Thank goodness for summer days...

I love summer. Part of that love is generated by long months of winter, without which, summer wouldn't be quite as grand. So here is to summer days. 

Life is good. 

Iettatore

Bad luck. 

That is what our life has been like lately. Allow me to vent a little. It started a little more than a month ago. My awesome, manly 1997 Ford Taurus with 186,000 miles started to fall apart. Not all at once mind you. Just $300 dollars here, a new set of tires there and then a few more minor visits to the mechanic later and we thought we had our car back. While that was going on, we went on a little family outing and managed to leave an iPhone on top of the car as we went driving down the interstate. Now that phone is scattered to the winds. And the road. And everywhere else. 

So we bought a new phone. Then we found out that the car was sicker than we thought. In fact it had a terminal illness that would require transplants of almost every major organ. And then no guarantee that it would get better. This all happened while Lisa's family was here for a wedding. Just a nice little added touch. The next day, we got even better news. The dryer died a slow horrible death. Again while everyone was here. 

So yesterday, after everyone had left, Lisa picked me up from work (because we only have the one car) and we went to look at new dryers. After having looked at several we decided that we would stop one more time even though it was close to bedtime for the kids. We'd be quick we said. It'll be fast we said. Just one quick easy stop. Until the lady backed into our car. It wasn't quick or fast or any of those things. An hour later after the police came and made a report, we went home, with a slightly battered car and without having looked at dryers. 

Our luck has to turn sometime. I should buy a lottery ticket. 

End Times

The bathroom is finished. The end must be near. The finishing touch was the floating shelves. Most importantly, Lisa is happy. 

Baseball

This kid is cute when he is asleep. Other times...not so much.

In other news, we have a small basil plant reaching for the sun in our front window.  Caleb calls it the "baseball plant".  He's my son.

Pirates

This is the prayer Caleb said for dinner tonight. "Heavenly Father, grateful for Captain Hook, Mr. Smee, I love pirates, Jesus Christ, Amen

Good

Life is good.  I'm typing this with the hand pictured below that has mostly returned to normal.  The bigger good though is this. 

This is the Packer Family at court, shortly after the adoption was finalized.  Lisa made a great video of the last three years leading up to this here. We had lots of family come out for the adoption, sealing and Thanksgiving.

Since then we've been enjoying life doing things like this.

And acting like we always do.  Proof that he really is a Packer. 



A battle lost

One should never fight with power tools.  The result is fairly predictable.  Always a little thick headed, I took on the table saw this last Saturday...and lost.  The result was much better than it could have been, no lost appendages, no severed tendons, just mangled flesh, lots of stitches and 15 minutes to type out the last two sentences.  If you don't want gory images in your head, turn away now. Otherwise, happy viewing.

I am boring...and other reasons I don't blog

We've  been "redoing" our bathroom for the last two years.  Lisa wants to fire the contractor for such a long delay, but in his defense, it's amazing what you can think to do instead of working on your bathroom.  Over labor day weekend, we decided that we would jump in and get most of it done since it was already half-demolished and we had the home study coming up for the adoption.  The only drawback with the plan is that it is the lone bathroom in the house, and by "redo" we really mean "tear every little piece of the old pink bathroom out and start from scratch" which included the toilet.

 

You can see where I'm going (maybe it's better that you don't...).  We solved this by sending Lisa and Bobo to a hotel for three days, while the contractor got to stay and wrestle with the bathroom.  While it's debatable as to who won the wrestling match, by the end of the three day weekend, new wiring, lights and outlets were in, new plumbing in place, drywall and cement board up, some tile on the floor and a functioning toilet back in place.



While much progress has been made since that fun filled weekend, the floor is finished, the shower/bath is complete, and bead-board and trim are up, the vanity has yet to make an appearance.  Lazy vanity.

