if it hasn't GOOD FOR YOU. BUT...NO Noelani's birthmom does NOT have some crazy life that prevents her from parenting. In fact, she HAS 4 children that she currently parents day in and day out. She does not have some wacky drug addiction or alcohol addiction as some people have so rudely asked me. She is a perfectly decent person from the information I have about her. She just does not have the means to take care of another child financially. THESE were her decisions.
As everyone now knows, Antoine & I worked very hard all summer to become foster parents. We just got the green light...and since Antoine works for the agency as a counselor in their group homes, he needed a special piece of paper signed. This paper was given the green light and signed by the director this past Tuesday. It is in the midst of being transferred to the foster care office. Our social worker is currently on vacation until Tuesday.
With that being said, knowing we are going to be foster parents, I've been collecting items for potential children who may enter our home. My biggest thing was clothing. Alot of children come in to care with nothing.On Friday am, as I was driving to work, I saw a garage sale. I kicked myself in the butt because as I passed by I saw TONS of little kid/girl stuff. I just told myself "well, I guess on lunch I will stop by". Lunch time rolled around, and before I went there, I stopped and sold a pair of Noelani's old curtains to someone I worked with. SO I thought well I will just limit myself to this $10 and not bother running to the bank. Off I went to the garage sale with my $10. When I got there, I saw a table of girls clothing. I kind of looked quickly, and noticed it said "$5 for everything on the table". I thought - WELL, even if I only keep 5 things from this pile, its worth it. So the guy asked if I had a girl the size of the clothing, and I said "no, just picking them up for foster kids"....he said "WOW thats great, you are a saint for doing that...I tell ya what, see all of that stuff over there? If you want you can have everything $10". The other table had 4 bins under it and another pile and a box. I left that garage sale with my back seat and trunk STUFFED with 6 boxes of baby clothes up to size 7/8 for $10!
I ran to McDonalds (yuk GAG) - since it was right around the corner and I had to FLY back to work. When I got back to work, I told the 4 ladies I work with about the great deal on the clothes I just got. They were all shocked and thought it was awesome. Next thing I knew, I approached my desk to charge my phone and noticed I had THREE missed calls and a voicemail. Funny I thought. My intial thought was that it was Walgreens or Target leaving me a message that SOMEONE in our family had medication to be picked up. For some reason, they always have auto systems that have out of area phone numbers. THEN it hit me.....WAIT....this is SPENCE CHAPIN CALLING (Noelanis adoption agency)!
I have to say, my blood from my body felt like it drained at that very moment. Everyone knows I long for an open adoption, and to have Spence Chapin calling - I just couldn't foresee good news. TRUTHFULLY I had flashes of them telling me something horrible happened to Noeys birthparents. For those 30 seconds (which felt like 45 minutes), as I was returning the agencies call, I had visions of how I was going to tell Noelani that she would never meet her birthmom because something happened. I got the workers voicemail. PANIC. This is NOT good I thought. I gained my composure and began leaving a message. WAIT I thought...maybe it's not so bad....maybe her BM just called Spence Chapin because we haven't sent her a letter and pics in a long time...SHAME on me I thought. She probably called and was upset and they are calling us to see why!!!!
Just as I was leaving the message, my cell phone rang. It was Spence Chapins worker - "Hi Jennifer...I'm calling you because I have some news about birthmom (keeping her name out of this in the blog post)" *(omg omg omg I thought...I can't believe it...it's bad news....something happened)*....I think everything stopped moving at that moment. The room stopped, and I couldn't even feel my heart beating.
The next words were...."she delivered a baby girl last week".....My response? "oh....MY......GOD"
It was that very moment, the 5 girls I worked with that day, all jumped and said "WHATS WRONG!!!!!" I proceeded to hear the social worker say "well, BM wanted us to call you and see if you are interested in adopting this baby"...."YES YES YES OF COURSE!!!!!!!!" Here I had the worked on the phone and i'm yelling to my supervisor "CALL ANTOINE!!!"
She called Antoine and as he later told me, he thought I was in a car accident (what is with us being so pessimistic!!!!). She said "I have news for you but hang on, Jenn has to tell you". The social workers talking in my ear, and I'm waving my supervisor on "tell him tell him!!!!"
She proceeds to tell me the baby has been in their "supervision/care" since she was 2 days old. She has jaundice and is being monitored. Shes a healthy 7lbs and 21". Same exact medical history as Noey of course.
She asks me if I have any questions....NONE. I don't have a single one. This baby could have 4 toes and be blind in one eye and we would still say yes. This is Noelanis SISTER. She belongs with her sister. There's only 2 options for this little girl. Our house or BM's....and BM has made the decision it won't be hers - not because she doesn't love her. Because she loves her THAT much to choose this for her. She gave her life. The biggest gift of all that I could never give this baby girl!!!!
So, when she asks if I had questions....my response was "NO....but can you relay a message to her for us?? I want you to tell her that we love her...we tell her this in our letters...but we really really love her....and if she wants to be there for placement we would love her to meet up with Noelani and meet her....and if she is not comfy at the agency, we can meet her at a park afterwards!!!!"
How fast can we get her?!! Well, it was about 1:57pm and Spence Chapin was closing for the weekend until Tuesday because of the labor day holiday. BM now has to sign paperwork to relinquish rights. Once all of that is done, and our current homestudy is sent, we can get her!!! In all reality and truth....it won't be until late this week, EARLY next. I was advised to call our foster care place, and see IF they would release the home study, and if so, was it ok for a private adoption.
I spent the next hour on the phone TRYING to get ahold of someone at that office. AGAIN everyone was gone on vacation. AHHHH I wanted to scream. I left 4 people voicemails, called and was transferred everywhere. Someone finally called me back....he said they wouldn't refuse transfer of it, but they need to speak to Spence Chapin and are not sure if it's good enough for private adoption. I now have an email out to our original social worker who did Noelanis home study. I am PRAYING that since our fingerprints and background stuff all was done, that somehow the two can be merged by the end of this week!!!!
So, now we wait until Tuesday am.....at 9:00 when both places open. To say we are on pins and needles is a MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR understatement.
Oh and does Noelani understand? WELL....we told her she was going to have a baby sister...she replied "I'm a BROTHER" lol!!!! Tonight we asked her what did she want to name the baby?.....We said, do you want her to have a similar name? "Yes daddy" she replied....he said "What do you want to name your sister?"....She replied "Chicken nugget". Guess we will have to work on that one...hahhahhaha!!
EDITED TO ADD:
Two things I wanted to add that I forgot. When I got home after work, I unloaded the boxes of clothes. As I sat on the kitchen floor going through them, I just said...WELL I guess I will be donating all of these to the foster agency....as I went through the boxes....there were baby girl clothing in there....0-3 months and 3-6 month clothing. CRAZY!!!!!
Ok, I lied....3 things to add. SECOND...tonight, I sat down to braid Noeys hair, and she asks if she can watch Dora. WELL, I turn on Nick Jr...and what episode starts? The "Dora's going to be a big sister" episode!!!!!
I believe in fate, and these are just signs to me!
LASTLY....I would like to put this out there. YES, I'm sure it may have crossed peoples minds. And, if it hasn't GOOD FOR YOU. BUT...NO Noelani's birthmom does NOT have some crazy life that prevents her from parenting. In fact, she HAS 4 children that she currently parents day in and day out. She does not have some wacky drug addiction or alcohol addiction as some people have so rudely asked me. She is a perfectly decent person from the information I have about her. She just does not have the means to take care of another child financially. THESE were her decisions.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
"my cakes fell"
Normally Noelani and I have to wake up around 5:30 on weekdays. This allows us time to shower, get dressed, get her to daycare & get myself to work by 7am. Every fourth week I dont start until 8:30am.
This week being an 8:30 week means we can "sleep in" until 7. As she is getting older she has been sleeping a bit later until almost 8:00 some days!
WELL, this morning I woke up to her screaming hysterically. When I listened to the monitor i could hear her saying something fell. I have wondered for a while now if she has dreams at night. Well i guess so!! When i ran into her room she was crying "MY CAKES FELL MOMMY. MY CAAAAKES". She was dreaming about some cake that apparently fell hahahahahahah!!!!
This girl loves her sweets!
This week being an 8:30 week means we can "sleep in" until 7. As she is getting older she has been sleeping a bit later until almost 8:00 some days!
WELL, this morning I woke up to her screaming hysterically. When I listened to the monitor i could hear her saying something fell. I have wondered for a while now if she has dreams at night. Well i guess so!! When i ran into her room she was crying "MY CAKES FELL MOMMY. MY CAAAAKES". She was dreaming about some cake that apparently fell hahahahahahah!!!!
This girl loves her sweets!
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Surgery
This is kind of a random post. But I just downloaded the app on my iphone so i'm trying it out.
I was scrolling through pictures of my baby girl and I have to say, I am so happy we opted for her to have her surgery last year. Some may not know but Noelani had an AWFUL "tongue tie" as they call it. In fact the surgeon said it was probably the worst she ever saw!!
Anyway, because of the surgery mu baby can now do one of the simplest things in the world:
I was scrolling through pictures of my baby girl and I have to say, I am so happy we opted for her to have her surgery last year. Some may not know but Noelani had an AWFUL "tongue tie" as they call it. In fact the surgeon said it was probably the worst she ever saw!!
Anyway, because of the surgery mu baby can now do one of the simplest things in the world:
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Sickness
WELL, we were hoping to finish our remodeling by the end of this weekend. My body said otherwise!!!
Ever have one of those weeks you just wish you could reset??
Sunday night I couldn't sleep, and for some reason Noelani ended up in my bed. I FINALLY fell asleep around 4am, and have to be up at 530am. I decided I would call work and tell them I would come in at 830 instead and try to snooze a bit.
The next am, I woke up in a panic when I realized it was 6:57am and I start at 7am! Once again, called work to come in late. By that evening, I felt SO nauseous. I was spiking a fever and could barely stand.
Come Wednesday, I woke up, went downstairs, and IMMEDIATELY turned around to head for my phone and bed - I was NOT going to work in this condition. With that being said, anyone with a 2 year old knows, it's impossible to "rest" if you are sick. Daddy came home at 930am, but a little girl named Noelani kept sneaking upstairs.
