Neglected

I can't believe that it's been so long since I've updated my blog. I never go this long, but since R joined us I just haven't had much time. I spend all my free time at work doing things for him like calling his worker or calling doctors. Yes, we still haven't gotten his pediatrician transferred. The new doc faxed the records request to his old doc this past Monday. I called the new doc Friday to check on the status and hopefully get him in for his shots, but they haven't heard anything from the old doc. I tried several times Friday to get someone with the old doc on the phone to no avail. So Monday morning I will try again, and if I don't have something done by noon I'm calling his worker again. She can deal with this. She's about 15 minutes from the old doc's office so she can go by there without a problem. If the old doc wasn't an hour away from us I would show up there myself. It's ridiculous. Just fax the damn records. It's not like it's brain surgery!

We're getting used to our new schedule. Rob and I are getting up bright and early each day to make sure that R is fed, changed, and ready for daycare by 7:15 each morning. Since we're sharing a car we drop R off first and then I drop Rob off, and then I make my way back across town to my office all by about 7:50 or so. It's funny that having a baby in the house is making us get to work early now. We used to get lucky to both get to work on time! Once I get off I pick up R and then go pick up Rob at 6:30. Then we have to try to cook dinner, do laundry, clean and make bottles, and get to bed as early as possible because the morning comes very quickly.

Last weekend we visited Rob's grandparents, uncle, and aunt, and they all are in love with R. It was so cute to see Papaw just light up talking about teaching R to fix things and make things with his hands. I hope he gets to pass all his knowledge on to R over the years.

Papaw and R

Aunt Marilyn with R

I'm supposed to be working on my church stuff right now, but I just had to update my blog while I had a free moment. Rob's on the couch with R so I get to work in peace. :)
I promise to try to keep things updated better because I know there are a lot of people that want to know how things are going with us. Love ya'll!

First Visit

Well, I was able to get a couple of hours off to go on the visit, and I'm glad that I did. We got lost trying to find the office since L gave Rob the worst freaking directions. The meeting place was in a town about 30 minutes away, but since both of us went to college there we know our way around. Instead of telling him the most direct route, she supposedly gave him an easier way to get there and didn't even give him the street address. Hell if we had the address we could have just put it in the GPS and let it guide us if we needed it. She gave him all kinds of "landmarks" to look for that were no where near the office. And the biggest and most well known landmark that's right across the street she didn't even mention. We ended up being about 20 minutes late for the visit. But I could care less because L had enough time to leave the office to go get the mom, but couldn't get transportation for R to get there.

When we walked in his mom came out of no where and grabbed him from me, and started slathering him with kisses while his little head bobbled back and forth like a bobble head doll. L reminded her to support his head. Rob ended up supervising the visit for about 20 minutes while L and I went to her office to discuss my problems. She apologised for not helping us more, and started calling the doctors to get things taken care of so R can get his records transferred to a doctor here. Hopefully that problem will be over soon. I'm tired of playing phone tag with doctors and Medicaide.

I didn't get a good look at R's mom when we got there, but I got plenty of time to check her out since we were in the room with her the whole time. The biggest impression I got from her is that she is young and completely inexperienced at taking care of a baby. She seems a little "slow" if you get my drift. She was dressed like thug too which makes me wonder even more about her and what she's in to right now. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her because you can see that she cares for R, and didn't want to let him go when the visit ended. The last thing I want is for him to be moved into the care of someone that's not ready and has no support. I want him to have the best life possible. But at the same time we're getting more and more attached to him. Our whole family is getting attached to him. It hasn't even been 2 weeks, and I don't want to think about him not being here.

When we were getting ready to leave, I let her put him in his car seat and showed her how to buckle him in. She told us thank you. I told her I was praying for her. It's all I can do. I'm praying for everyone that's involved.

Here's some more pictures of our little man that I took last week.

Visit

R has a visit today with his birthmom at noon. I'm still trying to decide if I will go because I'm almost out of PTO at work. I really want to go to see his mom and to talk to the case worker face to face. The case worker has pissed me off so much in this last week. We will call her L. L is fairly new, she's only been doing this for a year. So I was trying to be understanding with her, but that has changed. Now I know she's just plan lazy. The only thing she's done so far is get R's daycare taken care of after I told her where I wanted him to go. She has not helped us at all in figuring out how to get him to a doctor. She told us to just call around and find him a doctor. But since we're his new foster parents his old doctor won't give us anything. They want his case worker to handle it, but she keeps telling us to do it. I can't get in touch with her supervisor at all. She doesn't return messages. The supervisor just tells L to call us, and then we get the same song and dance from L again. I've been on the phone everyday since last week trying to figure out how to get this baby to a doctor. At this point it's nothing serious he just has congestion and a rattle in his chest ,but I would like to have the doctor check out. Also it's time for his 2 month vaccinations. So I'm leaning towards going and working late to make up my missed time so I can talk to his case worker face to face.

