This has been a better week around the house in terms of Camryn's patience. Her evenings have been much better than they have for the last several. She actually played and didn't fight sleep by screaming. Work has also been much better this week. I don't like to wish it would slow down because that's never good, but we needed a breather for a few days. It's been nice to have some days where I didn't feel my heart race every second of the day while my brain darted around to the hundred things that needed to be done 2 days earlier. It has been that way continuously since I've been back. This has been a much needed break which has helped my nerves tremendously!
Camryn is still not crawling, but she is rocking back and forth then she blows out. Now though she can get herself back up to a sitting position. She is so close, she just won't do it. I've been very firm on not saying I wish she would.... I know she will grow up soon enough so I'm not wishing any of it away. Now, that doesn't mean some of our days seem don't seem long, but as a whole I know it will go quickly. BUT there is a small part of me that is ready for her to do something. I'm ready for her to crawl, I saw a little girl today who looked to be about 1 and she was walking. I am ready for that. I know that means I'll be busier and will loose the freedom of sitting her down knowing she will still be there when I get back. I think I'm just ready to start discovering more of her personality.
I have my life insurance license and I have to sit through 16 hours of Continuing Ed hours every 2 years. Today I went to my first class. It was a long day. I love the instructor (had him before) - he is 84 years old and doesn't look or act it. He even told us what the Dow was doing after he checked it on his iPhone. He keeps the class entertaining, at least as entertaining as The Nuts and Bolts of Disability Income can be. But, and there is always a but...just like there is always the "one" in any class you take. The one who can't be quiet. They must comment on everything the instructor says and they nod their head constantly. Today's "one" was the worst I've ever had to listen to. She drove me crazy. Some of the people there were going to be with this lady for two days. Luckily I was just there for today. The lady beside me asked if I was coming back tomorrow. I told her no, then asked if she was coming back. She said she wasn't and it was a good thing. If she had to sit with the "one" for another day she would drive her car through a wall. I know God made us all different for a reason, but I do not understand how people can't sit still and not talk. I could sit for hours without saying a word. Jay thinks that is one of my weirder traits, but it serves me well in days like today.
Cade has had a regular week. I can't think of anything funny he's said or done....except for tonight before he started on his homework. Today was a short day and he had a sub. The sub asked the other 4th grade teacher if they had homework. She told they sub she was sure Mrs. D would've given them homework. Cade told Jay "Mrs D. would not have allowed us to have homework on a short day". Actually, I think he was right. He's never had homework when they get out at 1. Thank you sub for making our evening all about division.
Jay has had a wild time with our cattle this week. I had looked forward to this week for several weeks....because we had nothing happening on any night. Weird, I know. But the cattle decided to have other ideas. The bull got out this weekend and roamed all over the neighborhood before we could get home from Cade's game Saturday. I mean he covered some territory at least from the different reports we heard about...and got in another neighbors barn and tore up a bale of hay. Jay was not pleased when he had to give this lady a bale of good hay to feed her Shetland Pony. Sunday Jay had to move them around to keep the bull in. On Monday the other ones got out and headed to a different neighbors place. So Jay had to do some work Monday night on another fence. Then during the night the calf rolled under one of the fences which meant it was separated from its mother all night. So the mother bawled all night. I don't think we will win any neighbors of the year award after this week. Then tonight Jay had to help his parents pull a calf. I'm not loving the Herefords this week that's for sure.
I am so glad tomorrow is Friday! Cade has a ball game in Liberal Saturday morning. My Dad and Charity are supposed to be there. I'm looking forward to it.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Boy's clothes are so boring!!!!
I've known for years that boys clothes are boring, but the older Cade gets the more obvious it is. There aren't many places to shop for boys. Your options are weird skater things with skulls on them or clothes that are way too sissy looking. I feel like Cade has had the same shirts every year. I've shopped a lot at Children's Place because money wise/style wise they have the best deals....but how many striped long sleeved polos can a boy own? How many thermal tees with a football player can one own? Then when you take that times 10 years....that's a lot of the very same things. No wonder men don't understand why it takes us so long to get ready in the mornings. They don't have near the choices every day that we do.
The day I saw Lawson dressed like Cade I knew he had crossed over to the land of little boy sameness. Good grief - they are 8 years apart, Charity and I did not shop at the same time for these shirts and still the boys are identical. But when Children's Place has less than a quarter of the store devoted to boys this is what you end up with....