I didn't so much mind her coming in - cause I know she wanted to snuggle, but I was so terrified I would get her sick! I pretty much laid in bed all day, drank some squirt and slept in between being used as a trampoline by her.
Thursday rolled around, and I still felt like crap but went to work. All day long, I was just feeling awful and my fever still wouldn't break. The problem and reason why i forced myself, is that Noelani, for the past 2 winters is the SICKEST child I know. I am PRAYING that now she has her singulair as a respiratory controller for her asthma, that this won't be the issue this coming winter. BUT, it has left me with little to no time to take off of work.
I pushed through thursday, until the afternoon, when I started feeling like I was swallowing razor blades. Friday am, I forced myself to work again....but felt even worse. I called the dr and the latest they could see me after work was 2pm. My boss said no problem and even offered if i was feeling too sick that i could leave. I took her up on that and called the office back, got an appointment for 45 min later and was gone.
Strep throat, antibiotics, and ibuprofen 800mg later, in tears, I was headed home with dr orders to "rest in bed". I go home, to a whiney little girl, who starts telling me "Mommy, I need a bandage for me forehead". She kept crying and rubbing her head. She had already taken an 1.5 hr nap before I got home...but a couple hours later, around 2 she was ready to sleep again. She kept crying and I told antoine "something is NOT right".
We dozed off, and I kept getting woken up by her whimpering in her sleep. All of a SUDDEN I hear gagging, AND, (mind you I am STILL sick and nauseous), she beings puking ALL over me, AND the bed. Our electric seemed to not be working as I sat up. I yelled for Antoine and I finally got her into the tub....and was told we had an "electrical issue" with the remodeling. Uhm, yeah our living room and what is soon to be dining room had no electric. Needless to say I started freaking out. Finally got an electrician here (thank GOD) on a friday night at 8pm and after 1.5 hrs he fixed our issue.
My parents meanwhile were over (mom helping me and Noey, Dad helping Antoine). My wonderful sister went to the store and dropped off some MORE crackers and pop lol and added some pedialyte to that order! We spent our Friday night eating soup and crackers.
Needless to say this weekend has been a WASTE. We have SO much to get done, and I still don't feel 100%!
Guess it goes to show you, when you get older, it is much more hard to get better as fast! This flu or whatever it is, has been lingering since last Tuesday evening and I JUST able to break this fever today - whereas, Noelani seems to be just about back to herself, except being a bit more tired!
Pays to be young I guess!!
Ever have one of those weeks you just wish you could reset??
Sunday night I couldn't sleep, and for some reason Noelani ended up in my bed. I FINALLY fell asleep around 4am, and have to be up at 530am. I decided I would call work and tell them I would come in at 830 instead and try to snooze a bit.
The next am, I woke up in a panic when I realized it was 6:57am and I start at 7am! Once again, called work to come in late. By that evening, I felt SO nauseous. I was spiking a fever and could barely stand.
Come Wednesday, I woke up, went downstairs, and IMMEDIATELY turned around to head for my phone and bed - I was NOT going to work in this condition. With that being said, anyone with a 2 year old knows, it's impossible to "rest" if you are sick. Daddy came home at 930am, but a little girl named Noelani kept sneaking upstairs.
I didn't so much mind her coming in - cause I know she wanted to snuggle, but I was so terrified I would get her sick! I pretty much laid in bed all day, drank some squirt and slept in between being used as a trampoline by her.
Thursday rolled around, and I still felt like crap but went to work. All day long, I was just feeling awful and my fever still wouldn't break. The problem and reason why i forced myself, is that Noelani, for the past 2 winters is the SICKEST child I know. I am PRAYING that now she has her singulair as a respiratory controller for her asthma, that this won't be the issue this coming winter. BUT, it has left me with little to no time to take off of work.
I pushed through thursday, until the afternoon, when I started feeling like I was swallowing razor blades. Friday am, I forced myself to work again....but felt even worse. I called the dr and the latest they could see me after work was 2pm. My boss said no problem and even offered if i was feeling too sick that i could leave. I took her up on that and called the office back, got an appointment for 45 min later and was gone.
Strep throat, antibiotics, and ibuprofen 800mg later, in tears, I was headed home with dr orders to "rest in bed". I go home, to a whiney little girl, who starts telling me "Mommy, I need a bandage for me forehead". She kept crying and rubbing her head. She had already taken an 1.5 hr nap before I got home...but a couple hours later, around 2 she was ready to sleep again. She kept crying and I told antoine "something is NOT right".
We dozed off, and I kept getting woken up by her whimpering in her sleep. All of a SUDDEN I hear gagging, AND, (mind you I am STILL sick and nauseous), she beings puking ALL over me, AND the bed. Our electric seemed to not be working as I sat up. I yelled for Antoine and I finally got her into the tub....and was told we had an "electrical issue" with the remodeling. Uhm, yeah our living room and what is soon to be dining room had no electric. Needless to say I started freaking out. Finally got an electrician here (thank GOD) on a friday night at 8pm and after 1.5 hrs he fixed our issue.
My parents meanwhile were over (mom helping me and Noey, Dad helping Antoine). My wonderful sister went to the store and dropped off some MORE crackers and pop lol and added some pedialyte to that order! We spent our Friday night eating soup and crackers.
Needless to say this weekend has been a WASTE. We have SO much to get done, and I still don't feel 100%!
Guess it goes to show you, when you get older, it is much more hard to get better as fast! This flu or whatever it is, has been lingering since last Tuesday evening and I JUST able to break this fever today - whereas, Noelani seems to be just about back to herself, except being a bit more tired!
Pays to be young I guess!!
Friday, July 13, 2012
Remodeling
AHHHHH....we are remodeling.
Turning our dining room to a bedroom, and our den/office to a dining room.
Excuse me while I lose my mind....
I shall return soon.
Turning our dining room to a bedroom, and our den/office to a dining room.
Excuse me while I lose my mind....
I shall return soon.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
We are almost potty trained - dare I say it?
So, for months I've stressed over getting rid of stupid d.i.a.p.e.r.s!! Noelani's dr said "she's still young" - but WHY did it seem like I was the only one with a kid in diapers at 2 years old? I have heard and read all of these stories about kids being potty trained at 18 months old. Not my Miss Noelani....she wanted nothing to do with it. I could get her to pee or poop every once in a while but nothing consistent.
I invested in princess pull ups, a toilet seat potty, and a training potty. I explained to "tell mommy". I gathered toys, books, etc - nothing helped! My last resort, is that I have vacation at work scheduled for July, and my intent is not to leave the house....and if I have to duct tape her to the toilet I would - TOTALLY serious joking.
Well, Saturday 6.2.12 rolled around, and something in my mind clicked. I am so sick of buying diapers, and wipes, and a&d, etc. I KNOW she is smart enough to get this! She can fricken count in not only english, but spanish for God's sake and communicate simple sign language. She can name all of her shapes (including a hexigon and octagon!) and colors. My thought- there is no.excuse.
I busted out the 10 or so pairs of underwear I had for her, took her diaper off and told her, don't pee in the undies. If you use the potty, you get a piece of candy (a piece of pez - not totally thrilling, but for a kid who never gets candy it's like the greatest thing in the world). I sat her on the potty a minute later, ::tinkle:: she peed! I showed her how we dump, flush, rinse and get candy.
One accident....and then she went back on there once I asked......one time after that, she ran and forgot to pull the undies down and sat and peed on the potty through the undies (I'll take it!). Again, she went to play, forgot about the potty and peed in her toy room....BUT she told me "mommy I pooted" (her own weird word for pee). After that, we had a solid, evening free of accidents!!
Onto Sunday - we did great except for lunchtime. While eating lunch I heard trickles....she peed in her booster....it's ok, I expected it. That was her only accident.
Monday, I take her to daycare at 6:45 am, Daddy gets her at 9:45am. He brought her home, changed her into undies....and away she went with no accidents!! I got home at 3:15, she was just getting up from nap, sat on the potty - and that's how our evening went. NO ACCIDENTS.
She used the potty all evening, unprompted. The BIGGEST shock? When she came RUNNING from her toy room, ripped undies off, and did #2 on the potty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At nighttime, I put a diaper on her, she was laying in bed crying "pee pee mommy downstairs". I ran to get the potty, she sat and peed!!! She woke up dry this am, and when I woke her up she said "pee pee!" She sat on the potty and peed once again! I put her in undies until we left for daycare this am at 6:30. I really don't want her to have an accident on the rug at daycare (since it's my friends house) - so the best option I had was to put her in a princess pull up and hope this deters her from peeing in it! Daddy will be there around 9:30 again so she can go home into undies!
It is now almost 8am and I just got a text saying she went potty at daycare. ::doing a happy dance::
I would hesitate to say it's this easy to potty train a child.....I can't even say i'm confident we are there....but I'm PRETTY darn sure we have a GREAT start to this!!!!!!!!!!
I am so proud of my princess!!!!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Recital time!
It's that time of year!!!!!! Next weekend is Noelani's very.first.recital! I am so nervous, yet excited for her. As you can see her costume is just to die for adorable!! She also has 2 little hair bows that match. She gets so excited when she puts it on and yells "PINCESS MOMMY, I PINCESS!!!!"
We started out this past September in gymnastics. That really wasn't working for us. The gymnasium was just way too big, and she could not keep focus. Soon after, we bought our house and knew it would be on the other end of town, so we decided to give dance a try. I am so glad we made that switch. She is much happier, and even though her little 2 year old mind has the attention span of a flea, the teachers are great at having her regain focus again.
Her first recital she is dancing to "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head". I haven't decided if I'm enrolling her in the same dance studio or not next year. The studio I really want to put her in requires she is potty trained by September....yikes! WELL, i'm off of work for a week in July, and our focus will be that - anyone have potty training tips???? They are GLADLY welcomed! We have been unofficially working on it here and there when I think of it - but never really SUPER serious about it.
Wish us luck!!!!
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Where have we been? Open Adoption, Failed Placement...and so on
I will preface this post by saying it will be LONG. It will talk about some VERY difficult decisions we made as a family. Additionally, I am abbreviating names because I don't want ANYONE to know who I am talking about.
