Sunday, March 29, 2009

Doctor Mateo?




Doctor M at your service. As much as I love the sound of that, he's not a very friendly doctor, we found out. Or perhaps the sour face is because of the news he must deliver after taking Daddy's blood pressure at his knee. Daddy, you might be dead.

Dave was a good sport throughout this experiment. He even took his shot under his tongue and his temp. on his arm. That's why Daddy's are cool!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Disturbing, Yet So Real

Some of you noted the video wasn't working. I can't get it running again. If you're interested in seeing the video, here is the link to watch it. It's a clip from ABC's "What Would You Do?" from the episode last night about racism. Check it out if you have time.


This is the most disturbing thing I've seen in a while. It seriously made me cry. I'm so happy at least a few people actually did something. I can not believe that more people didn't! And still, some would say there is no racism in America. Hello? Open your freakin' eyes!


Monday, March 23, 2009

Sorry My Blog's Been So Lame Lately

Seriously, I'm sorry. Even I'm depressed looking at it. I don't have much to be funny about this week. I've spent about $200 total on stuff for a baby that I don't even have proof exists. I'm starting to feel like she's my imaginary baby that my own psychosis made up. For a moment, I panicked at the thought that maybe I had dreamed the whole thing. After all, no one was here to witness the phone conversation with the social worker. But that thought passed when I realized that I do have proof I'm not crazy in the form of an email Mateo's old social worker sent me when she heard about the situation. So, I am sane again, though I don't much feel like it. Still no news about the baby. Not even a "Hello, I know you're waiting so patiently and have spent countless hours and money on a baby you haven't even seen, I appreciate that you are so willing to be flexible with this process so just hang tight cause we're still working on stuff on this end and we haven't forgot about you." That would be nice, but I suppose it's asking too much to even send a one line email. Anyway, enough cynicism about my life. I know people who are way worse off. I just needed to apologize and let my faithful readers know that I'll have more upbeat funny things to blog about soon. I promise. Maybe even tomorrow. :)

I Heart Faces - No Flash




Here's another entry for I Heart Faces. This assignment is no flash. Here are my best no flash pictures. One is from Christmas, the other from Disney. I'm sure you can figure out which is which.




Click to make larger

Friday, March 20, 2009

Don't Think I'm Ignoring You

I got several requests to see our private blog with pictures of the baby. I plan to give all of you access so thank you for leaving me a comment with your email. I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you because I haven't sent out the "invitations" yet. I am having trouble creating a private blog with blogspot so it's not really complete yet. Plus, I don't have any pictures yet. Just hang tight and I'll get there eventually. I just don't want anyone to think they aren't "cool" enough to see the other blog. You are all cool. Way cool.

P.S. if you have any advice about making a blog private, please let me know. It seems as if one must have a google account in order to see it. Does anyone know something I don't?

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Oh Baby Girl, How Spoiled You Will Be!

As I've said before, we were not expecting a girl this time around, especially not a newborn girl. In fact, Dave had said, several times, the last thing he would ever want was a girl... and a newborn. Ironic, isn't it? Of course now he's thrilled. It is Mateo's sister after all. Funny how our desires can change in an instant based on just a tiny bit of information. I knew that I would get a girl eventually, but was thinking when we had a bigger house and our boys were older. And that she would be the most spoiled child in all the world, cause I, like most women, am a sucker for girly things. Headbands, barrettes, ribbons, dresses (especially summer sun dresses), SHOES!, ruffle socks, dolls, etc. And I'm posting pictures of the baby and ALL this cute stuff on my new private blog called, Maya's Spot.

BUT, because I'm not comfortable posting pictures of any child who is not legally our own, I will not be posting pictures of the baby on this blog (until we adopt her, IF we adopt her). But I will be starting a new blog that is password protected that will include pictures of her. If you've been following my blog for a while and I know/recognize you, then leave me a comment with your email (if you feel comfortable) and I'll email an invitation to view that blog and a password. When/if we adopt Maya, then I'll blend the two blogs together and make it public again. Make sense?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I Heart Faces - Green



This week's theme for I Heart Faces is "green". Both of these are old pictures. If the theme were brown, maybe I'd do well with a photo from this time of year. But there's no green here. So these are summer pictures that I think fit the "green theme". Happy Saint Patrick's Day!





Check out other Green Theme blogs by visiting here.