Lawon did not was his picture taken. Even at only 2 he was probably embarassed to be dressed like someone else :)
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, February 6, 2012
Frustration....
Seemed to be the theme to our weekend. Camryn was a mess. Jay and I finally decided she was either extremely frustrated with her current situation (lack of mobility) or very bored with her parents since Cade was gone all weekend. Actually, I think it was a little of both. She is so close to crawling, but she just isn’t quite there. When she blows out and ends up on her belly she gets frustrated. And cries….
Then she started pulling up. She can only get on her knees and then she gets frustrated. And cries…
She also discovered books this weekend. She loves to look at the pages, but she can’t turn them herself. Yup, she gets frustrated. And cries….
It was a very long weekend for us. Cade can usually keep her pretty happy, but he was gone so she was stuck with Jay and I. Jay spent a lot of time on the floor turning book pages for her. She would scream when he wasn’t quick enough to suit her. At 7:30 this morning I couldn’t take it any longer. I loaded her up and we drove around until I could take her to Stacy’s. Then she got mad when I wasn’t getting her out of the carseat quickly enough so I could give her to Stacy. I seriously think there was a look on her face that told me she was glad to be back there. The feeling was mutual this morning. There aren’t many days I’m glad I’m a working mom – but this was one of them. I didn’t fell guilty about it because Camryn seemed to be more than pleased when Stacy took her. Jay and I can’t compare to Stacy’s 3 and 5 year old girls for entertainment purposes.
I’ve been having a hard time lately juggling everything, which is completely normal, but I think our infertility is compounding the problem…like it does for so many people who had to fight through it to have their kids. We think when we finally get the baby(ies) that we want so badly everything is going to be perfect. The whole time we are waiting we cringe when we hear other mothers complain about their pregnancies and babies/kids. We cry on the inside because we want that chaos so badly and we tell ourselves we won’t complain if/when our prayers are answered. Sometimes I think as infertiles we feel we don’t have the“right” to have hard days with our kids or have these feelings of “if I don’t get 2 seconds of quiet I’m going to loose my mind”.
We think we have to endure every bit of parenting our long awaited/prayed for children with a smile on our face and happiness in our heart and by golly all of that screaming will not annoy us one little bit. I will be the perfect mother, never once complaining or being tempted to drive past the house in the evening and not stop until I run out of gas. I will never complain about being exhausted, in fact I won’t even allow myself to feel exhaustion. I will get up every hour on the hour at night to tend to our baby with smile. I will want to sit on the floor by them for hours upon end and turn book pages for them without complaint. I will never fell stressed with balancing working and eating and grocery shopping and laundry and exercising and Bible reading with a baby that wants to be held all evening long while she fights sleep by screaming. Constantly.
And then reality hits. And you find that parenting is hard no matter how the baby came to you. This is the 2nd time I’ve done this and I should’ve known better. But I didn’t. And I feel a little guilty because I am having these completely normal feelings of losing my sanity – but I shouldn’t be. This is what I wanted for years. So not only am I fighting with trying to learn new levels of normalcy at home and work, I’m mentally fighting it also. It’s hard.
So for everyone who waited years for a baby (including myself) it is ok to feel overwhelmed. It is ok to need help. It is ok to not have the perfect meal ready by 6pm every night. I would say it is ok to not get to the laundry, but it is pretty bad when someone runs out of underwear or jeans….you probably need to try to do at least a couple of loads per week…It is ok to think that if you hear that song from the toy one more time you will throw it out the window (busy, busy, busy there’s so much do to..you can learn while you’re at play….that’s the current tune running though my head). And if you figure out how to actually feel ok about all the above mentioned stuff let me know. You might have a million dollar idea. And it doesn't help that about noon I realized I had been in such a hurry to leave the house I forgot to put tonights dinner in the crockpot. Nice....
