My day...

Here's a run-down of my day. I know you've been waiting in breathless anticipation.

My alarm (otherwise known as Grace) sounds bright and early. 6:30am
roll out of bed, feed baby, shower, dress, head downstairs.
It's HOME STUDY DAY!! Luke's home so he's been breakfasting boys while I ready myself for the day. Start lunch-making. Cajole boys into eating. Repeat x 2323u3484. Call time limit on breakfast. Send everyone upstairs for morning jobs. "GO! GO! GO!" Clean up Grace, wonder why baby slobber mixed with anything makes concrete. Change and dress Grace. Head to boys' room to supervise morning jobs. Break up fight over flashing toothbrush. "One more word and I'm throwing it away!" Say the words "get dressed" 293934 times. Herd my crew downstairs. Assist in bag-packing for the day. Remind Sam that he's not going to school "right now" so we don't need his bag yet. Pack his bag anyway -- it's easier than a fight. Shuttle children out the door. Say morning prayers on the way to school, "open mind to learn new things, keep heart focused on You." Jack sobs at car. Begs "I want you to home school me NOW! I want to rest!" Heart breaks. Worst mom every.

Drop Jack at school. Head home. Begin doing dishes, must impress caseworker. Hear Sam in bathroom singing. Song of choice? "Some poop is green, some poop is brown." on repeat. load crew (minus Jack) and head to Sam's school. Drop Sam at school. Visit with friends heading to Bible study. Luck wished, prayers given. IT'S HOME STUDY DAY!!

Head to polling place. Early vote -- civic duty done. Stop at sonic. Consider second breakfast a reward for all the work we're about to do for home study. Arrive home. Grace naps. Eat delightful breakfast with husband. Do not have to cajole anyone. Randomly decide to clear messages on answering machine. Last message? Home study cancelled.

ANGER, and tears. Spend some time on the couch. Luke disappears to fix a doorknob. Grace wakes. Decide Freebird's and retail therapy are in order. Head to IKEA. Check out crib/toddler bed selection. Also browse couches. Purchase a mingling of Christmas decor, gifts and other sundry. Am happy. Lunch at Freebird's. Laugh watching Grace dance to the music. Still angry about home study but no tears (and no capital letters). Head to Petsmart. Ginger comes home this weekend. Purchase random Christmas collar and new tags. Browse new beds. Decide none are good enough and leave. Consider if I've taken leave of my senses -- this is the dog I tried to convince to run away not 3 months ago.

Visit Target. No suitable dog beds. Head to Petsmart next door. Declare no more dog shopping. Find bed that works and purchase. Return to Target for shoes. Find 2 shirts.

Get Sam from school. Ask "mom" questions about the day. Receive "son" answers -- silence. Head to other Target in search of pants for Luke. No pants found. Sam declares "tummy hurts." He decides he needs to poop and announces it to the store. Luke takes Sam to poop. Sam returns to loudly declare "poop was green!" Proud moment for me. Quickly leave Target.

Send Luke to get Jack. Begin peeling/de-veining shrimp for dinner. Realize Freebird's has overfilled the tank. Opt for no dinner. Nuggets for boys. Begin Grace's cake. Send Luke and boys to football. Bed Grace for the night. Return to cakes. Finish as boys return home. Kiss all. Send littles to bed. Dinner and then couch time. Ahhhh....

Football Frenzy

We are about to close out Jack's first official football season, and I'm just now getting around to posting about it. Jack is LOVING football. He's found his niche and really enjoys that he's "the best" (not really but at his particular position, he is pretty darn good!). The league is 5 on 5, flag football and Jack is in the 5-6 yr old division. He is one of the youngest and one of the smallest on his team. None of that has slowed him down! The coaches try to let the kids rotate positions so every one gets a turn at every thing but since about Game 2 Jack has played almost strictly defense. Once or twice he's lined up at center but that didn't go so well. Now he's almost exclusively put in as a safety (sometimes they'll line him up at defensive tackle). He's great at getting moving as soon as the ball is snapped and usually has his timing just right so that he doesn't cross the line of scrimmage until the ball has been handed off (one of the rules...we don't understand it either). So far he's gotten at least two "tackles" (sacks on the QB) each game.

