Busy Week Quick Takes

--- 1 ---

Last week Teresa turned 6. For some reason 6 seems older to me not a preschooler anymore but a child.

--- 2 ---

One of her birthday requests was to go to the Newport Aquarium.

--- 3 ---

Our Trick or Treat was last night (the 25th).

--- 4 ---

This morning both Teresa and Matthew had checkups. Teresa is having her 6yr old one and Matthew is having a pre-op before his tear duct surgery next week. The nurse practitioner hadn't seen Matthew since his 4 month checkup and remarked how big he was and how you wouldn't ever think he had been a little preemie. He had grown a lot since 9 months. He's now 21.5 lbs and 31.5 inches.

--- 5 ---

Teresa read these pages yesterday and was so excited. Just looking at the large rat makes me grimace.

--- 6 ---

I just watched 5 children 6 and under. 3 are a friend's, 2 mine. This friend watches Teresa A LOT. It really wasn't all that bad they played together fairly well and all 5 kids liked the pancakes I made for lunch.

--- 7 ---

Last one, a painless way to support Reese's Rainbow. Last I checked they were just behind in second. First place is $50,000. That could mean a big difference for some special needs orphans. Please help them get into 1st place.


Grab This!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Really Fast QT

--- 1 ---

I'm supposed to leave for my mom in law's in 26 minutes. It's a 2 hr drive each way. I'm helping start to pack/declutter/etc before her planned move to my sister in law's next month. Andrea, Megan, Scott, and I are going. David is staying home with Matthew and Teresa.

--- 2 ---

We have a nice brick fireplace/wood stove in the family room. When Matthew started crawling I put the couch in front of it to block access to the little door and to keep him from falling on the hearth. Well he crawled around found a small available spot and starting gnawing on it the other day. The noise this made was awful. Chalk noise is nothing in comparison.I now have the couch, loveseat, and ottoman making an ugly wall of furniture to keep him totally away from it.

--- 3 ---

Other gnawing locations- the pew at church. Yes, I was letting him put his mouth on it and was really surprised he left teeth marks.

--- 4 ---

We're trying to refinance our mortgage. I needed proof of home owner's insurance. My file had last year's statement. I was proud I managed to create an online account and print off a statement. This was much easier than finding it in the needs filed mail stack.

--- 5 ---

Teresa is enjoying swim lessons. She is even remembering what they call the stroke positions. It's monkey, soldier, starfish. I was watching from the bleachers across the pool and when she does the monkey it looks like she's drowning.

--- 6 ---

Andrea, Matthew, and I went to the local Life Chain last Sunday. It's at our local courthouse square. A Lutheran pastor did the opening remarks and I never realized they do the same Sunday readings we have at our parish.
.

--- 7 ---

Adoption Fundraising- This family has a matching grant opportunity. More info on their blog.
http://foxberryfarmalmanac.blogspot.com/2012/10/when.html

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

--- 1 ---

My dear husband David turned 50 last week. We went out for dinner the Saturday before his birthday, had a family dinner and cake on that Sunday, his sister sent him a big plant/flower/balloon arrangement, and work decorated his cubicle with balloons and banners so lots of celebrating .

--- 2 ---

We rejoined the Y last night. Teresa has swim lessons again starting today. We signed her up for the 6 and up class versus preschool class. I hope she does okay. She will be 6 in 2 weeks.

--- 3 ---

Homeschooling is going well. I did a big curriculum switch a few weeks ago. I will wait until at least spring to decide for sure but right now I love it. It's more laid out for me but still uses a ton of real books.

--- 4 ---

Teeth have been a big topic here lately. Teresa has lost 4 in the last few months. Matthew has his 6th one coming in right now. We now can recognize his awful sleep pattern that preceeds each tooth.

--- 5 ---

Finding time for housework with homeschooling an active kindergartener (as in if I turn my back she pops out of her chair) and having a newly mobile baby (he tries to eat everything he can find on the floor but won't open his mouth for baby food) has been a challenge. This morning I had to clean the shower before I could take a shower. It was that bad.