The Heavily Sarcastic Post About Waiting for Your Child to Come Home

So here's my list about ways to help you while you wait for your child to come home.

1. Alert your church friends, especially the older ladies. They will be knitting up a storm and baking all sorts of goodies for you. My church has already activated the "Hospitality Squad". Picture SWAT team with aprons rapelling through windows with casseroles. But really, I make fun but when we got Mateo my church provided us meals for two weeks and it was a life-saver. It was a bit of a shock when the meals ended and we realized that normal people cook and watch their children all at the same time. Yikes.

2. Buy lots of useless stuff that makes you temporarily feel better about having no control over your life and gives you an outlet to release the frustration, anxiety, and built-up rage at having to wait on social workers to do paperwork just so you can actually start parenting your child. Or maybe that's just me.

3. Think and re-think of baby names until you finally decide on one, then question if that's really the best one or if maybe you should have picked the other one cause it doesn't rhyme with any kind of food, until it starts driving your husband/spouse/friends to want to shoot you in the foot.

4. Obsess over every possible thing that could go wrong with the baby/child while you're waiting for them to come home so that you are in such a state of panic that you're friends have to kidnap you and get you drunk just so you'll smile at something other than a pair of baby shoes you saw at the mall the other day.

5. Fold and sort clothing. Then fold it and sort it again.

6. Blog snarky posts about stupid things to do while waiting for your child to come home.



Well, I hope you got something out of reading this. I sure didn't.

Monday, March 16, 2009

For All My Fellow Twilight Fans...

I found these on cafepress.com while shopping for a T-shirt for Mateo and they have a hilarious selection. These are some of my favorites.


"Jasper Hale: screwing with your emotions since 1863"




"Edward Cullen can bite my pillows anytime!" (indeed)





"Yes I'm a mom. Yes I've read Twilight. Yes I heart Edward. (Don't tell my husband)"




P.S. I wouldn't actually wear any of these, but they are fun to look at.

Friday, March 13, 2009

What's in a Name?

Okay, so we picked a name. Sorry, didn't wait for any suggestions. Besides, my husband is so picky, he really only likes two names out of every name in the whole universe. So you didn't have much of a shot anyway.

We were going to wait to see her before naming her but since that will be a long time and calling her "baby" didn't make her seem real, I just had to call her something. There are two reasons we went with the the name we did. I was telling my family the two names we were considering and allowing them to vote, when the next day my mom called and asked if she could have her church choir pray for "baby _____". And my heart melted. The other reason is because the two best meanings of the name we chose is "Princess" (say it with me now...awww...) and "God's creative power." Creative? I'll say!

So, without further ado. Mateo's new little sister's name is....Maya.

Stay posted cuz I got lots of stories and updates to share. Mostly about shoes and other cute girly baby stuff. But also about Mateo. Cuz he's really the reason for this blog. And he'll always be my first baby. But he is looking forward to Maya coming home. I'll tell you all the cute stuff he's been saying about her in my next post. But for now, Mateo and I are going consignment shopping! That's really the best part, isn't it?

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Oh. My. Freakin. Gosh. Well THIS was Unexpected.

So here we've been waiting and preparing for a boy, most likely a toddler boy. That's where our head space has been. BUT, lo and behold! I get a phone call yesterday that Mateo's birth-mom had a little girl last week. She's going into DCF care when she's discharged. Would we be interested in taking her? Hell yeah! Now I'm in complete shock. We DID NOT expect this at all! A newborn? A girl? Of course I'm excited (and scared to death). But I've never cared for a newborn. I mean, I know they need to eat and sleep but how much, and when? I have no idea. I'm hoping when we pick her up the doctor's will tell us everything we need to know. We will be fostering, of course. But it looks good for going to adoption. We're trying not to think about that though, because it's such a high legal risk we don't want to set ourselves up for something that won't happen.

Dave and I talked briefly about the possibility of Mateo's b-mom having more kids after we first got Mateo. It happens frequently with foster care. We decided a long time ago that it didn't matter what the child was like, if Mateo had a sibling (or a half sibling in this case) the answer would be yes. Doesn't matter if the child is blue with three eyes. The answer would always be yes. But we were still shocked when it happened.

Of course, this is most people's dream come true. A newborn baby girl right from the hospital. And it is for us too. But it's hard to change my previous ideas and shift them to this new reality. It's just very surreal. I don't think I'll actually believe it till I see her.