The best game was 2 weeks ago -- the other team was confident they were going to win. Most of their players were a head taller than most of ours. The coaches strutted like peacocks. Then, skipping on to the field (yeah I said skipping...like a little girl) came Jack. There is absolutely NOTHING about him that's intimidating -- until the ball is put into place. Then he starts fidgeting, his feet can't stop moving, his hands are twitching and he's chewing on his mouth-guard with what seems like the intention to actually swallow it. A few plays in a row of having their QB sacked by the smallest kid on the field and the coaches of this particular team began to quickly and rather frantically re-think their game plan. I found it HILARIOUS!!

Last week's game was tough. The coaches had prepared in advance and had guards on either side of the QB to protect him. Jack was really frustrated and had a hard time finding his rhythm. He also was really dejected that he hadn't gotten any flags. Of course his coaches kept telling the "defense" that they were missing flags and needed to work harder. Jack took it all very personally. It was a learning moment for him. He managed to pull it together and had a great second half (and still got his two sacks!).

Here are some pictures of Jack in action. I literally have dozens more but these are my favorites so far!

snatching that flag before the kid even crossed the line of scrimmage

lined up and ready to go

quick direction change -- I think it looks like he's dancing!

If I was a tweeter...

I don't tweet; not because of some high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou reason but simply because I know myself and I need a little more filtering than Twitter allows. Still I compose tweets in my head -- snippets of thought, clever one-liners, random observations. I thought it might be fun, for one day, to keep track of what my tweets would be if I was a tweeter on Twitter. Let's see what happens together shall we?

*2 diaper changes and one outfit change for Grace and she's only been up 30 minutes. Gonna be a good day.
* have already had too many bodily fluid incidences with my kids and I haven't left the house yet
* dropped Jack at school. Praying he has a good day.
* on the way out the door for Sam's school and Bible study. Drenched in projectile puke from Grace. guess we're staying home
*survived Sam's drop-off sans puke.
* finally did all the dishes I've been hiding in my dishwasher
* HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!


So this was a big-fat-failure. Maybe it would've worked if there hadn't been such a presence of bodily fluid abounding. I'll try again another day...

Adoption Update

I know you are in need of some gratuitous cuteness but it's 630AM and I don't have a clue which tiny cranny I crammed the camera into before our last showing. I'll find it and oblige later. For now -- an adoption update.

We submitted our very last piece of paperwork last week! We are still waiting to hear from the fire marshal's office, but being a perfectly run government agency, they are experiencing about a 4 week delay in contacting applicants. The best news is that Arrow has assigned us a caseworker! I spoke with our Family Home Developer, told her the fire marshal delay and let her know we were wanting to expedite certain steps (mainly consolidate the waiting times). She agreed and as soon as our paperwork was submitted, sent word of our caseworker assignment. "J" has been assigned our home (not sure if I'm supposed to publicize her name) and should be contacting us soon. Of course I also know that some caseworkers take up to 3 weeks to get to a home so the definition of "soon" is a little varied.

What this means: once we complete our home study (and submit proof of our fire inspection) we will officially be licensed to accept a foster child/children. Once licensing happens, placement usually occurs within 5 days (and that's being generous -- most stories we've heard have happened in 72 hours or less). Licensing can take about 3 weeks to complete -- the case worker has 14 days to process and type her report for submission to her supervisor, and then Arrow takes about 3 days to process the license (I have no idea how long the Supervisor gets to review the case).

How you can help: We are asking people to cover "J" in prayer. Her job is not an easy one and we are just asking for God's favor on her life right now. Pray for us and our kids as we enter the scariest portion of this process (excluding actual placement I suppose). The home study is almost 8 hours of interviews -- that's a lot of talking! Pray for us to continue to seek God's timetable in this; it's my human nature to "get things done", I'm an expediter and this is one project that can't be expedited.

I'll keep you updated as I know more.

Timelines are nice

What follows immediately is my original post. Unfortunately before I had the chance to publish it things changed AGAIN. The newest news is at the bottom.