As many of you know, my daughter goes to daycare. About a year ago, her provider approached me about a little boy - I will refer to him as "J". He was at the time, around maybe 8 months old. I was told that a family at my daughters daycare was looking to place him for adoption. At the time, I gave my information to my daughters daycare provider, and she was going to pass it along. I never heard much about it from then on. That was ok with us, and I never really worried about it since we were content with where our family was at the time.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, about 4-5 weeks ago, my daughters daycare provider approached me again. She was contacted by this family again (whom no longer brought their kids to her), but they were once again trying to find a home for "J". THIS time though, my daughters provider was contacted by email and was told that "J" would be dropped off to an adoption agency that Friday if they could not place him with someone - he was now 18 months old. This email came from "J"'s aunt who I will refer to as "Aunt M".
Antoine and I were NOT looking to adopt right away. Ironically enough, within the prior week, we were approached by 2 other adoption scenarios which we chose not to pursue due to other reasons. However, after talking, we thought maybe "J" is supposed to be in our family, and now that it's almost a year later and they want to place him, they are ready to do this.
I contacted Aunt M and told her that we would be interested in more information. She replied and asked me to call her mother - "Grandma L". I promptly called Grandma L on my lunch and had a lengthy conversation with her. In which, she was in tears and crying how she could NOT take care of J anymore, and loved him, but that he needs a mom and dad - a family to love him. She proceeded to tell me that she had a lung illness, agoraphobia, and Crones . She told me that her husband had bone cancer. She explained to me that her daughter (J's mom) wanted nothing to do with J. J's mom I will call "C". She proceeded to tell me a story of how when J was around 6 months old, she showed up at C's house and found him locked in a laundry closet strapped into a carseat naked on dirty laundry screaming. She claimed that C neglected him. This is when she took J. Since that timeframe, J was bounced from house to house to house. The aunts, and grandma, and occasionally C would take him. When I was told occasionally, it was that Grandma L would have "enough" and CALL child protective services to make C take J back. This seemed to be a never ending cycle by what I was told. I was told that C claimed she just did not love J. She was neglectful to him and my heart broke as I heard this story. Apparently all of Grandma L's children (6) were up to "no good" so nobody else could take custody of J. C did not "love" J because he was conceived in a violent manner (I'm sure you can use your imagination to get to what I'm explaining).
Grandma L proceeded to email me a picture of J (which really didn't matter to me, because a child is a child). But, she then proceeded to invite me over. She claimed she only wanted Noelani and myself to come over, because she was afraid of men, so was J, and she has her agoraphobia. I was trying to be as sympathetic as possible so I agreed. This was on a Thursday, and that Saturday I had plans to go to her house. Saturday rolled around and she canceled and planned on Sunday. Sunday, I went to her house with Noey. He was outside alone in a swing drinking his bottle. We spent the late morning there letting the kids play, and she asked me quite a few questions. Her ultimate goal was to find a family for him and to have an open relationship. She wanted to visit him possibly 1-2 times a month. As you all know, I wish for an open adoption for my daughter, so that was NO problem with us! Fast forward to us leaving, and she set up for us to visit again that coming Wednesday. I was to go there and bring Noey again, and possibly take him to the park. THIS.NEVER.HAPPENED.
As Wednesday approached, Aunt M emailed me and stated that she wanted to talk to her sister - C - because she wasn't sure if this is what she wanted, and she wanted to see where C stood. I got nervous, and it dawned on me - I never asked Grandma L if she had custody of J. Because of the situation I had just assumed grandma had custody. I called Grandma and asked her if she had custody. She told me no. In between all of this, I was also told that J had probably not been given any shots thusfar, and who knew when the last time he went to a dr was. I explained I was nervous that C would not want to do this, and Grandma got VERY upset with me. She said not to listen to what Aunt M said. Mind you, Grandma L has high stress level, so I was dealing with Aunt M so that it would reduce grandma's stress. She - Grandma L said she had told C all about me and that C loved the idea. I questioned about our meeting Wed, and was told it was still on. Wed rolled around and Grandma L called me while I was at work, she had to cancel once again because she didn't feel well. She then proceeded to ask me if I could start picking up J and bringing him with Noey to daycare 3 days a week "since I would be passing her house on the way to and from getting Noey". She said she would pay me gas $ and pay for daycare. I thought this was very odd. I talked to my daughters provider, and she said if I REALLY wanted her to do it she would for me.....but we kind of both decided it wasn't a good idea. Regardless, J had no immunizations, and that was needed for daycare. I called Grandma L back and explained this to her. She cut me off and VERY nasty said "well thats fine i will just find someone else. Look, maybe I will call you to set something up this weekend". I followed up our conversation with an email that said basically we would love to adopt J, but until we meet or talk to C, we cannot help further. Please let me know if she would talk with us. Sorry. Before all of this, I had sent a lengthy email regarding how we would transition him to our home. Of course every idea I had in there she said was a bad idea. BUT, when she was calling asking me about this daycare idea, she said once again in tears how "she cannot do this and that I asked when she wants J to transition to us and she wished it could be TODAY".
After that phone call, I became more insistent that I needed to meet C. This was C's decision. Not anyone elses. Aunt M understood this. We talked and Aunt M set up for C to come to our home. I was told that C was also nervous, so it would be easiest if it were just me and Noelani again. We did not find it necessary by this time to tell Grandma L this was happening. She had bad enough stress, and every time i talked to her, she was in tears about something different. I figured C may not even like us so why stress Grandma L about it if she didn't have to.
On Saturday, C came over with Aunt M. Noey had dance, so I rushed home from that, grabbed a dozen donuts and a jug of coffee. We sat and talked for hours. I got to know C and that it wasn't that she didn't love J, she just felt different about him than her other 2 kids, considering the circumstances. I found out that C was angry that Grandma L let me meet J without her consent. I could then understand where she was coming from. C wanted to see our family, see our home, etc. She explained what she had hoped for if J was adopted. She wanted J to still see her, she wanted J to know her siblings....and lastly, she wanted J to call her mom. This was the least of my worries....we could work on that I figured. She wanted also to possibly have him overnight. I was weary of this, only because I had heard such terrible abuse stories from Grandma L. I didn't want to adopt this little boy and then have him return to an abusive situation, OBVIOUSLY.
As C went to leave, we exchanged #'s. About 45 minutes later, I texted her and thanked her for coming over. I said thank you for her time and when she was ready to talk, just let me know. I never got a response that night. I didn't expect one. I talked to Aunt M and she was honest and didn't know what C was thinking. Two days later, Aunt M was taking C to an appointment, and hoped by then maybe she would have some type of decision. The next day, C texted me back. She explained it was a difficult decision, but she would like to see how J reacted to our family and would like time to talk to us about things further. Again, I could understand because this is a lifelong decision she was going to make.
On Monday, Aunt M took C to her appointment. This appointment was for food stamps and cash assistance. She put J on her case - which is interesting to me since he didn't live with her - but she wanted to get things reinstated. I don't need to go into detail over why she didn't have them, etc...but that is what her appointment was for.
I later talked to C and we made plans to meet up on Friday. I took off of work and told her i would pick her up. I believe it was Tuesday then that Aunt M stated she was taking her kids to the park.....I brought Noey there and J was there as well. We all played together and barely talked about this whole adoption "thing". I told her I would talk to her later. Later that evening we made plans to have dinner the next night. I planned on having J, her kids, and Aunt M over. I bought dinner, and they came over to play. J met Antoine for the first time and we all got along wonderfully. The funny thing is, earlier that day, Aunt M asked me to call Grandma L - her phone wasn't working but she wanted to make sure that she could still pick up J to come to our house. Grandma L answered and said yes J is napping, he'll be up soon. ODD thing is, a few days later, Grandma L denied this. As Aunt M left from this meeting, she explained that Grandma L wanted J around us as much as possible so that he was not fearful of us should he come to live with us. I understood. We made plans to possibly meet at the park the following day. Later that night, Aunt M texted me that Grandma L didn't want this and it was too much for J to go out everyday.
Thursday, C texted me and was stressed out. She needed food for her kids. I asked what did she need. She needed to know if she had her food stamps back. I offered to call her card for her. I called a couple of times. I went to lay down, and soon after that I got a text from her that said something along the lines "You want to take me to court and get my kid? You people are f*cking crazy". I was confused, and she went on to say that Aunt M told her if she didn't let us adopt him, that WE would take her for custody. First off, we never said that, second of all, Grandma L had apparently been telling Aunt M this. THIS is where it really was apparent too many "cooks" were in the kitchen.
After C calmed down, we agreed to still spend Friday together. Antoine & I went there to pick up her and J, along with one of her other kids. They came over and spent close to 6 or 7 hours at our house. I bought tons of lunchmeat, rolls, water, chips, etc. The kids all played together and got along great. J connected with Antoine and literally threw himself on the floor crying when Antoine had to leave for a bit.
At this point, C still had no food stamps. She called and ended up crying. I felt terrible. She went into great detail about her family. It was clear to me that Grandma L was now not wanting this adoption to happen. When C went to leave, she said she was pretty sure what she wanted to do. She loved how J got along with our family. She just had to talk to her mom because she didn't want Grandma L to be mad.
I drove C home, after I sent home a bag FULL of groceries for her and her kids. It was the least I could do, and I didn't want to take her grocery shopping. I didn't want her to think I was bribing her. On the way home I stopped so she could get a phone card with $10 she had - don't even ask!
When we got home, J and her other child were asleep. I carried J in, and she carried her other child. In her kitchen sat her mother....or what I thought was her mother - Grandma L. She didn't even look in my direction. Didn't wave or say hi. I thought maybe it wasn't her because it was dark and i had my sunglasses on.
Either way, I didn't hear from C until the next day. Apparently Grandma L let C keep J for a few days. J had a terrible fever. I offered to take C and J to the hospital if needed. C had mentioned in previous visits that her stress level gets way too high around him and she cannot take it. I offered to even take J for a few hours so that she did not get stressed. She didn't take me up on it, and said he probably had an ear infection. I couldn't MAKE someone do something - nor could I make her take J to a dr. In our conversations previously, she had stated she speculated that an old BF had previously broken J's toes when he was 6 months old. These details are only bits and pieces of stories we were told...but I'm hoping people can understand why we came to our decision.
