Time Flies

I can't believe I have not posted in almost 2 weeks. WOW! Today is Zeth's birthday and we are already going to have a melt down. He expect skating after school and does not understand that it will be on Saturday. The hard concept of a birthday party for him. I am sending cookies to share with classmates. He still does not understand that skating needs to wait until the weekend. I figure there will be meltdowns through out the day, but he will survive. this is the first time he is actually having a birthday celebration on/near his birthday.

Alicia is managing. She has not been a cat for almost a month. That changed yesterday. I had a cat wandering after me. Boy, what a trial not to step or trip on her. The animals move or can be moved easily. She just waits to figure out what is going to happen.

We have begun to take apart the kitchen. The cabinets are coming down. It makes it look sooo different in there. I will post some pictures of the progress. We have found some interesting things. The shelves are good wood, the end cabinets are ply wood. I have saved some of the knobs for the bathroom remodel. In fact, I am going to put them in the bathroom cabinet to get them out of the way. The bathroom is the last thing on the list. Right now we need to get everything out of the kitchen so the stove can be brought in and hooked up. We also are going to purchase the stove/micro combination in time. The double oven still works for the moment. The bottom cabinets needs to be taken out too. Currently we have no place to wood. That is next.

Autumn weather

The weather has begun to change. It really does not get a chance to cool off slowly here. I have found that it goes from the triple digits to the chilling 50's and 60's overnight. Today it did get warmer than 70 but it started at a chilly 52 degrees. The leaves have begun to change and the chll is in the air. Loving it!

Xzavier and Makiya are with their foster mother Beatrice Harvey. I hope (fingers crossed). I am not going to do respit care again. Or at least for a very looooong time. It was very hard for Alicia and Zeth. both have been a pistol all week. Zeth has hit his rock bottom in the morning the past 2 days. beginning with hiding under his bed and refusing to get dressed. This is followed by screaming aobut hunger and food. The need to be fed. He knows to eat at school and not home. He kicked screamed and was an all out mess. Alicia had her homework meltdowns all week and could not handle the baby's crying or noise in general.

I know that I can't put them in respit care. It would totally kill them and put them backwards many steps. I would end up with kids that were worse than they are now. Not only messed up but behaviors would be more out of control.

Ten Years

9-11-11 Ten years ago I remember what I was doing. I remember where I was. I remember the feeling of loss and urgency. I remember Do you? I was working at Child andd Family Services in Middletown RI at the time I was attending a meeting of supervisors and everything came to a halt when the news was broken at the meeting. Everything stopped. My cousin (Audrey) lost her husband when the first tower was hit. He was on the plane. They had just adopted a little boy. I remember having to tell my staff at the child care center. The emotions and terror they felt and the feelings I had to hold in while speaking to them so as not to scare the children in the classrooms.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfWa9gI-Bks&feature=player_embedded

This is a video of one of the memories. It speaks volumes.

The children came today. They came with a really short letter of interest from carol. I have no idea of allergies. No idea of routines and no idea that the little one is asthmatic and taking a decongestant. THis I did not know unitl I looked in her bag. She is also toilet training. That would have been nice to know!! Carol is done in this house I figured giving one more chance would be a nice thing to do. But never again.

Today is your birthday!

Today was Alicia's birthday. It was a long a trying day for Zeth. He just could not accept that he was not getting gifts or going to the mall. He spent the day with Don. They were to lunch and a car show. I have no idea what else, but Zeth needs "boy" time.

Allie and I went to the mall. That was an excursion. We shopped and shopped and shopped. Of course before going anywhere we had to put music on the new mp3 player. She was sooo excited to have that. She sang at the top of her lungs while walking around. she was happy with her gifts and loved her cake. I could have gotten away with baking one myself for the amount of cake that was eaten in our house today. We have left over cake int he freezer and set aside for school snacks.

She was able to pick out a few things she "couldn't" live without while wandering the mall. I did make some specific statements of NO. But we had a mild meltdown and moved on to another place. She also has a short term memory and forgets about things that she has purchased. There will be no more money spent until Christmas. she does not need anything. Neither does Zeth.

