Okay. A lot to catch up on. I’ll be quick and summarize.
We are no longer requesting siblings. For a variety of reasons, one being that Mike has ALWAYS wanted to just do one at a time and I have always been the one to be like “NO! Let’s adopt SIX at a time! C’mon!” and another reason being that we are tired of waiting and Delaney is ready for a sibling. Like, NOW.
So, we changed our request to a single child, either gender, between the ages of 12 months and 2.5 years. We changed this on Friday.
AND I THINK WE HAVE A SON. A 2 year old son.
Our agency sends out a weekly update to all the families on the waiting lists and it shows the referral activity of children so far each month. Well today’s showed a 2 year old little boy that went to a family that waited 10 months (WE have waited 10 months) and I think that little boy is ours. Our Social Worker would be the one to call with the referral and she leaves at 3:00 every day, meaning I think she left the office before our referral was ready and that’s why she hasn’t called.
So, I’m freaking out. And I don’t think we will know anything for sure until the morning. But I’m 70%, no 80%, probably 90% sure that we have a 2 year old son.
95%
But maybe not.
But maybe so.
I think so.
But it could not be so.
I’m freaking out.
Jamie
Edited to add: FALSE ALARM. Another family, who ALSO waited 10 months and ALSO changed their request at the exact SAME time as us got that referral. So false alarm. But I love that my agency called me at 7:00 pm to let me know the situation so I could stop freaking out. I love my agency. Stay tuned, though, because we really are the next family on the toddler list now and should have good news very soon. I’m sorry I yelled at you all.
I’m going to go ahead and assume that these same friends of mine that RAN in front of EVERY camera and shamelessly posed like the paparazzi-hounded celebrities that we are, are also the same friends that won’t mind if I post some of the photos on my mommy-blog. The fans, OUR fans, have spoken, ladies. It’s hard, sometimes, being in the spotlight like this, but we knew this was part of the deal when we agreed to be superstars over the weekend.
So without further adieu, I give you “Why Not Post Vegas Girls Weekend Photos On My Mommy-Blog?! SURE!”
Starting things off, remember we DROVE the ten hours down. And back. Which, was pretty fun. Driving down we have the anticipation and excitement of leaving and drive back we have our deliriousness and sheer exhaustion to keep us amused. Amused, as in, every little single thing is the funniest thing to happen in the history of funny things happening.
Take for example, Erica’s GPS system that she (thankfully) brought that would either A. Tell us the WRONG DIRECTIONS WITH OUT FAIL every single time or would B. simply remind us, TAUNT us really, of exactly how much farther we had to go. “Continue another 385 miles” “Continue another 375 miles” “Continue another 365 miles” like that. The latter you actually got used to believe it or not after an hour or so into the drive, but the giving of the wrong directions? I mean…. really? You want me to turn around, DO A U-TURN, right here, in the middle of the freeway on-ramp. You can see how this situation would never lose it’s charm. Especially since we knew we couldn’t turn it off and throw it out the window what with Erica and her blatant demands that we USE HER EXPENSIVE PRESENT FROM HER HUSBAND! IT WAS EXPENSIVE! WE’RE USING IT! And so we did. Which, really, brought the van total to eight loud-mouthed opinionated females instead of seven.
After driving through the night and crashing at our friend’s house for a couple hours, we awoke and rose, like angels, to scrap our way over to the pool, to cling onto SUNLIGHT! ACTUAL RAYS OF SUN! And silly us, we thought we’d be able to sleep there, at the pool, the outdoor DISCO DANCE PARTY that it is.
We got in our groove though. Actually, we are all suckers for a good mix, since believe it or not, Boise Idaho, not on the map for world famous DJ’s. The music was fun, the sun was magnificent, the water was amazing, it was perfection. This is a picture of my sister Audrey and I. True or False: Audrey’s Father was an Eskimo. OR True or False: I was tanning like skin cancer was going out of style. You be the judge.
