Lessons

Whatever lesson it is that I'm supposed to be learning, I'm waving the white flag over here. I seem to be an accident waiting to happen these days. This morning, I fell down the stairs. And I think I broke my butt. Seriously, I now have dimples in the wrong cheeks. Plus my elbow is bruised and swollen and I jarred my back on my left side.

I had Mr. Toad take the kids in to school for me, I canceled my voice students for this afternoon and I've kept Zoomer home from school to look after Thumbelina. And I can't get comfortable. And I'm hungry.

So I think I'll finish off this bag of Doritos and have Zoomer get me a bottle of water while I slowly make my way back to my comfy couch.

I feel like such a dork.

Progress

I could tell you about the burn that Thumbelina has on her hand and fingers...and the fact that certain siblings were assigned to play with her but instead were playing the Wii thusly resulting in the poor princess burning her hand on the fireplace...but I won't because although she has bitten off one of the blisters and freaks out whenever her bandaid falls off, her hand and fingers are doing okay.

And I could tell you about yesterday morning before Sunday School when Thumbelina fell off of her chair...or possibly was pushed, the teachers aren't exactly sure...thusly resulting in blood coming forth from Thumbelina's mouth and we not knowing exactly where said blood was coming from...even getting a second opinion from a nurse at church...but I won't. Because although we initially thought she knocked her two front teeth loose, and then determining it wasn't her teeth but possibly a gum injury, and then actually seeing a cut on the inside of her lip later in the day, her mouth is doing fine.

But I will tell you about what happened in Sunday School yesterday morning after the chair incident. About an hour and half after the mishap, Thumbelina's teacher told me that her mouth was still bleeding, so I went and talked to Mr. Happy and asked if we should call the dentist. Just to see what he thought about it all. Mr. Happy and I both went in to Thumbelina's class and took a peak at her mouth and decided it wasn't, in fact, her teeth that were injured. Of course I couldn't leave Thumbelina after that, so I stayed in her class with her.

During singing time, my girl was sitting on my lap and she turned around and kissed my arm. She.kissed.my.arm. You cannot even begin to imagine what a big deal this is. This is HUGE people. HUGE. My girl is not one to lavish her affections on anybody...only inanimate objects...or her toes...not the boys, or Mr. Happy or me. We waited 7 whole months for her just to kiss us on the lips, and it was well worth the wait, but it only lasted for those few precious hours and she was back to giving us the top of her head whenever we asked for a kiss.

It is taking a lot of time for Thumbelina to feel secure enough and comfortable enough to show affection on her own, so for her to just turn around and kiss my arm...Wow. Seriously, Wow. She has now officially been with us longer than she was in the orphanage, and I've always heard that internationally adopted children seem to 'relax' after 6 months and again after a year. We are approaching our one year anniversary, so I'm hopeful that my girl will be able to show her feelings uninhibited. Except the displeasure. She's really good at showing displeasure.

Giant Brand Named Stores...Coming Soon to a Town Near You

So yesterday was the grand opening of Wal Mart in my tiny little town. And you would have thought it was the day after Christmas by the way the parking lot was filled. On the way to school the boys saw a bus there, and Shaggy wondered if some kids were on their way for a field trip. That's how much excitement the opening has stirred within us. Husband told Shaggy it was most likely extra workers being bussed in from other stores to help out.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, such as disobedient children, we were not able to go yesterday after school. We did, however, go today. And I've gotta say, I'm a smidge disappointed. It has very much a warehouse feel to it, with concret floors and moveable isles. No bright cheery flooring that I'm used to seeing in the other stores. And the clientele looked a bit...skuzzy...shall we say. Although I shouldn't stereo-type people, because I'm sure they thought the same of me...what with my mom-jeans, no make-up, untidy hair, and bevy of hoodlums following me along and all...but the experience didn't really make me eager to go back. And if it weren't for the fact that I drive past it twice a day, I probably wouldn't be frequenting this particular store very often.

But I did score a $35.00 cabbage patch kid for 10 bucks! Asian no less. Although she does have a weird bright pink stripe down her bangs...

Maybe I'm just in a tired mood and shopping with 4 kids in tow is never an exciting experience for me. But it's good therapy for my back (which is feeling pretty good actually), so Thumbelina and I just might have to go back tomorrow sans hoodlums.