The sucky part is that she can't leave the hospital for a while. At least two weeks, maybe a month. And we can't visit her. Which is KILLING me! I'm not sure what to do with myself, other than getting ready and collecting the essentials for baby care. But still, I feel like I'm hanging on the edge of something really great but that I have no control over. There's, like, nothing to grasp at. Nothing concrete, no picture, not much info, and she's just out there suffering in a hospital without us, but we can't go hold her! I'm all jittery and anxious and unsettled. I feel like I need to just get out and do something. I should probably store up on sleep or something, huh? Or maybe go on a zillion dates with my husband before she comes.

Please, pray or cross your fingers or send vibes or whatever, that her health stabilizes quickly and we can bring her home.

Now I gotta go set up a crib, buy clothes, and hound my friends for free stuff. I'll update later!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The Infamous Bear "Attack" Story

Back in the summer, I mentioned being attacked by a bear during my Camping Trip from Hell post. And I promised I would write the story one day. I saved the story for when I hit a blogging slump and needed some filler. So here goes. Trust me, this is good.

Dave and I had just gotten married, and we were backpacking through part of the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut with my friend since Junior High, Heather. We were staying overnight in a lean-to, which is a three sided wooden platform set up about 10 feet above ground with 5 or so giant wooden stairs leading to the opening. There are several of these placed on the trail for backpackers to use while hiking through. We didn't bring tents because of the cover of the lean-to, and just slept in our sleeping bags.

Well, we were a little cocky. Between me spending a summer in Glacier National Park in Montana and my husband's two week solo trip through Yosemite National Park, we thought CT was pretty tame. So we didn't take the precautions we really should have. Such as hanging our food away from our camp site high in the trees as not to attract any "uninvited guests". This is something we would normally do. Even camping in NH or somewhere close. But we were in CT, for crying out loud! which is arguably just a giant suburb of NYC. There aren't any bears here. Well, that's what we thought anyway.

So, we made pepperoni pizza's that evening for dinner. Before bed we took the bag of leftover food and hung it on a hook in the front of the lean-to so the mice didn't get into it. Which was the stupidest thing we've ever done because we were basically setting a bear trap. I should mention that in the lean-to with us was a man that I call "The Mountain Man" cause I can't remember his actual name. He was probably in his 60's and had left his family for a few months to hike the entire Appalachian Trail by himself. He was really rugged and exactly what you would picture a mountain man looking like, hence the nickname "Mountain Man". We shared our food with him and let him use our phone to call his wife. He was appreciative and essentially helped save our lives, so it was a good call helping him out. Well, he slept way on the right side of the lean-to and Dave, Heather, and I slept on the other side. Heather was pretty much positioned right in the middle of the lean-to. So late that night we went to bed, death trap unknowingly set above our heads.



Now I should mention that I don't normally sleep well outdoors. I get spooked easily and have a quite an imagination, which doesn't bode well for sleeping in dark, strange places. Sure enough, in the middle of the night, I woke up to a rustling noise outside the lean-to. I didn't want to make a big deal out of nothing and seem like a wimp, so I didn't say anything and just told myself it was probably a raccoon or something. Well, I knew it wasn't a raccoon as soon as I saw Dave pop his head up quickly. He never overreacts. He didn't say anything for a few minutes. Neither did I. I just waited for him to lay back down, again, not wanting to seem overly paranoid. It was a full moon, so everything outside was clearly visible.

That's when I felt it. Thud, thud, thud. Something....was coming up the stairs. Something big. In a period of about one second, Dave jumped straight up and started yelling and banging around. (Of course, it seemed much longer at the time, everything moves slower when you're in danger.) And that's when I heard it.

A growl.

I've never heard anything so menacing in all my life.

And I have never been so scared in my whole life. Now, you have to remember, all my bear training came from living in "Grizzly Country" in Montana. We learned that you don't mess around with bears. If you find yourself that close to one, you get into the fetal position, cover your face and neck, and you better pray to whatever it is you believe in and hope he (or she) is listening. I was inundated with horror stories of bear attacks. So my immediate reaction to the growl was to curl up in my sleeping bag and pretend I was dead. And in my mind, so should everyone else.