Freedom

Do you ever look at your life and ask yourself the question, "how in the name of all that is good and holy did I end up here?"  Maybe not exactly like that, but something close?  I have asked myself that frequently as of late. These thoughts have increased the last several weeks as we have successfully complicated our lives exponentially.  We took in a 16 month old little girl (mimi) the end of April and quickly discovered that two toddlers are more work than one.  I think I could possibly be successful in arguing that a new division of science having to do with energy and kids has been discovered by our household.  One would think that it stands to reason that if you have the energy of one toddler and you introduce into that environment the energy of a second toddler, you would have the energy of two toddlers.  One would be wrong.  One has a tornado. 
To increase the severity of the tornado and raise the craziness level of our house to three steps above the breaking point, we started the trial to terminate the parental rights of Bobo's birth mom (BM, not to be confused with BUM, that is who Rob thinks dad works for, but that is a completely different story) the first week of May.  While this was a very good thing, the judge was dead set on getting the trial over as quickly as possible (another very good thing).  This has meant court appearances two to three days a week on top of four visits a week each to different birth moms. I know everyone has a busy life.  I'm not trying to saying you don't, just saying ours is worse.  That's all.  Lisa and I felt that at least one of us should be at each court hearing for the trial in case BM decided she would change her mind and surrender her rights.  All through this, BM has been adamant that she wants her son back, this in spite of piles of evidence to her inability to take care of herself, let alone her son.  Frustration was doled out evenly all around.  We wanted to be done after close to two and a half years, BM wanted her son, and the judge wanted the trial over and done so that Bobo could have permanency moving forward.  Witnesses were called and examined and cross examined and back and forth in very tedious fashion.  Nothing like what you expect from Law & Order.
Throughout this process, the judge, and all three (yes three) lawyers have been pushing BM to surrender her rights for a number of reasons.  It is simply far easier and less costly for everyone (and I mean everyone, especially if you are living in New York as your taxes helped contribute to BM's defense) because that would immediately stop the trial and any possibility of an appeal.  It would also give BM more options as far as being able to legally see Bobo a few times a year instead of being cut off completely.  Last week the judge was pretty straightforward with BM in saying that while he wasn't prejudging and had yet to hear her side of the case, the county had a mountain of evidence going back almost eight years and there would be no guarantee that she would see her son again if he sided with the county against her.  She said she wanted to see a therapist in order to talk to someone about the surrender and we were adjourned until the morning of May 31st. 
That Thursday, Lisa stayed home with the crazies while I went to court, fully expecting to sit around and have BM tell everyone that she was not going to surrender and that she wanted to have her say in court.  As I waited and talked with a few of the regulars (of which I was one by this point) in family court, BM came in and talked with her attorney, the county attorney, as well as the stooge's attorney.  She then came over to me and calmly announced that she had decided to surrender!!! I was told to quickly call Lisa and get her down to the courthouse so that we could get it all taken care of then and there.  Mimi was on a visit, so I called to make sure that visitation could hold on to her until we were done and I could swing by and get her, and Lisa brought in skinny pants to the courthouse daycare center. It is still somewhat a surreal experience that we walked into court, the judge read through a number of documents and we all signed the surrender and we were done.  Done.  After two and a half years.  Done.  No more BM (according to the conditions of the surrender, BM gets three visits a year, but she has to initiate them and she has since moved out of state and would have to come back to us for visits).  I'm still not sure that it has really sunk in yet.  To further increase the level of surreality, the very next day, mimi was placed with a family member and so she left our craziness and the hurricane was down graded to a tropical storm.  In one day we went from eight visits a week between both rug rats to no visits and just one terror.  I'm not sure that Lisa quite knows what to do with herself. 

Miracles do happen. 

Cuteness Personified

I just don't think that there is a cuter kid in the entirety of the universe. If you disagree with me, you are wrong. Be ready to be bathed in adorableness.

Positive

Lisa does a great job of writing about the good things in our life like this, this and this. She even does a wonderful job at spinning those not so great moments and happenings into great learning experiences such as here. I'm somewhat less positive. Somewhat less = polar opposite. Visits and schedules in general have been having a rather larger impact on Fatty McFatsalot (who is not quite as fat as he used to be and is actually kind of skinny, still solid, but a skinny solid). Yesterday was a culmination of events that created a perfect storm of cranky, tired, juggernautishness that just wouldn't be stopped. The high point (or low point, depending on perspective) was the 2am viewing of Elmo/old pictures/videos. That was followed entirely to closely by being to work at 6am. It has been such a positive experience for everyone involved that I was asked by a co-worker to just stay in my office today. Enter the Beach Boys singing Sloop John B.