Can I Get a Collective "Awe" Here?

Those of you that know me in real life know that I love to sing and sing solos and take part in other special music in church on a regular basis. Which means I practice almost daily for each performance. Except I can only practice at the piano when Thumbelina is safely strapped into her highchair because she flips out if I start to play the piano and sing without her. It started out that she needed to be sitting on my lap and playing right along with me. And then she graduated to sitting on the bench beside me. Now, I'm not even allowed near her...so if I start practicing, she comes running along and tries to pull me off so that she can 'practice'. Heh. No, it isn't a behavior I give in to, but suffuce it to say it's just easier on the both of us if I wait until she's in her highchair.

You needed to know all that for what I'm about to tell you.

This morning, Thumbelina was sitting on the bench in front of the Roland and was playing it, and figured out how to turn on the pre-recorded selections. So I peaked in on her, and she's sitting on the bench holding one of my voice exercise books, singing her little hear out. It was just mind-blowingly cute. And then she looked my way, so I clapped for her and told her I loved her singing. She grinned and continued with her practicing.

Ready? On the count of three: 1 - 2 - 3 - AWWEEE!!!

It really was on the cutest things I've ever seen.

How To Get Your Teenager To Cook

Step 1: Re-injure your back that you injured exactly 8 weeks ago. And which has taken exactly 6 weeks to get back to feeling completely normal.

Step 2: Sit in the big comfy chair all afternoon watching your favourite shows on the new HD 46" TV that airmiles bought.

Step 3: Wait until the children get hungry and ask, "What's for supper?" (Oh, sorry Lisa, I mean Dinner) ;-)

Step 4: Suggest cereal.

Step 5: Sit back while the teenager pooh-poohs that idea and gets out the cookbook to make Skillet Ravioli.

I bought me a new cookbook shortly after Christmas, it's from Better Homes and Gardens, and I have to say I am absolutely in love with it. So much so, that I have been cooking every single night. And I am making meal plans each week. With actual groceries in the house with which to make said meals. And we've only had take out twice in the last 21 days. Twice. This is huge, people. Huge.

So how did I hurt my back again, you ask? I bent over to pick up a bottle that Thumbelina had thrown on the floor. Seriously. That's all I did. And although it isn't as sore as it was the first time I hurt it, it is limiting my normal daily activities to a great degree. I'm hoping the children are telling me the truth about their homework status, because I'm not really able to check on them. Oh sure, I can blog, but blogging is different. Blogging doesn't require actual movement.

Why?

My journey into womanhood was roughly 26 years ago. But who's counting.

So why, today, does my face look like that of one just entering the pubescent stage of life?

Seriously, why?

Woops!

Just pass the Bad Mother Award over my way, please.

This morning as the boys were getting ready for school, Zoomer said to me, "Aren't there any lunches?"

I answered him, "It's sub day today." I love pizza day and sub day, because I don't have to make lunches the night before.

Fast forward to this afternoon as we're driving home from school when Tigger said to me, "Why didn't you pack us a sandwich? Sub day isn't until tomorrow."

Seriously??

So now out of guilt I'm letting them eat chips for their after-school snack. And a peanut butter sandwich.

On the bright side, I don't have to make lunches for tomorrow either!

You Know You're Tired When...

You know you're tired when, as you're making lunches for school the next day, you ask your son if he wants boots on his chicken sandwich. As in purple rubber boots, not Boots from Dora.

And then you call him Thumbelina instead of Zoomer.

And then as you're studying with another offspring of your husbands...just bear with me - the children are all the fruit of Mr. Happy's looms, I'm taking no responsibility for them tonight...you begin to slur your words and see double.

Is it wrong of me to be counting the seconds before the children are in bed?

My mind has gone blank, but I know there's a good word out there for how I feel. Blank.

So this morning, I took Thumbelina for a photo shoot and I'm very excited to see what the pictures will look like. Alas, I'm not going to post the photographer's website because it names my hometown, and I'm not wanting all the crazies out there to know where I live. True, I'm related to most of them, but they still don't need to know where I live. I will be sure to post pictures for you when I get them.

My little princess is turning into quite the spitfire. I was in the nursery with her last night, and I have a rule of no children on the table. It's a kid-sized table and they love to lay on their bellies on it. Well, the little miss was climbing on it - at one point she crawled from one end to the other on it, so I started putting her in the corner for time out. Which she thought was pretty spectacular. And it even got to the point where once she started to climb on the table and I stood up, she'd run laughing and put herself in the corner.