This picture I love because it’s of me and Erica TOTALLY STARING at this group of people that were there. Jaws dropped, not blinking, not even TRYING not to stare. Because the group of people, they were all backup dancers and dancers from the show So You Think You Can Dance! MY SHOW! MINE! MY SHOW! They were all dancing there at the pool, like it was a private show just for me and my undying love for them. I LOVED it, they were completely showing off and shoving it in everyone’s faces that no one there would ever be as cool as them. It was awesome. And then my friends had to hold my arms back and push my face under the water a few times. It was for the best, to stop my vagrant attempts to go lick all their faces. Just to taste their dancer beads of sweat.
Who loves themself?!
Next up, we started getting ready, at like 3 o’clock in the afternoon, for our first night of hitting the town. You can imagine all 7 of us girls getting ready together, picking outfits, doing hair…. it was total mayhem. And several of us were victims of “sudden involuntary hairspray attacks”. But it worked. And we looked fabulous.
And so it began.
I love this picture because it so clearly displays the total culture shock we are always in on the first night. Michelle even has her hand on her cheek as if to say “Oh my” and Nichole is coping by laughing, sometimes that’s all you can do.
But don’t be fooled. We worked it out.
Yes. We worked it out. With a little help from our friend, our little friend, we like to call THE BEAT. I think in literally every picture we have, we are screaming the words to the songs, just like our kids do in the car. I’m sure the people in the booth next to ours were like “Cool. You know the words. Guess what. WE ALL DO. It’s JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE morons.” But we didn’t care. There will always be people trying to rain on your Justin Timberlake parade.
These photos were from LAX, but we moved the dance fest over to a place called Tryst, where our pal Floyd Mayweather stopped by. Hey Floyd!
We’re BFF’s.
That concluded our first night. SO MUCH FUN. Fast forward through a few more hours of sleep, another day at the pool, another schmorgasborg of curling irons and hairspray and VOILA! Second night!
Whoa Nelly. Welcome to The Bank. That was the name of this place and it was madness. But, a few elbows throws here and there and before you knew it, we had created our own dance floor domain. Upon which we danced with each other for, oh, I don’t know, SEVEN HOURS STRAIGHT.
Dance dance dance dance dance
Sleep sleep, pool pool, hairspray hairspray in the eyes… well look at that it’s already the third and last night. Time flies when you can’t feel your toes anymore!
We amped up the glam and headed out to Jet, a really really really fun place. The music at this one was the best, throw in a little Prince, a little Madonna and you’ve got 7 happy girls.
You’ll notice the camera angle is slightly below us. This is because we were up on the ledge above our table. Just like our kids want to do at every restaurant we go to. We’re such hypocrites.
And there’s me, at one with the music. At one with Vegas.
And that’s a wrap. As usual, we are all still recuperating, our feet are still recuperating, even still, one week later. And we probably won’t be ready again for another 11 months. But dang we had a good time!
I used 5 heaping handfuls of conditioner and half a bottle of leave in treatment and STILL managed to pull out a pounds worth of my product-saturated hair. I measured the hairball. And after I measured the hairball, I grabbed a hatchet and chopped off my feet. Because I KNEW THEY WOULD FEEL BETTER ONCE I DID.
In T minus 2 hours, I am leaving. Leaving this life behind me. Never to be heard from again.
At least for the weekend.
I’m off on my annual girls trip to Vegas.
4 days of sleeping by the pool, talking with my girls and dancing our HEARTS OUT on the dance floor. Dancing for our LIIIIIIVES. Only those of you who obsess over shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Step It Up And Dance” will understand the need to, once a year, dance till your guts can’t dance anymore. It’s a once a year dance binge that former dancers, like myself, use to satisfy our un-quenchable desire to be SUPERSTARS! again, just for the weekend.
A weekend free of brown-streaked Ariel panties, stepping on toy cars and listening to Disney soundtracks on repeat until the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It’s awe-inspiring. Not that I won’t miss the little monster, I will, but I sure as heckfire won’t miss the responsibility. It’s funny and may not be true in all cases, but for me, going on these weekends, it makes me a better Mom and Wife. I come back and appreciate what a nice little life I’ve created for myself, how RADICAL my husband and kid are and how relieved I am to not be single. Because the MEAT MARKET that it is down there? Gag me with a spoon.