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Tax Time
I dread dealing with our income tax every year. Absolutely dread it. And I hear of all these people who get theirs figured in January....really...how is that possible? I don't even have all of the stuff I need from work and interest statements let alone my own stuff I need to find. Every year I say I'm going to do better tracking what we give to church....like actually writing down the check number in the check book, but that lasts through March. Instead I'm trying to match up check amounts to cleared checks from our online statements. At least we typically write one check a month so I probably have less than 15 checks to deal with. Now that we are paying daycare again it's something else to keep track of...or more than likely wait and deal with next February. Life gets too busy...how it doesn't seem to get too busy for others and they can keep perfect track of everything I don't know. Actually, those kind of people who can have theirs figured January 1 makes me a little sick.....and highly annoyed.
I used to think it was hard when I only had to find church and daycare check numbers. Then we started with the cattle and I had to track farm expenses. Which basically came down to adding up a mound of feed bills and hoping that Jay got all the receipts in the designated envelope. Oh, there has been lots of eye rolling over the years when it looks like there is a big gap in the receipt dates. Then I'm never sure of some of the receipts we have....Like when the Amish butcher our fair chickens...is that a farm expense? It's so complicated!
But nothing has compared to this year with the Icebox. Jay is a great husband, a great father, a great teacher....but he stinks at anything finance related. Which I don't understand because a big thing he teaches with FFA is record keeping. I'm going to have to get him his own big blue book to keep at school. When he tells the kids to update their books he'll need to work on his own. In 2010 I kept the records up to date with the Icebox, but as you know 2011 was a different story. I didn't do anything with the Icebox. Which was obvious Saturday morning when I pulled out the envelope and found two receipts in it. Two receipts.... Jay tried to tell me that was probably all there was this year. I don't think that was the case. Then we had to pay sales tax to the state every quarter and after a big event. None of those got copied. So I'm trying to gather our information and I have hardly any expenses, no idea of how much income we claimed or how much we paid in taxes to the state. I asked Jay for his check register so I could try to find what was paid for vendor fees from that. He didn't know where the register was. I thought my head was going to pop off. I will say it again, I DO NOT LIKE TAX TIME.
Over the years Cade has heard us squabbling over taxes this time of year. Every year it makes him ask questions about taxes. I'm sure someday he'll tell his wife that I got really crazy during February. This year he apparently has been watching the tax return commercials because after Saturday he had some tax advice for me....
Cade: Do you know Jackson Hewitt
Me: Yes
Cade: Who does our taxes
Me: Kevin
Cade: Why don't you use Jackson Hewitt, I think it would be easier. Jackson Hewitt can do it.
Yeah, if only Jackson Hewitt would keep track of the receipts all year long. I'll need to have a talk with Camryn someday. Instead of dreaming of a tall dark and handsome husband she needs to think more practical. She needs to dream of a tax accountant.....
I used to think it was hard when I only had to find church and daycare check numbers. Then we started with the cattle and I had to track farm expenses. Which basically came down to adding up a mound of feed bills and hoping that Jay got all the receipts in the designated envelope. Oh, there has been lots of eye rolling over the years when it looks like there is a big gap in the receipt dates. Then I'm never sure of some of the receipts we have....Like when the Amish butcher our fair chickens...is that a farm expense? It's so complicated!
But nothing has compared to this year with the Icebox. Jay is a great husband, a great father, a great teacher....but he stinks at anything finance related. Which I don't understand because a big thing he teaches with FFA is record keeping. I'm going to have to get him his own big blue book to keep at school. When he tells the kids to update their books he'll need to work on his own. In 2010 I kept the records up to date with the Icebox, but as you know 2011 was a different story. I didn't do anything with the Icebox. Which was obvious Saturday morning when I pulled out the envelope and found two receipts in it. Two receipts.... Jay tried to tell me that was probably all there was this year. I don't think that was the case. Then we had to pay sales tax to the state every quarter and after a big event. None of those got copied. So I'm trying to gather our information and I have hardly any expenses, no idea of how much income we claimed or how much we paid in taxes to the state. I asked Jay for his check register so I could try to find what was paid for vendor fees from that. He didn't know where the register was. I thought my head was going to pop off. I will say it again, I DO NOT LIKE TAX TIME.
Over the years Cade has heard us squabbling over taxes this time of year. Every year it makes him ask questions about taxes. I'm sure someday he'll tell his wife that I got really crazy during February. This year he apparently has been watching the tax return commercials because after Saturday he had some tax advice for me....
Cade: Do you know Jackson Hewitt
Me: Yes
Cade: Who does our taxes
Me: Kevin
Cade: Why don't you use Jackson Hewitt, I think it would be easier. Jackson Hewitt can do it.