Oh Baby, baby, baby

Sorry it's taken me so long to update everyone, but this has been a huge adjustment for all of us. We've never had a baby in the house so we're still new to a lot of things. All the days and nights I spent caring for my goddaughter were only a small glimpse into what it's like being a parent. Plus we're dealing with a baby that's been moved from the only home he's known to a new home in 1 day. But I think we're doing good so far. For the most part R is a good baby, but I was not prepared for how needy he is. It's so hard to get him to let you put him down without lots and lots of crying. He can't stand the sling/carrier at all. I've tried a couple of times with no success. I will probably try so more in the future because that would really help us by freeing our hands, but still having him close to us since he needs that. We made the rounds to see everyone from my co-workers to my parents, Rob's parents, and our church family. Everyone just loves him.

The first night he was here bedtime was horrible. He cried and screamed and cried some more. It took over an hour to get him to lay in the crib for a few minutes without crying. He slept for about 3 hours that night. I stayed home with him on Thursday and Friday, and we made it through without too many rough spots. He slept much better those nights. Friday I went to check out the daycare he will be going to next week. The place looks great and all the kids seem very happy. It's about a mile from our house and my office so that's a huge plus. R and I did some shopping after we dropped Rob off at work. We went and wandered around Target and Best Buy for a couple of hours. R slept the whole time!Saturday, we went to the company picnic for a while. It was OK. We got there too late to play bingo, and that's my main reason to go. They give awesome prizes like huge gift cards and nice electronics. The first time I went to the picnic I won a DVD/VCR player so I've been hooked ever since. But this year I was too tired to get up early enough to make it there. Since it's difficult to get him to sit by himself awake we have to take turns getting ready. I got dressed first, then I dressed R, and then Rob was able to get dressed. Then there's making sure I have everything packed. I feel like a pack mule now a days. We did some shopping after the picnic and went out to the cemetery to visit our Princess. I got emotional because there is still a part of me that feels like I'm betraying her. I'm doing so much for this child that may not stay with us, and I didn't get a chance to do any of this for her. I know I'm not replacing her or betraying her. But it did bother me that I didn't wake up and remember that today was her monthly visit day. It did make me smile that as we were leaving the house for the picnic, a big monarch butterfly fly up to us and circled around the car seat. It was like she was coming to check out the new addition to the family.

Well, I've got to be at church early in the morning so I need to get to bed. So here's a picture of our new addition.

He's Here

I'm exhausted right now, and I still need to make bottles. But I wanted to let everyone know that we have our 1st placement in our home now. I haven't come up with a nickname yet so I will call him R for now. He's 7 weeks old and a cutie. The workers brought him over about 10:30 this morning with tons and tons of stuff. We got settled for a couple of hours and then started making the rounds. He's asleep right now so I will take advantage of that now and try to get some sleep. I promise to tell more soon.

Thank You!

I almost forgot to mention that a couple of days after I came home from vacation I had a big box on my doorstep. I couldn't for the life of me figure out who sent me something, then I looked at the return label. It was my wonderful prize that I won from Kris at Waiting for Keiki (great blog check it out!). I opened the package to find the most sophisticated, classy baby bag. I love it. I hope to put it to good use very soon. Thanks again!

Waiting

We got a call last night from our case worker, A, about a baby boy in a neighboring parish. He's 7 weeks old right now. The home that he was placed in when he left the hospital is not a foster to adopt home so they are wanting to get him moved to a adoptive placement. A said that she doesn't know anymore on the situation or about the baby, but she would let the baby's worker know that we are interested. The worker was supposed to call today, but so far we haven't heard anything. I was so excited last night and most of today, but now my hopes are starting to wane. It's not like I have a good track record with babies anyway. I'll let you all know what happens either way.

