Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

Welp, we are putting an offer in on a house, hopefully today! We have been looking and looking. My husband has very high standards (that's why he picked me for his wife!!!) and it has been difficult to say the least. We had found two homes, both were off the market before we got a chance to see them. I happened upon a home on Monday and emailed it to him. For some reason it had never come up in our search parameters before, even though it met all of our criteria.  So that was weird. Anyway, he went and saw it that day, and I went and saw it the next day, and I think we decided to make an offer! It's a foreclosure so it's in rough shape, but the good news is we have savings, a giant tax return coming at some point (hopefully soon), plus a nice bit of equity in our current home.  It's within 4 blocks of a middle school, high school, AND elementary school which is awesome. How sweet will it be just to walk to school or once the kids are older let them walk themselves? An...

I'm spending some time today packing, and came across a baby book that Brian's mom got for Ben. It's all those things, like birth weight, what day he came home from the hospital, stuff about me and Brian, that kind of stuff. I just flipped through it (I haven't written in it at all yet...maybe I should!) just to see what was in there.  One of the first things was the date of birth, how long labor was, and parent's reactions. And I just started crying. It doesn't seem like "terrified, worried, in shock" should be something that you write to describe your feelings about the birth of your child. I think I have moved on for the most part, but every once in a while stuff like that just sneaks up on me and I am very sad for the way he had to come into this world.  And yes, I know he is fine now, he is doing so great.  But an occasion that was supposed to be full of joy was instead almost like a nightmarish out of body experience and I will never ever g...

I can't remember if I said this or not, but bio mom wants us to drive 2-3 hours to visit her, which we do not want to. My husband is supposed to kindly write her back to let her know. I am tired of being the bad guy. She says she is afraid of me. I am not sure why. I am small, quiet, and frankly rather boring and a bit like a church mouse. Sometimes. Sometimes I'm a bit more like an angry mama bear but hey, there's a time and a place right? So anyway, I ordered a book from Shutterfly for her and it turned out really nice.  It has pictures from the last year in it, since she hasn't seen them since May of last year.  I also had the three middles draw her pictures, and had C and Y write her letters. C started his letter with "Super star mommy ____ (her first name)", I'm not sure what the thinking was there.  He wrote that part (I helped him spell it) and then he told me what else to write and I wrote for him. At the end I asked he if wanted to say "I l...

I got my first rude comment on my blog today! Three years of blogging. It's pretty good that I made it this long I guess.  I blog for myself, not for anyone else.  So yeah, maybe it's boring..and guess what, I don't care! Feel free not to read. :o) Anyway.  Mr. Ben has started predictably fussy evenings, normally from 6 or 7 ish until 10 or 11 ish at night.  Just fuss, fuss fuss. I know it's normal but it is still somewhat frustrating! When Brian is here we switch off taking care of him so that is really nice. When he is not here, well, it's not much fun. The other night I did dinner and bed time alone with the 3 middles with Mr. Fussbudget crying (Brian was at D's track meet with him). I nursed Ben while reading the kids their story, it kept him quiet. I had Y hold the book and I said "DING!" when it was time to turn the page. Ha!  It worked though.  So thankful that the other kids are so independent, otherwise I probably would have lost my mind. ...