We have had a good, but busy weekend. Friday we got home late what with Braeden's eye doctor appt. Saturday we had a birthday party for Braeden's bio brother who was turning six. It was about 40 min north of us at one of those newer bounce house places. It had about 6 huge bounce activities and a party room where we had pizza and cake. It was a bit crazy, but fun. My friend is in the process of adopting him and their 4 year old sister.

At home, we also spent some time outside since it was finally nice out again.

Today we went to church, then to my friend's foster daughter's four year old birthday party at a pizza buffet in town. We then went home for naps and back to church for my child dedication class. Braeden is going to be dedicated next Sunday. I'm so excited about it. I wish family lived closer so they could come, but it will still be a very special day. Olivia will be dedicated following her adoption as well.

After the class we came home for dinner and then had some more outside play time. It's fun to see them relearning how to play with some of the toys. Braeden was still pretty young for a lot of them last year. They get something out, play with it for about 3 min, then go on to something else. They are too excited to be out again after such a long indoor season! :)

Well, Braeden's new glasses will be in in 5-7 business days!!!

At his appointment today he did a GREAT job! We went in and he was first tested by an assistant. She then dilated his eyes, which he handled just fine (when Olivia had it done not long ago she screamed bloody murder after the first eye and I didn't think we'd ever get the second one done!). After they left us for a while so the dilation could take over, the doctor came in to test him again with other testing. He put a picture up on the wall and asked Braeden what it was. Braeden was answering things like "the cow jumped over the moon." (He really did say that for the first one!) I told him he needed to stop fooling around and that they were giving him a coupon for a free ice cream cone if he did a good job. The doctor then put on the "glasses" that he changes to see what people's prescriptions are, and Braeden knew right away what the pictures were. OK, mom's an idiot. He was saying anything because he couldn't see the pictures! I felt so bad. He continued and did great though and the doctor then went over the results.

He says some fairly major vision problems. :( BUT, we caught it now and before school, reading, etc. We then went to select frames and didn't really have much of a choice. The person helping selected about 10 frames that are very kid friendly/proof and would look good with the type of lenses he needs. Only one fit. The rest were too wide, or came out too far. So, next Friday or the following Monday, we'll be back to pick up his new glasses. He needs to wear them all the time.

The frames are great, she showed me how they bend all the way back so they can take some rough handling. I found them online and here is the link to see what they look like:
http://www.bestbuyeyeglasses.com/avatar-elements/266246.html
I think they'll be great. I'll post a picture when we have them! :) Of course, ended up that they wouldn't take his medicaid, even with the referral, because it was a routine exam??? So, another $360 on my charge card!

At least we have a Six Flags charge. We'll be going to Great America free this summer!!! And, they have Wiggles World there as of this summer - Braeden will be in heaven! And he'll be able to see it!!! :)

Braeden's new birth certificate came today! How strange and exhilarating to see my own name on his birth certificate. Wow! The weird thing, because nothing right now can be perfect of course, is that such an important document and they put my old address, where we were definately not living when the adoption went through, and they spelled the name of our city wrong. They spelled it right at the top for birth city. Go figure!

Call at 3pm from brand new day care: Little One was just dropped off from his visit with mom. Caseworker says he is sick, dehydrated, won't drink, etc. He has a temp of 101.5. You need to come get him.

Message on my voice mail on the way to get Little One after telling my school I need a sub for tomorrow: (From cw) Yea, um, Little One is sick. Mom was very concerned at visit and told me his eyes rolled back in his head. She said he is dehydrated and she is VERY concerned. Said some other things too. Just thought I'd let you know. You can take it from here.

Once home, yes he does have a slight fever, but he is otherwise fine. Dehydrated my butt. He is laughing and playing and ate all of his dinner. Once meds for fever kicked in he has been in high gear on top of it. I left cw a long message about how he is NOT dehydrated, he must have just started not feeling well during visit, and how I'm sure his "eyes" were because he was trying not to fall asleep what with not feeling well and the fact that he is now missing his one and only nap for these visits. At his "old" day care, she made sure he took a 1-2 hour nap in the morning on Wednesdays because of visits. They don't have that luxury at this type of day care. He is up when the other kids are up. He was TIRED. That was the biggest problem. Not to mention, where were you when this supposed eye thing even happened??? These are supervised visits! Where were you!?