--- 6 ---

Product Review- Do not buy store brand scrubbing bubble bathroom cleaner. Mine came from the store we call Big W. It does not smell the same (gaggy smell) and it doesn't work well either (see QT 5). I am not the most frequent cleaner but it has definitely not been that long for it to get that disgusting.

--- 7 ---

Orphan feature- His birthday is this month. He loves to read and recite poetry and is just going to be five. He sounds like an amazing little boy who is facing transfer. Praying for his family to find him very very soon.
http://reecesrainbow.org/26972/carlton

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Happy Feast of the Assumption!

This post is for all those Catholic moms that well aren't the super crafty type for feast days. Here's our cake. It's a mix with tub frosting and blue sprinkle sugar which was leftover in the pantry.

I also printed off a coloring page for Teresa.
http://familyfeastandferia.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/rosary-color-book-glorious-mysteries.pdf  Try to remember to print just the page you need, I printed off all of them. The page before the coloring page had a nice short paragraph about each mystery so I read that too.

Teresa is currently resting/napping so she can go to Mass this evening with Andrea and me.

--- 1 ---

Teresa is quite funny in ways to delay bedtime or the production she makes going to sleep. The other night she wrapped herself up tight in her quilt and said she was a chrysalis and needed nectar to drink (water bottle). In the morning when she came downstairs she was fluttering her arms and had her fairy/butterfly wings on.

--- 2 ---

Another day right after her bath she feel asleep on her bedroom floor. She was supposed to be putting on her PJs and when she didn't show up for dinner I went to check on her.  She was unclothed except for winter gloves.

--- 3 ---

Last night Teresa became a painting machine right before bed.

--- 4 ---

Matthew had his 1st ear infection last week. It's really the 1st time he's been sick. He really didn't seem sick. In fact I was hesitate to take him to the doctor until he cut way down on his formula. He HATES the pink medicine. David and I have one more day of trying to get him to take it.

--- 5 ---

Besides his ear infection why he's been so fussy the last several weeks is he has two teeth. Teresa lost her 1st tooth in June and the tooth fairy should have the 2nd before this weekend is over.

--- 6 ---

Matthew will be 9 months old next week. It's hard to believe. No we haven't finalized the adoption yet. There is some paperwork that is taking much longer than we expected. Also unbelievable is my oldest daughter turned 25 last month.

--- 7 ---

Another bedtime Teresa story- David was doing prayers with Teresa. She was repeating the Lord's Prayer what seemed like without a lot of interest or reverence. They got to the "deliver us from evil" part. She suddenly asks what it means. David tells her "deliver us from evil" means we want God to keep evil away from us. So she adds something like, please Jesus keep evil away from me, my mommy and daddy, my baby brother, and my sisters. So sweet!!!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

February

Can't believe it's the end of the month already. The post is going to be all over the place. If I wait for a theme I'll never post.

-Adoption-

We had our 2nd post placement visit a few weeks ago. Friday will be 90 days since placement. Yesterday we got a call from the lawyer's staff about petitioning for finalization among other things. We also got a big email with paperwork to complete. I swear we filled this stuff out before.

-Taxes-

We finished our federal and state returns. We're even getting some money back. This year was pretty simple since we won't have any adoption credits until after this year's finalization.

-New Carpet-

The smaller kids' bedrooms, hall, and stairs have new carpet. It was a lot of work getting the rooms cleared out for installation but so worth it. It's soft and cushy and a very boring beige so I won't bother posting a picture. The carpet type is Smart Strand which is supposed to be very stain resistant and durable.

-Matthew-

He's doing great! Over 3 months-Over 11 lbs- Smiling tons now. He's rolled from his tummy to back twice now but it still seems random. He's sleeping pretty regularly 5-6 at a stretch at night, basically his midnight or 3am feeding is gone.