This trip will be especially amazing because there are SEVEN of us going this time, all of us having known each other since 6th grade, all of us happily married with kids and all of ready to party it up with our dance party posse. And all of us piling into the Blue Steel for the 10 hour trek down there. One that will, no doubt, have not ONE MILLISECOND of quiet. And those conversations, their what I remember most, what I love the most and what makes me feel like the SUPERSTAR! that I am. When not cleaning poo streaks off Ariel panties.
Peace out! See you next week! Get lots of referrals while I’m gone!
Since moving to our new house, the one where I give directions by telling people “You can’t miss it, it’s the one that looks like all the others”, we have gotten to know our next door neighbors pretty well, probably because I sometimes get confused and pull into their driveway, thinking it was mine, silly me. They have 2 little kids and Delaney sits perfectly right between them in age.
Being the only child that she is, Delaney has latched onto these children like a newborn to the boob. Not a day goes by, not an HOUR goes by, that she doesn’t PLEAD for me to let her play with these kids.
Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the distraction and the play dates that occupy her time. And I’m happy to know that their parents are nice and normal, potential perfect neighbor material. We have had freakishlyinappropriateneighbors before and so this change, it is good. I am also proud of Delaney for making friends. After watching her watch the neighbor kids through the holes in the fence, longing to play with them, for weeks, I am happy it has all worked out swimmingly in her little world. By the way, the Dude next door was all “Hey, we see your daughter’s eye peering through the fence all the time, it’s pretty funny” and Mike goes “Well, sometimes, that’s me.”
And it was really quiet.
And then they laughed.
With all the sarcasm that’s flowing around the battle station here, you might be surprised to know that we do, in fact, care what people think about us, we like to keep up appearances just as much as the Jones’. So, it was important to us that we try to control our daughter and her rabid attempts to suck the faces off of the neighbor kids.
We started off small, baby steps, having the kids over for an hour at a time and then sending Delaney over for an hour at a time over the span of 6-7 days we did this. But things started getting sketchy when Delaney decided she’d had enough of the rationed-out new-BFF-interactions.
The other day, I hear her doing her usual thing, playing, pretending, tormenting the dog in the backyard when all of a sudden, I realize I haven’t heard her. For like 10 minutes I hadn’t heard her. The backyard yielded nothing but cinderella crowns and a stick collection, then I turned the corner to see the gate wide open and knew she had escaped. Sure enough she was over at the neighbors.
I don’t know what was more embarrassing, that I didn’t know my child’s whereabouts for 10 minutes or that my neighbors thought I had sent my 4 year old over, unaccompanied, without a pre-cursor phone call. A tad mortifying, to say the least.
And then?
Like a moth to the flame, she does it again, 2 mornings later. I was at work but apparently, Mike said he awoke to the doorbell and our neighbor accompanying our sleepy eyed, bed-headed child swaddled in a living room throw blanket back to our house. Which, I have to commend her for thinking ahead and shielding herself from the bitter morning dew for her long trek across the front yard, A+ for preparation Delaney, A+.
But ya, the new neighbor first impression bit couldn’t be going any better, if you ask me!
Oh Hey again! Sorry my child so desperately wants to live at your house instead of ours! And clearly you see that our word is LAW around here because that talking to she got the other day for running away and not telling us? It CLEARLY instilled the fear of God into her.
So, here we were feeling like we’ve risen to the top of our parenting game, like our neighbors must think we are total schmucks, why else would a child rise in the morning and immediately plan her escape?
But lo and behold. All’s well that ends well. The universe smiled on us, because the younger of the two neighbor kids? Totally pooped her pants at our house today.
YES!
And that, my friends, is how you become pals with your neighbors here in the Wild West. You gotta settle the score, even things out. Our neighbors, you see, want to be friends with us, wanted us to know everything was okay, so they sent over their kid to shat her pants in our playroom. That’s how it works. It’s a natural progression. So now when one of THEIR kids does something embarrassing again, we’ve already talked about it, to keep the friendship going, we’re going to send Delaney over with a picture of Mike’s nipples.