Home Again

We had a great vacation this year, and actually missed all of the crap Gustav decided to dish out to our area. We left Saturday morning after staying up until 3:30 trying to get all the last minute things done. We didn't want to cancel our bi-weekly gaming session, but we had planned to cut it short and end at 10. Yeah right. No one left until 1 something. At one point I was ironing clothes and playing at the same time. I'm all about the multi-tasking. The worst thing was that I forgot to finish my church stuff so I had to work on that after everyone left! But it all worked out and God blessed us with plenty of energy for the drive.

Saturday, we met my brother at his apartment, and rode with him to go out to the cemetery to visit my sister-in-law, Sherina. That day would have been her 35th birthday. It's still hard to believe that she's been gone for 3 years now. She will always be loved and missed. We left there and went to visit her mom since she wanted to see me. We haven't seen her since Sherina's funeral, but we've kept in touch. We had a nice visit with her before heading back to my brother's apartment. Then it was time to head out to Little Elm since we were going to stay with my brother's girlfriend, Janet, for a couple of days. This was cool with us since I'm trying to get to know her a lot more since she's making me an aunt in a few months. I can't wait!!! My bro took us all out to Carrabba's for dinner, and it was so yummy. I haven't had good Italian in ages. We were pretty lazy Sunday, and slept late before getting up to a nice brunch prepared by Janet. I finally got to eat at Cold Stone Creamery that day too. I'm glad I don't have one around here because that stuff would be a huge addiction for me. Fun times! Monday was another laid back day with some shopping in Frisco, and an awesome dinner at Uncle Julio's afterward. That place is amazing. Yummy fire roasted salsa with a nice amount of cilantro, tender marinated fajita beef taco, creamy, cheesy chicken enchiladas, and great chili rellenos. Everything was top notch from the service all the way through to dessert. I will definitely return when we go back to Dallas later this year.

Tuesday we left Janet's and headed out to the Natural Science museums. We spent several hours just exploring all sorts of cool stuff from Egyptian history to dinosaurs to hands-on exhibits. Yes, we are big ole' nerds, and I can't wait to go places like this when we have some kiddos in the house.
Wednesday was our actual anniversary, we struggled through the crappy parking and ultra busy streets of downtown Dallas to get to the Crow Collection of Asian Art. All of the bitching and screaming about trying to find a parking spot and the over priced parking was worth it to see that amazing collection of art. They had art from the 15th Dynasty all the way to the present day. That night we got all dressed up and headed out to dinner at a fabulous Indian restaurant, Taj Mahal. The food was divine. We had a wonderful anniversary.
Unfortunately it was time for us to head home on Thursday. We had a list of places we wanted to go by to shop at on our way home. We went by a cool comic shop and then an anime shop too. We went to Penzey's, and were like kids in a candy shop. That place is a cook's paradise. We finally got to smell and sample all kinds of spices that I had been looking at in their catalog for a while. I can't wait to use the tandoori and vindaloo spices that we got. Hopefully we can start making our own Indian foods to hold us over between visits to Dallas. We stopped off at a small Chinese food restaurant that was in the same shopping center as Penzey's for lunch, and I'm so glad that we did. That place was inexpensive and gave us a delicous meal.

We took our time getting home since we didn't know if we had lights or not. The lights had been out in our neighborhood for a couple of days at that point. Thankfully when we got home they had been on for a couple of hours. But we still lost a bunch of food which sucks. We didn't have a bunch of damage but, I'll call our insurance agent next week to have someone come out and look. There's no reason not to since our insurance will probably go up next year just like it did after Katrina. But all in all we faired pretty good, and all of our family and friends are good which is a blessing.

I did learn something new. My heithen ass cat can not be left alone in the house. That orange demon broke a bunch of my stuff, and I am still pissed off about it. Thank God he didn't get to the majority of my angel collection because I probably would have given him away at that point. I have a lot of angels that mean a lot to me because they represent my pregnancy, my daughter, and my sister-in-law. I kept them on the highest shelves I have in the hopes that he won't get up to them. He's learned how to jump on the kitchen counters too. I spent my first hour or so home cleaning up his messes. At least he kept his crap in his litter box. I have now disinfected my counter tops and everything on them several times and will keep doing that until I've broken him of that habit.

Ok, I think this post is long enough so I will shut up for now. Here's a link to all the pic I took on our trip.

http://picasaweb.google.com/AshleyD2005/3rdAnniversaryTrip#

Damn, I need to get ready for work tomorrow. Bye :(

3 Years!!!

I love you, Babycakes!!!