My problem: another day off work and another huge chunk of my paycheck not making it into the bank. I may as well just get nothing for my next check. This has GOT to end!!!

SO hard to leave those boys at day care this morning. Braeden just clung to me, so much newness about him he was very unsure. And Little One, broke my heart. We dropped him off before taking Braeden to his room. I hugged him and put him in the high chair so the worker could give him some cheerios. He was the first one in his room. He just stared at the worker and everything. After dropping Braeden off, Olivia and I headed back past Little One's room to the front door. He was just sitting in the chair. Staring. She was trying to put a Cheerio in his mouth and he held it shut. NOT like him. He actually doesn't even seem to have a stop mechanism in him when it comes to food, which I am going to be talking to his Dr about soon. It reminded me of him a couple months ago and I just prayed God help him to open up and enjoy the new toys and people.

When I picked them up we went to Braeden's room first. Through the door I could see him up on the step stool washing his hands and then going to the paper towel dispenser to dry them, just like he had always been there. His teacher said he did really well, and he had a "B" sticker on his cheek from taking a nap! Yay! We then got Little One who was strapped in the six kid stroller. They said he had a good day. I wanted to ask did he smile? Did he laugh? Did he imitate sounds? Did he practice walking? But I didn't. I don't know I wanted to hear the answers. I'll give him a few days to acclimate himself and see I'm still going to be there to pick him up every day. All the progress he's made, I just don't want this to push him into regression. He's come so far.

Had some very good news earlier in the day too. I called the eye doctor about Braeden and was able to get him an appointment for THIS Friday! Oh am I glad. Such a short time to wait!!!

I can see it - there - at the (hopefully) end of this tunnel. Another 24 hours I think.

This has been a nightmare. Literally. From two different doctors, not really caring about getting paperwork filled out, finding out (at 3:30 pm today) that Braeden's Dr., whom we switched to a year ago never received the files from his last Dr, but of course didn't bother telling me, even though he's been there for his 3 year check up, driving to his old Dr, who after 20 min of searching decided his file must have been moved out to the hospital to be put in storage and they weren't sure how many days it would take to request the storage key, get the storage key, get to the storage room, find the file, all to get his immunization record. Luckily he is a (former now) foster child because Healthworks keeps a record of all foster children's med records and has it, so I will get it tomorrow. Little One's Dr's office didn't bother getting his form filled out until this afternoon, oh and by the way, the Dr was gone by then, so it's all filled out but he hasn't had a chance to sign it yet. Sorry. He's supposed to sign first thing tomorrow and they are then supposed to fax it to the day care. I think we are finally ready to start them all tomorrow. I will be sooooo glad when their forms and all are in and they are there. Done. Let's hope by tomorrow night.

I still felt great the rest of the day on Friday and continue to. Luckily none of the others seem to be sick or getting sick. Braeden's diarrhea lasted until yesterday. We instituted the whole rice, banana, applesauce diet Sat and Sun. I finally felt like a normal eater yesterday.

The light is there, it's so close. Now, only to win the lottery. But I guess I'll need to start buying tickets to do that!

A lot can happen in 36 hours, did you know that? Good or bad, that is a lot of time for things to happen. Thursday morning to Friday afternoon was about the longest 36 hours of my life.

Thursday morning Braeden came to school with me to get my classroom together in the morning. I had to take him to our lower grade school in order to get his eyes retested since he failed the vision test in his left eye during preschool screening. We went to see my friend who is the nursing assistant and who needed to rescreen him. It was neat how they did the screening. I hadn't seen the first one, so was glad to see how it works. In his hands, Braeden held a card with four large symbols on it. 10 feet away was a light up board that my friend could push a button for and light up one of the symbols on his card. He was then to point to the same symbol on his card. First they did it using both eyes, he did all four just fine. Then they tried just the right eye. Same thing, did it perfectly. Then the left. Nope. He could not do it at all! So, needless to say she wrote out a referral for him to have his eyes professionally examined. Knowing he has medicaid, I knew I did not just want to go somewhere because they took Medicaid. I have not had the best experience with these kind of people, unfortunately. They mean well I believe, but often are hurried, and not as thorough as others. I didn't want his eyes left to chance. So I talked to people and found the name of the "best" in our area. I called them and the first question was, "What kind of insurance does he have?" I said Medicaid, but that if they didn't accept that I was willing to pay for it myself. She told me the name of another place that took Medicaid and that I should call them. I guess I thought if they were so good and were referring me to a place that took Medicaid instead of just having me pay, then maybe this other place was good too. I made an appt, then called our school nurse to ask her about them. She does not like them at all. She said they are not thorough and doesn't feel they do the best job. That's what I figured on Medicaid places. BUT, she said that if his doctor gave the other place a script for him to have his eyes checked there, they WOULD take Medicaid. Interesting. She asked who his doctor was, he has a wonderful one we also know from church, and said to call and see if he would write a script. So, I called and the nurse said she would talk to him about it and see what he said. Next morning, I received a call that the script had already been faxed to their office and I only needed to call back and schedule an appt. Yay, the "best" eye doctor is where my Braeden will go, and they will take his Medicaid.