Something about my child is…. different. Different, I don’t know how to describe, but not in a creepy or scary way. Unless my suspicions of her being Mother Theresa Reincarnated are indeed accurate and in that case, that’s a little creepy, I’m not gonna lie. Being the Mother of Mother Theresa Reincarnated puts a lot of pressure on me as well, pressure I don’t necessarily feel like dealing with, you know? It’s all a bit much to handle, the creepiness and pressure of having a Saint for a child.
Sigh.
Let me demonstrate, a verbally illustrated picture perhaps.
The other day I took Delaney shopping downtown. In Boise, it’s tricky doing anything outdoors this time of year because often it LOOKS chirpy and cheery and sunny out but then when you step outside, it’s like stepping out into the arctic tundra and then your stuck wearing flip flops and a tank top in sub-zero degrees. People look at you like you’re an idiot when this happens and you often have to yell back at them that WHAT?! you HAPPENED TO FORGET WE LIVED IN IDAHO FOR A MINUTE OKAY?! GET OFF ME! This is especially embarrassing when not only are YOU dressed like you’re in denial but you also dress your CHILD like you’re in denial, like you made your whole family try to WILL it into spring that morning. And this being National Child Abuse Prevention Month, something Boise is taking very seriously right now, you just don’t want to find yourself in this predicament.
So being the thoughtful and ever-evolving Mother that I am, I asked Delaney before we left to put on a jacket, that I thought it might be a little cold out. Being the mature 4 year old that she is, she politely declined saying she had been in the backyard already and it wasn’t cold and she had also thought ahead and put on a long sleeved shirt. So, I was all “Really? Okay, if you say so, four year old Daughter, you would know what’s best for yourself” and we left the house without her jacket. Legendary Mom skills already playing into effect. Because the earlier described rendition of public humiliation? EVEN BETTER when the child is going without the comfort of warmth but YOU THE PARENT are nice and snug in your parka. Classic. Way to be, Mom.
Of course, as you would guess, once we get ALL the way downtown and out of the parking garage, I realize that it’s actually cold outside and my kid doesn’t have a jacket.
I mention this to myself, out loud, saying “Shoot, it’s pretty cold out, gosh dang it.” Then I continue talking mostly to myself but now also towards Delaney and say “I’m sorry Honey, I’ll buy you a little jacket at one of the stores, okay?” And we head out to brave it on our supposed-to-be-fun-and-cheap-but-now-not-so-fun-and-not-so-cheap shopping trip.
Ten minutes goes by, we are briskly walking down the sidewalks trying to find the closest children’s clothing store when Delaney looks up at me while we are stopped at a crosswalk and says “Mom, I’m so sorry, I should have brought my jacket, I should have listened to you, it’s MY fault Mom and I’m really sorry.” Then bats her eyes a few times.
(pause)
(pause)
(pausing while you realize that FOUR YEAR OLDS DON’T TALK LIKE THIS.)
What the? Whose child is this? She doesn’t get this kind of reflectiveness from me, that’s for sure. She IS Mother Theresa! This kind of stuff happens ALL THE TIME! All the time she think, ponder and reflect on situations, EMPATHIZE and convey feelings like this. It’s just beyond me. I’ll find myself, all the time, saying “Well Honey, everything’s okay, you’re a kid you know.”
She’s just so….
It’s like she carries this burden. This burden of making sure everything is right in the world.
Again, just the other day, I was making German Pancakes for breakfast and they takes 30 minutes to bake. During the span of the 30 minutes, Delaney must have asked me 5 times if she could have some fruit snacks, a fruit roll up, a bagel, some candy etc… to which I kept saying that No, the food would be done soon, I was making special pancakes and they would be delicious. Well, not 3 minutes before the timer goes off, Delaney runs in to tell me that she ate a WHOLE SLICE OF PIZZA ALL GONE MOM! I was bugged because 1. the scrumptious breakfast I was making was SO close to being done and 2. I never cook fancy breakfasts and I envisioned a round of applause once the timer went off, NOT a full-tummied kid who wasn’t interested. So I said “Oh DeeDee! I was making special pancakes, remember?”