Here's a picture of what was not happening last night. For anyone. Except Piper. Lucky dog.

Repeat Offender

We have reached the stage of development in which everything we say can and will be used against us and/or repeated. I'm sure you've all heard variations of this before, but now you get to hear mine because I'm a first timer. The little man goes to daycare two days a week, and up until a couple of months ago, I took him in the morning as it was mostly on my way to work. One morning we were running a little late and as we were pulling into the parking lot at daycare (15 minutes from home and 15 minutes from work) I realized that I didn't have my work badge with me and it was sitting at home. This meant that it would take me more than 30 minutes (I can still do some math in my head) to get to work and make me even later than I was. Anger flared. Frustration set in. Words left my mouth in the form of a somewhat loud and exasperated "Dammit" (sorry Mom). Seriously not three seconds passed before out of the back seat a sweet little voice chanted "dammit, dammit, dammit" over and over. Awesome.

Sleep

We are having issues sleeping. By "we" I mean bobo. By "issues" I mean he won't. We are hopeful that it might just be a phase he's going through, but who knows. If he'd just hurry up and really pick up language, he could tell us what is going on. He is consistently waking up several times a night for what appears to us to be no good reason. I've had family and others tell me that you just need to let him cry it out and that he needs to learn to put himself to sleep, and while I understand that logically, when he is cracking glass with his screams, it is harder to put into practice. Last night, Lisa and I were discussing this and she mentioned that she thinks we should try the Ferber Method. When she said this, my immediate thought was, "wow, Lisa's family has a method for putting kids to sleep!" (Lisa's maiden name is Faerber.) It was only later after she had employed the "family" method the first time that my eyes were opened to the true meaning and origins of the Ferber Method. We had a good laugh at my expense, which is not an uncommon occurrence in the Packer home. So how do you get your kids to realize that good grief, take advantage of all of the sleep time now, because it is just downhill from here?!

Oh, and he has to get glasses.

No-vember

It's not that I'm against fighting cancer, or other good causes springing from the Movember movement, it's just that I'm against mustachioed people. Sorry mom, but that means Tom Selleck as well (on the bright side mom, I'm 309% positive that dad still has/wears at least 13.5 pairs of shorts like Tom from his Magnum PI days). To alleviate any fears less you think that my bias and judgement is not universal, it's not anything specifically against men, I'm against women cultivating their upper-lip hair as well. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can move on to more important goings on, like what we have been doing since you last tuned in.

Our moms came and blessed us with their company a few weeks ago. The good thing about having the little fat in our lives is that our family wants to see us more often and so makes the reverse trek out east to do so. Fun was had, food was eaten, fall things were done (no one fell down, we did things associated with fall) and the bobo was thoroughly loved by both grandmothers. I won't write too much else about it because you were there mom. You got to experience it firsthand.

Halloween was passed without a zombie apocalypse, so we considered it a total success. That and we made candied apples and contributed to the state sponsored subsidizing of dentists everywhere by handing out enough candy to ensure that all the neighborhood kids consumed the FDA's yearly suggested sugar intake in one night. Good Times. Also our son was voted cutest kid on the planet by our pollsters (both grandmothers - sorry to our other nieces and nephews, at least you know where you stand). Sorry to all of the other contestants, but this is what first place looks like.

hi

Don't worry. Even though I haven't been updating this blog on a regular basis, life is still going on. We didn't just hit the pause button after the festivities surrounding the Fourth of July in my last post. We did lots the rest of the summer. If you really want to read about what we did, check out Lisa's blog, I am not feeling in the mood to rehash it. The biggest things that happened; football started and we got a dog. She's a puppy. Mostly good. Smack dab in the 'I'm going to chew on everything, including you' phase. Is learning not to use the house as a toilet. Her name is Piper. She's a mini schnauzer. Thanks to Piper, the little fat has really gotten the word No! down. He's also added Down! Sit! No Bite! and Ouch! to his repertoire. Those are the new dog words. The other words are cooler. Go Cowboys!! and Yeehaw!! are his best. Yep, he's being raised up good and proper. Other than that, life has been fairly hectic. We are trying to put our house in order before our recertification as foster parents and the arrival of our mothers for a visit the end of October. The bathroom is still not done. We're coming up on a year. I think Lisa would gladly fire the contractor at this point, but it's not like I can leave. I'd still be hanging around. Avanti.

