Halloween Goodies

 For a Halloween party we went to, I made spider eggs...deviled eggs with an olive spider on top.  They were a big hit!  Basically you make your regular deviled eggs and then cut up the olive to resemble a spider...using half an olive for the body and then cutting the remaining olive into legs for the spider.  I made some monster eye deviled eggs for another party we attended, but I forgot to take pictures of those ones.

 

 

Yesterday we carved the pumpkins we had picked up from the pumpkin patch.  Both James and Sam had fun playing with the pumpkin guts.  My husband ended up carving the white pumpkin...James requested a happy pumpkin for that one.  I carved the orange pumpkin, and James requested an angry pumpkin, so I just made it look like it wasn't smiling, and I also wanted the faces to look different, so I cut out different shapes for the eyes as well.  James is very proud of his pumpkins.  When we walk out the front door, he turns to the pumpkins and says "Hi, pumpkins!" in a very excited voice...too cute!

Co-Dependency

I was at the dentist office last week having my cleaning.  My dentist is also a friend, so it makes it nice because I can trust the information he gives me regarding my teeth, and it is easier to come up with topics of conversation.  Anyway...we were talking about my surgery, and I mentioned that it was hard to just sit and watch life and not be able to participate while I was recovering...especially the first week because I was too uncomfortable and in too much pain to hold my boys or provide any other care for them...not to mention I wasn't supposed to lift anything more than 15 lbs. which pretty much meant both my boys were off limits.  Anyway...I was a little offended when my dentist then responded by telling me "some people would say you are co-dependent". 

I can't imagine anyone who was in my shoes not feeling the same way.  It just tugs at your heart strings to not be able to provide care for your children...especially since that is my occupation...SAHM.  I doubt a single person would say I would much rather have surgery than feed my baby a bottle or even change those stinky diapers.

Truthfully, I love my family, and I enjoy spending time with them.  We cherish our nights together when Daddy gets home from work or the weekends when we can all hang out and do family activities together.  I also cherish my days with the boys...although I cannot say that I always cherish every single moment of every day, but overall I wouldn't ask for my life to be different.  If that makes me co-dependent, then so be it!

Pumpkin Patch

This morning my aunt and I took the boys to the pumpkin patch...just a small local one.  We had a lot of fun!  James had a great time testing out all the different wagons (we must have switched wagons at least six times), picking out pumpkins and exploring the pumpkin patch.  There were neat tractors to sit on, a water fountain that James enjoyed cooling off in (just putting his hands in the water), and animals to look at.  It was pretty cute because James wanted to switch from pulling his wagon along with his pretty white pumpkin he had picked out to pulling the wagon that Sam was riding in.  He is such a loving brother sometimes!  Sam had fun riding in the wagon and touching/licking the pumpkins and corn.  We spent a couple hours there just allowing James to lead us around and determine what we did.  We left with one white pumpkin and one orange pumpkin.  I am glad we went since we hadn't had a chance to visit a pumpkin patch yet, and I know our aunt really wanted to go with the boys.

My aunt pointed out some of the behavior of other parents on our drive back to the house.  She had just been observing those around us while we were at the pumpkin patch.  She commented on how one mom who didn't want her daughter playing in the water (from the fountain) just grabbed her daughter's hand and pulled her away without offering any comments or instructions to her daughter...like not to get wet or the water is dirty...that kind of thing.  I told my aunt I don't know if it is just my personality or the fact that I am a mom to two little boys, but I am not bothered by my sons getting wet or dirty.  I like to give them the chance to explore the world they live in and learn that way.  Granted I did tell James to make sure not to splash because not everyone wanted to get wet.

Before I offend anyone, I just want to say I don't have any problems with other people's parenting...for the most part.  I didn't really notice or mind the mom pulling her daughter away from the fountain.  For all we know they had seen the fountain earlier and her mom already told her not to get wet.  Honestly, though, it is disheartening anytime you hear a child being yelled at or criticized harshly in public...I don't think that is called for.  You don't have to embarrass your child to make a point.  The child probably tunes the parent out when they start yelling anyway...I know I don't listen well when people raise their voice at me.

Beginning Stages

I am starting to notice the beginning stages of separation anxiety in Sam.  He definitely recognizes my husband and me, and if he is getting tired or is upset, he wants me to comfort him.  There have been a couple times this past week where my husband and Sam will be playing, and I will walk past them to change laundry loads or use the restroom, and Sam will start crying for me.  We went to a play date today, and Sam was playing just fine with some toys and having a grand old time until he looked across the room and saw me smiling at him...then he started to fuss and cry and crawl my direction.  In the past when I have discussed James's separation anxiety with others, I have gotten comments like I am spoiling him too much, he should be able to have me leave the room without having a meltdown, etc.  What most people don't realize is when you are in a foster/adoption situation, separation anxiety is actually a blessing.  It means the child is forming a secure bond with the family...or in the case the mom, the main care giver.  When James went through this stage, and as we encounter it with Sam, I will be grateful (even when it can be frustrating at times) because it is a great sign of attachment.

