crashing again

First and foremost. HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY CHANCE!!! There will be another post coming about that soon. Have to wait until his birthday is done. :) but what a little man he is becoming.

It's been one of those weeks. Sleep is something I dream of. I long for it, but it just keep eluding me. This is my week so far and yet to come:

Sunday: up at 7:30am. up all day. leave for work at 11pm. work 12-8am. sleep:0hours
Monday: home at 9:30 - take Terra to playgroup. Sleep from 1:30-10:30pm. sleep:9 hours (first time in 18 hours!)
Tuesday: sleep from 10:30a-12:00. dentist appointments, then I'm the at home parent. Sleep in evening from 9-10:3pm. sleep:1.5+1.5 =3 hours
Wednesday: sleep from 10:30-1:00. Then again from 9:45-10:45. sleep:1.5+1 = 2.5hours
Thursday: sleep from 2:30-4. Then again from 9:00-10:30. (that's just a guess since it's still today, and that is what I am hoping to get! sleep:1.5+1.5= 3 hours
Friday: take Terra swimming, come home clean get ready for party this weekend for Chance and Terra. And run a birthday party for 2 kids down the street (their mom is 25 weeks pregnant and on bed rest. She can't do it. Have to make their spiderman cake tonight!!) I will be there from 4:30-8:30. Hopefully I'll be able to be in bed by 10:30. sleep:0hours
side note: in case you are counting. That's 17.5 hours in 6 days. With one of those days being my good day with 9 hours. So the remaining 8.5 is divided up b/w the other 5 days.
Saturday: hoping that I slept from 10:30-8:00a. Take 4 kids to bowling by myself from 9-11. Take Andrew to work, go grocery shopping, come home and get more stuff ready, bake 2 cakes, make a bunch of sandwich's and snacks. Take the kids (by myself) to the Santa parade. Pick Andrew up from work and be home around 9:30.
Sunday: Church. Dedicate Terra, lots of family coming to church then back to our place for Chance's birthday party. People will probably leave around 4:30 so I can get a few hours sleep before I leave for work again Sunday night at 10:30.

So that my friend. Is my week!!! Please pray for me.

It's hard. I am really struggling. My head has been pounding the last 3 days. I'm exhausted I'm run down. I miss my husband. I miss my sanity. I miss my sleep. I miss being able to enjoy my kids without being sleep deprived.

It is finished

Well it's finally finished! We went and we saw the judge and finalized Terra's adoption. Our first FAMILY picture. :)

I was a little disappointed in the whole thing, he didn't wear his robe, we met in his little office instead of the court room, and the whole thing lasted 5 minutes. But regardless of that, I am still glad that we did it (we have the option of just sending the paper to us, we do not have to go to court but we choose the court experience). All of our families came with is very important to me. We packed his office with 18 people. Which almost didn't happened because they came out right before we were suppose to come in and said only the parents can come in. Which meant my sister and her husband (who had canceled a bunch of meetings at work to come)and 5 kids, and my grandma from Hamilton wouldn't be allowed it. But I pleaded with them and they let us in! :) After all they were there for the other 2 adoptions, I wouldn't want them to miss the (more then likely) last adoption.

This is a group shot of our families! We packed us all into his office. We are happy to have it all finished. No more workers coming to our house, following up on us. If we want to leave the province of Ontario we do not have to ask for permission and get letter from Children's Aid with thier approval. We do not have to fight with our workers when they try to tell us to vaccinate Terra against H1N1 since we were not her guardian. (They listened and respected our wishes, only b/c it was so close to being finalized)

Afterwards we went down to the waterfront and took a LOT of pictures. I'll be posting them in the next while. As some turned out just amazing.
Thanks for all your support

My little girlS

I've had this post written for the last few days but I didn't want to post it because I didn't want to overshadow all the positive things that have been happening (court date in 2 days, Terra's one year anniversary). So I figure I'll go ahead and post it now.

Growing up I always wanted a little girl. I never wanted boys, boys were boring, dirty and way too active. I wanted a sweet little girly girl that I could dress up, play dolls, cook meals in her little play kitchen. I could do her hair in neat ways. I wanted to paint her nails. I wanted a GIRL! Our third foster placement was a little girl Skylar and I just fell in love with her. She was meant to be MY girl. The workers agreed and we started to finalize our placement and the ball started rolling to make her our forever daughter.

