BREAKING NEWS!!!!

I just convinced Lily that if the dog is a girl we should name it Elizabeth!!!!!

Frozen!

I am in the in-between these days and I am about to tear my hair out. I've packed just about all I can pack and we're living as minimalists. But I can't really pack anything else because we need it. Also, once my mom's house is mostly ready for us to move to, I can bring things over in the back of our van bit by bit--I don't actually have to pack the rest. Every time I go to my mom's it feels as if nothing has been done, although I know that's not true. The workers spent several hours over the last few days staining doors and trim. Whoop-de-doo. But they have to get the trim in before they can lay the carpet, and they have to lay the carpet before we can start moving. So there's a lot of waiting around for the pieces to fall into place. I am also falling out of love with our current house. Knowing we won't be here any longer, I can fully appreciate all the issues it has. Each quirk drives me nutty and grates on my nerves. I walk through the rooms and feel the weight of how much I need to do to get out of this place. Multiply that by the multiple rooms I walk through and you can tell I'm like a homeless wanderer in my own home. All this "not getting things done" came to a head today and I went at my eyebrows rather aggressively. So although my life feels disorganized and in shambles, my eyebrows look fabulous! Good thing too, as I have a feeling I'll be with my kids in the ER tonight given their current activities: light saber duels and climbing on the ladder (see it in the background?) to look at the baby birds in a nest by our gutter. The odds are in my favor that someone will require stitches, so it's a good day for well-groomed eyebrows.

The last day of school was Friday, and Carver and Lily had a great day with their friends and teachers. Part of me hates the last day of school because it means my children are getting older and moving up to the next grade. Why do they grow so fast??? Memorial weekend for us was spent inside, as Colorado is having some unusual rainy weather. Lots of rain and cool temperatures. Since that rarely happens here we don't know what to do with ourselves! The buyers for our house have scheduled their inspection for Friday at noon. If that goes well, I think I can start breathing easier and continue packing. David still has loads of commitments for work and school, but at least his summer schedule will be easier than--well, easier than what it has been.

*51 days until Harry Potter opens in theaters.

Food For Thought

Read this.

lucky, indeed!

Funny how I was joking about the lucky shirt, but something went right yesterday. The couple that loved our house after seeing 9 others put in an offer late yesterday. It's a decent offer, especially given the market right now. We shall accept and if all goes well we can close on June 30. Perfect, perfect, perfect! Oddly enough we have another showing this morning at 9:30, which we will keep just in case. And I'll clean the house, I really will. But I don't feel the need to be obsessive-compulsive about it. What a great feeling. Extra bonus: Lily got herself some new shorts so she doesn't have to wear sweatpants to school today.

lucky!

I'm wearing my favorite shirt today. I'm feeling lucky--which is ridiculous because I don't believe in luck. Today I need to find shorts for Lily. It's 87 degrees today and the child is wearing sweat pants because she's outgrown all her shorts and I couldn't bear to send her to school wearing something that rides up her bum. I also need to pick out light fixtures (prepare to be overwhelmed, Cathy), bathroom cabinets, mirrors, and towel bars. So instead of saving the world and eliminating hunger, I will be picking out towel bars.

Update on the buyers: divorced dad said no. Gee, you'd think in this day and age when parents are more and more permissive he would have just bought the house because the kids wanted it. But he was a dad with a backbone, which restores my faith in humanity. The other potential buyers, it turns out, looked at 9 houses on Sunday and ours was their favorite. Can you imagine looking at 9 houses in one day? I am exhausted just thinking about it. They are scheduled to look at more on Wednesday and Saturday. I can only hope they get so sick and tired of driving around and walking through strange homes they say, "Let's just buy the house we liked the most--the one where the mom has the lucky shirt."

*this photo has absolutely nothing to do with my post, but I just love it! many thanks to anne who turned me on to the White House photos on flickr.