Well, in amongst these issues, other things were happening as well. Right after Braeden failed his vision test and I was starting to process this, I was confronted with some other things going on that took me off guard. Basically something that I thought would be a team decision was now taken out of that context and I felt cornered and pushed to make the decision they were telling me to make. It's involved and I won't go into more details, but a bunch of emails followed and it was not a nice situation.

After school/work I went to pick up the kids. On the couple blocks there, I noticed I had a voice mail on my cell. I hadn't taken my phone into work today. It was from our day care provider and I was surprised she hadn't called me at work. She was obviously crying, but said nothing was wrong with the kids, just that she needed to talk to me. It had been left around 9:30 am. When I got there I asked what was wrong and explained I just got her message. Our day care provider has been in process of being licensed since July. In late August when we started there it was supposed to be almost done. It wasn't yet, but the licensing person knew she was starting to take some kids and just had us write letters stating that we were sending our kids there, what the cost was, and what the cost would be once she was licensed. No problem. Well she still isn't licensed. The licensing person was out for a few months with an illness or surgery or something and was basically just dragging her feet it seemed. So, finally today she was supposed to come and see the house and turn in the last part for her license to be complete. When she got there she seemed outraged that she was already watching kids and told her she can't do that. My friend reminded her that she knew and ok'd it, but she denied anything of the sort. The DCFS person told her that she had to stop watching kids and that if she was found in violation, and they would be checking, that she would be fined $10,000 a DAY for this violation. She was then told that someone had called in and complained that she was running a day care without a license and that her license would be put on hold until this investigation was complete. They have 30 days to investigate and then she still has to finish being licensed, if they'll even let her now. So, for me, this means as of that minute, I have no more day care. She said that the person who had watched the kids while she had the baby had said for me to call her and that she could watch them until I got them somewhere else. So, now I'm forced into getting doctor immunization records for all the kids, two different doctors, finding day care so late in the school year, etc. I called the place where my kids had been before, they could take Braeden and Olivia, but no room for Little One. Plus they didn't know if their bus schedule could accomodate picking up Olivia because they didn't currently pick up kids there. And, Braeden's fee would now be costing me $57 per week more than what I'm paying now. So, after many calls and running around, etc., here's where we're at. Braeden and Little One will be going to the same day care. That way I'll have one drop off point in the morning. The registration fee for them is $75 and Braeden's day care is $15 per week more than now. Olivia will go back to the other day care, but they can't bus her so I'm still trying to figure out how to get her there. I'm hoping their "old" day care person could drive her and just keep the rest of the money I already paid for this month for Braeden, $120, plus pay her around $100 more. They only have one car right now, so they're not sure. Otherwise I'm going to call her school first thing Monday and see if they know of a parent who picks their child up at the same time and would be willing to give her a ride, for payment. Olivia's registration fee is $115, but the agency is going to try to help with that. I am paying out of pocket for this person to watch the kids Friday, Monday, and maybe Tuesday until they can start at their new places, so that will be $100-150. All together this is costing me about $485-$535. That's if the agency pays Olivia's fee. This sucks! All for 6 more weeks of school! Too bad my other friend J doesn't live closer!!! ( :0) )

Well, if that couldn't have been enough of a day, and I still had Friday where I needed to run around with day care forms and foster payment day care forms and doctor forms, I felt kind of yucky at dinner Thursday. I couldn't eat and attributed it to all that was going on, stress I guess. But no, at midnight I was up and spent the rest of the night in the bathroom or laying in bed feeling like I was dying. Must have gotten what Braeden had, but about a million times worse. I had to call in sick. Another $170 I won't have. I stayed home while the person watching the kids still came to watch them. I went from feeling ok to horrible stomach pains, getting sick finally, etc. Finally around 1:30 I began to feel better. I hoped I was on the mend and not going to feel bad again soon. I had eaten only half a cracker all day. That night I was able to eat a little applesauce and still felt ok. I got a great night sleep and seem fine now. I ate some applesauce and a piece of toast this morning and still feel good. I even got a shower.