But Dave, knowing it was a black bear (cause it is Connecticut after all) and that they're pretty easy to scare off, started yelling at it. I was just as afraid for his life as I was for mine, and I thought he was being entirely idiotic, so I stuck my hand out of the sleeping bag and tried to pull him in so he can hide too. So all of this had taken only a few seconds and quickly jolted Mountain Man awake. So he, also seeing the bear, jumped up and started screaming at the bear and lunging at it from inside the lean-to. So, take a moment to picture this. We have the two guys jumping around making noise to scare the bear away, me hiding in the sleeping bag while yelling at Dave to lay down and play dead, and then there's Heather.

Heather is a deep sleeper. A very deep sleeper. But after just a minute of screaming all around her, she finally woke up in a frenzy, not having any idea what's going on. All she knows at this point is that people around her are screaming for their lives. And so her immediate thought is that we're being attacked by some serial killer. Now, since she's in the middle of the lean-to, and that's right where the food was hanging, she was in the best spot for a good view of the bear, which, by this time is all the way in the lean-to with us, only a few feet away. But not knowing what was going on, she sat straight up (practically head-butting the bear) and started screaming on the top of her lungs, louder and more intense than I've ever heard someone scream. Seriously, she could have a career in horror movies. And she screamed over and over and over.

And since I still had my head under the sleeping bag (self-preservation people!), I can only guess at what was going on. And with Heather screaming the way she was, I thought the bear got her. So I started screaming, thinking it would get me next, since I was the next closest. My head was flowing with all sorts of gruesome possibilities once the bear dragged me, sleeping bag and all, into the woods. And, always trying to be prepared, I quickly made my escape plan once it got me away.

But Heather is actually the one who saved the day. It wasn't until she started screaming that the bear left. He must have decided he didn't want to mess with that craziness, not even for pepperoni pizza. Sometimes you just don't want to get on a girl's bad side. So he slowly walked back down the steps, and the Mountain Man went running down the trail after him, knife in hand. I think I was trembling and maybe even hyperventilating at this point. I wouldn't come out until Dave told me several times the bear was gone.

Of course, I didn't sleep the rest of the night, even though everyone else did. My biggest fear was that the bear would come back with the rest of his family, or maybe some friends, like some kind of bear posse, and band together to kill us all to get the pepperoni pizza. It didn't come back. And I swore I would never sleep outdoors again. I couldn't get away with that, being married to an avid camper/hiker and all, but we're much more cautious now, even in Connecticut.

Now what's interesting about this story, was that despite Heather being the closest to the bear, in full moon lighting, with her eyes wide open, she doesn't remember ever seeing the bear. Give that a thought. My theory? Blinded by fear.

Needless to say, we all learned a lesson. Connecticut isn't as tame as we thought.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Big Brother T-shirt Contest!

We want to make a unique "big brother" T-shirt on Cafe Press and we're looking for funny and unique ideas from you! The funnier, the better. Remember, Mateo will be a big brother to a boy. So leave a comment with a funny T-shirt saying and then I'll either pick one if there is a stand-out or do a poll on the blog for people to vote.

Here are a couple examples I saw online:

"I DIG being a big brother" (with a picture of a digger truck)

"I'm the big brother, so you have to do what I say"

"My mom had a baby and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."


That sort of thing. But don't hold back, since I have a pretty warped sense of humor.

Oh, and did I mention the best part? The person with the best design will win a gift certificate to cafepress.com so you can get your own funny T-shirt. So don't post anonymously if you want to claim the gift card.

Happy Creativity!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

My Name is What? ....My Name is What?

So Mateo's expressive language is booming, but receptively he's falling behind. He can imitate almost any word or short phrase, but he doesn't answer questions very well, even easy ones that he should know. We've been trying to teach him to answer when someone asks his name. So far, we've had a slew of ridiculous responses. Some garbled sounds, sometimes he just says "no", and sometimes he makes up words. But here are the usual answers he gives us.

"Mateo, what's your name?" (as if that isn't a dead giveaway)

"Bobby." (Don't ask)

Try again.

"Mateo, what's your name?"

"Applejuice."

Later.

"Mateo, how old are you?"

"Nnnnnnnooooooo.....!!!!"

Try again.

"Mateo, how old are you?"

"Applejuice."



Sigh. Any suggestions? We're meeting next week with the special ed coordinator for his transition to preschool and we've already made a....how shall I say...."interesting" impression on this woman once. See this post for the details. And then this one for the follow up story. Although Mateo is not going to that preschool (for reasons in the posts linked above), we are trying to get speech services from them. So I suppose it is in our favor that he doesn't know his name. All the more reason to give him free speech therapy, right?