Still Hoping...

for the house to sell, that is. It has been on the market for 17 days (as of today) which is really not very long. It just feels long to me. I am so ready to move I can barely contain it. The kids are ready too. I hope to meet with the contractor today to talk about getting the new flooring/carpeting in and the walls painted in the kids bedrooms a.s.a.p. As soon as that's completed, we can start moving our things over. Living here (in our current house) is fine but our hearts are really at my mom's and waiting is no longer exciting. It's just plain grueling.

We had three showings yesterday. One I don't know anything about yet but our realtor will give us an update today. The second showing was great, but our house was the very first house they had looked at and they have to sell their own house before they buy anything. So unless we want to wait for them to make an offer in December, we'll keep plugging along. The third showing had the most potential. A recently divorced man who has been renting but is now ready to buy. He has custody of his kids on the weekends, so he brought his kids along and according to early reports the kids loved it! If the children could have made an offer, they would have. The dad was concerned though about fitting his king-sized bed up the stairs and finding the right wall for his gigantic plasma tv and shelves. But his kids were literally begging. It was sunny and warm yesterday, and because we live across the street from a large park, they were salivating at the thought of "all this someday being theirs."

So pray for Divorced Dad #1 to want to do whatever his children want. And pray he'll just figure out he can buy a smaller bed and new furniture if he wants.

Boarding School Is Suddenly An Option

This photo was taken after I had cleaned the house for HOURS before a showing. I went outside and found these two dunderheads up to their necks in wet, gloppy sand. Z actually had it in his mouth. I wound up throwing some of their clothes away--it was that bad. And don't be fooled. They were positively filthy. Their brown skin makes it hard to see all the grime, but it was there. Trust me. It was there.

A Teaser...

Before...

Before...

Halfway there...

Cutie pie.

The kitchen is about 75% done, and I couldn't resist showing a few pics. We (meaning not me but our contractor) have a few more cabinets to install, hook up the water and hot water tap, add hardware and other bits and pieces. But hopefully by Monday it will be in working condition and within another week completely finished. It is looking fine, in my opinion. I picked out a gigantic sink. It's so huge you could put 3 Thanksgiving turkeys in it to thaw. It would actually be the perfect sink to bathe a baby in, which makes me think about having another baby.

Um. Excuse my while I go laugh hysterically in the corner.

(wiping eyes) All right. I'm back. I can't believe I just said that. What the heck is wrong with me?

Today was interesting. It was Zinabu's last day of preschool and because he could not wrap his head around the fact that it wasn't Friday, he asked me 2.5 million times what day it was. My beloved mother offered to watch him this afternoon so I could hit Home Depot and look at paint colors, bathroom sinks, kitchen cabinet hardware, and a new microwave. Turns out I am a home improvement slut--I'm easy. Very easy. The appliance man looked startled when he told me about the microwave he said is a good choice and I said, "Sold!" No dilly-dallying here, no ma'am. I grabbed 300 paint swatches, 297 of them being greyish tanish neutralish. Lily wants her room to be turquoise, and I am considering some orange for the boys' rooms. How do you settle on the right shade of orange?

Then, since I had a few extra minutes I stopped off at the mall to buy some birthday gifts. I can't remember the last time I was at a mall, by myself, in the middle of the day, no less. It was just me and several high schoolers playing hooky. I winked at them conspiratorially, but they sneered back. I guess they don't like old ladies like me making eye contact with them when they're trying to be rebellious. Grabbing the bull by the horns--that's what living dangerously is when your kids aren't with you, right?--I had a chocolate milkshake for lunch. Yum. I even got to browse through the bookstore, where the Twilight books were assaulting me from every corner and Robert Pattinson's face glowered at me. It's hard for me to remember LBT (Life Before Twilight). I scanned some decorating books to look for orange rooms, but that must be so 1970 because I couldn't find any. However, I heard a Jackson Five song that made me smile. Gets me every time.

Anyone have suggestions about the many shades of orange?

