Sunday, November 27, 2011

I'm a mom

I feel like I have nothing exciting to blog about any more. And if I blog I have to take pictures, too. I have not been taking pictures. I guess I have been too busy to think about what to blog about. If you ask me what I'm busy doing I couldn't tell you. I guess I'm just busy being a mom.

Making bottles, cleaning up spitup, changing nasty diapers. Giving the baby a bath right in the middle of lunch when she's vomited all over herself, for the third time in two days for no apparent reason. Making lunch, whipping up a snack here and there, making dinner. Cleaning up the high chairs 5 times a day. Cleaning up after dinner. Putting kids to bed. Cleaning up more after the kids go to bed. Going to the store. Taking the kids to the doctor. Making sure the house is somewhat tidy. Driving the foster kids to and from visits. Going to the park when it's actually nice outdise. Getting a daily chore done. Putting up the Christmas Tree. Saying "no" way too often. Cutting coupons. Kissing boo-boo's. Breaking up toddler fights. Ignoring tantrums. Sitting on the couch for 30 seconds. And then back up again. I feel like I'm working 100% of the time but have nothing to show for it. In fact, the house is usually messier at the end of the day than at the beginning- even though I've been working at it all day. Yes, I'm home all day, but it's not like I'm relaxing. Maybe a 20-minute show on Netflix while I do the dishes if all the kids are asleep at the same time. But that's it. Well, I guess you could count a few minutes on the toilet. That's my quality "me" time.

So anyway, I do nothing all day. But, no, that's not true. I do plenty all day. I'm a mom.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

foster pictures

So, there is this rule in foster care that you can't post any pictures anywhere online of your foster kids. I definitely understand this rule; part of protecting children is protecting their online identity, and you have to be more careful about... everything... with foster children. I totally get it. It makes sense and I agree with the rule. The only thing is: it's just slightly annoying.

You see, I take pictures fairly often. I conveniently keep our camera on the piano so that I can snap pictures of the kids whenever they're doing something cute. The only problem is that, nowadays, Megan does many of her "cute" things with her foster siblings. This creates a problem. Instead of just grabbing the camera and snapping a quick picture, I have to move around the children in such a way as to not get T or B in the shot- just in case the picture ends up on my blog.

Then, I go a step further. I decide that it's okay to have a picture of T's back or a picture of B's foot... because, hey, they can't be identified by that. So, then I try to get a picture of Megan with a foster child in the background. After all, I'm blogging about our life and I want pictures of those kids, even if it is just of their pinky toe.

Furthermore, you see, I have all these bloggy plans to post cute pictures of Megan with B's elbow, or pictures of Megan and T's forehead, and then I never even post them. I am just wasting time trying to snap the right kind of pictures. It's just plain silly.

Cases in point:

Back in August I snapped this picture, which was to show that sometimes Megan and T actually do get along:


... and in the same post I was going to explain that the only way we can get them to eat without being a bad example to each other is to sit their high chairs in the following fashion:


Oh, and if you look closely in the following picture, you can see T's little hand in the left bottom corner. I was going to talk about the first round of Flu that went around the house, and that this picture was taken just minutes before Megan barfed all over this pretty new dress from Grandma.


I was also going to use the following picture to show how sweet Megan can be with the baby (though I admit this one almost crosses the line with the amount of baby-face-showing-ness):



Using this next picture, I was going to discuss how grateful I am for our van and that Megan and T have a grand old time sitting in the back together, taking off their shoes and singing songs... and falling asleep after all that fun:


In this picture below, I was going to talk about how, at Megan's birthday party, when I gave the kids stickers and crayons, little T (you can see his sleeve and his ear on the left) was the first one to stick a sticker on his nose. Then, Kienan & Megan followed suit. Oh yeah, I was also going to talk about Megan's birtday party (at which we danced, colored, built stacks of blocks & knocked them down, and danced some more):


And, lastly, I had plans to write a post about this cute little pumpkin patch here in our town. We took the kids about a month ago and they loved playing in the corn pit. (Now that you're a pro at finding pictures of T's various body parts, can you find him in these pictures?):



Now that you've seen a post full of backwards and half-shown children, I'm sure you're a little annoyed, too. It sure would be nice if you could see their cute little faces! Oh well... I suppose you'll just have to drop by for a visit, then.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

bona fide Halloween

As you might remember, my wonderful, older & wiser sister Jazz-Frazz-Razz-Ma-Taz-Alcatraz, a.k.a. "Jasmin," lives in a little country off the coast of Saudi Arabia called Bahrain. She and her family have lived there for about a year now.

My mother recently traveled to visit her, and while there, picked up a beautiful outfit for Megan. I think I remember my mother saying it is supposed to be an "Arabian Princess" outfit. It is something that a little girl in Bahrain might buy to wear as clothing- not as a costume. Additionally, the scarf was bought in India several years ago by my father.

However, living in the United States, a bona fide Arabian outfit quickly becomes a Halloween costume.

One look at our Megan in this outfit and my heart pitter-pats:



She's just so darn beautiful and adorable and cute and I still can hardly believe she's mine.



Here's a picture of Megan & her cousin (we coudn't find his football helmet but I'm sure it would have been super cute).



And, here is a picture of Megan & her friend Evie at our church Halloween party. (Evie was Toto from the Wizard of Oz). These two girls just make me smile.



When all is said and done- when the children have trick-or-treated and all the hype is gone- I do feel a bit guilty. I feel guilty that we dressed the kids up, taught them how to trick-or-treat, filled their buckets up with candy, and then put them straight to bed. We then proceeded to hide any evidence that Halloween ever existed, including their buckets and candy. I feel bad that they don't get to eat their candy, but, hey, I'm sure they'll make up for it in years to come.