Oh, but did I mention, he can say, "Oh crap!" clear as a bell. Isn't that wonderful? Well, I suppose it could be worse.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Totally Psyching Myself Out

When we started the process for our second adoption, I was really relaxed and not at all eager to get placed. And really, I have no reason to rush. It's not like I'm dying to be a mom like I was before Mateo. And there's plenty to do to occupy our time. Actually, there's plenty to do even just to be ready for another child. So, naturally, I figured I'd just forget that we were waiting altogether and just go on with life as usual.

Of course, my mind never does what I expect it to (it's like it has a mind of it's own or something) and I find myself thinking about our next child everyday. And I'm totally psyching myself out! Every time the phone rings, my mind automatically thinks it could be a call about a kid. Actually, it's getting annoying. Something about just knowing you're on a list, somewhere out there someone has your name and file and home-study ready to place you with a child at any moment, just keeps you constantly on edge. And it isn't like international adoption where you have lots of time to prepare before you pick the child up. In our case, we could potentially have a child in our house tomorrow!

So, trying not to jinx us, I try not to think about it. Then I find myself thinking about not thinking about it, so I'm trying not to do that too. Does your head hurt yet, cause mine does?

Anyway, we've also been slowly getting prepared in whatever way we can, trying not to rush since we most likely won't be chosen for some time (but you never know). But I'm a "signs" kind of person. Don't know why. I believe in God and that He has everything in control and for the right reasons, but I can't stop myself from constantly looking for signs. Most of the time, they're in my head. But sometimes, just sometimes, they're real.

Really though, we haven't been rushing to be prepared. But it's happened, in a natural way, this weekend. We happened to be meeting my mom at Ikea (which is an hour away and not so easy to get to on a regular basis), so I bought some supplies to organize Mateo's closet so there's more room for another child's things. I was going to just hold onto them until I had some time later to fix it up. But we were snowed in yesterday with nothing to do so...well...you know the rest. We also found a crib mattress on sale, so we bought that too. And earlier in the weekend, Dave and I happened to hang out at Babies R Us while waiting for a dinner reservation (not at Babies R Us, the restaurant next door), and so we bought some new bath toys and figured, while we're here, let's get some stuff we need for another child too. See what I mean? It just kind of snuck up on us. So now that we're pretty prepared, I'm wondering if we'll get the call soon. When we waited for Mateo, it seemed that God's timing worked out perfectly to how prepared we were. Well, could it be a sign that we happened to be in the right places this weekend to finish getting ourselves prepared because we are getting a call this week? Probably not. But maybe. Or it could be coincidence. But it's a big coincidence. Or maybe it isn't. I don't know. My head is spinning again.

Well, since I've confused and annoyed enough of us with this post, I'll just end it here.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

I Heart Faces



Sorry, I have another photo post. I didn't mean to do two in a row, the deadlines just worked out that way. I'm trying to improve my photography and partly using this blog to do so. Tomorrow I'll be posting a regular post, not involving photography in any way. Just bear with me.

I'm giving it a go for a contest at I Heart Faces, a photo contest blog I found. This week's theme is "MESSY". I figured this is as messy as it gets. So, here goes. I'll let you know if I win, but don't hold your breath, there are lots of professional photographers that use the site. Take a look if you have time.


MESSY
Mateo finger painting. This was taken in September so he was just over 2 years old.




This is an old picture. I think he was only 15 months old. As you can see he LOVED the shaving cream. Won't touch it now though. He's a bit of a neat freak (not my influence of course).

Monday, March 2, 2009

Black & White

The photo assignment for this month on mamarazzi is "Black & White". We are really only supposed to pick one or two to display, but it was just too hard to choose. So I'm posting three. The last one is brand new, I took the photo recently for this assignment. And the other two are older pics that I love. Hope you enjoy.


This was taken in July on a hot day eating ice cream. I love the devilish look in his eye. It was taken in late afternoon and I don't mess around with manual settings (although my husband sometimes does) so it's always on automatic.

I just like the perspective of this photograph. It's my husband holding Mateo after just getting home from work. They have a very special bond that I love to capture when I can. Again, automatic setting and taken indoors.

I took this photo last night. I think it captures his personality perfectly. And I especially like the off-set cropping. It's not your typical portrait, but it's totally my style.

All photos were shot with Canon Digital EOS rebel.


***** You can click on the photo to see it larger ******