Honestly, who wants to be bothered by pants.

Happenings in our most exciting life...

This past holiday weekend was most definitely a good one. The skies were blue, the sun was shining, and life was grand. Good food was eaten. Fun was had. On Saturday, we tried to go to a big fireworks show in Penfield in spite of the fact that his royal fatness usually goes to bed at 8pm. Alas, fate conspired against us. At the strike of 9pm, a group of girls attracted his attention, mostly because they had a bunch of balls that they were kicking around and bobo wanted in on the action. While running through the grass towards the gaggle of girls, he face planted in the grass and shortly devolved into full on meltdown mode. We managed to see a few fireworks on our way out.

On the 4th, we went over to our good friends the Cubiottis to partake of their goodness and swimming pool. It was divine. We swam. We soaked up sunshine. We ate. We swam some more. The fatticus loved it. Since my loyal fan base knows how much I think of food, I do have to mention the exquisite morsels that were shoved into my mouth on and off throughout the day. We made a tres leche cake, covered in homemade whipped cream, and strawberries and blueberries to replicate the flag. There was also fresh salsa, hamburgers, sausages, macaroni salad, potato salad and drinks galore. Awesome.

The only downside to all of this, was that I had to go back to work today. Happy times.

spernacchiare

I've determined that CPS (child protective services) exists to drive me up the wall. Ridiculous just wouldn't even begin to do it justice. If I were a journalist, I might be inclined to say, "Here's the scoop." We were called last Thursday to take a two year old girl for three weeks while her regular foster parents went on vacation. Fine. We had already decided that we would reopen our home to a second child, especially a baby child. Even though two does not equal baby, we thought that this would be a good test to see how we handle two crazies at once. She was supposed to come Monday (since I used 'supposed to' you are probably able to guess that she didn't) but didn't. We were called right before close and just before she was supposed to come and told that she was having an overnight visit with her birth mom. They would contact us on Tuesday (today) to set up drop off and give us more info, oh and by the way, there is court tomorrow (today) and she (baby girl) might be discharged from the system and returned to her birth mom. So they called us today and said that she was being discharged. That is great for her, and I know, you're probably thinking, "Yeah!!! The system served it's purpose..." and it did. That isn't my gripe. They had to know this when they first contacted us on Thursday. This just didn't come up. Let us know. Keep us in the loop. I know that we are only the lowly foster parents, but come on.

OK. Enough whining. At least for my part. There is enough of that going on in our house. Bobo has been a whining machine for the last week or so. His molars are coming in and every so often he just needs to flop on the ground and whine. I know. He has good reason to whine. But man. He also has lost his sense of balance. Today he managed to knock a chair over, fall over and hit the ground before the chair and make sure that said chair smacked him in the face as it landed. That's my boy. Talented.

...and turns

She was pregnant, but now is not. Who needs Soap Operas? Life is crazy enough. Speaking of crazy, here's our crazy boy, showing how hip he can be. He gets that from me.

As the World Turns...

...These are the Days of our Lives. At least, that's how I think it goes. The latest in soap opera news is that on Thursday we were told by CPS that fatling's birth mom is three months pregnant. Then on Friday, when we tried to get more information, we were told that birth mom denied being pregnant. Honestly, I'd give the odds at about 50/50 as to who's right. Sad as it is, I'm not sure that birth mom knows much, nor is able to tell fact from fiction, or fiction from fiction, or even fact from fact. We could go on, but tune in later this week for what is sure to be another exciting chapter in this great saga we call life.

Dear Prudie

I am somewhat ashamed to admit to the fact that I might just could be ever so slightly addicted to the advice columnist Dear Prudence on Slate. She conducts a live chat on Mondays, and writes her regular column for Thursdays. No worries though, as with most things, Lisa makes fun of me for this obsession of mine. I won't try and explain away my fascination with any sort of analysis, I just think it's entertaining. No excuses. That is all.