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.

Like Father. . .Like Son?

The little man and I were in the greatest grocery store on the planet the other day and this lady commented on the general adorableness of my son. I really wanted to just say "I know", but was able to attempt a modicum of humility and say thank you instead. After a brief pause she continued by saying that when I had my curly hair, she was sure that my son was just the spitting image of me. At this point, humility went out the window and I answered that he sure was. I then had to go home and tell Lisa who burst my brief bubble by confirming that no, Bobo and I look absolutely nothing alike. At all. Not that there was really any doubt.

Discovery

The little fat was taking a bath last night and stumbled upon a startlingly new and exciting discovery. He's a boy, with boy parts. As he made the discovery, he looked up at Lisa with this amazed look on his face as if to say, "Holy Cow . . . did you know that this was down here! This is amazing!!! I have a new toy!!! Has this thing always been there?! Do I get to keep it?!"

Lisa's response was slightly less than enthusiastic. "Great, what a boy."

Chocolate, kind of

Who knew, Forrest was right. It is like a box of chocolates.

Every once in a while I get the urge to follow random blogs and read the doings of other people's lives. While it is interesting to see what is going on in the lives of friends and complete strangers as well as seeing how these individuals present themselves to the world, I tend to come away feeling that either a) my life just doesn't quite measure up in a number of areas, from the happiness quotient to cool things that I have managed to accumulate to how unique everything is in my life, or b) a lot of these people are full of male cow excrement(that has to be a record for long sentences). I in no way want to rain on anyone's parade, and will be the first to admit that life is great, but it is most definitely not all happiness and sunshine and rainbows. No, life is not a Care Bear's movie, where you are able to counteract anything that is not virtuous, or is ugly, or of ill report, or not praiseworthy with happiness incarnated shot from their chests (yes I am able to admit having watched on more than one occasion a Care Bear's movie, although I can't remember any specific titles and I think that the above mentioned phenomenon is called the "Care Bear Stare!" but I could be mistaken). I'm not necessarily trying to make any point with this. I realize that if I honestly look at my own blog posts, I will probably see myself trying to put maybe not my best, but at least a better foot forward for the world to see. Alright, I lied. There is a point. The artificiality that social media, whether it is a personal or family blog or Facebook or even Twitter, affords us is not real life. Real life is great, but it is also terribly hard at times. No one's life is perfect. Sorry if I have burst your bubble and you thought that your life was definitely different from everyone else's life. I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't celebrate life's great moments nor even share those moments with everyone on your friends list. Nor am I saying that you need to be a Debbie downer (not really sure who Debbie is) and complain publicly about how life has thrown you nothing but curve balls and you have never developed the necessary hand-eye coordination to hit said curve balls. OK, so maybe there really isn't a point after all, just an observation on my part. Life is just life.

That being said, it has been an "interesting" (I'll say interesting instead of the more honest, boy am I ever glad that's over) last few days. Lisa had surgery last Friday for fertility reasons, and while everything went well, it was definitely more complicated than the doctor expected. That in and of itself wasn't such a big deal, we were able to utilize daycare and friends to watch the fatman while we spent time in the hospital. Even afterward, Lisa has been much tougher than I and is doing just fine in recovery. I'm going to lay the blame squarely on the guilty culprit. Little fat. He decided that Saturday would be a good time to manifest a stomach bug and try and get rid of it through explosive bowel movements (with emphasis on the explosive part). This happened off and on all day Saturday and throughout the night, but most frequently when he was supposed to be sleeping. So he didn't sleep. Instead he was busy perfecting his new found powers to launch his personal waste to such far away places as the top of his head or the floor next to his swing (I'm not sure how he managed either feat, and if not for the grossness factor assaulting multiple senses, I would have taken a picture for proof as well as future blackmail purposes). Talk about impressive. In a weird and more than somewhat sick kind of way. I now know that the shower was in all likelihood invented because there are certain instances in a child's life when even the cumulative cleaning power of all wipes combined would not be enough to vanquish the evil that will henceforth be known as an explosive diarrhea bomb. Ugh.

Long story short. Our little cheerful guy was slightly less than cheerful throughout the weekend. He didn't sleep well. That meant I didn't sleep well. I think that Lisa slept well, but that was helped along by our good friend Senor Percocet. I realize that both Lisa and I have been unduly spoiled by Bobo while he has been with us. We hear that it is normal for babies and even young toddlers to not sleep well. Usually that is the stuff of myth for us. Fatticus generally takes a bath and goes to bed around 8pm. In the morning, he tends to rouse himself sometime between the eighth and ninth hour. That is how life is supposed to be. But when it is not so, such as this last weekend, and having to do things mostly on my own, it throws off the balance of our life. No fun. We are close to being back to normal, except for the tick that I have developed in my left eye (in case you see me, no I am not winking at you). Bobo has returned (mostly) to his normal routine and is feeling better, meaning that all is once again right in the universe. Lisa is doing great and will soon be back to normal which is fabulous because I'm just not tough enough to be a mom.