The following day I didn't hear from her ALL day. I became worried when she finally responded late in the afternoon that she had been busy all am. She said s he would respond when she had time. I never heard from her. The next day, I texted again. By this time, C was not talking to Aunt M. They stopped talking when the fight about custody and courts came up. I tried texting C again, and finally became so worried I called Grandma L. I hadn't talked to Grandma L since almost a week prior.
When I called Grandma L she answered and said "WHAT DO YOU WANT IM TRYING TO EAT LUNCH". I was blown away. I asked if C was ok cause I hadn't heard from her. She said "she's fine i heard from her this am". I said ok, do you know what she is thinking now in terms of all of this?!....She responded nasty "well she is going to try and take care of him and thats what everyone involved wants, and i'm picking him back up friday". I was shocked and said "oh ok I wish she would have told me, but i will back away now and if you guys need me, you have my #".
I texted C and explained I wish she had told me she wanted to take care of him, and i respect that and I talked to her mom and wish her best of luck and to take care. She finally responded. She said "I don't know what the hell my mom told you". We texted back and forth and she explained she still hadn't decided. She was hoping by Friday she would know. She proceeded to ask me to drive her to the grocery store because she was going to borrow food stamps from someone. I wanted C to know she could trust our family. I wanted her to know she could trust I would follow through with what I promise, so I agreed to take her.
An hour or so later she called. I answered and C said "I'm not trying to be rude but don't ever f*cking call my mom again shes a rude b*tch". She said apparently when I called, her mom (Grandma L) said "don't have jenn ever call my f*cking house again she's a trouble maker". C explained that Grandma L didn't want me to take her shopping. Grandma L now was saying that I was a bad person and how she wants to be on adoption paperwork so she has rights to J and visitation. I never once denied her being able to see him. I was blown away.
I explained to C, touch base with me the following day. I would take her, but did not want to cause drama if I did. Meanwhile, Aunt M had stepped out of it all and just stayed friendly with me. Her heart ached because of course she had loved J and taken him places with her kids. But, she ultimately just wanted best for J.
The next day I didn't hear from C. Around 1pm, I texted her and asked if I was still taking her for groceries. She responded she was stressed out and had a terrible morning and someone called child abuse on her. They were there and wanted to take her kids. In short, she needed to come up with beds, and a couch, and other things for her children in order to keep them when CPS showed up again in a week. THIS is the story I was given. I have no idea regarding details. At this point, I honestly didn't know what was truth or not.
She didn't answer about the groceries...and proceeded to tell me she was taking a nap. I left work not hearing from her. I called her, and got her voicemail. I was PISSED. I put myself out there, and she couldn't even answer the phone?!
I returned home and sent her a text basically saying we couldn't do this anymore and proceed with this. Basically wished her the best and stated that her mom should have been more in tune with what she was heading into (adoption) and if it was a game she shouldn't have started this whole process.
I took the next day off of work. I was stressed beyond belief and lived with a migraine for 3 weeks. I slept all am, took Noey to the park, and dairy queen. As I got home, C texted. She said she was stressed out and turned her phone off the prior day. I explained if she thought it was me who called CPS she was mistaken. She called me, we talked and talked. She stated how Grandma L said I was a bad person. Grandma L said I was OBSESSED and just wanted 4 kids in a prior conversation. (I explained to C that in our first meeting Grandma asked me how many kids I wanted and I explained I was not obsessed - I just wanted to see J in a safe family and to reach his potential).
C went on to explain she wanted to get her home the way CPS wants it, and then get J back maybe for a few weeks again to see if he could adjust. In that instant I knew pursuing this adoption was DONE. I offered her to check Craigslist for a couch and crib.
The next day I texted her and said basically I needed to know if keeping J was her decision. We are planning a Disney trip for Noelani on her 3rd bday and would cancel due to adoption costs if necessary. She never answered.
Since then I have never been given an explanation of why this turned out the way it did. J desperately needs speech therapy. In my opinion he needs occupational therapy as well. He is TERRIFIED when you lift him high, so I suspect other issues are going on as well. Our decision as a family was going to be having Head Start come in to access him immediately. We also discussed if he had possibly been autistic could we accept that - this was a concern of C's - not ours. We decided we would do whatever it took to give this little boy a FAMILY, a LIFE, a CHANCE. THIS is why we never backed down. I am sure that I have missed a ton in between but these are the major bullet points I can come up with at this time.
I spent NUMEROUS hours on the phone with lawyers and child & family services. BEGGING people to help us with the financials of this possible unexpected adoption. I spent HOURS talking to lawyers about what steps to take...every scenario was explored. Even up to the very last moment she said her kids could be taken, I called our lawyer frantic in how to prevent J from foster care. I offered this information to C but she ignored me.
NOW.....the hard part.
Am I mad at anyone? NO. Do you think I'm lying when I say that? I really am not! I really have love in my heart for every single person involved. I cannot hate anyone. Aunt M has the shit end of it really. There were alot of accusations going around, and now neither Grandma L nor do C talk to her anymore. I don't think Aunt M meant ANY harm to anyone. She wanted what I wanted for J. A home. A family. A chance.
We opened our home, our lives, our everything to C. She came to our home, we gave her food, a ride, offered respite, offered to run her around....clearly we had love for her since we offered to do these things.
As for Grandma L - I think she is torn. She wants this for J, she knows its right...but the reality became too much for her and too overwhelming.
So, what do I think of open adoption? I STILL think it's a wonderful thing. I would love to still have that with a family. But I believe it is a very hard thing to do, and it would be something that all parties agree to. Would I ever approach a "private" adoption again? Hmm, I would have to think about that one!! Without involving lawyers or social workers, this was hard. I had to be the "social worker" and the "lawyer". Yet, I had to be the friend as well. It was very hard. To hold that hope still that maybe I shouldn't have walked away, still kills me. It still hurts me.
I hope everyone involved finds peace. Mostly, I hope J finds love in a family. I hope and pray every single day that J can have a mommy and daddy - but I think the odds of this aren't high. I think he is getting too old now, and at almost 2 years old, he will have attachment disorder. He wont be able to bond to a new family. As I said, he needs extensive therapy and I ache and cry inside that his opportunity for this has passed. I PRAY that he gets this.
In a way, I think this is as hard as a failed placement in adoption. We got to know and love J and his family. We LOVED C, Aunt M and Grandma L. We wanted them to be our extended family. We visited with them, and especially to let your heart love a little child like that. It was hard to decide to walk away....but unless everyone is on the same page and wanting the same thing. It.WONT.work.
That is the best advice I can give in all of this. Make sure everyone is on the same page. I hope maybe this helps someone else. Know when to cut yourself off.
So THIS is where we have been. I made the choice not to blog while going through this. I kept it to a minimum because I really had no idea which way this would go. I felt I needed to now, because I had alot of emotions inside of me, and the few people who knew, wanted to know the whole story. There is more to this and alot of details I left out, but these were the ones I felt comfortable sharing.
C knows that if in the very near future she changes her mind, she has our #. Unfortunately, as I said, with J being his age, time is against us all in this. But, I cannot keep chasing C, nor her mom. If this is what they want for J, they will choose it.I know that C loves J, or she wouldn't have met with us and explained how she feels....but I fear she is scared of how she will be viewed by others. That is the very sad part of adoption. That women have to worry how others will view her. Adoption is about love. A woman would NOT choose adoption if it weren't for the AMAZING love she has for her child.
As many of you know, my daughter goes to daycare. About a year ago, her provider approached me about a little boy - I will refer to him as "J". He was at the time, around maybe 8 months old. I was told that a family at my daughters daycare was looking to place him for adoption. At the time, I gave my information to my daughters daycare provider, and she was going to pass it along. I never heard much about it from then on. That was ok with us, and I never really worried about it since we were content with where our family was at the time.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, about 4-5 weeks ago, my daughters daycare provider approached me again. She was contacted by this family again (whom no longer brought their kids to her), but they were once again trying to find a home for "J". THIS time though, my daughters provider was contacted by email and was told that "J" would be dropped off to an adoption agency that Friday if they could not place him with someone - he was now 18 months old. This email came from "J"'s aunt who I will refer to as "Aunt M".
Antoine and I were NOT looking to adopt right away. Ironically enough, within the prior week, we were approached by 2 other adoption scenarios which we chose not to pursue due to other reasons. However, after talking, we thought maybe "J" is supposed to be in our family, and now that it's almost a year later and they want to place him, they are ready to do this.
I contacted Aunt M and told her that we would be interested in more information. She replied and asked me to call her mother - "Grandma L". I promptly called Grandma L on my lunch and had a lengthy conversation with her. In which, she was in tears and crying how she could NOT take care of J anymore, and loved him, but that he needs a mom and dad - a family to love him. She proceeded to tell me that she had a lung illness, agoraphobia, and Crones . She told me that her husband had bone cancer. She explained to me that her daughter (J's mom) wanted nothing to do with J. J's mom I will call "C". She proceeded to tell me a story of how when J was around 6 months old, she showed up at C's house and found him locked in a laundry closet strapped into a carseat naked on dirty laundry screaming. She claimed that C neglected him. This is when she took J. Since that timeframe, J was bounced from house to house to house. The aunts, and grandma, and occasionally C would take him. When I was told occasionally, it was that Grandma L would have "enough" and CALL child protective services to make C take J back. This seemed to be a never ending cycle by what I was told. I was told that C claimed she just did not love J. She was neglectful to him and my heart broke as I heard this story. Apparently all of Grandma L's children (6) were up to "no good" so nobody else could take custody of J. C did not "love" J because he was conceived in a violent manner (I'm sure you can use your imagination to get to what I'm explaining).