Mother's Day


Guess what I got for Mother's Day? Sand in every orifice of my kids' bodies. They buried Lily, then they buried Carver, and because he couldn't resist...they buried Zinabu.

I also got the sweetest hand-written notes from them, which completely made up for the sand. Zinabu wrote: Thank you for making me good food!
Lily wrote: Thank you for helping me make muffins. I love you.
Carver wrote: Thank you for loving us. I know it is hard sometimes but you do it anyway.

I said to Carver, "Oh honey, it's not hard to love you!"
Carver said, "I know it's not hard to love me. It must be hard to love Lily and Zinabu."

Humble, isn't he?

The Dog Update

People (and you know who you are) keep giving me digs on Facebook about getting a dog for Lily. They send me photos and ideas and dog breed suggestions. The latest helpful advice was sent by Lauren (who really should know better!)

Go HERE to see what she exposed me to. Photos of a young girl getting a dog for her birthday. You can see she's totally shocked and overwhelmed with joy and starts crying with elation.

It kind of makes what we gave Lily for her birthday a little less... um... sweet. No dog, but a dog toy. The ball thrower.

At this point in our negotiations with Lily, I have pretty much given up on being able to name the dog Mr. Darcy--though I WILL call it that when Lily is not around. She has picked the name Arucho. What??? But I am still working on her to skip the puppy phase and get a Lab that is a year or two old. I understand the desire for a puppy, but I just don't want to live through that. So my plan is to wait until there is a good selection of Labs at the Humane Society and when the time is right, just take Lily there. I know for a fact she will not be able to leave the place without a dog, and the thought of a puppy will go right out the window.

Mwwaaahhahahahaha!

Sorry. Bad parenting moment, there.

Update

The quickest way to write this post would be, "It's crazy around here." But where's the fun in that?

Here's the long version. You know when someone gets an organ transplant and they have to take loads of medicine and they're monitored closely in case their body "rejects" said organ? Well, I think my body is rejecting life right now. It's acting in odd ways. I pulled a clump of hair out of my head in the shower this morning, I have heartburn that my doctor told me "requires a prescription" (ominous, isn't it?), my appetite has not been seen since sometime last week, and I do things like forget to put on deodorant, so I am socially-repulsive by 4 pm.

There are 11 school days left in the school year, and then I somehow have to keep our house clean every waking moment. We've had some big issues with one of our kiddos lately, and I am starting to feel like I don't think I can parent anymore. Taking care of my kids has been a breeze compared to the roads we're going to embark on in the next few years. There's a big, bad, yucky world out there and I don't like it one bit. How do I navigate that? I mean, I used to worry about my kids not out-growing their new shoes too soon, and lately I've begun worrying about bullying, Internet porn, drugs, and shoplifting. Let's just say I'm not sleeping very well at night.

How do other parents do this?

David, bless his heart, gets the husband of the year award. I call him at random times throughout the day and leave him cryptic messages like, "Honey, I am really concerned about Lily being a perfectionist. What if she can't ever let herself make a mistake? What if she develops an eating disorder?" or some other such nonsense. He probably dreams of slipping me some Benadryl to mildly sedate me. And to think I actually want to add a 4th child to our family!

We had a lot of interest in the house the first 3 days it's been on the market. One couple seemed sure to put in an offer, but the husband felt that there wouldn't be enough storage here. Huh? What does he have, a yacht collection? Oops, there went another clump of hair. I best quit while I'm ahead.
____________________________________________________
Surgeon General's Warning: For a good laugh, go HERE.

Put A Little Chicken Dance In Your Weekend

To say I'm exhausted would be putting it mildly. Keeping the house spotless is hard. Uber hard. There have been some not-so-pretty moments when I chased after the kids with cleaning wipes. We survived both open houses where we could not be home from 2 to 5 on Sat. and Sun. Saturday we were hosting Lily's birthday party at the roller skating rink. Sunday I wandered around town aimlessly with the kids. We got some playground time in and hit the library. Carver feels especially offended that we have to leave our house when strangers want to come look at it. He takes it personally. It would be amazing if we could find a buyer in the next few weeks because I'm not sure how long I can live like this.