I love timelines. The finality of knowing how long I'll have to keep my enthusiasm (or sometimes dread) in check is freeing. I love having boxes to check, milestones to accomplish -- makes the waiting so much easier for this patience-lacking lady.

I'm so very happy to say that after months of wishy-washy, back-and-forth, no-solid-answer-available discussions about the timeline of our adoption, we finally got some answers last night. We completed our very last adoption training last night. Like the back cover of a hefty volume of reading, we closed our training with the last session of Behavior and Crisis Management Techniques. It was a freeing moment. The absolute best part of the training wasn't the material itself but rather the presenter. We've had small group access (the class is capped at 12) for 8 hours to the Adoption Coordinator with our agency. We were able to ask anything and everything we wanted; I only wish now I'd taken a list with me to make sure I didn't forget any questions!

Based on his responses we were able to construct a "best-case" timeline for the completion of our placement. So here it is:
1. HVAC inspection -- all gas-fired heaters have to be inspected for carbon monoxide leaks. TBD by or around Oct 4.
2. Fire Marshal Inspection -- TBD by or around Oct 11 (this particular step is dependent on the HCFMO's schedule. I should know more this afternoon).
3. All remaining paperwork (including inspection) submitted by Oct 12; homestudy scheduled.
4. Homestudy completed sometime between Oct 19 and Nov 2. (depends entirely on the schedule of the caseworker the study is assigned to -- some get out to homes within a week, some take 3 weeks).
5. Case worker has 14 days from date of study to submit to his/her supervisor for approval. (between Nov 2 and Nov 16).
6. Review of our file and paperwork process takes about 3 days to officially license our home (between Nov 5 and Nov 19).
7. PLACEMENT!! Based on others' stories this could occur as quickly as 72 hours after licensing approval.

Obviously this is a best case scenario. There are plenty of opportunities for issues outside and beyond our control to arise and interrupt our plans. While not an ideal situation we are prepared for that reality. We are just thrilled to have even this most basic of timelines! And we are beyond excited to know that we could have a new little one in our home by Christmas!

***What follows here is the newest information.
We were able to contact our HVAC guy and he agreed to call Monday, Oct. 4th to schedule a time that day to stop by and do the inspection. Excited by the news and eager to continue our positive steps forward, I called the fire marshal's office to schedule the final inspection. It was there I hit a veritable brick wall. As a side bar, the woman who answers the phone in the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office is the antithesis of a ray of sunshine. It's as if she's sucked on persimmons all day. Anyway, we discovered a rather hidden inspection application on the HCFMO website (it's a terrible website with incredibly conflicting information). What we shortly discovered was that once the application had been received and processed it could take up to 4 weeks for our inspection to be processed. We asked all the questions we could think of to ask and were told that the schedule was up to the individual inspectors. We've attempted to find a private certified fire safety inspector to do the inspection but it seems that is a difficult person to locate. So now we wait. We hope that the inspection won't take 4 weeks to schedule but it might. We may still make it before Christmas, but our level of confidence in that fact isn't quite as high. If you are looking at the dates above, add about 30 days to every step beginning with step 2.

Security and such

Changes are in the works for ye olde blog. After a lengthy conversation with the hubster, prompted by some very creepy goings-on, I've made the decision to make this blog private. What does this mean for you? You will need permission to view the blog from here on out. I was going to immediately enact the new settings but then realized I'd miss out on some faithful, yet quiet!, readers. So here's what you need to do: email me/comment on this post/find me on facebook and give me your email address. I'll then add it to the safe list and you'll be able to read the blog. I'll give you a day or so to do it! Sorry for the changes but creepsters lurk everywhere and I don't want them lurking after my babies!

Fundraising Woes

**Updated at the bottom...

It was a typical Wednesday afternoon. I shuttled Jack home in the 29382 degree heat and once safely tucked inside the cocoon of wonderful a/c, began to look through the contents of his take home folder. It was the largest amount of "stuff" yet and I wanted to know why. Then I discovered "it" -- the dreaded fundraising packet. In the giant envelope of gluttony were catalogs for cookie dough, pretzels, coffee, candles, wrapping paper (yeah -- separate catalogs for each!) along with a letter outlining the Check Writing Campaign (the gist? write us a check because we get 100% of the money!) and the Fall Carnival. I didn't feel like reading about all of it because truthfully after writing a $30 check the first week of school for various items that will "support the PTA as they support the teachers" I was a bit put out. "I'll come back to it," I thought.

