James is back to work, kids are asleep in bed and it's only 12:45 AM and I finally have a chance to blog.
So, the last night of Grease I was taking pictures and all my pictures were blurry so I re-formatted my camera-without thinking- and lost ALL of Devree's and Kambee's birthday photo's. I was so upset! I almost cried. Now, when they're old and I'm gone they'll look back and say "See how much Mom loved Alex? She only took pictures at his birthday!"
My domestic children are feeling slighted by their newest imported brother. It's true he takes a lot of my time and attention and I can't say I blame them. I am sure Alex would like less of my time and attention as most of it is spent teaching him manners, family rules and personal grooming habits. (Tonight I made a bet with him that he could not sit still for 20 minutes without cracking his neck or itching or picking at his face/nose. It almost killed him-I had to itch his nose twice and his ear once! He did it though! He has so many quirky habits/nervous tendency's. It hurts my neck to watch him crank his head from side to side popping his neck and then cracking his back and fingers. His hands are always on his face, picking his nose, scratching his hair, wiping at his mouth. He can't watch TV with his hands in his lap.)
We also had a BIG talk today about how many times I remind him of basic things like keeping his shoes off the couch, brushing his teeth, sneaking food, eating in the living room, and studying. His eye's welled up with tears and I held him as we discussed these things and how tired I am of reminding him over and over. Then when I asked him to tell me how he feels he complained that he didn't get to play Wii yesterday because Rylee had friends over watching movies, (What the heck? Your tears are over the Wii? I don't think so!) so I pressed for more feelings (he just shrugs and says "I don't know" when I ask him how he feels so I told him to think hard to find the English words he needs to tell me how he feels or just say how he feels in Russian and let it all out-that really made him sob, he does not want to talk in Russian!) I finally got that he feels it's unfair that he has to study English. Hum... here's what I came up with: I told him how unfair it is for all the children back in the orphanage in Ukraine without parents and how he made a deal and promised that he would learn English. He told the judge he would study and before we even talked to him about adoption we explained our family rules and that our children are expected to go to school and try their best and that he would have to learn English. I told him that it's his part of the deal to learn English and to be a part of our family. How would he feel if I stopped doing my part of the deal? Taking care of him. What if I stopped cleaning his clothes and making dinner and tucking him in at night. How would he like that? He quickly agreed to study his English and more importantly he agreed that if he didn't and if he didn't seek me out each day WANTING to learn English (in other words, setting up the Rosetta Stone on the computer) he would go to bed at eight o'clock instead of his summer ten o'clock bedtime. Tomorrow I am not going to mention studying at all and see how he does. (I really hope I'm saying the right things to Alex. It's so hard to even know if he gets what I'm saying and/or my point is getting across.)
Anyway, back to the birthday re-cap:
Devree had a party where we took a group of her friends to the grocery store and played the shopping cart game and then they got into teams of two and each had $5 to buy something to contribute for dinner. Each team could not let the other teams see what they were buying. We ended up with Mac & Cheese, hot dogs, spaghetti, a can of fruit, two tossed salads and I bought chicken nuggets and supplied slushy drinks. The girls had a lot of fun preparing and eating their dinner and then we made s'mores on the fire pit and served birthday cake.
Kambree's birthday was more low-key. Last year was her big sweet sixteen and this year we just took her to lunch with Michelle & Paul and then we brought a birthday cake to our performance of "Grease" that night to share with the cast.
Here is the cakes count in the last two weeks!
#1 Alex's Sponge Bob Cake
#2 Aunt Kammy's Ice Cream Cake
#3 Dev's Barbie Cake
#4 Family Costco cake for all three kids
#5 Kam's Barbie Cake
#6 Cast Cake
Not to mention, every night of "Grease" we celebrated someones birthday so that was FIVE MORE cakes. Ugh, I think I'm caked out!
James work has changed his schedule yet again. Now he's NOT home for ALL the major holidays. But I refuse to worry about this as who knows how many times they'll change it again before then.
I applied for a (gasp) job this week. I highly doubt I'll even get an interview but I applied all the same. It's for the school district so I'm hoping that it will have similar hours to the ones that my children are in school. Real estate has just been so slow this year and I don't foresee it improving anytime soon. Oh, I really don't think I want a job, I love my freedom. It just so very expensive to live. James makes plenty to pay all the bills, groceries and gas but it's the extras that kill us. Like Dance Company, braces, holidays, soccer, doctor appointments, swimming, dance classes, school registrations, birthdays, and broken down things/home improvement. If nothing would break, need improving, the kids did nothing, no one every got sick, everyone had perfectly straight teeth and we stopped all celebrations and vacationing we'd be just fine!
Well, enough of my venting. I think I'll go to bed...alone! The other night (James was at girls camp with Kam & Dev) Rylee was sleeping with me and Alex came in with a "Me scary" and climbed in on the other side. Right before bed I'd been watching Dateline about that couple that was killed in Florida that had adopted all those special needs kids. Alex was watching it with me and it made him upset. I explained that the bad guys were all in jail and that Florida is very far away and no one is going to shoot me or Dad. He said "You shoot my mom, me shoot you!" and then pantomimed shooting the bad guys. When he crawled in my bed with his "Me scary." I asked what was wrong and he simply said "I miss you." Then he laid against me all night. Sweet, I know, but it does not make for good sleep to be sandwiched between a nine and eleven year old!
So, the last night of Grease I was taking pictures and all my pictures were blurry so I re-formatted my camera-without thinking- and lost ALL of Devree's and Kambee's birthday photo's. I was so upset! I almost cried. Now, when they're old and I'm gone they'll look back and say "See how much Mom loved Alex? She only took pictures at his birthday!"