Good thing this kid is so cute. Plus he calls me dada and gives me hugs. I think we'll keep him around.

Weekend Splendidicity

This last weekend was good. I think that about sums it up.



Leaves were raked. Sticks were picked up. The outside was played in. And it was all done in the glorious sunshine. One little tidbit of info for those of you blessed with more hair on the top of your head than someone say, like me, put on a hat in the sun. Just take my word for it. Be good.

Sweet Pea Designs

My wife is cooler than your wife. Lisa has started down the path to being my full-time sugar mama!! She just recently started an Etsy shop to mostly give outlet to her creativity. It probably comes as no surprise that I am not much of an outlet. Go figure. Anyhow, go and check out her shop here or just click on the title post. As a completely biased individual reporting on what she's done, she's pretty awesome. She is also looking at opening up a booth at a local Co-Op/Antique/Craft store nearby. I'm sure all of you that know me are still asking yourself why this amazingly talented and beautiful woman married me. I wonder that too and just do my best to make sure that she doesn't ask that question. Happy trails all.

hello world

It has been a little while since I have posted anything. I know that my reading public has been anxiously waiting for the latest news in my life. Sorry Kimball. My life seems to still be consumed by the same things. Between foster care, work, and church, there isn't much time for anything else. I think that I tend to say that a lot.

Foster care has been living up to its craziness these last few months. After Christmas, birth mom was doing well in her rehab program and was doing well with her visits (definition of good = bobo doesn't die during the visit) and so court determined that birth mom should get two overnight visits during the month. That lasted for a couple of months, because none of the overnight visits (actually any of the visits) went very well. Bobo would tend to come home and take three days to recover. Because of those struggles, the court decided to stop overnight visits (a full on miracle) and finally recognized that even though birth mom has stayed sober in rehab since last June, she still struggles to do little things, like feed her son and put him to sleep. At the beginning of March, birth mom moved to a new rehab which gave her a little more freedom. After a couple of weeks there, she relapsed the last weekend in March and left rehab. This all came as quite a shock because as far as her sobriety, she had been doing so well for about 9 months. Since she took off from rehab, everything has changed. The visits were scaled back drastically and were moved to the county visitation center. The biggest change though is that we haven't seen birth mom since the fallout of her relapse and leaving rehab. She hasn't come to any of the visits. While this is definitely a positive for us and bobo staying with us, it bodes all sorts of not good for birth mom. It seemed even before this that the county was saying that birth mom was running out of time since bobo has now been with us for going on 14 months and birth mom has not made any improvements in giving the little fatling even the most basic of care. So to sum it up, things are moving well for us, but we are conflicted because we don't want birth mom to be where she is.

Our lives do include more than just living the dream called foster care. We were able to take a much needed break from reality and travel out of the perpetual cold called "Rochester" to the sunny delight of Gilbert, Arizona to see family and relax during the middle of February. I won't try and recreate the magic that happened there. Lisa captures it well here and here. All that I will add is that fun was had and good food was eaten, but I'm fairly certain that if you know me, then the good food part probably doesn't come as too much of a surprise.

February was a rather big month for us. Besides the trip to Arizona-land, we also celebrated our 7th anniversary. This was our 6th anniversary celebrated here in Rochacha. Crazy. I remember meeting couples that have lived here for 25-30 years and they'd talk about how they moved to Rochester for school 30 years ago and ended up staying. Little did I think that we'd still be here at this point in time. Don't get me wrong, we really like Rochester and have made good friends here, we are just far from family. Scottie just needs to hurry it up and figure out how to beam us wherever we want, when we want.

The last big to do in our shortest month has to do with our beloved little fatticus. On the tenth, we danced around like fools (that was mostly just Lisa, I would never do anything like that) and celebrated the fact that ciccia nostra had been with us for a year. Lisa wrote about it here.