Grandma L proceeded to email me a picture of J (which really didn't matter to me, because a child is a child). But, she then proceeded to invite me over. She claimed she only wanted Noelani and myself to come over, because she was afraid of men, so was J, and she has her agoraphobia. I was trying to be as sympathetic as possible so I agreed. This was on a Thursday, and that Saturday I had plans to go to her house. Saturday rolled around and she canceled and planned on Sunday. Sunday, I went to her house with Noey. He was outside alone in a swing drinking his bottle. We spent the late morning there letting the kids play, and she asked me quite a few questions. Her ultimate goal was to find a family for him and to have an open relationship. She wanted to visit him possibly 1-2 times a month. As you all know, I wish for an open adoption for my daughter, so that was NO problem with us! Fast forward to us leaving, and she set up for us to visit again that coming Wednesday. I was to go there and bring Noey again, and possibly take him to the park. THIS.NEVER.HAPPENED.
As Wednesday approached, Aunt M emailed me and stated that she wanted to talk to her sister - C - because she wasn't sure if this is what she wanted, and she wanted to see where C stood. I got nervous, and it dawned on me - I never asked Grandma L if she had custody of J. Because of the situation I had just assumed grandma had custody. I called Grandma and asked her if she had custody. She told me no. In between all of this, I was also told that J had probably not been given any shots thusfar, and who knew when the last time he went to a dr was. I explained I was nervous that C would not want to do this, and Grandma got VERY upset with me. She said not to listen to what Aunt M said. Mind you, Grandma L has high stress level, so I was dealing with Aunt M so that it would reduce grandma's stress. She - Grandma L said she had told C all about me and that C loved the idea. I questioned about our meeting Wed, and was told it was still on. Wed rolled around and Grandma L called me while I was at work, she had to cancel once again because she didn't feel well. She then proceeded to ask me if I could start picking up J and bringing him with Noey to daycare 3 days a week "since I would be passing her house on the way to and from getting Noey". She said she would pay me gas $ and pay for daycare. I thought this was very odd. I talked to my daughters provider, and she said if I REALLY wanted her to do it she would for me.....but we kind of both decided it wasn't a good idea. Regardless, J had no immunizations, and that was needed for daycare. I called Grandma L back and explained this to her. She cut me off and VERY nasty said "well thats fine i will just find someone else. Look, maybe I will call you to set something up this weekend". I followed up our conversation with an email that said basically we would love to adopt J, but until we meet or talk to C, we cannot help further. Please let me know if she would talk with us. Sorry. Before all of this, I had sent a lengthy email regarding how we would transition him to our home. Of course every idea I had in there she said was a bad idea. BUT, when she was calling asking me about this daycare idea, she said once again in tears how "she cannot do this and that I asked when she wants J to transition to us and she wished it could be TODAY".
After that phone call, I became more insistent that I needed to meet C. This was C's decision. Not anyone elses. Aunt M understood this. We talked and Aunt M set up for C to come to our home. I was told that C was also nervous, so it would be easiest if it were just me and Noelani again. We did not find it necessary by this time to tell Grandma L this was happening. She had bad enough stress, and every time i talked to her, she was in tears about something different. I figured C may not even like us so why stress Grandma L about it if she didn't have to.
On Saturday, C came over with Aunt M. Noey had dance, so I rushed home from that, grabbed a dozen donuts and a jug of coffee. We sat and talked for hours. I got to know C and that it wasn't that she didn't love J, she just felt different about him than her other 2 kids, considering the circumstances. I found out that C was angry that Grandma L let me meet J without her consent. I could then understand where she was coming from. C wanted to see our family, see our home, etc. She explained what she had hoped for if J was adopted. She wanted J to still see her, she wanted J to know her siblings....and lastly, she wanted J to call her mom. This was the least of my worries....we could work on that I figured. She wanted also to possibly have him overnight. I was weary of this, only because I had heard such terrible abuse stories from Grandma L. I didn't want to adopt this little boy and then have him return to an abusive situation, OBVIOUSLY.
As C went to leave, we exchanged #'s. About 45 minutes later, I texted her and thanked her for coming over. I said thank you for her time and when she was ready to talk, just let me know. I never got a response that night. I didn't expect one. I talked to Aunt M and she was honest and didn't know what C was thinking. Two days later, Aunt M was taking C to an appointment, and hoped by then maybe she would have some type of decision. The next day, C texted me back. She explained it was a difficult decision, but she would like to see how J reacted to our family and would like time to talk to us about things further. Again, I could understand because this is a lifelong decision she was going to make.
On Monday, Aunt M took C to her appointment. This appointment was for food stamps and cash assistance. She put J on her case - which is interesting to me since he didn't live with her - but she wanted to get things reinstated. I don't need to go into detail over why she didn't have them, etc...but that is what her appointment was for.
I later talked to C and we made plans to meet up on Friday. I took off of work and told her i would pick her up. I believe it was Tuesday then that Aunt M stated she was taking her kids to the park.....I brought Noey there and J was there as well. We all played together and barely talked about this whole adoption "thing". I told her I would talk to her later. Later that evening we made plans to have dinner the next night. I planned on having J, her kids, and Aunt M over. I bought dinner, and they came over to play. J met Antoine for the first time and we all got along wonderfully. The funny thing is, earlier that day, Aunt M asked me to call Grandma L - her phone wasn't working but she wanted to make sure that she could still pick up J to come to our house. Grandma L answered and said yes J is napping, he'll be up soon. ODD thing is, a few days later, Grandma L denied this. As Aunt M left from this meeting, she explained that Grandma L wanted J around us as much as possible so that he was not fearful of us should he come to live with us. I understood. We made plans to possibly meet at the park the following day. Later that night, Aunt M texted me that Grandma L didn't want this and it was too much for J to go out everyday.
Thursday, C texted me and was stressed out. She needed food for her kids. I asked what did she need. She needed to know if she had her food stamps back. I offered to call her card for her. I called a couple of times. I went to lay down, and soon after that I got a text from her that said something along the lines "You want to take me to court and get my kid? You people are f*cking crazy". I was confused, and she went on to say that Aunt M told her if she didn't let us adopt him, that WE would take her for custody. First off, we never said that, second of all, Grandma L had apparently been telling Aunt M this. THIS is where it really was apparent too many "cooks" were in the kitchen.
After C calmed down, we agreed to still spend Friday together. Antoine & I went there to pick up her and J, along with one of her other kids. They came over and spent close to 6 or 7 hours at our house. I bought tons of lunchmeat, rolls, water, chips, etc. The kids all played together and got along great. J connected with Antoine and literally threw himself on the floor crying when Antoine had to leave for a bit.
At this point, C still had no food stamps. She called and ended up crying. I felt terrible. She went into great detail about her family. It was clear to me that Grandma L was now not wanting this adoption to happen. When C went to leave, she said she was pretty sure what she wanted to do. She loved how J got along with our family. She just had to talk to her mom because she didn't want Grandma L to be mad.
I drove C home, after I sent home a bag FULL of groceries for her and her kids. It was the least I could do, and I didn't want to take her grocery shopping. I didn't want her to think I was bribing her. On the way home I stopped so she could get a phone card with $10 she had - don't even ask!
When we got home, J and her other child were asleep. I carried J in, and she carried her other child. In her kitchen sat her mother....or what I thought was her mother - Grandma L. She didn't even look in my direction. Didn't wave or say hi. I thought maybe it wasn't her because it was dark and i had my sunglasses on.
Either way, I didn't hear from C until the next day. Apparently Grandma L let C keep J for a few days. J had a terrible fever. I offered to take C and J to the hospital if needed. C had mentioned in previous visits that her stress level gets way too high around him and she cannot take it. I offered to even take J for a few hours so that she did not get stressed. She didn't take me up on it, and said he probably had an ear infection. I couldn't MAKE someone do something - nor could I make her take J to a dr. In our conversations previously, she had stated she speculated that an old BF had previously broken J's toes when he was 6 months old. These details are only bits and pieces of stories we were told...but I'm hoping people can understand why we came to our decision.
The following day I didn't hear from her ALL day. I became worried when she finally responded late in the afternoon that she had been busy all am. She said s he would respond when she had time. I never heard from her. The next day, I texted again. By this time, C was not talking to Aunt M. They stopped talking when the fight about custody and courts came up. I tried texting C again, and finally became so worried I called Grandma L. I hadn't talked to Grandma L since almost a week prior.
When I called Grandma L she answered and said "WHAT DO YOU WANT IM TRYING TO EAT LUNCH". I was blown away. I asked if C was ok cause I hadn't heard from her. She said "she's fine i heard from her this am". I said ok, do you know what she is thinking now in terms of all of this?!....She responded nasty "well she is going to try and take care of him and thats what everyone involved wants, and i'm picking him back up friday". I was shocked and said "oh ok I wish she would have told me, but i will back away now and if you guys need me, you have my #".
I texted C and explained I wish she had told me she wanted to take care of him, and i respect that and I talked to her mom and wish her best of luck and to take care. She finally responded. She said "I don't know what the hell my mom told you". We texted back and forth and she explained she still hadn't decided. She was hoping by Friday she would know. She proceeded to ask me to drive her to the grocery store because she was going to borrow food stamps from someone. I wanted C to know she could trust our family. I wanted her to know she could trust I would follow through with what I promise, so I agreed to take her.
An hour or so later she called. I answered and C said "I'm not trying to be rude but don't ever f*cking call my mom again shes a rude b*tch". She said apparently when I called, her mom (Grandma L) said "don't have jenn ever call my f*cking house again she's a trouble maker". C explained that Grandma L didn't want me to take her shopping. Grandma L now was saying that I was a bad person and how she wants to be on adoption paperwork so she has rights to J and visitation. I never once denied her being able to see him. I was blown away.
I explained to C, touch base with me the following day. I would take her, but did not want to cause drama if I did. Meanwhile, Aunt M had stepped out of it all and just stayed friendly with me. Her heart ached because of course she had loved J and taken him places with her kids. But, she ultimately just wanted best for J.
The next day I didn't hear from C. Around 1pm, I texted her and asked if I was still taking her for groceries. She responded she was stressed out and had a terrible morning and someone called child abuse on her. They were there and wanted to take her kids. In short, she needed to come up with beds, and a couch, and other things for her children in order to keep them when CPS showed up again in a week. THIS is the story I was given. I have no idea regarding details. At this point, I honestly didn't know what was truth or not.