I picked out a sink at lowes. And of course it is discontinued. I had to find another one. I did and it cost the same amount as our stove! That was just scary. I hope to get a military discount on the stove. I received one on the sink. I will try when I purchase that. Grandma's money did a lot for us. We were able to do both cabinets and counters for the kitchen, new bathroom sink and vanity, various gallons of paint, a play set for the yard, a new PC for myself and picking up a few things here and there without worrying about money. It is now dwindling down to a few thousand dollars. Without it though, we still would not have a kitchen or play set.

I can't believe how much we have accomplished in a short time or with a little bit of money.

Carol is dropping off two children tomorrow for the week. They both go to school programs. The girl is 2 and her brother is 4. He goes to head start and she goes to little tigers. I have a few words to say to them, but it will wait until later in the week. Don't want to upset the apple cart before it is necessary. Zeth is sooo unprepared for Kindergarten and I put blame on the prek program and also on his foster situation. If he had a family that could see that struggling was happening and take a moment to work with him even 5 minutes a day, he would be better off in school. He does not recognize any letters, numbers, no 1:1 correspondence, no idea of color, letter sounds or basic understanding of following directions.

THE Playset

The kids are finally playing ont he jungle gym! We had the safety talk and of course I had to repeat myself a number of times already, but htey were able to play just the same. It is great to see them using the see saw horse together. Actually working otgether and not fighting aobut who does what or how. I still need to remove the poop. Tomorrow is going to be poop patrol so the walk to the swing set is mine free. I will post pictures of the swing set and the rest of the yard when I put batteries in the camera.

I have officially ordered our kitchen cabinets. I am waiting for kraftmaid to call and confirm the order before ordering the counter tops.

Saturday day of rest?

Where has the week gone! Last night we attempted to go to First Friday in Florence. We found it was not worth going last night. Not all vendors/booths were set up. the kids were highly fidgety and hungry. Don was in a mood of grump. We ended up just going to dinner in MS and then heading home. By then it was pj, snack and bed time for the kids.

Zeth has a scored test on letter sounds and identification. He can give 6 sounds and ZERO letter IDs. That is lower than I thought. I figure lots of games, songs with sound and finding letters in books. He missed sooo much being moved so often and at a young age. When we read a book last night, I had him find some letters, he is pulling a fast one on his teacher. He can identify 3 letters without help and he has to start working on the letters in his name. This has to happen all before the winter break. Do I have my work cut out for me. I will find ways to make it fun. Even if it means biting my tongue lots of times and throwing Alicia out of the room and having separate time for each of them.

Alicia still has not brought home a spelling test. i am curious to see how she did with the extra studying we are doing. I know she is having a difficult time at a new school. I also know she is mothering her classmates. It is in the way she speaks to them. she is offering things to make them her friend. I can't believe next week is her birthday. She is going to be 8 years old and the majority of her life has been in foster care away from her mother and youngest sibling (sister).

Heading to Lowes' to make payment on the kitchen and get that begun. I have begun to pack up the kitchen. The desk is almost done jus tthings on the top of hte desk, the cabinets are almost empty. I have not taken out the cereal of the cabinet yet. That is going to wait until a few days before the kitchen arrives. I have to plan out my packing before I start to do it. I know if I put in in writing it will be easier when it is time to pack everything. It is harder because I am not moving things to a new home just putting them a way for a few weeks. that is the hard part of the whole packing thing.

* all baking/spices will be in the same box

*dishes *serving pieces *paper products

*cleaning supplies-easy to get to so cleaning can occur

*glassware *appliances

I know there are other things that are not on the list, but I will figure that out as i come across them. I make seem so easy, but it is not going to be very easy at all. I can get rid of a lot of things we don't use and update our spices and baking supplies. :)

Today is a baby shower for Christy's daughter in law. It is out in the boon docks-locals know where everything is. I am not a local and finding this church has taken almost as much time as it will to reach it. It is about an hour from here! Miles only about 30-gotta love county roads.

I need to get ready to go to lowes and meet with craig. We are stil waiting for the swing set installer to come to the house. I hope he has enough brains to call if he gets lost. I also hope he is here with in the next 45 minutes before I go to Lowes.