Gifts of life

October is a busy month in our family.  As I posted earlier, my youngest sissy, Mary, turned the big 3-0 on 10/10/10!

Our niece, Claire, celebrates her birthday early in the month and turned 9 this year! She is our goddaughter, so she holds an extra special place in our hearts.

Today, there are three of us who have a birthday.  My brother-in-law, Kurt, and our nephew, Eddie who is a whopping 5! Happy, happy birthday to them!

Since Kurt has been in the family, I have enjoyed a call from him and Ellen where they serendade me and then we serenade Kurt. 

Kurt does not live in WA, but Eddie and I have a family birthday party together which has been fun.  Getting a new nephew on my birthday 5 years ago was an awesome gift!  This year is extra special because we have two little ones living with us and making our lives fuller.

Thank you, Lord, for my life and all of the people in it.  I am truly blessed.

Beg, Steal or Borrow

Wow, what a week.  There is too much for me to write now and too little time right now, so I'll leave you with one my favorite singer-songwriters.  His name is Ray LaMontagne.  He possesses an amazing raspy voice that's smooth at the same time.  He has a really interesting life story as well.  Sit back, listen for 4 minutes and enjoy Ray on this Friday afternoon. 

Wordless Wednesday (even though it's Thursday)

I forgot to post this yesterday.

Anniversary

Today would have been the 66th wedding anniversary of my Gram and Grampa Dolan.  They got married October 19, 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri at St. Matthew's parish where they went to grade school together.  Gram (Mary Genevieve Maher Dolan) died 4 years ago, and her absence is still keenly felt in my life.  My grandpa (John Francis Dolan) is turning 92 on Christmas Day. I hope to talk to him on my lunch break and let him know that I love and miss him and am thinking of him and Gram today. They won't be apart forever.

TGIF

1.) Wednesday consisted of 3 things for the kids: Visit with their mom from 9am-11am (I pick up); meeting from 3-5pm with mom, social workers and therapists regarding the kids' ISSP; social worker's monthly home visit at 5:30pm.  Oh, and work in the middle. Thank you, Mom C, for picking up the kids at child care! She and Dodil (Dear Old Dad in Law) are truly godsends who have watched the kids for us and truly been grandparents to our twinkies.

2.) The last 6 weeks, I've been having some issues which have caused me to be really tired most of the time.  I did get a blood test and,  as a result, was prescribed some meds that are treating things, but I had just started them the day before.  So, my goal for Wednesday was to make it through.  Short term goals, right? There are bigger problems in the world, I know, but my husband, these kids, and my job ARE my world, and for the last 6 weeks, I have felt like I've been failing them due to my exhaustion, impatience from exhaustion and physical snafu.   Making a short story long, everything went well, and I'll have to do a post about Wednesday.  At 7:30pm, after the kids were tucked in, I was stretched out on the couch; we watched our favorite show, and I was in bed by 9:30.  The next morning, I felt like a new woman, and I'm finally in contact with my Creighton doctor who is about 4 hours' drive away.

2.) Cherub learned a new word tonight: cucumber.  Or Kyue-ma-ma, as he says. He was in the kitchen with me as I was cooking dinner, and he was eating the little survivor tomatoes from our garden.  I got it on video and wish I could post it, but with his status as a foster child, I can't. :( But, I did forward it to my family, so I hope they enjoy it.

3.) DQ called me "Mama" today! John said that she has called me that before, but this was the first time that, when John and our neighbor pointed to me and said, "Who is that?" she smiled and said in her tiny, high voice, "Mama". :) It's a new day in our relationship.

4.) Although I need to go into work tomorrow for a few hours, John and I are taking the kids to a local farm to get our pumpkin! He and I have been doing this every year for the last 3 or 4 years.  Each year we go, John and I have a contest.  We pick a large pumpkin to take home and guess the weight.  Whoever comes closest wins a coffee of his choice compliments of the other.   So far, I am undefeated.  Each year, John thinks he will win, the dear, sweet man.  I'm going to try to get the contest on video for your viewing enjoyment, plus photos of the kids. I don't think they've been to a pumpkin patch before.  I do think that they will be saying, "PUN-kin" the whole time, because they love saying it whenever a large, orange orb is in view.

5.)  Dog is my co-pilot.  Our dog, Jill,  (3/4 Golden Retriever, 1/4 English Mastiff) deserves and will receive a separate post.  She really is our dog-ter, and has been so good with the kids (5 so far) who have been in our home.  Each night she sleeps on our bed at our feet.  Last night, she wanted to sleep in the hall for a bit, which means that in the middle of the night, she'll either hear something and do her protective bark which sounds like "BOOF!" or she'll whine to come back in.  At 11:41, I heard her whining at the closed door.  With my eyes shut, I opened our bedroom door and let her back in.  This morning,  at the entry I found a baby toy which she brought to us as a 'gift.' Being the retriever that she is, she brings 'gifts' to anyone and everyone when they enter our house.  I love, love, love you, Jilly!