She didn't answer about the groceries...and proceeded to tell me she was taking a nap. I left work not hearing from her. I called her, and got her voicemail. I was PISSED. I put myself out there, and she couldn't even answer the phone?!
I returned home and sent her a text basically saying we couldn't do this anymore and proceed with this. Basically wished her the best and stated that her mom should have been more in tune with what she was heading into (adoption) and if it was a game she shouldn't have started this whole process.
I took the next day off of work. I was stressed beyond belief and lived with a migraine for 3 weeks. I slept all am, took Noey to the park, and dairy queen. As I got home, C texted. She said she was stressed out and turned her phone off the prior day. I explained if she thought it was me who called CPS she was mistaken. She called me, we talked and talked. She stated how Grandma L said I was a bad person. Grandma L said I was OBSESSED and just wanted 4 kids in a prior conversation. (I explained to C that in our first meeting Grandma asked me how many kids I wanted and I explained I was not obsessed - I just wanted to see J in a safe family and to reach his potential).
C went on to explain she wanted to get her home the way CPS wants it, and then get J back maybe for a few weeks again to see if he could adjust. In that instant I knew pursuing this adoption was DONE. I offered her to check Craigslist for a couch and crib.
The next day I texted her and said basically I needed to know if keeping J was her decision. We are planning a Disney trip for Noelani on her 3rd bday and would cancel due to adoption costs if necessary. She never answered.
Since then I have never been given an explanation of why this turned out the way it did. J desperately needs speech therapy. In my opinion he needs occupational therapy as well. He is TERRIFIED when you lift him high, so I suspect other issues are going on as well. Our decision as a family was going to be having Head Start come in to access him immediately. We also discussed if he had possibly been autistic could we accept that - this was a concern of C's - not ours. We decided we would do whatever it took to give this little boy a FAMILY, a LIFE, a CHANCE. THIS is why we never backed down. I am sure that I have missed a ton in between but these are the major bullet points I can come up with at this time.
I spent NUMEROUS hours on the phone with lawyers and child & family services. BEGGING people to help us with the financials of this possible unexpected adoption. I spent HOURS talking to lawyers about what steps to take...every scenario was explored. Even up to the very last moment she said her kids could be taken, I called our lawyer frantic in how to prevent J from foster care. I offered this information to C but she ignored me.
NOW.....the hard part.
Am I mad at anyone? NO. Do you think I'm lying when I say that? I really am not! I really have love in my heart for every single person involved. I cannot hate anyone. Aunt M has the shit end of it really. There were alot of accusations going around, and now neither Grandma L nor do C talk to her anymore. I don't think Aunt M meant ANY harm to anyone. She wanted what I wanted for J. A home. A family. A chance.
We opened our home, our lives, our everything to C. She came to our home, we gave her food, a ride, offered respite, offered to run her around....clearly we had love for her since we offered to do these things.
As for Grandma L - I think she is torn. She wants this for J, she knows its right...but the reality became too much for her and too overwhelming.
So, what do I think of open adoption? I STILL think it's a wonderful thing. I would love to still have that with a family. But I believe it is a very hard thing to do, and it would be something that all parties agree to. Would I ever approach a "private" adoption again? Hmm, I would have to think about that one!! Without involving lawyers or social workers, this was hard. I had to be the "social worker" and the "lawyer". Yet, I had to be the friend as well. It was very hard. To hold that hope still that maybe I shouldn't have walked away, still kills me. It still hurts me.
I hope everyone involved finds peace. Mostly, I hope J finds love in a family. I hope and pray every single day that J can have a mommy and daddy - but I think the odds of this aren't high. I think he is getting too old now, and at almost 2 years old, he will have attachment disorder. He wont be able to bond to a new family. As I said, he needs extensive therapy and I ache and cry inside that his opportunity for this has passed. I PRAY that he gets this.
In a way, I think this is as hard as a failed placement in adoption. We got to know and love J and his family. We LOVED C, Aunt M and Grandma L. We wanted them to be our extended family. We visited with them, and especially to let your heart love a little child like that. It was hard to decide to walk away....but unless everyone is on the same page and wanting the same thing. It.WONT.work.
That is the best advice I can give in all of this. Make sure everyone is on the same page. I hope maybe this helps someone else. Know when to cut yourself off.
So THIS is where we have been. I made the choice not to blog while going through this. I kept it to a minimum because I really had no idea which way this would go. I felt I needed to now, because I had alot of emotions inside of me, and the few people who knew, wanted to know the whole story. There is more to this and alot of details I left out, but these were the ones I felt comfortable sharing.
C knows that if in the very near future she changes her mind, she has our #. Unfortunately, as I said, with J being his age, time is against us all in this. But, I cannot keep chasing C, nor her mom. If this is what they want for J, they will choose it.I know that C loves J, or she wouldn't have met with us and explained how she feels....but I fear she is scared of how she will be viewed by others. That is the very sad part of adoption. That women have to worry how others will view her. Adoption is about love. A woman would NOT choose adoption if it weren't for the AMAZING love she has for her child.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Back to your regularly scheduled program....
Yep, life's back to normal-ISH. I have decided tonight, we have invested way too much heartache time these past 3 weeks, on something that probably will never change.
I would LOVE to love someone new....I would LOVE to make a difference. But I cannot force someone to make a decision, or force them to decide on my terms, or in my time.
It's frustrating, MADDENING....heartbreaking. But I need to just get our lives back to normal for my daughters sake. Everything I do is FOR my daughter.
SO....if it happens, it happens. If not, I tried my best. It's sad....but I won't let it bring us down.
I would LOVE to love someone new....I would LOVE to make a difference. But I cannot force someone to make a decision, or force them to decide on my terms, or in my time.
It's frustrating, MADDENING....heartbreaking. But I need to just get our lives back to normal for my daughters sake. Everything I do is FOR my daughter.
SO....if it happens, it happens. If not, I tried my best. It's sad....but I won't let it bring us down.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Tomorrow
Tomorrow I will know what lies ahead for our family. Tomorrow I will know if Noelani will begin rocking this title:
TOMORROW, I will be able to fill everyone in on what is happening :)
In time, it will all fall together. If it doesn't happen tomorrow, I will use the word EVENTUALLY. Whatever is meant to be is going to be, and I cannot change it. I can just try to stay c.a.l.m.
In time, it will all fall together. If it doesn't happen tomorrow, I will use the word EVENTUALLY. Whatever is meant to be is going to be, and I cannot change it. I can just try to stay c.a.l.m.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
My current mood....
These pretty much sum up how I/we are feeling as a family lately:
Everything is good with us as a family :) Noelani has been hanging out with someone new.....I will explain very soon! My skills of patience have been tested to the fullest extent these past couple of weeks! Knowing you want something SO bad....and are SO close...but waiting for someone else to make this life altering decision for you - because it IS out of your control, is the hardest test I've ever dealt with!
Last night I ALMOST decided to throw in the towel....then I remembered a comment a dear friend of mine made on my previous post. What is meant to be will be.
Whenever that is - I will update everyone with what has been going on!!!!
Everything is good with us as a family :) Noelani has been hanging out with someone new.....I will explain very soon! My skills of patience have been tested to the fullest extent these past couple of weeks! Knowing you want something SO bad....and are SO close...but waiting for someone else to make this life altering decision for you - because it IS out of your control, is the hardest test I've ever dealt with!
Last night I ALMOST decided to throw in the towel....then I remembered a comment a dear friend of mine made on my previous post. What is meant to be will be.
Whenever that is - I will update everyone with what has been going on!!!!
Monday, May 7, 2012
Torn
I cannot post much on here or give out too many details. But, I am feeling very torn right now. I wish I knew what the right answer was! Go with my heart or mind? My mind is telling me one thing and heart another. This is in regards to another adoption and that is all I can really say at this moment. I will post more at a later date!
But for now, I know I've been missing on this blog - but I don't like to have to "censor" everything. I feel like if I blog, I am censoring a big chunk of our lives at this moment....
So I shall return and once I do, I can fill everyone in.
But for now, I know I've been missing on this blog - but I don't like to have to "censor" everything. I feel like if I blog, I am censoring a big chunk of our lives at this moment....
So I shall return and once I do, I can fill everyone in.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
WAITING...
I really really stink at waiting. I hate EVERYTHING that there is about it. I am a very in control type of person. I want things MY way and want them like...yesterday.
Anyway, I found out some sad news today. The director that we worked with at my daughters adoption agency is no longer working there. I guess it's saddening to me, because I really am forever grateful to her. Grateful that she gave me a chance, read my email I sent with a hope and a prayer, and grateful that a week after I first emailed them, I was learning that my daughter would be coming home with us.
Anyway, I found out some sad news today. The director that we worked with at my daughters adoption agency is no longer working there. I guess it's saddening to me, because I really am forever grateful to her. Grateful that she gave me a chance, read my email I sent with a hope and a prayer, and grateful that a week after I first emailed them, I was learning that my daughter would be coming home with us.
WELL....here goes waiting.....
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Negativity is something I'm working on....
I mostly blog about my beautiful daughter here. But, since it's my blog, I figure I can use it to vent anything.
People may look at me and think, gee, she has a great life. A nice house, a daughter, husband, all that she wants. But let me tell you - it has NOT always been this way! I have worked my BUTT off to get where I am - I should say where WE are as a family.
When I first moved out at 21 yrs old, I had NOTHING but my clothes! In fact, Antoine & I had a futon in our living room, with a desk we found, and his full size bed we squeezed into for our bedroom. We had ONE small dresser, enough to hold his socks, and a bathroom set from Family Dollar. Our dishes were from a garage sale. Our kitchen table was one that the leg continuously came loose, and we had an area rug I got for $5 at another garage sale!
I remember being SO excited that we had enough money to purchase a new kitchen table from Kmart! We had it on layaway and finally had something "new"! Eventually I had enough money for a new desk from Walmart. We FINALLY got a couch from the side of the road...someone put it out for garbage with a "free" sign attached! A year or so later, Antoines family member had an old sectional couch and we took that. Our tv came from garbage picking as well....it was blurry but it was the best thing we could manage - and I bought a tv stand from walmart. We eventually had enough money for a microwave and some glasses and new silverware from Ikea.