So, that's my 36 hours. Some of which of course is still going on. I wait anxiously to see if someone will be able to drive Olivia. I couldn't find any other day cars who bus who had openings for her. Otherwise I thought I could ask my principal if she could come in the building (she gets dropped off by the bus at my school) and stay with me the hour and 15 min until my lunch when I could take her. I think he wouldn't care, but who knows. I don't want to ask until it's my last resort, although Olivia would love it! :) I'm hoping I am able to get all the forms I need back on Monday so that they can start on Tuesday. I hope that Braeden is ok with the transition. Olivia will be fine since she remembers that day care and loved it there. Little One will be fine. It's Braeden I'm unsure about. We'll see. Hope you had a better week. :)

... goes to me!!!

Braeden often will call for me at night. All to just pull up the covers or stall going to bed in other ways. Recently I have been working on telling him that once mommy puts him to bed, that's it, no yelling, crying, etc. Especially since Little One is back in the crib in Braeden's room (not the best results, but more on that another time). So last night when he called, "Mommy... " I said loudly (he can hear me through the vents) " Braeden, it's bedtime honey." He started to say something else, but I said "Quiet now." He stopped and went to sleep. (I thought.)

This morning I went in the boys room, after getting myself ready for work, to get them up and going. As I was getting their clothes out, I thought, what is that smell??? I then noticed my Braeden. Huddled in a little ball in the middle of his bed. With throw up on his pillow above him and all over his white Pottery Barn Kids quilt below him. OH MY GOSH! No wonder he was calling for me. Poor Bubba. He's only ever thrown up once in his life, and that was at my aunt's at Christmas time because there was food everywhere at our family Christmas party, and he had just too much fun trying it all.

As I carefully got him up I realized it had also come out his other end. I called in for a sub and ran a warm bath. We got the jammies off and Braeden washed off. Of course by this time he is completely acting like himself. Not like he is sick, no way. As we waited at school for my sub, since it was rather short notice, I heard that other end again, loudly. :) But nothing since then and he is doing fine. We are in for a day of tv and laying on the couch. Maybe I can finish up painting the kitchen while he naps this afternoon. I just don't feel like it after a day of work and play with the kids, hmmm....

Of course today is also the day that Braeden and I are having one on one time to go to see Thomas and Friends Live. Go figure! But hopefully he'll continue feeling and acting fine, Not going to skip out after paying for those tickets. :) Olivia had time with me to see Princesses on Ice, so this was his turn. I'm sure we'll still make it. :)

Well I did find out a little info today, though not quite what I was going for. I called our licensing worker today. J and I have a good working relationship with her. She works out of an office of our agency that is about 40 min north of us, so we don't see her a whole lot. I got a hold of her right away and told her that I had heard something and wanted to know if she had any information. She all but gasped and asked what I had heard. I said that I heard our agency lost it's contract with DCFS. She said that wasn't what she thought I was going to ask, but couldn't believe that. She said that she didn't know anything about that, but if it was true she wouldn't be told. She said that if they told people everyone would jump ship. That makes sense. Then I asked what she thought I had heard. She said she thought I had heard she was leaving the agency. I said, "WHAT?" She is leaving. She, like so many before her now, can't "take it any more." She feels that the things going on within our agency are affecting her professionally and she is moving to another, smaller, specialized agency May 1. Unreal. What is going on??? She also said that she thinks a few others from her office and going to be following her. Wow.