- 4th children/40's mommy-

In general I'm a much more laid back of a mommy. I do miss sleep much more than with Andrea and Megan 20 years ago but I have such a more contentment joy whatever you can call that feeling with motherhood in general. Good example of more laid back is when we didn't have a receiving blanket for his bottle and didn't want to go upstairs to get one we used a dish towel. Teresa is so sweet with Matthew most of the time. She was teaching him word cards the other day. Matthew lights up with smiles for her many times even when I think she should give him more space etc.

-Synagis-

We finished the last of Matthew's series of Synagsis/RSV shots last week. Even though driving to Children's and their schedule was a pain with so many babies have been getting RSV I'm so happy Matthew has not been sick and was able to get the shots. After January's coughy crud the rest of the family has been well this month too. I'm also grateful for the staff member at Children's that gave us the info about a rebate program for the copays.

-Homeschooling-

We're not doing much formal stuff now. Since Teresa isn't old enough even for K in our state yet I'm concentrating on preparing for next year. We've registered with St Thomas Aquinas Academy for the fall. www.staa-homeschool.com We finished the assessment and have some plans for next fall that we'll finalize more after a phone conference in March.

-Me-

I had another ultrasound earlier in the month before rescheduling my surgery that was postponed by Matthew's arrival. The cyst on my left ovary and fibroid are still there and the right ovary now has a cyst too. Surgery is rescheduled for April 13th. I'm praying that it will be able to be done laproscopically like planned.

2 Months

Matthew is two months today. This will be one of those scattered thoughts kind of posts just because I want to try to capture my thoughts and feelings at the time. A few weeks after one of those middle of night feedings I got hit with this wave of feelings. Of course I cared for Matthew deeply from the first moment I held him when he was 15 days old and even the 1st time I knew he might possibly be our son at 6 days old he filled my prayers. This was the feeling, the bond, that I can't imagine our family without him. I suddenly realized how his weight, smell, and little gestures are all known to me and so special. Almost immediately following came the feelings of sadness for not being able to protect him before he was born, for his birth mom's never being able to experience this, and how her impossible situation made this possible for me. And also I grieved that I never experienced this time with Teresa. She was born at almost the same gestation as Matthew, just a bit bigger, spent time in NICU, and was about his age now when she was in foster care the 1st time. We weren't foster parents then. In fact we realized recently that a newspaper article that was published several months later that was one of the factors that caused us to persue foster parenting actually mentioned her original time in foster care.

2012 Goals Quick Takes

1 - First goal of the year is to keep to our budget, especially the food budget. I'll be trying to do all cash to help with this.

2 -Second goal is to average losing a 1/2 lb a week and exercise an average of 1 hr per week. I'm just plain old counting calories trying for something in the 1600-2000 calorie range. I did 2000 this week and lost 5lbs but I would say that was because I managed to gain 7.5 lbs in the prior 2 weeks. The average exercise is because right now with even mild January weather walking outdoors isn't really possible and with a new baby and little sleep exercise is not likely to happen the next several weeks but come spring I plan to do the 5K trail with the lovely stroller my brother gave to Matthew.

3 - Read a "good" book each month. Conversion Diary Jen's link to the Register post will help with this. No Amish romances or other harlequin type books count.

4 - Do something every day with Teresa. This sounds odd as a stay at home mom but this is one on one time--reading, playing a board game, and her new favorite coloring with her. Homeschooling does not count.

5 - Quarterly dates with Andrea and my David. Andrea loves to go out to lunch and shop or garage sale and I need to make it more regular. My dear husband and I would love for this to be at least monthly but the expense and trouble of a sitter an outside date quarterly is a good goal.

6 - Add at least one spiritual activity per month. I've become very lax with any regular prayer. Things like doing a daily Angelus, or reading the gospel, or doing a weekly rosary. I'm sure I will come up with 12 things. Right now I'm working on doing a Morning Offering.

7 - Last but certainly not least enjoy this baby year with Matthew. I'm 45 and he will be our last and I know as much as possible I want savor every moment.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!