Then our world crumbled when 2 months later the judge went AGAINST children's aid and returned her home. I was devastated. After that, I no longer wanted a girl. Andrew continued to talk about one day having his little girl. I would just huff and say I was ok with boys. All I could think about was I HAD my girl, and then she was gone. I didn't want anyone to replace her in my heart. My dreams of having a little girl were gone, just like that. I just could not get into that mind frame again about having a sweet little girl.

Along came Terra. Of course Andrew was over the moon, he FINALLY got his girl. Man, did he ever want a girl. lol. I on the other hand was apprehensive about it. For the first 6 months that Terra was with us it didn't faze me much, nor did my strong desire to be a mom to a girl ever came back to me. I was always comparing Terra to Skylar. Skylar came at 6 months and Terra came a week before 6 months. Terra's milestones would bring me back to Skylar. Going through the clothes that Skylar used to wear I was now putting them on Terra. Emotionally I had a hard time with that. All the things that Terra started doing, reminded me of Skylar. I remember when Terra's firth took poked in I was happy, but then I was sad remembering Skylar first tooth.

However, about 7 months after Terra joined our family some of those feelings started coming back. slowly. Watching Terra go through this stage has brought up a lot of grief for Skylar once again. There are still times when I stop and think about Skylar. I TRY to remember her (however, it's getting very blurry now. :( )But now, I HAVE MY GIRL. The girl that meant to be mine. I was meant to be a mommy to a little girl. I love dressing her up, I love doing her hair, I've painted her finger nails, we play dolls, we play dress up. We pretend to make food. Now my desire is back. I have my little girl that I have dreamed about for so long. The little girl that has been with me since *I* was a little girl. The little girl (not her, just the mentioned of a girl) that once turned my stomach when Andrew would talk about his little girl that he would one day have.

Skylar Nov 2005
Terra Nov 2009

In case you are wondering where this post is coming up. And why this is a few days old. On Wednesday, (the day we celebrated Terra's one year anniversary) Terra was 5 days away from turning 18 months. The day Skylar left us, she was 5 days away from turning 18 months. To me, that was hard. To look at her, and remember that at this exact age I had say goodbye to my first little girl. When I stopped and cried a little bit for Skylar I picked up my little girl and said an extra prayer for her, and held Terra just a little bit closer. Thanked God for changing my heart and bringing me my little girl that I didn't think I wanted/needed anymore. I'm glad *I* was wrong.

Now, we move forward. Our memories will grow. And I LOVE my little girl with everything in me. My sweet little girl.

one year ago...

Look at the sweet baby. Today, November 11 marks the one year anniversary that 5 month old Terra came to live with us. It's hard to believe that it has been one year already. So much has changed in our lives. We went from a family with 3 boys and added a sweet little baby girl. Chance was smitten right away with those big brown eyes, and a year later Chance still lets her get away with most anything. She is defiantly Chance's little girl. Well ours too. :)

I still remember that day so clear. We've been waiting for 5 months, since the day she was born, to come to us. That is just seemed to surreal. My parents took the day off to come and meet their newest granddaughter. My sister, her husband and 5 kids all come over to meet her. It's was a wonderful evening with my family and introducing her to my family.
This is the very first picture of us as a family!
The boys and their new baby sister. They were just over the moon

In the summer Chance told me that he wanted a baby and he wanted her to be a girl and he wanted her to be with us forever, and that he didn't want a worker to come and take her away from us. It was heart wrentching to hear him say that because he was still hurting from Marlon. I just had to tell him that "we'll see". At that time Terra was 2 weeks old, but they were not saying anything about her being with us or not. So when we told the kids they they were getting a baby siter and she was comming in 4 days, right away Chance said "see mom, I asked for a baby sister and you got me one. thank you!"

I had to explain that just when he asks for a baby doesn't mean he is going to get one. He asked me a few months ago about getting another baby and I said no. And his response? Well you can just call a worker and they will bring us a baby.

some kids thing the stork bring babies, my kids think workers bring babies! LOL

Court Date

I am so excited - we finally got our court date for Terra's adoption. In 9 days she will FINALLY be our forever daughter. (not that she isn't already)

November 16th can't come soon enough.

I love the idea of going to court and being part of the ceremonial aspect of it. Most places won't even let you appear before the judge, they just mail you out there papers. Nothing big. Our court gives us the option. With Chance we had to wait 5 weeks for a date, Joe and Manny we waited 2 weeks. And with Terra we don't have any wait. The Judge has not been in for 6 weeks. And his first day back, the very first thing he is doing at 9am is our adoption. I am so excited.