6.) This weekend in our parish ministry festival where all of the church's ministries have booths and sign people up.  The ministry that I'm involved with is "Martha Ministry" which my sister-in-law, Christina, started.  We make meals for maybe 1 or 2 weeks for families with new babies, illness, etc.  I love this much needed ministry.  So, after one of the Masses, I'll man our 'booth' with our current Martha Ministry leader and my close friend Erin, with whom the kids and I are going to the zoo on Sunday! She is a wonderful friend to me and her youngest daughter, Michaela, is our youngest goddaughter.  John will have a quiet house for part of Sunday to study. :)

7.) This week, we learned that my company is having our Christmas party at this really unique and fun place.  Each year, this is such a fun night for us.  My boss is great and so generous with his employees.  I'm looking forward to dancing with John to this band after dinner!

10\10\10 = THIRTY!

My sister, Mary, turned old yesterday!  She is now 30 and it happened on 10/10/10.  Happy birthday, Mary! We hope you had a wonderful weekend and a blessed year! You join illustrious people such as myself, Matt and Kate in the 30s club. :)

The Week in Review

1.) Cherub got moved up to the older tods class on Monday. Intellectually, he is on their level, but socially, he is a little behind. We and the teachers are hoping that being with the slightly older kids will help catch him up. So far, he loves it and is doing really well. When I take him to his classroom in the morning, he does a little squeal of excitement. It’s fun seeing him so happy about learning. He takes his shoes off all the time, but especially in the car. I think I will have him walk out to the car barefoot in the mornings because I end up putting his shoes back on him when we get to school.


2.) DQ had a good week at school, too, and is still in her same class. The director said that she is not ready to move up because she does not talk as much as Cherub. In my head, I was thinking, “Are you kidding me?!” In the car and at home, she doesn’t stop talking about something or other, even if it’s copying what I say. Now that she and her brother are in different classes, she is talking more in her classroom. When Cherub does his screech, he gets marched to his room for a short timeout. When we’re in the car, we try to ignore it, but yesterday I said what his teachers say to him, “What do you need? What?” A few minutes after I said that, DQ piped up, “What you want? What?!” And then, “No, man. No man!” When she’s whining, which is a lot, I say to her, “No, ma’am. No ma’am!” Great, I sound like a drill sergeant/Rapper.  I was laughing so hard in the car.

3.) John has been back to school for the second week, and I am missing my kitchen fairy. When he was off from classes in September, the kitchen was always clean, the dishes were done and I got lazy about it. So, now that he’s back to classes, the kitchen is not so clean. But I’m getting back in the groove of the schedule now, and things are looking up now that our dryer is repaired. Thanks for replacing the belt, John! The other night, I got home around 6:30pm, was late in getting the kids their dinner and the house was a wreck.  I had forgotten to plug in my cell phone, and missed a call from my sister-in-law asking if they could stop by to borrow some horseshoes.  If I had heard the call, I would have raced home (doing the speed limit, course),  thrown stuff in to different rooms and faked a 'clean' house.  No such luck. My sister-in-law and three of her kids arrived at the house and Jill was going nuts because she was so excited to see them.  Luckily, I have a nice family who understands that messy homes happen.  See? Good lessons  in humility for me this week.  However, I do want to have them over for dessert soon so that they can come over AND the house will be clean. :)

4.) On my lunch break, I went to the Super-Walmart to get some fruit and veggies with the kids’ WIC checks. My pride about using these is lessening as the months go by, and as I see how much they do help. Besides, it’s not about me, it’s about the littlies, and it’s for them. So, if people behind me in line are wondering why I’m using government checks, I need not care about it and not want to yell out, “I’m a foster mom and these are not my checks!” That would be the big ol’ bad ol’ pride talking, so this has been a nice lesson in humility for me.  And what would it matter if I did need them? It's meant to help people out, and right now, with my income and two kids, we can use the help.


5.) On the way to Wal-Mart, I heard this song. I really love the melody and words and the message of the video about small actions to help others. The song also reminded me that I’m happy to have John and be able to run to him and the Lord when craziness in the world and families is going on.

6.) Yesterday I had some blood drawn to figure some things out. I hope to hear the results today, but with the long weekend for some (my company works on Columbus Day), it may not be until Tuesday.

7.) The governor of Washington has made across the board cuts in staff and budgets---this includes private foster care agencies. Their budgets were also cut by 60%. We got a letter from the foster care director of our agency. Her office found out about the cuts on 10/1, and they are effective immediately. So, this will obviously affect visits and how much time can be spent on each case. I think the wonderful woman who is now supervising the visits is one of the staff to be laid off.

Here are 2 photos of DQ wearing another blouse and dress of mine circa 1977.
Also, one of Jill wearing glasses just because she is so sweet and cute.