Life continues to move forward in spite of all of our efforts. Lisa and I both love the stage that bobo is at right now. He is getting into everything, has started walking (and thus falling and testing the strength of his cranium and other facial features) and has grown quite the head of hair. It is funny and interesting to me how much of a personality bobo has developed. He thinks it is the funniest thing in the world to play peekaboo as well as to have you chase him. He will run/walk/fall/crawl from you, stop and look back to make sure that you see him run/walk/fall/crawling away and that you are planning on chasing after him. He then will take off again, looking back to make sure that you are following. I know this is riveting information for all of you. In other news, the cow jumped over the moon, just read that and wanted to share. My reading material has changed of late as well as my music selection. I tend to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle" or some other hip hop tune for the entertainment value that it gives to Lisa.

Now that I'm caught up, I can hurry up and wait another couple of months before I put fingers to keyboard to record our most precious moments and memories for future posterity, friends, and the occasional random Internet stranger/blog stalker. Happy times.

Things I learned last year

This last year has been a good one, up and down and lots of different things going on. Here are some of the top lessons that I have learned in the last year, in no particular order.

- When the baby is screaming in the middle of the night because he has bad diaper rash, make sure that your wife doesn't put the sunscreen in the same drawer as the butt paste. Just an FYI in case you didn't know, sunscreen on a bad diaper rash doesn't help, it actually makes things worse.

- Be careful tossing a baby up into the air right after him downing a bottle. It could all come back up, on you.

- Even if you are more calm than your wife while the kid is screaming, it does absolutely no good to point that out to her. Not sure why.

- It's pretty magical to hear the words da-da while getting a bear hug and the side of your face licked.

- You have about 3.2 seconds from the time the diaper comes off to get him into the bath before the pee starts flowing.

- It's a good thing kids are made of rubber.

- Babies in the hospital don't make for happy parents, even for something not too serious.

- The feeling of helplessness that has come quite frequently this last year is rather humbling, which I think is the point. That doesn't make it easier.

- We have lots of great friends and family all over the world, and it's perfectly fine that they are more interested in the little fat than in us.

- I think the slogan "Be prepared" was originally coined by mothers talking about the fact that one can never have too many wet wipes.

I've actually learned quite a bit more than that this last year. It has been a good one full of lots of love and laughs. I'm grateful for all of the great blessings that I enjoy, more than I rightly deserve. Happy 2011 all, may your days be full of this.

hmmm

These last few weeks have been...we'll call them challenging. I realize that everyone has challenging times, in their own way. It is interesting that I think we all tend to get so self-absorbed that somehow OUR challenges are unique and hard in such a way that NO ONE else can understand. Of course that isn't true, but that's how I've been feeling. Life really is good, but sometimes it is definitely difficult to remind yourself of that fact and remember it when you feel as if you were at the base of this.


Have a great Holiday Season. Be good, remember who you are and don't let it get you down.

Body Parts

A few weeks ago, Lisa was asked to speak at a Friday night Fireside with a visiting General Authority before she was released as the Stake Young Women's President. She spoke about unity and as usual was very insightful and did a wonderful job. Whenever she is asked to speak, her subject matter tends to be our topic of conversation until said talk is done. A couple of nights before the fireside, we were talking about the scripture in 1st Corinthians that states that we are all a part of the body of Christ, and and how everyone is different and contributes differently, just like the various parts of a body contribute to the whole. Then she turned towards me and said with a straight face, "And you're the butt cheek." At least I know where I stand . . . or maybe sit?

Consumer Chris strikes again

On Monday night I ran a few errands, got some groceries, and stopped by Blockbuster to get a movie for family night. Lisa has been wanting to see this new documentary, Babies, and I was hoping to be able to surprise her with it. 6pm on Monday is a slow time for Blockbuster, as there was only one employee (whom we will call Dufus) and one other customer in the store. I walked around looking for the show, couldn't find it, so went and stood in line to talk to Dufus and ask to see if it was in and I was just dumb and not able to find it. He finished with the other customer, but before I could ask him anything, the phone rang. He answered it and was like, "oh dude, yeah, I was totally going to call you..." No exaggerations or Packer factor going on here. He held up his pointer finger to me, which I took to mean that he would be just a minute. No problem. I listened to a good five minutes of Dufus talking on the phone with his friend about all sorts of stuff, and hope and pray that I never sounded that dumb (I know I did, my family will attest to it, but I was 12). I tried to butt into his phone call to ask if they had the movie, and he got this annoyed look on his face, put the phone on his shoulder and said, "Hey man, I'm on the phone." I apologized, pulled out my phone and dialed the manager's number that was prominently displayed on a sign at the front of the store, asking for customer feedback. No one answered and so I proceeded to leave a message with my name, number, and citing that Dufus was standing right in front of me and that he refused to help and was talking on the company phone with friends. Then I hung up. So did Dufus. He wasn't happy. At all. That's OK, neither was I. He wanted me to call the manager again and take back what I said, I wanted him to look up the movie for me. Again I learned that life isn't fair. Neither of us got what we wanted.