I also LOVE the fact that both mine and Andrew parents, my sister and her 5 kids have all made it out to each adoption. That they take the 2 hour (one way) drive to join us in this special day. My brother in law (sisters husband) made it out for Chance's, And Andrew's brother was able to make it out to Joe and Manny. But I am sure if they did not have work obligations they would have been there with us too. I know they were there in spirit!

H1N1

To vaccinate - or not to vaccinate?

This is a HUGE issue filling blogs and Internet forms. There are very heated discussions, name calling and just plain being MEAN! There are quite a few issues online that can get people in a huff and create such a reaction.
Breast feeding vs. formula
work vs. stay home
cloth diaper vs. disposable
day care, thoughts on war, politics and religion

For some reason, people (mostly mom's) tend to think because they are online and there is that mask of anonymity that you can just be cruel and not have a normal converstaion I was listening to a radio program on my way into work last night that said the topic to vaccinate or not has now become one of those taboo subjects. A topic that will usually create really strong responses and heated arguments. If I haven't seen it first hand in some of the sites I visit then I would not believe it myself. Why would something so personal to each family have to create situations that it is now considered a topic to be off limit? I talk to some of friends about this, get their thoughts and opinions on the matter and world war 3 has never broken out. We have a calm and respectful conversation on this matter, but why is it so different online? Why do people always have to find something to argue and debate in a way that is extremely disrectfull to the other person on the other end of the keyboard?

For our family, we have decided against the vaccine. It's too new, hasn't been tested. I liked the newest headline today that states "No serious side effects so far with H1N1 vaccine: WHO" I like how they added the "so far", in my opinion sounds like it was something that have expected, and are pleasantly surprised that there is nothing yet.

I worry about what the future side effects may be. It reminds me of the popular drug DES given in the 1960's to pregnant woman to prevent miscarries. Now, it's reported that a large percentage of those babies who have been born while their mom's took this drug now have infertility issues. And many woman (then fetus's) now have cancer of cervix. You just don't know the long term affects on these. I would rather my children NOT be guinea pigs.

But, that does not mean I am 100% confidant in my decision. I struggle with it. Me and the 3 boys are all considered high risk due to our asthma. How would I feel if they were to contract the virus and something happens to them? Knowing I could have some how prevented it. But on the other side, how would I feel if I injected some unknown substance into their bodies and have something happen to them, either immediately, or long term? There is no win-win situation. Except to make sure there is constantly hand washing and work on prevention.

There are more people killed each day due to poverty/hunger. What's being done to help them? To PREVENT to pandemic of hunger? What's being done to prevent drunk drivers getting behind the wheel and killing us on a drive to the grocery store? What's being done to prevent child abuse (and death) of thousands of kids every year? There are way more deaths every day to other PREVENTABLE measures that is not getting the same media hype as each H1N1 death.

halloween part 1 - Chance

Chance was an old pro at this pumpkin stuff. He wasted no time digging in and getting dirty.

He choose to make a scary mad pumpkin.

It's hard to see, but chance was batman! He asked me 6 weeks ago to make him a batman costume, so I said sure - how hard could it be? Well I never got around to it, then 2 days before Halloween I started looking around stores to find batman and I couldn't. I was at Walmart and as I was walking past the boys clothing, I noticed they had the hulk pj's, including the mask. so I figured I would get him that instead. Now wouldn't my luck have it, they had batman pj's - cape in all! It just didn't come with a mask. So I bought a black hat and cut some eyes and mouth for him. However, when he took it to school on Friday the mask got destroyed, so we had to make do on Halloween.

halloween part 2 - Joe

Joe tried to dig into the pumpkin, but had a hard time getting things out. But he still had some fun anyways. He didn't mind getting dirty. When asked Joe what kind of pumpkin he wanted, he said he wanted one with.....
glasses! Now I think it looks more like a super hero pumpkin or something. But we all knew it was suppose to be glasses - just like Joe.

And Joe's costume was a little more questionable. Some say Zebra, some say badger, and some say some other animal. Who knows - but he was cute none the less!

halloween part 3 - Manny

Manny was not so sure of the whole pumpkin guts thing. He would reach in and take ONE SEED AT A TIME! Which I guess worked out in the end because that gave us time to help Joe and Chance while manny took his time.
He wanted a nice happy Pumpkin.

Manny dressed up as a penguin.

Halloween part 4 - Terra

We had so much fun with Terra's first Halloween!
She wasn't too sure what to make of the guts. :) but she still played with them!

I made her a baby pumpkin. :)

Terra was alittle unicorn! She went up to a few houses and as soon as she saw the candy she would drop her bag and grab the candy. By the end of the night she was saying "trick or treat" - super cute