Yeah, if only Jackson Hewitt would keep track of the receipts all year long. I'll need to have a talk with Camryn someday. Instead of dreaming of a tall dark and handsome husband she needs to think more practical. She needs to dream of a tax accountant.....
Friday, February 3, 2012
Around the house today....
I picked Cade up from school yesterday. The first thing he told me was that he learned how to add music to his power points and how to pixilate (no idea of the spelling). I think I have some more power point presentations in my future this weekend.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Adoption
It's been awhile since I've talked about adoption here. I think we are slowly starting to realize that Camryn is really ours now. No more waiting on emails or phone calls or worrying about going on vacation and missing a chance to be shown. It's been slow to sink in. I guess when waiting has been such a large/long part of your life it will take some time to realize you aren't doing it any more.
But just because the wait is over doesn't mean the adoption part is over. Sometimes I get comments from people, who I know mean well, but they seem to think that because we are done with the agency means we are done with adoption. Hello...Camryn is adopted. It will always be a part of our life.
How much of a role it will play in our day to day lives is still to be determined. Jay and I don't talk about it much now, but as Camryn gets older and can understand we will talk about it more. I think there is a fine line that you have to balance. I want her to know that we will talk about it as much or as little as she wants, I want her to feel comfortable and secure in her place in our family but I don't want adoption to define her. I don't want her to feel like she always has to tell people she is adopted, or stand out as the "adopted" girl in her class. My #1 prayer for her is that she will view adoption as just a part of what makes Camryn Camryn...much like her hair and eye color and the sound of her voice. Just one of those things that mixed together make us who we are. I'm not smart enough to know how to do that so I pray. A lot.
We also signed an agreement to provide the agency with monthly updates her first year and then yearly after that. A popular statement made by others since finalization has been "you aren't going to do those any more are you". Yes, I'm still doing the monthly updates. Jay and I agreed to do it and we plan to uphold that. No, I'm not real speedy with them. Since I know that Camryn's birthfamily isn't reading them I don't feel as much pressure to get them there quickly, but they are getting done. I feel that it could be important for Camryn someday to see that we made every effort we could with her birthfamily. I know that C, Camryn's birthmom knows that at anytime she can contact the agency to see them. If she does decide to do that someday I want them to be up to date. I don't want either C or Camryn to think we quit thinking about it once we got what we "wanted".
Adoption definitely adds a different aspect to parenting. Besides all the normal issues this adds a whole bunch of other things to think about. There isn't hardly a day that goes by that I don't think about Camryn's birthfamily. I do wish I knew them. I wish I could talk to them so I could get an idea of their personalities, their likes/dislikes, their talents, etc. I really wish I had some pictures of them. I have to think that Camryn will wonder who she looks like some day. I would love to have something to show her. Also, after she was sick last week, I started thinking more about her health history. I feel like we have a decent history of what her birthfamily knew up to when she was born, but with no contact it doesn't go beyond that. I can't ask them questions if issues were to come up. But then I did try to twist it into a mental positive. Maybe that will be a good thing someday? How many times have health issues been overlooked because there wasn't a family history of it? It is like Camryn has a blank slate so a doctor won't be able to just assume anything.
But there is also a totally selfish part that is glad I'm not dealing with a birthfamily. It's a small part but it is there (don't hate me, just being honest). I'm struggling with working full time, taking care of the household duties and having a baby. I think it's hitting me even harder this time than it did with Cade because I didn't think it would be bad. That could be a whole other post of its own, but I thought I was more prepared this time (wrong!!!). With all of the normal day to day life stuff I can't imagine having to arrange visits and keeping the birthfamily up to date right now. I know that if we had an open adoption I'd manage it - it's just hard to imagine it right now.
But just because the wait is over doesn't mean the adoption part is over. Sometimes I get comments from people, who I know mean well, but they seem to think that because we are done with the agency means we are done with adoption. Hello...Camryn is adopted. It will always be a part of our life.