Sunday is Family Time in our house. Olivia and Braeden LOVE this and look forward to it through the week. We didn't get to have family time last week with Easter and being out of town, so today was much anticipated. I got this idea, and modified it slightly, from a book I'm reading entitled Raising a G-Rated Family in an X-Rated World; Advice From a Family of Nine. It is a good book so far, and I really liked the idea of family time. For ours, we alternate singing songs about God, praying, reading from a children's devotional Bible, doing role plays on difficult topics they may encounter, and ending with a snack which one child has helped me to make earlier in the day. The snack making is one of their favorite parts, and they always know whose turn it is to help mom. Today was Olivia's and we made Smores cookies. Tonight's schedule (to give you an idea) - Opening prayer by Braeden, Went through "attribute" rocks (more later), Song picked by Olivia - This Little Light, Devotional story about a farm and growing food given to us by God, Song picked by Braeden - The B-I-B-L-E, Role plays - Olivia: someone at school asks "Is that your real mom? Why doesn't she have the same color skin as you?" - Braeden: (follow up from a couple weeks ago) someone offers you a cigarette, Closing prayer by Olivia, snack. We also discuss character traits and why they are important such as honesty or gratitude. The "rocks" I have were purchased at a store making pottery. They make "rocks" and write words such as Faith, Creativity, Love, Dreams, Compassion, etc. We went through each tonight for the first time, what they said, and what they mean. I think we will go more in depth on one each week for a while. I talked to them about how they are traits that I wish for them in their life, and why. Family Time is so special and I am so grateful that they love it so much too.

The last work day of spring break came and went. Olivia asked to stay home and "help" again so I let her. Our new appliances went in Thursday and look great! The kitchen is almost all the way painted. I'll post before and afters when it's done. I can't believe how much edging there is. Yuck! The person installing the dishwasher - where there wasn't already one - also installed my garbage disposal because he happened to see the box, and fixed the basement light that wasn't working, so he could see to run electric. So excited!!!

Instead of "working" Friday I decided Olivia and I would take the "day off". We went thrift store shopping! There are some great ones 30-70 min north of us. We went to one of the farther ones and lucked out on a GREAT day. We were there almost three hours!!! I got a bag of stuff for our day care provider who asked we look for items for the new little one, and some pants for her three year old. I found LOTS for Olivia where I usually don't. One of the best buys was the coolest Tommy two piece swimsuit with reversible top, for 75 CENTS! Love it! It looks so cute on her! Olivia helped look, and while she usually says how beautiful some of the most hideous dresses are, she found a great sweatshirt this time. It's from Disney Store. It's pink and has three princesses embroidered on it. It's a 4, she's getting into 6s, so I didn't think it would fit, but it looked big so I had her put it on over her shirt to see. It was perfect! We also got a bunch for Braeden and a few things for Little One. He doesn't need much since he's the same size/season as Braeden was. I did find a great Gymboree sweater from one season ago for him. It had a few stains, but I had a feeling they would come out, and they did! It looks brand new!

Friday evening Little One's developmental therapist came and said she couldn't believe how much he was imitating. He has really increased in this area lately. He repeats "woof, woof" and other things. He is smiling like crazy. He hands things to people now. So neat. Our caseworker came for his visit during therapy and he too said he couldn't get over the changes in him. He said Little One just seems so happy all the time now.

My friend J and I then got some very interesting information which we will be trying like crazy to confirm or deny this week, hopefully tomorrow. Through "sources" she heard that our agency lost their contract with our state foster system, DCFS. What???? She then talked to someone she knows at another private agency here. He didn't know anything about it, but said that if it is true, our agency will have to "farm out" all of their DCFS kids to other agencies. Here we only have our agency, the one where her friend works and I also have friends who were previously cws at ours, a Lutheran one we don't know about, and DCFS. I was with DCFS and DO NOT want to return. He told J that if this is true, we can and need to ASAP request where our kids get transferred to. Needless to say that if that happens we want to go to the agency where we know people. We had thought of going there recently when all this stuff started happening with our agency, but I couldn't leave and keep Little One. If this happens and he has to leave, then maybe this is a blessing. After hearing these things, I called a friend who used to work at our agency and still has some contact, she hadn't heard anything about that. BUT, the one other caseworker besides ours is leaving Friday. She says she's had enough.

I'm going to call our licensing worker tomorrow to see if she can tell me anything. We'll see.

Olivia went to her first cheerleading "class" last night! She had so much fun! It's through:
http://www.jkelitecheerleading.org/

They are located in 15 other cities around the Chicago area, and this is the first time in ours. There are three 11 week sessions through the year, and then there is a competition at the end of each session. The competitions are just within their organization, so it's not extremely competitive like some can get.