Antoine didn't have a car, and I drove a beat up car that was $700 and worked daily on a prayer. BUT I tell you what....this was 9 years ago. I could go on and on about how we struggled. BUT it was my choice to move out and be "independent" so I sure as heck wasn't going to ask for help!
Eventually, we received a monetary gift of $400 and instead of spending it on something frivolous, we put it towards a bed....and when I say bed, I mean a mattress and box spring. When we finally got more money, from a tax return, we bought a couch and FINALLY bedroom furniture. We only got a new computer because the apartment above us sprung a leak and our computer got soaked. Our landlord reimbursed us so we put it towards a new desktop. Ashley (Antoines sister) began staying with us ALOT...and needed her own room. I got a toddler bed at a garage sale (see the theme?) and my aunt gave us a dresser for her. Eventually that toddler bed was turned into a twin bed when our neighbor upstairs moved back to her hometown and was going to throw it away.
I was finally able to land a GOOD job after college, and Antoine got a well paying job doing cable. We finally could afford a couch....and a washer and dryer that was not the "community" set in the apt basement.
Antoine sacrificed, and so did I. We took a handful of vacations and those were NOT grand by any means. For Antoines birthday/Christmas one year (he has 3 days between the two), I purchased him a fish tank. He had wanted one soooo bad. I saved that year to buy the tank and supplies. I had a friend make him the tank stand.
We saved money shopping at Save-A-Lot and Aldis for groceries. We only had a house phone (no fancy cells). Once we eventually had everything in place....we decided we would try to start a family. Once again, we were faced with struggles.
As many of you know, we were doing infertility treatments for a long time. That is a BIG stress on finances. eventually we turned to In Vitro, which our health insurance odes not cover (we are talking $10,000+) here. We opted to try, as we were getting 'older' and didn't want to ever think 'what if'....thank GOD it didn't work and I am the Momma to the best little girl now ;)
After that failed, we started looking into purchasing a home. As reality set in, I knew I wanted to be a mom. Would I EVER have that if I put all of our money towards adoption? It was at that moment we knew we needed at least $20k to set aside for that.
We put our dreams of home ownership to the side.
If you have a dream, the only way you can make it happen is put a plan in motion. Don't sit around and bitch about how your life sucks. MAKE IT DIFFERENT.
We saved every penny, borrowed, and busted our ASSES. Three months after we contacted a lawyer about the possibility of adoption, our daughter was HOME. In the adoption world, that is almost unheard of.
7 months after she came home, I was working part time, and our landlord advised us we had a month to move. He sold our house!!!!!!!!! I cried...I was so mad. How could he ruin our lives that we built for the past 6.5 years in this apt. It still hurts me to this day. BUT I knew what I had to do. I would not allow my life to rewind.
I took money from my 401k to afford our move to a new apartment, and within a month we were gone. I returned back to work full time a month later. I would let NOBODY make me struggle the way I once did. I wanted my daughter to have a great childhood. YES, time with my daughter is important. BUT, my daughter NEVER leaves my sight when I am home. I actually would beg to differ with some SAHM's...I tend to think sometimes I spend more one on one time with my daughter than they do! I never "Take a break" from parenting. I work 37 hrs a week, and in fact, my daughter never went to daycare full time until this Jan. Starting this week, she will be back at daycare 3 days a week again. Antoine is starting a new job and it offers her to spend more time during the week at home.
I REFUSE to struggle how we once did. I VOW to give her a better life....and yes do I wish I could be home with her a few more days a week? OF COURSE. But my daughter is probably the HAPPIEST 2 year old you will ever meet.
It is tiring - I will not lie. When I work a 7-7.5 hour day, come home and MAKE dinner, do my dishes, laundry, cleaning, entertaining (For my 2 year old) - I cannot wait until bedtime. BUT....18 years will go fast, and my life won't always be this tiring once she is an adult! While SAHM's are tired from the errands, etc...I have that job COMPILED with working a full work week. DOUBLE your job...and that is my life. 2 full time jobs. Don't think cause I'm at work, that I didn't get up an hour early to make my daughter breakfast, do her hair, clothe her, rush out the door, take her to daycare, pry her off of me if she is still tired or crabby that morning. I worry all day - not because I don't trust her teachers, but because i'm her MOM. I text my friend all day long that watches her. I have the luckiest situation in the world. A friend I've known since I was 9 has an in home daycare Noey attends. THEY are like Noelani's family to her, and that gives me comfort.When I come to get her, sometimes she is misreable from just waking up from a nap. Sometimes she doesn't want to leave and wants to keep playing and I have interupted that!!!! Then we have to do whatever errands SAHM's accomplish during the day, and then we get home to do dinner, toys, baths, hair, picking out clothes, etc...the list goes on!!
On another note....I cherish friendships. I have a handful of friends. AND I will keep it that way. My FRIENDS stood by me through infertility.....through my struggles....they are always HAPPY for me. And most of all, they care that I am always open and honest with them on my opinions. I no longer have time to make others happy (besides my own family).
I have "Been there and done that" - I have STRUGGLED....BUT we learned to make our lives better. I don't want people who drag me down, or think that my opinions are worthless. To you SAHM's who bust your asses everyday -PROPS to you!! I know some GOOD...no, GREAT SAHM's who constantly do stuff with their kids, keep the house clean, AND never bitch about it! My hat is off to you too. BUT....this is my life....this is what I choose....and YES i'm tired.....but I always keep my friends in mind too. I have one friend out of state that understands I may not be able to call her EVERYDAY....but I almost always make time for her...and I value each and every opinion. I may not agree....but I value it and will talk about it with her.
YES - I am feeling crabby!
People may look at me and think, gee, she has a great life. A nice house, a daughter, husband, all that she wants. But let me tell you - it has NOT always been this way! I have worked my BUTT off to get where I am - I should say where WE are as a family.
When I first moved out at 21 yrs old, I had NOTHING but my clothes! In fact, Antoine & I had a futon in our living room, with a desk we found, and his full size bed we squeezed into for our bedroom. We had ONE small dresser, enough to hold his socks, and a bathroom set from Family Dollar. Our dishes were from a garage sale. Our kitchen table was one that the leg continuously came loose, and we had an area rug I got for $5 at another garage sale!
I remember being SO excited that we had enough money to purchase a new kitchen table from Kmart! We had it on layaway and finally had something "new"! Eventually I had enough money for a new desk from Walmart. We FINALLY got a couch from the side of the road...someone put it out for garbage with a "free" sign attached! A year or so later, Antoines family member had an old sectional couch and we took that. Our tv came from garbage picking as well....it was blurry but it was the best thing we could manage - and I bought a tv stand from walmart. We eventually had enough money for a microwave and some glasses and new silverware from Ikea.
Antoine didn't have a car, and I drove a beat up car that was $700 and worked daily on a prayer. BUT I tell you what....this was 9 years ago. I could go on and on about how we struggled. BUT it was my choice to move out and be "independent" so I sure as heck wasn't going to ask for help!
Eventually, we received a monetary gift of $400 and instead of spending it on something frivolous, we put it towards a bed....and when I say bed, I mean a mattress and box spring. When we finally got more money, from a tax return, we bought a couch and FINALLY bedroom furniture. We only got a new computer because the apartment above us sprung a leak and our computer got soaked. Our landlord reimbursed us so we put it towards a new desktop. Ashley (Antoines sister) began staying with us ALOT...and needed her own room. I got a toddler bed at a garage sale (see the theme?) and my aunt gave us a dresser for her. Eventually that toddler bed was turned into a twin bed when our neighbor upstairs moved back to her hometown and was going to throw it away.
I was finally able to land a GOOD job after college, and Antoine got a well paying job doing cable. We finally could afford a couch....and a washer and dryer that was not the "community" set in the apt basement.
Antoine sacrificed, and so did I. We took a handful of vacations and those were NOT grand by any means. For Antoines birthday/Christmas one year (he has 3 days between the two), I purchased him a fish tank. He had wanted one soooo bad. I saved that year to buy the tank and supplies. I had a friend make him the tank stand.
We saved money shopping at Save-A-Lot and Aldis for groceries. We only had a house phone (no fancy cells). Once we eventually had everything in place....we decided we would try to start a family. Once again, we were faced with struggles.
As many of you know, we were doing infertility treatments for a long time. That is a BIG stress on finances. eventually we turned to In Vitro, which our health insurance odes not cover (we are talking $10,000+) here. We opted to try, as we were getting 'older' and didn't want to ever think 'what if'....thank GOD it didn't work and I am the Momma to the best little girl now ;)
After that failed, we started looking into purchasing a home. As reality set in, I knew I wanted to be a mom. Would I EVER have that if I put all of our money towards adoption? It was at that moment we knew we needed at least $20k to set aside for that.
We put our dreams of home ownership to the side.
If you have a dream, the only way you can make it happen is put a plan in motion. Don't sit around and bitch about how your life sucks. MAKE IT DIFFERENT.
We saved every penny, borrowed, and busted our ASSES. Three months after we contacted a lawyer about the possibility of adoption, our daughter was HOME. In the adoption world, that is almost unheard of.
7 months after she came home, I was working part time, and our landlord advised us we had a month to move. He sold our house!!!!!!!!! I cried...I was so mad. How could he ruin our lives that we built for the past 6.5 years in this apt. It still hurts me to this day. BUT I knew what I had to do. I would not allow my life to rewind.
I took money from my 401k to afford our move to a new apartment, and within a month we were gone. I returned back to work full time a month later. I would let NOBODY make me struggle the way I once did. I wanted my daughter to have a great childhood. YES, time with my daughter is important. BUT, my daughter NEVER leaves my sight when I am home. I actually would beg to differ with some SAHM's...I tend to think sometimes I spend more one on one time with my daughter than they do! I never "Take a break" from parenting. I work 37 hrs a week, and in fact, my daughter never went to daycare full time until this Jan. Starting this week, she will be back at daycare 3 days a week again. Antoine is starting a new job and it offers her to spend more time during the week at home.