So I pulled out the weekly Wednesday letter from our principal. Along with a heaping helping of coercion regarding the fundraisers, she outlined the school's policy on re-testing and introduced the ZAP (Zeros are not Permitted) Program, explaining how and when students would be allowed to complete unfinished assignments. "Interesting program," I thought. I'm still not sure which side of the fence I fall on in regards to zeros; like the pendulum swing of educational theory, my opinion shifts widely and frequently.

We loaded up the family for dinner and then church. And thus ended my journey through the folder. Until later...

After bathing and bedding the little ones, I set to my original task of examining all the fund-raising paraphernalia. It was then that I stumbled across the prize packages. One glossy page offered, in bright colors, the usual dollar-store fare that I'd grown accustomed to seeing (and wanting) in the course of my fundraising experience. Then I came across the "Just for NCE" prizes. The first prize was cute; anyone who participates at all in any of the fundraisers will get a Stinky Feet Day Pass -- good for one shoeless day in the classroom. While my gross factor was heightened, I understood how appealing this would be to the students, particularly my little guy. As I kept reading I came across the prize of a free homework pass. Any student who sells $75 worth of merchandise (or who brings a check from mom/dad for that amount) qualifies for one homework pass to be used instead of actually doing the homework. And that was all it took. The alarm was raised -- as mother and teacher.

The prize seems innocuous at first glance but it presents a dangerous and slippery slope. How can we as teachers and parents instruct our children daily on the importance of hard-work, diligence and responsibility and then offer a "get out of jail free" card when it suits our purpose? I fail to understand how offering such a prize doesn't undermine everything the teachers are trying so hard to instill. Someone needs to explain to me how directly tying academic performance to monetary gain is a positive thing. And while it's "only one homework assignment", the entire idea presents a dangerous situation in which our expectations for student performance change based on the child's ability to perform for our benefit.

Right now I have an email in to the principal. I'm sure I'll receive a cursory "thanks for letting me know" response. As soon as I know I'll pass it on. Any insight/advice/opinions on the topic are wanted and welcome!

Update:
The principal called, and as expected I received an "I appreciate your concern" conversation. First I was given the logic that homework only counts for 10% of the overall average, and reminded that the prize only counted for one homework assignment so it's "not really that big of a deal." Then I was told that the principal was going to "support the PTA in any way they needed because they do so much for the school." I was lectured about how blessed Jack's school is to have parental support because the principal has been without it before and "it isn't fun." I was reminded that the fundraisers are voluntary and was told that the "kids who will win the award will participate anyway" and "it really all comes down to who has the most family members willing to help." It was with that comment that I lost my ability to speak to the woman as a parent; my teacher-mode came on with full force. I began my questioning of her with, "And that sits well with you as an educator? That the students who have the greatest familial support and easiest access to money are the ones who receive all the reward?" She didn't have an answer. So I then asked, "given what we know about low socio-economic status and it's impact on student performance, you see no problem tying directly a student's academic performance to his/her ability to provide money for the school?" Again she didn't have an answer. I heard more of the same logic that "it's no big deal" and "the team leaders voted on it." Finally at the end she admitted that she'd never thought of things from my perspective (which raised an entirely new set of issues for me -- what's her job if not to think like this???). I told her that I support her and her staff; I told her I appreciated her hard work.

I'm not certain how to proceed. I take issue with the PTA's carte blanche decision making privileges. I have a problem with a principal that, while claiming that education of her students is paramount, will give approval to anything that comes across her desk from the PTA. I have serious concerns that the person charged with leading my son's school, who supposedly has at least a master's degree in education administration, didn't bother to think about a grades-for-money scheme as wrong, that she didn't bother to consider the messages she was sending to students. If Tot2Tot wasn't this weekend I'm sure I'd be a little more involved in fighting this. As it stands I think I'll let it go until Monday. And then? Then I may be emailing the superintendent?