My domestic children are feeling slighted by their newest imported brother. It's true he takes a lot of my time and attention and I can't say I blame them. I am sure Alex would like less of my time and attention as most of it is spent teaching him manners, family rules and personal grooming habits. (Tonight I made a bet with him that he could not sit still for 20 minutes without cracking his neck or itching or picking at his face/nose. It almost killed him-I had to itch his nose twice and his ear once! He did it though! He has so many quirky habits/nervous tendency's. It hurts my neck to watch him crank his head from side to side popping his neck and then cracking his back and fingers. His hands are always on his face, picking his nose, scratching his hair, wiping at his mouth. He can't watch TV with his hands in his lap.)
We also had a BIG talk today about how many times I remind him of basic things like keeping his shoes off the couch, brushing his teeth, sneaking food, eating in the living room, and studying. His eye's welled up with tears and I held him as we discussed these things and how tired I am of reminding him over and over. Then when I asked him to tell me how he feels he complained that he didn't get to play Wii yesterday because Rylee had friends over watching movies, (What the heck? Your tears are over the Wii? I don't think so!) so I pressed for more feelings (he just shrugs and says "I don't know" when I ask him how he feels so I told him to think hard to find the English words he needs to tell me how he feels or just say how he feels in Russian and let it all out-that really made him sob, he does not want to talk in Russian!) I finally got that he feels it's unfair that he has to study English. Hum... here's what I came up with: I told him how unfair it is for all the children back in the orphanage in Ukraine without parents and how he made a deal and promised that he would learn English. He told the judge he would study and before we even talked to him about adoption we explained our family rules and that our children are expected to go to school and try their best and that he would have to learn English. I told him that it's his part of the deal to learn English and to be a part of our family. How would he feel if I stopped doing my part of the deal? Taking care of him. What if I stopped cleaning his clothes and making dinner and tucking him in at night. How would he like that? He quickly agreed to study his English and more importantly he agreed that if he didn't and if he didn't seek me out each day WANTING to learn English (in other words, setting up the Rosetta Stone on the computer) he would go to bed at eight o'clock instead of his summer ten o'clock bedtime. Tomorrow I am not going to mention studying at all and see how he does. (I really hope I'm saying the right things to Alex. It's so hard to even know if he gets what I'm saying and/or my point is getting across.)
Anyway, back to the birthday re-cap:
Devree had a party where we took a group of her friends to the grocery store and played the shopping cart game and then they got into teams of two and each had $5 to buy something to contribute for dinner. Each team could not let the other teams see what they were buying. We ended up with Mac & Cheese, hot dogs, spaghetti, a can of fruit, two tossed salads and I bought chicken nuggets and supplied slushy drinks. The girls had a lot of fun preparing and eating their dinner and then we made s'mores on the fire pit and served birthday cake.
Kambree's birthday was more low-key. Last year was her big sweet sixteen and this year we just took her to lunch with Michelle & Paul and then we brought a birthday cake to our performance of "Grease" that night to share with the cast.
Here is the cakes count in the last two weeks!
#1 Alex's Sponge Bob Cake
#2 Aunt Kammy's Ice Cream Cake
#3 Dev's Barbie Cake
#4 Family Costco cake for all three kids
#5 Kam's Barbie Cake
#6 Cast Cake
Not to mention, every night of "Grease" we celebrated someones birthday so that was FIVE MORE cakes. Ugh, I think I'm caked out!
James work has changed his schedule yet again. Now he's NOT home for ALL the major holidays. But I refuse to worry about this as who knows how many times they'll change it again before then.
I applied for a (gasp) job this week. I highly doubt I'll even get an interview but I applied all the same. It's for the school district so I'm hoping that it will have similar hours to the ones that my children are in school. Real estate has just been so slow this year and I don't foresee it improving anytime soon. Oh, I really don't think I want a job, I love my freedom. It just so very expensive to live. James makes plenty to pay all the bills, groceries and gas but it's the extras that kill us. Like Dance Company, braces, holidays, soccer, doctor appointments, swimming, dance classes, school registrations, birthdays, and broken down things/home improvement. If nothing would break, need improving, the kids did nothing, no one every got sick, everyone had perfectly straight teeth and we stopped all celebrations and vacationing we'd be just fine!
Well, enough of my venting. I think I'll go to bed...alone! The other night (James was at girls camp with Kam & Dev) Rylee was sleeping with me and Alex came in with a "Me scary" and climbed in on the other side. Right before bed I'd been watching Dateline about that couple that was killed in Florida that had adopted all those special needs kids. Alex was watching it with me and it made him upset. I explained that the bad guys were all in jail and that Florida is very far away and no one is going to shoot me or Dad. He said "You shoot my mom, me shoot you!" and then pantomimed shooting the bad guys. When he crawled in my bed with his "Me scary." I asked what was wrong and he simply said "I miss you." Then he laid against me all night. Sweet, I know, but it does not make for good sleep to be sandwiched between a nine and eleven year old!
3 of my blog friends said something...:
I hear you on the "extras" that kill you financially. We just had a $1,000 repair on our vehicle. I'm going to need you for counseling when I get a kid home from Ukraine. But it sounds like you're hanging in there, and right now is probably the hardest part. I'm sure it will get better.
Wow! don't you love all those extras? I to am looking for opportunities to make and earn money just so i can make and earn money to pay my phone bill and other things and have "Heidi!" money and stuff. So i hear you!
Darling, darling posts about your girls and their birthdays! I'm so sorry you lost your pictures. Our computer crashed a year ago and we lost a few months and every now and then I look for the summer pics and it's so sad to remember that they are gone.
The repetitive stuff drives me crazy... the things we do every day and some days are like nothing ever happened and we have to go over things again and again.
Good luck with your job interview!!
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