I REFUSE to struggle how we once did. I VOW to give her a better life....and yes do I wish I could be home with her a few more days a week? OF COURSE. But my daughter is probably the HAPPIEST 2 year old you will ever meet.
It is tiring - I will not lie. When I work a 7-7.5 hour day, come home and MAKE dinner, do my dishes, laundry, cleaning, entertaining (For my 2 year old) - I cannot wait until bedtime. BUT....18 years will go fast, and my life won't always be this tiring once she is an adult! While SAHM's are tired from the errands, etc...I have that job COMPILED with working a full work week. DOUBLE your job...and that is my life. 2 full time jobs. Don't think cause I'm at work, that I didn't get up an hour early to make my daughter breakfast, do her hair, clothe her, rush out the door, take her to daycare, pry her off of me if she is still tired or crabby that morning. I worry all day - not because I don't trust her teachers, but because i'm her MOM. I text my friend all day long that watches her. I have the luckiest situation in the world. A friend I've known since I was 9 has an in home daycare Noey attends. THEY are like Noelani's family to her, and that gives me comfort.When I come to get her, sometimes she is misreable from just waking up from a nap. Sometimes she doesn't want to leave and wants to keep playing and I have interupted that!!!! Then we have to do whatever errands SAHM's accomplish during the day, and then we get home to do dinner, toys, baths, hair, picking out clothes, etc...the list goes on!!
On another note....I cherish friendships. I have a handful of friends. AND I will keep it that way. My FRIENDS stood by me through infertility.....through my struggles....they are always HAPPY for me. And most of all, they care that I am always open and honest with them on my opinions. I no longer have time to make others happy (besides my own family).
I have "Been there and done that" - I have STRUGGLED....BUT we learned to make our lives better. I don't want people who drag me down, or think that my opinions are worthless. To you SAHM's who bust your asses everyday -PROPS to you!! I know some GOOD...no, GREAT SAHM's who constantly do stuff with their kids, keep the house clean, AND never bitch about it! My hat is off to you too. BUT....this is my life....this is what I choose....and YES i'm tired.....but I always keep my friends in mind too. I have one friend out of state that understands I may not be able to call her EVERYDAY....but I almost always make time for her...and I value each and every opinion. I may not agree....but I value it and will talk about it with her.
YES - I am feeling crabby!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Lamby
Oh dear Lamby....as my daughter calls you. You replaced one obsession - BINKIES. For that I am grateful. However, you are gross. Yep, I said it! There is no amount of bleach and laundry soap that I can use to make you beautiful once again!
You were never meant to go in the dryer, so your "fur" is matted and no longer nice and fluffy. Your back has a hole in it, because you were a sound soother that my daughter has become attached to (we ripped your "noise maker" out). Your ears have strings hanging from them and are shredded at the ends, because she chews on you to fall asleep. You must go EVERYWHERE.....In fact, Nana even bought a mini version of you so that Noelani can take you to daycare everyday. (And secretly so we don't lose YOU - the original - because that day will be a NIGHTMARE)!!
I wonder how long you will stick around? No other stuffed animal can take your place, and it is a feverish hunt before bed to make sure you are snuggled fast asleep next to my baby girl.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Hair post.....
I was just looking through pictures lately, and I am SO shocked by her hair growth!! I look at these first 3 pictures, which are all within the first 6 months of her life, and then I look at the bottom pictures which are just about 18 months later. We rocked ALOT of headbands in the first year!! She went from whispy fine straight hair, to tight coils at about 6 months old. Then, she lost ALL of her hair around the back of her head. Then, she started pulling the sides out!!!
Today, she has a MUCH different texture to her hair, and MUCH more length. I never thought I'd see a day where I could style my daughters hair (hahaha!). Thanks to a satin pillow case, she has regained most of her length now and is gaining more growth everyday!
In fact, I think it's time for a trim to get rid of some of those dead ends....YIKES, im too terrified for that still.
Because she has a different hair texture from Mommy, I am trying to instill an early love for her and her hair early on. Everytime we do her hair, we show her the mirror so she can see how PRETTY it looks. She loves
Friday, February 10, 2012
Princess Room - on a budget!
Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but they are from my phone! Here is Miss Princess Noelani. This is our almost nightly routine - dressing up before bed. She just ADORES being girly. So of COURSE we had to decorate her room as girly as possible! She loves everything princess, so it kind of all began with that!
This sign on her door was actually in her old room as well. I got this originally at the dollar store!! I wasn't sure where to put it, so I stuck it on her door since her wall space was pretty much filled.
Here is her bed. I got the comforter set online, and I really think it was the most expensive item in her room minus the dolls! The castle pillows I picked up from someone at work who had a daughter who outgrew them. The frog is actually a purse I got on clearance at TJ Maxx, and the canopy was given to us from a friend!
Here is another shot of her bed, from when we were unpacking (notice the box). But it was the only shot I have of the curtains. They have sparkly pink/purple sequin flowers....and here are the curtain tie backs I purchased for them, again online:
Her toy stand (that we already had) and I wanted in her room has green in it, and a few other items, like her rug so I wanted to tie the green in somehow
AND, here is the toy area. Don't mind the bucket of paints on the floor - my mom was painting AMAZING things on her wall....which you will see below. The bins are all toys, the carriage opens to a play house of sorts, and the storage buckets you see have all of her hair stuff, shoes, bed sheets, bathing suits etc stashed away.
And THIS is one of my moms awesome artwork pictures she painted. It is NOT crooked, but apparently my phone/hands are! This is now above the toy bins
THIS is another painting thanks to my mom. A beautiful CHOCOLATE princess! All done freehand. The sign above her, I bought at Hobby Lobby, and the framed fabric I picked up all of the stuff at Hobby Lobby and my mom framed/padded/painted it all. THANKS MOM!!
My mom of COURSE also made the sign you see, and I bought the crown jewelry holder from LTD months ago! The memory box my mom made a couple of months after Noelani came home.
Again, my mom made this, and my hands are crooked taking pictures. I got the princess/ballet slippers for about $.25 at Target on clearance!
AND, what started it all? THESE dolls! Daddy bought 7 of them for her, and I had to complete the set with the last 3. (What's with me taking crooked pics) The princess picture frame she got for her bday last year, and the TV I bought from a friend! Im not thrilled with the shelves, but they were all I could find last minute at Target for like $13 each (hello CLEARANCE i love you!). I think I will take them down and paint them white when the weather is nicer!
FINALLY, if anyone cared, this is a panoramic view of her room, minus the canopy. My hubby took this one, I have no clue how to do it!
Overall, on a budget, I am very pleased how her room turned out!! It was a dark tan color (the walls) and so I chose a light lavendar in hopes that it will last a while if we decide to redecorate again. We again did a cheaper route with the paint. I picked a Disney color at Home Depot, and matched it up to a Glidden color as best as I could. ONE can of paint WITH primer, and we got the look we wanted.
I think this is proof ANYTHING can be done on a budget.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Noelani's 2nd Birthday
Here was Noelani's birthday invites. Quite obviously, I've blocked out our phone # and address....just don't feel safe posting that! I made these entirely myself. I purchased a graphic package that matched all of her party decor on Etsy for I believe $5. I used the separate graphics for her invites, cake, and water bottle labels.
I knew I wanted to do an owl theme since probably the day after her first birthday lol!! I was debating back and forth since she is SO into princesses and Yo Gabba Gabba....but then I realized, this is probably the LAST birthday she will allow me to choose the theme. So I figured: GO FOR IT!
I think it was around October or November when I took the above picture. It was literally THE last day that was nice enough to be outside without a jacket. Honestly, it probably was a bit too chilly, but my girl was a trooper! Our old apartment sat across the street from a beautiful Botanical Garden/Nature Park, so we walked over with the last bit of sunlight for the day, and snapped a few pictures. By the time we got home our feet were SOAKED from sinking into the mud. But, as always, she was just happy go lucky the entire time.
As you all know, we bought a house on the 10th of January. We hired movers for the 13th. Of COURSE, they cancelled due to the snow, so we did not physically move our stuff until Jan. 14th. That day, we finally got all of our stuff moved in around 3pm.
I don't know WHAT I was thinking, but I planned her party for exactly 2 weeks following our move in! I think I mailed the invites that week in fact!
Let me just say, my brother in law was LITERALLY hanging pictures on my walls while I was running to get this cake for the party:
Thank goodness for help! Of course, Noelani had dance that morning, so as soon as we got home, I put her down for a nap and started rushing to decorate. My mom brought over balloons, and a much needed caffeine drink (I had the WORST migraine all day and spent the next day in bed all day).
While Noey slept, I set up all the decorations with the help of my sister. My brother in law finished hanging pictures and my mom finished snacks!
Our cake table
Party Favors (thanks to Target dollar section in the summer!)
I printed and rewrapped these water bottles using the pictures I got on Etsy ;)
I had these package of owls I think my mom got me as a craft or something! I found them and at the last minute, my sister and I took some glitter glue pens and decorated them!
My sister ordered these cookies from an AMAZING person she works with!
Balloons Nana brought
The tablecloth and "centerpiece" were from Oriental Trading! Last minute, I propped her 2nd birthday picture up against the wall!
Some of the Chaos opening gifts
Singing to my baby girl!
Honestly, all in all, I would have to say her party turned out better than I expected!!!! I had some AWESOME friends (thanks Melissa, Donna, and my aunt Sherri) who brought some appetizers. My mom and dad bought the pizza for her party, and my sister and her husband bought Noeys cookies you saw. Antoine & I got the cake, and I got all of the matching decorations from Oriental Trading AND from Target throughout the year. I printed the water bottle wrappers and cut them myself.
Knowing that we were moving, I REALLY wanted to keep her party budget under $300 MAX. I was successfully able to do that!!!! AND keep in mind she went to Disney on Ice, the Candy Kids Spa & got the Disney Dolls.
One thing I have been VERY good at is couponing. It may sound really silly to some people, but it has allowed me to do these things for my daughter. If I can save $30 in one shopping trip a couple times a week, it allows for me to spend money in other areas!
I can't wait for next years party/birthday. WAIT....yes I can! That means my BABY will be another year older. Can someone please slow the time down!
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