I know.

We're in big trouble.

Back to the Grind

Christmas is over. All signs of things celebratory have been boxed away for another year. Except for the stray ornaments found underneath furniture...

And we're back to the everyday of school, homework, laundry, cooking...the joys of life. So exciting I have to stifle a yawn. Wait, nope, I actually yawned.

With the everyday comes mundane blog posts.

So we'll do pictures instead.

Last Wednesday was the one year anniversary of our referral, and being the terrible mother that I am, I forgot to take Thumbelina's picture with her referral photo until yesterday. But I'm justifying the oversight by mentioning that our one year anniversary of actually seeing her referral photo isn't until tomorrow. So all is well.



In hindsight, it wasn't a good idea to have Elmo on TV while trying to get the Miss to focus on the camera...
But I do think this one is really cute:

The other day, Thumbelina and Mr. Happy were making faces at each other:

BTW, that's a stamp on her hand from visiting the lovely people at the bank...not a bruise...



Miss Thumbelina got into my post-its. I know!!! It's a good thing I love her so much, or else she'd be in big trouble...

She tried to eat them:
Apparently they're not very tasty:
The other offspring are just like their relatives...
Oh yeah, you know who you are...

Question For You

Why is it that a certain teenager, who shall remain nameless, cannot get out of bed before 7:30 on a school morning, yet after staying up until midnight on New Year's Eve suddenly has enough gumption to get out of bed by 6:30 every morning thereafter to go to work?

And then this morning when we had to leave the house by 8:00 for a dentist appointment, he's dragging his sorry behind and doesn't have time for breakfast, thus getting really hungry after his tooth is filled but he's unable to eat or drink. Well, technically he can drink, but it's pretty funny to watch the chocolate milk pour out the side of his face because everything is still frozen. You all know I'm talking about Zoomer, right?

He fills me with such pride...

Um...

We had our own version of Christmas Olympics. It was special.

I'm not sure if any further explanation is needed...

Suffice it to say it wasn't just our Olympics that was so special...

Happy 2008

It's a new year. Anybody do anything exciting to ring it in? We had a small intimate party - just the 6 of us. We ate snacks and played the Wii. And then we put the Princess to bed, picked up toys and sent Shaggy and Tigger off to bed as well. We let Zoomer stay up with us to watch the big ball drop in New York at midnight, and then we were off to bed as well. Oh, and we watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 all night, because the movies that Mr. Happy and I usually watch aren't suitable for a 13-year-old. Not that we watch anything x-rated, but the other night we watched The Zodiac, which I'm sure would give any teeny-bopper bad dreams for awhile.


So this morning, Princess Thumbelina was limping a little bit on her foot...I thought maybe her jammies were too tight on her toes, but when I took them off she still kept limping around. And then later, she would limp, grap her leg above her ankle and cry. And it's a lot worse now than this morning. I do see some swelling - not a lot - but she has a doctor's appointment in about 40 minutes. And with one of the doctors in town who scored very low on Rate Your MD. But he hasn't done anything to upset me, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I'd still rather be seeing my own doctor.


*****

It's now Thursday morning; we saw the doctor in question and he said that Thumbelina's foot felt and moved normally, although her heel was quite swollen, and despite giving him multiple dirty looks (he asked if she was shy...I said no, she just likes to give looks), she played normally on the floor except for when she tried to walk. I should clarify that it was Thumbelina giving the dirty looks, not me. And then it was obvious that she was in pain. He gave her the diagnosis of plantar fasciitis, even though it isn't common in children. Which is basically a sprained heel that just took a few days to become problematic. Because she climbed out of her playpen. Twice. The stinker.

And this morning? She's running around like nothing ever happened. Except my back is sore from carrying her around yesterday. She weighs 22 lbs 14 oz.

Interesting start to the New Year.

And today is the anniversary of our referral. Such an emotional day last year. I was in total shock, and strangely enough, that night was the first night I slept all the way through in about 9 or 10 months.

But enough about me; there is a jar of pickles that needs to be opened for Shaggy. His post-breakfast snack.

Kind of makes me want to gag as I finish up my coffee.