Like I said, she had so much fun. She is to practice at home as well and looks forward to it. She said, "But I can't yell like we do at cheerleading when I'm in the house." Crack me up! I told her that I'm sure she could use a loud voice to practice in the basement. So I guess we have now added cheerleading to swimming and gymnastics. We took a break from swimming on this last session, but will start again next week. She's getting really good there and I told her she could stop lessons if she wanted, as long as she gets to the point of being able to swim without assistance.

As soon as we have a cheerleading picture, I'll post that, but here's a fun one for now:



And here's one of Braeden too, he loves to play dress up!:

We had a great Easter weekend. The kids and I traveled to visit friends in my hometown. They love it there. They had so much fun. It was also good to visit with friends I haven't seen in a while and see my friend's daughter she recently adopted. Staying with a close friend was great too, except I never seem to get much sleep. :) They did great on the drive home and we had a good evening together.

Monday Olivia asked to stay home with me and help me around the house. We got a lot accomplished. Unfortunately it was very cold so we didn't get outdoor things done. I had looked at the forecast Sun night and Mon was supposed to be one of the best days, with the rest rainy and cold. It's of course gorgeous today! Oh well. It's been a long day. I had a bunch to get done this morning, then the guys came to take my old refrigerator they had bought. They ended up having to take off the fridge doors, my screen door, and the exterior door. Since they had those off, they just took out the oven as well. The person who is buying that is supposed to come today or tomorrow. I put a tarp over the top in case it does actually rain like they said.

This afternoon I am spending time removing the wallpaper border from the kitchen so that I can paint tomorrow while the appliances are out and before the new ones come on Thursday. Olivia decided she wants to stay home with me again Thurs to help with some other things. I'm hoping the weather is similar to today so we can take out the bike she got for Christmas and practice on it.

Little One's mom did show up for her rescheduled visit last week. I'm anxious to see if anything "fishy" comes up for tomorrow's visit.

Olivia's adoption date is still on the back burner as we continue to await her subsidy paperwork to be completed. It will most likely still be about 3 months past the time the paperwork gets finished. If I had known, I would have gone ahead with an adoption party for Braeden when his adoption was done in Oct. I can't believe how long this is taking. Wow.

We have spring fever. All of us. At school it's the kids, the teachers, everybody. Here at home it's the same. But yet, in the midst of all this nice weather we've been having, we had to break the winter coats back out of storage for the freezing weather today! There were even snowflakes at lunchtime! Crazy!

Tomorrow is our last day of school before break. We then have Good Friday and the whole next week off - I'm sooooo looking forward to it! The kids and I are heading to my good friend's, Braeden's godparents, on Friday for Easter weekend. They each have their own Easter baskets (great post holiday deal from Pottery Barn Kids two years ago!!!) which we set out for the Easter bunny to fill. We'll bring those with and I have some fun things to put inside. For Braeden and Olivia I got each a Furreal animal. They look so cute! They act "real" and have their own bottles. Another blog I read talks about the monkey and it sounds adorable. I got them a two pack with a tiger and panda I think, it was cheaper than individually and I will take them out and add in the batteries. I'm giving them my gifts tomorrow night. Then next week, I'm going to keep them at day care so that I can hopefully get a LIST of things accomplished (paint hall, take down border in kitchen, paint kitchen, clean out gutters, rake old leaves, clean out van, work on clothes storage bins, etc.) We have our two big trips this summer, and then summer together, so this is the time to get things done.

Yesterday we received an Easter package from Grandma and Grandpa with some of the cutest things, and then today got one from my aunt, uncle, and cousins. They were so excited. It's nice to know they're thought of like that!

Little One's mom has had some weird "issues" with visits lately. She has always been at every visit every week. Two weeks ago was our first beautiful day. He had a small runny nose, but nothing else. She visited for 15 min then said he "Shouldn't be out in this weather." and sent him back! Then last week she called in sick and cancelled the visit. Normally, I'd think, yes many are sick right now. But with what happened the week before, and having been through visits so many other times, I wondered. His CASA worker came to visit again and said bio mom had been sick. I just bit my tongue. She just doesn't understand unfortunately how a lot of bio parents are. So what happens today at what is supposed to be his next visit? She calls and cancels again because she's "sick." They did reschedule for tomorrow morning, so we'll see what happens. I'm wary though at what the real motivations are/could be.