How much of a role it will play in our day to day lives is still to be determined. Jay and I don't talk about it much now, but as Camryn gets older and can understand we will talk about it more. I think there is a fine line that you have to balance. I want her to know that we will talk about it as much or as little as she wants, I want her to feel comfortable and secure in her place in our family but I don't want adoption to define her. I don't want her to feel like she always has to tell people she is adopted, or stand out as the "adopted" girl in her class. My #1 prayer for her is that she will view adoption as just a part of what makes Camryn Camryn...much like her hair and eye color and the sound of her voice. Just one of those things that mixed together make us who we are. I'm not smart enough to know how to do that so I pray. A lot.
We also signed an agreement to provide the agency with monthly updates her first year and then yearly after that. A popular statement made by others since finalization has been "you aren't going to do those any more are you". Yes, I'm still doing the monthly updates. Jay and I agreed to do it and we plan to uphold that. No, I'm not real speedy with them. Since I know that Camryn's birthfamily isn't reading them I don't feel as much pressure to get them there quickly, but they are getting done. I feel that it could be important for Camryn someday to see that we made every effort we could with her birthfamily. I know that C, Camryn's birthmom knows that at anytime she can contact the agency to see them. If she does decide to do that someday I want them to be up to date. I don't want either C or Camryn to think we quit thinking about it once we got what we "wanted".
Adoption definitely adds a different aspect to parenting. Besides all the normal issues this adds a whole bunch of other things to think about. There isn't hardly a day that goes by that I don't think about Camryn's birthfamily. I do wish I knew them. I wish I could talk to them so I could get an idea of their personalities, their likes/dislikes, their talents, etc. I really wish I had some pictures of them. I have to think that Camryn will wonder who she looks like some day. I would love to have something to show her. Also, after she was sick last week, I started thinking more about her health history. I feel like we have a decent history of what her birthfamily knew up to when she was born, but with no contact it doesn't go beyond that. I can't ask them questions if issues were to come up. But then I did try to twist it into a mental positive. Maybe that will be a good thing someday? How many times have health issues been overlooked because there wasn't a family history of it? It is like Camryn has a blank slate so a doctor won't be able to just assume anything.
But there is also a totally selfish part that is glad I'm not dealing with a birthfamily. It's a small part but it is there (don't hate me, just being honest). I'm struggling with working full time, taking care of the household duties and having a baby. I think it's hitting me even harder this time than it did with Cade because I didn't think it would be bad. That could be a whole other post of its own, but I thought I was more prepared this time (wrong!!!). With all of the normal day to day life stuff I can't imagine having to arrange visits and keeping the birthfamily up to date right now. I know that if we had an open adoption I'd manage it - it's just hard to imagine it right now.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
It is a sad day for the boys....
Because DGB signed with MU this morning. I'm not sure how Cade will take the news. I assume he will ask Jay as soon as he gets to the high school this afternoon.
I even listened to the radio this morning to hear his pick. Not that you could actually hear it with all the screaming. I figured it had to be MU with as wild as the crowd got. I decided I might as well listen to history in the making. It's not every day that someone in our little area of the state has ESPN at their high school. I've also been more interested in following him since Jay told me he was adopted. And since I've heard about it non-stop for weeks I needed to hear the decision with my own ears. Kind of a closing the chapter type deal I guess.
As for choosing MU over Arkansas I'm sure he has his reasons.....I'm just not an MU person. Not that it has anything to do with Arkansas. It is more from my own college days in the MSU Ag Department. Black & Gold...YUCK!!! But I don't hold it against my friends and family who have gone to MU :)
I'm just pretty sure though we won't ever have to worry about Cade going to MU. More than likely he is going to hold a grudge against all things Mizzou for quite some time...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I even listened to the radio this morning to hear his pick. Not that you could actually hear it with all the screaming. I figured it had to be MU with as wild as the crowd got. I decided I might as well listen to history in the making. It's not every day that someone in our little area of the state has ESPN at their high school. I've also been more interested in following him since Jay told me he was adopted. And since I've heard about it non-stop for weeks I needed to hear the decision with my own ears. Kind of a closing the chapter type deal I guess.
As for choosing MU over Arkansas I'm sure he has his reasons.....I'm just not an MU person. Not that it has anything to do with Arkansas. It is more from my own college days in the MSU Ag Department. Black & Gold...YUCK!!! But I don't hold it against my friends and family who have gone to MU :)
I'm just pretty sure though we won't ever have to worry about Cade going to MU. More than likely he is going to hold a grudge against all things Mizzou for quite some time...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