I don't think I mentioned that poor James had some separation anxiety creep back up in the past few months due to my surgery.  It was the first time Mommy was away from home for an entire night, and that set James back a little in his feeling of security.  Thank goodness I was released from the hospital the day after my surgery.  Even to this day, James will sometimes become upset when I leave him with Grandma to run a few errands because he is scared I won't be coming back.  Now that is truly heartbreaking!  I hate that he has to try to internalize and piece together these confusing circumstances.  I always tell him when I am leaving and reassure him that I will be coming back home.

Just because separation anxiety is more evident in infants doesn't mean toddlers will not experience it as well.  I pray God will grant James peace over my whole surgery episode.  I also pray for lots of patience as I move forward into the separation anxiety with Sam...I am expecting to have to stop putting him in the nursery at church here eventually...just like with James, but we will see how that all unfolds.

Court News

Court to terminate parental rights was recently.  Birth dad put in a request to have services offered...essentially to undo the court's determination that the birth parents would not be given a case plan to work.  There is a court trial scheduled in November to see if the courts will grant birth dad's request or terminate parental rights.

Birth dad also made it clear to the lady who has Sam's brother that if the county thinks they are going to terminate his rights to Sam, they have another thing coming.  Not only is birth dad mentally unstable, but he also has some violent tendencies.  This is when I am grateful birth dad does not have our information...our address, what we look like, etc.  All he would need would be our last name because it is extremely unique, and it would be impossible not to find us.

I tell you I will not hesitate to call the police if he ever shows up on my front porch.  Thankfully we had a wonderful transporter, and we actually have a picture of birth dad and birth mom to reference.  I also have a general idea of where they most likely reside, and it is not a neighborhood that we frequent which makes that easy...as far as running into them.

New Dinner Table

No, we didn't purchase a new dinner table, but our seating at the dinner table has changed recently.  James moved from the high chair to a booster seat sitting at the table with us.  He has done incredibly well at meals the past couple days.  The table has not been nearly as messy as I would have expected.  I think James is proud to be sitting at the table like a big boy with Mommy and Daddy.  Sam moved from sitting in the Bumbo seat to sitting in the high chair.  This has proved to be a great switch as well seeing as how Sam just recently learned how to get himself out of the Bumbo seat.  Also it allows me to give him more finger foods to try.  So far he is enjoying finger foods (puffs, Cheerios, banana, rice) and doing well with them.

Mostly it is nice that it feels like our family is eating all together at the table.  Usually we purposefully try to feed Sam before we eat dinner, but we also make sure he has some finger foods to play/eat or a food item in his mesh feeder to keep him occupied and part of our meal together.  Family meals are important to me, and I think they promote great bonding.

Diaper Surprise

I am aware Sam puts absolutely everything he can into his mouth which is quite common for his age.  I have extracted many objects from his mouth: sticks, rocks, grass, bark, food his older brother tries to share, etc.  This is the first time I have found evidence of a forbidden item in his diaper contents.  Sam was stinky, so I took him in the room to get him cleaned up and a new diaper wrestled in place.  Low and behold, there are a penny sitting in the stinky mess.  I don't know when he found it, but he most definitely ate it...thank goodness he didn't choke on it or anything!  I did not save the penny or anything like that...in case you were curious...it just went out to the trash with the diaper.

Pesky Raccoons

For those of you who have gone camping before, I am sure you are aware that raccoons can be pesky visitors to the campsite.  Well...our family took a camping trip to a national park recently, and we had a raccoon visit us, but not in the way most would expect.  Somehow while we were sound asleep, the raccoon managed to open our tent (there are little pinpricks from the raccoon's claw...apparently he held onto the tent while using his nose or something to push right through), climb inside and over one of the clothing bags, grab our backpack (used as a diaper bag), and pull it outside.  He accomplished all of that without waking a single person, and amazingly, he would have had to crawl right next to me!  There was a can of formula spilled all over the outside of our tent, but fortunately, we had brought an extra one with us.  The backpack was right next to the tent.  I am grateful I didn't wake up to see a raccoon in the tent because I would have totally freaked out and scared the creature half to death, and that might have caused larger issues, but it makes me nervous that it could just enter so stealthily.