Little One himself, however, is doing great! He is moving forward on his language skills, but he still doesn't have any sounds or "words" which hold meaning. He is working on mama though! :) He also now reaches up when he wants to be picked up or when you are leaning in to pick him up. Seems like nothing, something I think most people take for granted, but he had never done that before. He's also so very close to walking! He now moves easily from one item to another while standing.

Olivia is still sleep walking. I have been searching for some type of alarm to alert me in case I'm sleeping. That way I can steer her back to bed without incident, but am having a hard time. Most of what I found at first were kid door alarm kits they could make themselves. Someone then suggested to my mom to look at medical supply places. Most of what they have are on the door or bed and emit a loud beep or buzzer to alert you. That would be great, but would also wake the other kids! :) I found one I may have to invest in. It's pricey - around $150 if I remember correctly, but looks to be a wireless alarm that would alert just me. It didn't have an extensive description, so I need to find out more first. That's a lot of money, but if it's what we need to keep her safe, we'll do it. -- Speak of the devil, she just got up! I heard her through the boys' monitor come out of her room. I went up to the kitchen. She had taken a Dora book out of her bookshelf in her room and brought it in the kitchen. I didn't even ask. I just set it on the counter and sent her back to bed. Ahhh! :)

We did have a GREAT April Fool's on my dad though because of her sleep walking. He is horrible about trying to get my mom or I, so I thought we'd try it this time. I called and said Olivia needed to tell him about our night on Sat. She, after rehearsing trying to be serious, told Grandpa that she had fallen down the stairs and had to go to the hospital and get a cast. I was trying so hard not to laugh, he believed her and was speechless, then she yelled - APRIL FOOL'S! The kids were practically rolling on the floor. I had explained April Fools the night before and they thought it was hilarious. He then emailed Olivia and told her that Disney World burnt down and we wouldn't be able to go there. I relayed the message to her and her face was in the in between stage of believing and being upset and thinking "no way." She halfway smiled. Then I said that his letter said April Fools and she laughed and said he tried to get her because she got him. Too funny :)

Spring is here, and she has brought lots of good news!!!

The regional supervisor of my foster agency here has gotten me all but about $120 of what should have been paid to me for all of the sibling visits Olivia has had. I've never asked for payment for any of Braeden's or any others, but with Olivia's brother being so far away and even meeting halfway being 1 1/2 hours away, plus tolls, I knew the money would come in handy for gas, tolls, food, etc. Hopefully any visits we have from now on will be taken care of the right way the first time.

Tuesday I received "the call" from the principal of the school I interviewed at. I taught for four years at a 3rd-5th grade school, which I loved. I love having one class all day, getting to know them, etc. I was moved three years ago to the middle school, where I am now. They didn't need the three self-contained teachers that were at my former school, and I didn't have seniority. I've worked hard where I am, but my heart is not in it. I don't like having kids for 42 min. periods. I don't like middle school student attitudes. I don't like the negative atmosphere of the building I'm in. So when they posted an opening for a third sp. ed. teacher back at my old school, I applied, was interviewed, and was told Tues that they would like to "hire" me for the position!!! It will be official Thurs after the board meeting. I'm THRILLED!!!!

Braeden had preschool screening the other day. He doesn't need the "academic" aspect of it, he is too smart for his own good sometimes :), but he really could benefit from the structure half a day. He will most likely get in, strictly based on the fact he was a foster child, but if there happen to be 30 kids who qualify due to developmental delays, he would be edged out. It cracked me up because of course I know all the people screening him. One would come out and tell me he took off on the tester, another friend. Then another friend was the one to "debrief" me. Rather comical. When they asked him life skill type questions he said: Q: What would you do if you were thirsty? A: Drink milk Q: What would you do if you broke something? A: ??? He didn't know! He's never really broken anything, except the bread plate he threw at Cheesecake Factory! :) The kicker though was colors. Yellow is his favorite color. He LOVES yellow, it's all about yellow! He, of course, identified every color, except yellow!!! Too funny!

I've sold my fridge, micro range hood, and oven. They will be picked up Mon and Tues after Easter, as my new appliances, plus dishwasher, will be installed on Wed or Thurs!!! So excited! I can't wait to have a dishwasher!!!

I guess that's about it for now. We LOVE the warm weather and are so happy to be getting out for walks. Hopefully it's here to stay! :)