Embrace it or Become it...

CRAZY

I caught myself the other day. Unfortunately I've been known to make the comment "you guys are making me crazy" or "I'm going crazy" to my kids. Sad I know, but there it is. Well I realized one day that if I keep saying that, they're really going to think I'm crazy! 

The times I get most frustrated or stressed are when I loose control of my environment. You know, like having 4 kids in the house and all that comes with that. Let's  face it, I don't have much control around here. 

But I can control my attitude towards the craziness that is my life. 

Over Christmas break I loved having the kids home so I wasn't driving all over town. We were way more relaxed and got to play together a lot. However the house was a lot louder and the babies naps were less frequent. Matt stayed home for a full week between Christmas and New Years and I always had an adult to talk to which was nice. We realized however that we've created this crazy house. Kids running everywhere being loud, playing, fighting and everything else that siblings do. We were talking about it and how things are just...crazy! (maybe I over use the word, that's very possible.)

And we realized that, if we don't embrace the craziness, we (or more possibly "I") might actually become crazy.

So that is my new motto. Embrace it or Become it. Because I get to make that choice, everyday. I can tell the kids I'm going crazy and get that wonderful idea stuck in their heads, or I can embrace that this house and everyone in it will be wild & crazy and it's ok. I can't control the fact that kids will be kids (and I'm not talking about kids running wild but just being kids) but I can control my attitude towards it. 

I love my kids and I want them to enjoy their childhood and be able to laugh at the things that I would automatically be strict about. 

So this is really about me, trying not to go crazy today. And I feel much better, the craziness has left the body!!

the. mom. look.

As a child and teenager I would watch young couples newly married.

They were always so cute and happy.

She was always beautiful with long hair.

They would start having kids.

The hair would get shorter.

And shorter.

Like this...

I said I wouldn't fall into the "mom" trap. But 4 kids and no time made me do it.

I was tired of the daily ponytail and the hold the kids had on me.

I resisted for months but alas, I could take it no more.

I am a mom

 I have the "do" to prove it

And I'm happy about it.

Poor Baby

Poor Avery. Brock understands, at least a little bit. All Avery knows is some lady shows up once a week, puts her in a strange car seat in a strange car and gives her to some man to hold for an hour. As I handed her to the lady (who is actually very nice and just doing her job), Avery looked at her, looked at me then started screaming. Like I'd just done some horrible deed by handing her over. 


She got it. She knew this was not some lady who was holding her for a minute. This was THE lady who takes her away every week. She screamed and screamed. Poor baby already has a bad cold so the screaming didn't help her breathing. After I put Brock in the car I ran back in the house to get Avery her blanket & rattle, something she's familiar with that she can hold onto. The lady gets it, she knows why she's crying. She can't do anything about it. I wish I could explain to my 6 month old why she has to leave every week. Instead I wrapped the blanket around her, rattled the rattle until she noticed and reached out for it, and I put my lips next to her ear to "shhhh". She loves that. Once calm, I closed the car door and let the lady drive away with my 2 babies not knowing what is going on in their world. Someday this will end.

Michael & Aliyah Performing

December 15th was a crazy night! Aliyah had a piano recital, her first ever, and Michael had a School Christmas program he was in. We were also invited to the Bacara in Santa Barbara which is a super nice ritzy hotel where all the movies stars stay when they go there. They were having an Angels appreciation dinner for all the foster parents. Well as much as we wanted to go to that, we supported our kids and went to their shows. I took Aliyah and Avery and went to the piano recital. We left early from that and drove out to Michael's school to meet Matt & Brock watching the show.

Pretty talented kids huh? Well I'm a little partial. I loved watching Aliyah perform. She wasn't nervous, she just got up there and did her thing.

Michael was awesome as well. He kept me laughing through the whole thing. I had a perfect view and was a little bummed to see Matt's view obstructed by a head but you get the idea. Michael was the biggest mover and dancer in the whole class!  I told Matt there won't be many more times like that. Soon he'll be old enough to not want to participate. I made Michael wear that sweater thinking all the kids would dress up for a Christmas program. Afterwards he came up and said, "see! I told you everyone wasn't going to dress up!" Oops, my bad.

Merry Christmas 2011

Christmas Eve tradition, each kid gets new pajamas to sleep in that night. My parents did this for us every year so we're carrying it on. This year Michael asked, "why pajamas? Can I open something else instead and open pajamas tomorrow?" Nice try kid.

This is a letter & gift Aliyah left for Fizzle, our Christmas elf. 

I had many intentions of doing more with the tree this year...but with 4 kids I'm feel fortunate we had a decorated tree at all. This was the first live tree we've gotten in many years, in not ever. And yes we know the star is leaning but it's a total pain to get the huge ladder out and get up there. By the time we took the tree down, it was leaning WAY over.