Here's a video of part of the birthday fun. 10 points if you can find the Ethiopian on skates.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LILY!

For Sale and Blue Poop


I'll get to the blue poop, 'cause I know that caught your eye. It's crunch time here on the home front! The For Sale sign is in, we are having open houses on Saturday AND Sunday (anyone want a displaced family from 2 to 5 this weekend?), and the marathon will begin, in a matter of speaking, on Friday. Whew! Finally. That's how I feel... finally! Now all we need is a buyer.


I have not found my brain yet. It is so far gone it's not even funny. Did you know that Baskin Robbins is having 31 cent scoops on Wednesday the 29th? They sure are. And did you also know that I thought today was Wednesday? Yep! I sure did. So we went to Baskin Robbins and drove the poor teenage boy behind the counter bonkers as it took us about 200 taste samples before my kids could decide. Well, the moment of horror occurred when he rang us up at the register and instead of the $1.50 I was expecting to pay it was $10. CRAP! Tomorrow is Wednesday.


Zinabu picked Pop Rock ice cream, which is a hideous neon green and purple. We have had experience with this particular flavor before. Lily tried it back in 2007. Two days after she ate it her poop was bright blue. She called me to the bathroom and I took one look at it and almost called 9-1-1. All I could figure was that we had radon in our basement or she had come in contact with a nuclear reactor. At some point I put two and two together and remembered the ice cream. I warned Zianbu that this could happen to him, and you'd have thought I told him Christmas was coming early. That kid has thrill issues.

Missing: One Brain

Last used sometime on Friday. If found, please return to Cathy.

I am surprised at and wary of how fast my kids are growing. I mean, yesterday they were babies with ear infections and tomorrow they'll be leaving for college. Ack! Before long, I will be losing my all-encompassing influence over their lives and they'll begin testing the waters of life, making bigger and bigger decisions, and probably making some mistakes. I can't help but wonder if I shouldn't have an arsenal of weapons to "help" them make better choices. For example, if they break curfew or get caught skipping class, I feel I need to have some consequences in place to ensure they won't be tempted to repeat the infraction. So far, here's what I've come up with:

I could start my own club to bring back the "jumpsuit" and have regular meetings at our home.


How about wearing an "I love David Hasselhoff" t-shirt every day for a week?


Even better, I dress up in full Southern Belle regalia to pick them up at school.


I could threaten them with a mural for the family van.


Stand across the street from where they're hanging out with friends and tell all their cute baby stories with a bull horn.


This is fetching...


I would only use this as a last resort, but I never say never.

adoption
adoption
adoption

Despite how insanely crazy our lives are right now, I've got a bee in my bonnet to adopt again. There are a chunk of adoptive moms that I know who are also facing this constant tug of the heart. The eternal "let's adopt just one more" mind game. The desperate longing to give a home to a child who needs one and to grow our family in an exciting way. Once you go through the adoption process--which is no picnic, I can tell you--but are rewarded for all your waiting and gnashing of teeth with the most amazing child, well... you find it hard to say "We're done." My heart is yearning for a 10 year old boy. I know David and I--and Carver and Lily and Zinabu--would make a great family for a boy of that age. I know there are thousands of boys that age waiting for a home, here in the U.S. and also Ethiopia. But I think we really are done. And that makes this so much harder.

Next week Zinabu will have been with us for 2 years. Hooray! He has grown and changed and thrived in ways I never could have imagined. Not even in my wildest dreams. And he's still that nutty, happy kid that walked off the airplane and into my heart.

I hate being done.

Earth Day

I guess for Earth Day I'll be cooking up lots of hamburgers. Lily was given the assignment to draw a picture of something that can be recycled. She wrote:

I can use a cow for cheeseburgers.