Before anyone starts to explain that we are not supposed to have food in our tent, I just want to say in the past when James was a baby, we had his formula in our tent as well without ever an issue...even staying at the exact same national park.  Also soy formula smells awful!

We determined after talking to some of our camping neighbors that these raccoons are extremely smart.  They tried to get into a few tents nearby as well, but the people were able to hear the raccoon and scare him away.  Since it is such a populated camping area, we think the raccoons have taught themselves how to enter and find something to pull out of the tent.  We don't think they actually smelled any food in our tent...once again the formula was the only thing in there...we didn't want our neighbors to hear a screaming baby for a long period of time if he happened to awake during the night and needed a bottle to calm down.

Updates on the Boys

James

I'll start with the oldest first.  James  is picking up vocabulary like crazy it seems!  We really have to be aware of what he hears from others or on the t.v.  He is also very aware of what others are doing, and will mimic actions, expressions, and tone of voice.  It is pretty adorable actually; however, it also makes my husband and me more aware of our surroundings and making sure to break unnecessary habits he picks up from others quickly.

Once I get James excited to wear big boy underwear, I think our potty training will go fairly smoothly...or at least that is my hope.  Right now if James is bare bottomed, he will announce when he has to go pee.  Then he will go running down the hall, climb up onto the toilet (I just got one of those toilet inserts because I didn't want to have to clean out a plastic potty), and use the potty.  We do use M&M's as a reward for using the toilet which some of you may think is horrible, but it is an incentive for James and works really well.  On the other hand, if James needs to go #2, he will ask to be put into a diaper, he will fill the diaper and then ask to be changed.  From what I have read, it is best to go with what the child is comfortable with, so that will work for now.  I would really like to get James into underwear in the morning (when we have nothing going on) and see how potty training goes.  Then depending on how he handles it, I would like to start allowing him to wear underwear instead of diapers when we go to our local park or other things like that, and once he gets that down, move onto other trips...like the grocery store or whatnot.  I have a feeling there is still a rough road ahead, but we will see.

James loves attending church!  I know I posted before about him having trouble adjusting.  Now he will ask in the middle of the week if we can go to church.  It is fun to see him interacting when we go to pick him up as well as the cute little art projects they made that particular day.

Sam

Now onto the youngest...my little baby is now 7.5 months old...I can hardly believe it!  Sam is full of energy...crawling all over the place, standing up holding onto anything he can, and climbing like crazy!  I am afraid he may be an early walker, but we will see.  Sam is quite the charmer.  Anywhere we go, someone has to admire him...partly because he is an infant, but I think the other factor involves his bright red hair and his adorable blue eyes.  Sam has become so responsive and gives smiles frequently as well as precious little laughs.  I definitely think he can identify my husband and me.  When my husband gets home from work, Sam is excited to see him and squeals with delight.

The sibling visits are still taking place every other week.  They have changed slightly allowing both myself and the other foster/adoptive mom (of the brother) to be involved in the visits.  One hour is a long time for the two little boys, and they don't really interact at all.  We are lucky if they both play with the same toy for a minute.  Tom doesn't seem to appreciate Sam trying to touch his face or his hair or trying to climb all over him, so that probably doesn't help either.  I am able to talk with the other mom and get some information regarding Tom as well as the birth family, so that is helpful, but I also know the information is not completely reliable.  However, it is really all I have to work with.

Court is coming up to see if the parental rights are terminated or not.  We have been told not to attend the court hearing.  It is a measure to protect our family since the birth parents are not stable and have a lot of history.  Birth mom has not been showing up to any visits (she has a warrant for her arrest).  Birth dad has been attending his visits.  I have tried to be nice and send some pictures for him once a month...I make sure the pictures are only of Sam and do not contain any identifying information.  I am a bit frustrated with the other foster/adoptive mom because she has given my first name to the birth dad...not that he can really do much with that, but I have a feeling if she knew my last name, she would give that to him as well, and let's just say, once you have that information, it would be simple to track us down as our name is quite unusual.

Appendictis

Mid-August I had to have emergency surgery to remove my pesky appendix.  They started to perform the surgery laparoscopicly but ended up having to do the old fashioned larger incision.  It took me about six weeks to fully recover.

I am thankful I have such an amazing husband...he had to take on absolutely everything for a good while.  He did a wonderful job looking after our two busy little boys, taking care of me, and keeping the house somewhat decent...not to mention meal preparation and everything else.

Now that I am back to my normal self and getting back into my normal activities again, I decided perhaps it was time to start updating this blog again.