Aliyah and her new pink bike! And she's wearing her new pink lipstick if you didn't notice.

Brock & drums? He's actually surprised us at how good he was.

Aliyah's American Girl doll "Kristine" from Grandma Dever. Matching jammies? Love it! She enjoys taking her everywhere with her, even the movies!

And a scooter. Well her bike has been broken for a while and she's been riding Michael's scooter. She loves both.

The highlight of Michaels existence, 3DS.

New "Monkey" quilt from Grandma Egbert. He loves the little pocket to hide the monkey in. And yes, Avery wants that Elmo really bad!

New bag from Grandma Egbert. Isn't it cute?

Love this picture, she's such a happy girl!

Hooded robe from Grandma Dever, isn't it/she cute?

Michaels Gingerbread "Luigi's Garage" from Cars. Luigi must be out to lunch, he wasn't around for the photo shoot.

Aliyahs Gingerbread, The Grinch. There's Mr Grinch himself on top the hill ready to jump on his slide and ride to the village. Today Aliyah ate Mr Grinch. She held him by his arm and said, "Grinch on a stick!" hahahaha

We had a wonderful Christmas. We're very blessed to have such wonderful family in our lives. We loved having Matt stay home for a full week after Christmas. It was so fun hanging out with him. He made sure all the remote control stuff & video games worked well. ;) He actually did all the laundry all week, fed many babies (or maybe fed babies many times? Sometimes feels like many babies) and helped me find my sanity. Hadn't seen it for a while. So now we're on to a New Year. With so many changes last year, I'm hoping this year is a little calmer and lets me settle into this new routine a bit.

Oh Christmas Tree!

This year we decided to get a live tree. I don't think we've done this before, if we have I can't remember. Anyway it was exciting to have a real tree that doesn't stab and scratch us with it's wire branches. It's soft and smells good.

When the kids went to bed we got the tree up so they could help decorate the next day. Actually I decorated most of it that night. They didn't care too much. We put our fake tree upstairs on the balcony so they'd already helped decorate that one.

In this video you can see us lift the tree. You can only see it for about a second but it felt like eternity! I was under the tree being smashed against the wall. Matt kept telling me to lift it up but my arms were up as high as they'd go! Anyway, as you can see, it went up and no ambulance had to come save me.

"Just a Friendly Reminder...

...THESE ARE NOT ACTUALLY YOUR KIDS."

Ok, well nobody actually said that to me, but they might as well have. Let me back track a little and get you up to speed since I've been horrible about updating this blog.

*When I say mom and dad, I'm referring to Brock & Avery's biological parents.

We are in what's called the Reunification Period of fostering. This is the time frame the parents have to prove themselves worthy parents to get their kids back. It's a 6 month period but is often longer than 6 months due to court scheduling and things like that. Parents have the right to visits and services (county will pay for gas cards or bus passes for parents to visit kids). This period started over the summer for these kids. Because dad missed a visit and he wasn't returning social workers phone calls, social worker suspended visits. Mom already wasn't scheduling visits, she's had one since we got them. They had court  a couple of weeks ago to terminate moms reunification. However dad's lawyer asked for a continuance so nothing actually happened at the court date. Next court date is January. The social worker called and let us know visits were still suspended, nothing was done at court and they'll meet in January. Okay, no problem. Dad has only visited a couple of times and nothing for the last couple of months. 

Then last week I get a phone call from a case aid saying she was setting up visits for the kids. It's kind of like getting punched in the stomach, although I don't think I ever have been but I imagine that's what it would feel like. As it turns out, the social worker did request they start visits. What?? Well in court, dad made it sound like he wasn't given the chance for visits, he couldn't communicate (they gave him a spanish speaking case aid), couldn't get off work etc. So the social worker didn't want his lawyer going in and saying he wasn't given the opportunity for visits so she started them again. Okay... so this is a necessary evil that I'll just need to deal with. This is what we signed up for, I KNOW they're not my kids. It's just hard to have that reminder when day in and day out, they feel like my kids. I treat them as if they're my kids and to send them off to dad and have them come home with his cologne on them is just a weekly reminder that they're not.

Okay, I can do this. People tell me all the time they could never do this, they'd get too attached. Believe me, I get it. But not a day goes by that I wonder why we're doing this. I know we're supposed to do this and I know that at some point we will see the outcome and understand it all. These kids are absolute Angels and I am totally in love with them. If they leave our family, there will be a huge hole in my heart but I have faith that God will put them where they belong and He will take care of them and us. That is how I get through this. Faith.