Opposite World

I've decided that I live in a parallel dimension that looks like ours, but does not function like it is supposed to. Since becoming a foster parent, I've learned lots about life, from which I had previously been sheltered. PFC (Pre Foster Care) everything worked properly. People did what they said they would. The law was on my side. The world made sense. I've now entered one of Calvin's opposite zones, where all is not as it appears.

AFC (no this is not football related, surprisingly enough, AFC = After Foster Care), I think I find myself like the above cartoon. If only my problems could be solved thanks to a 1-hour photo developer. It doesn't matter what kind of a parent bio-mom is, she just has to meet minimum requirements. Government funded housing. Food stamps. Public Assistance. Quick disclaimer. I'm not knocking any of these programs, because there is a need for them. That being said, I think they are being abused left and right and there is a lot of work that needs to be done with the welfare system of this country, but that is a different discussion. It is my thought that bio-mom should be able to take care of herself before being asked to take care of someone else, especially a little someone else. In this, our judicial system (and overall our government) disagree. In their mind, they can take care of someone who is then able to take care of someone else. They obviously don't know who Captain Moroni is, or what his thoughts are on the matter.

The other beef I have is that as much as we were told that doing Foster Care is all about the children and helping them, they fed us a line of male cow manure. We are really the only advocates for little fat, and we have the power of maybe a well aimed burp (or possibly even some good old Dad, early morning, going antelope hunting, windows rolled up because of the cold, onion....you get the idea). Everyone else is about the process and meeting mom's needs. Under the law, the child has no rights, as it is assumed that the best interests of the child will be looked after by the parents. In the ideal world, I would agree with that statement. Last time I checked, we weren't living in the ideal world. Don't get me wrong, mom is worthy of help, everyone is. But at what point do you continue to help and push for mom's rights even though it hurts someone else's? I recognize that that is a rather difficult line to draw in the sand and am fairly biased right now.

I've reached the conclusion that my parents were right all those years ago when I would throw a tantrum at something and decide that it wasn't fair. Their response? Life isn't fair. Sorry to burst your bubble if you didn't know that already. Maybe I should have put up a little spoiler alert for those of you still reading and thinking that life turns out exactly how you want it to. oops.

Not to leave you all with the impression that I'm so far down in the dumps that I can't see the good things around me; I do have a wonderful family...that I don't get to see because I'm still working all day everyday. For those of you saying I should be grateful to have a job, I am, I just wish that since they are expecting me to work twice as much, they should pay me twice as much. That would be an ideal world.

Go Pokes

That blessed time of year has arrived. Go Pokes.

August...die she must

Summer is slowly fading, and life as we know is about to get better (thank you college football, crisp air, apple pies, pumpkins and fall leaves). This last month has passed too quickly, but not without good adventures. Little Fat started crawling and refusing to take his bottle unless he was fed a higher quality of food first, such as mashed bananas.

We took the little nipper on his first overnight camping experience as well as hiking in Stony Brook State Park to see the local scenery. I think he did better than both Lisa and I, however, no one was carrying us and he had much more padding for a bed than we did.

Stony Brook

Bobo along for the ride

he was so tired he left a good mark on his face from the pack

Out Cold

We also went to a Rochester Redwings game to eat Simply Crepes and enjoy a perfect evening out. Bubba really liked the game and got pretty excited at everything going on around him, but still managed to take a nap halfway through.

Frontier Field

I've been really busy trying to finish up a quality project at work. It has seriously made me an absentee father/husband, working 12-13 hours a day. Lisa has been great in picking up my slack though and doing everything. It has also been fun to see the slobber monster grow. Not only is he able to produce copious amounts of saliva at the drop of a hat, he is mobile enough to spread the love all around the house. He has a hard time sitting still and really doesn't care too much for his toys, he is much more interested in what you have. The best part is that when he gets really excited, he does the most amazing impression of squealing like a girl. That's my boy. Talented.

funny

I like dumb jokes. They make me laugh. I was in Lowe's the other day and this older gentleman that was working there asked if I needed some help and then asked if I would like to hear a joke. Here's what he told me.

"The receptionist at a dentist's office interrupted the dentist while working on a patient and said 'Dr. Smith, there's an invisible man in the waiting room that is very insistent on seeing you right away!' The dentist replied, saying 'well you'll just have to tell him that I can't see him!'"

I laughed all the way home.