I’m not kidding, for the next 2 hours, she must have told me 37 different times that “Next time, Mom, I won’t eat Pizza when you’re making special pancakes, Mom, I’m sorry about that Mom, I’ll wait next time for the special pancakes to be done and I won’t eat Pizza, okay Mom?” I finally had to say “Delaney. I am NOT mad. Nobody is upset here. Everything is okay. I don’t want you worrying about the pancakes anymore okay?”
I mean, what child cares this much? She’s an over-carer. It makes me look like a freak-out Mom, like she’s one of those kids that has to soothe her parents because her parents can’t soothe themselves. But it’s not just us. She does it with everyone. She’s a people soother.
She tells her cousin “It’s okay Cousin, I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, it was an accident, I love you.” She tells her Grammy “Grammy, I love your face and the way you sing.” She tells her Teachers “You look cute today, good job teaching.” She tells me out of nowhere ALL THE TIME “Mom, I think you’re the best Mom ever.”
Huh? Shouldn’t you be peeing on toys or something?
This clip captures a tiny bit her ways, her careful, quirky, patient ways. Is it just me, or would she not make excellent room mates with an 89 year old forensic pathologist named Beatrice?
Last night, I bugged Mike long enough that he finally gave in and took me out of the house so that we could go get ice cream as a family.
See, how it works is, when Mike is on the computer, that’s when I find I really crave and need some family time, some interaction and quality memory making moments. So, obviously, he needs to get off the computer. Family time is a special time. What deadbeat Dad chooses computer time over family time at the ice cream shop?
So since there is absolutely no arguing or follow-up to that sort of moral obligation, we attend to the family time. See how that works? It’s wonderful. And then when the memories have been made and you’re en route back to the battle station, you then mentally calculate your tactics of ensuring the computer is in your control for the remainder of the night. After the manslave puts the children to bed, of course.
What would you all do without me, I don’t know. “Fully Operational Battle Station, the things you DIDN’T learn in Marriage Prep 101 at BYU Idaho” that’s what our slogan should be. (Our, as in, all one of us here running the website).
So, back to where I was, where was I? Oh right, I WIN with my powerful and clever ways and we leave the house to go get ice cream.
We pull into the parking lot and are walking in to the joint, getting into the groove of our family adventure, when we see these two high school boys, the cool ones with the complicated hair, eyeing us from inside. They’re really obviously staring at us. When we open up the door and step inside, we aren’t sure what their deal is, when they go:
DUDE! It’s BURKE’S family!
And then they proceeded to be seen with us in public, like in our CLOSE proximity, exchanging words, eye contact, in and around our uncool circumference, by us and with us, an old married couple with a child. It was unclear exactly what was happening. But we played it cool. Because, dude, the complicated hair kids were talking to us and moments like that, you appreciate them when they happen, you don’t rush these things.
Burke is my kid brother, by the way. He looks like this:
Burkey? Don’t be angry, come on, show us your angry eyes Burke. Your tortured eyes.
I’m kidding. We treat him like a Gothy Emo kid when he acts all moody and teenagery (we love ourselves, it never gets old) but in actuality, he looks like this:
And so he’s all cute and smelly and awkward like that. Which, apparently, girls really dig cute, smelly and awkward.
Burke with some of his punk friends with their outfits and their hair that they all meticulously scrutinize to look as though they JUST DON’T CARE WHAT ANYBODY THINKS!!
The cool kids, they talk to us and leave. We are feeling really good about ourselves, like we are maybe cool again ourselves, just by briefly being in the good graces of the cool kids like that. And we order our banana split and our better batter cookie dough extra thick milkshake, still on our high of being talked to by the un-talkable-ones. We even look around the shop like, that’s right people, if you need a teenager translator, we are currently taking cases now at this time. WE HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE COMPLICATEDS.
But it gets better. Because once we get our 2,874 calories of goodness all ready and over to the cashier, we put our bowls on the counter and take out our magical make-it-all-go-away card to pay and are told by the punky cute 16 year old girl “Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to pay. I like Burke.” And then walks away.
I LIKE BURKE, she says, and gives us our ice cream for free.
The hookups and coolness have now reached an all-time high. Apparently all we have to do is mention my brothers name and our social status is elevated to that of rockstars! FREE ICE CREAM. That’s what I’m sayin. Mike thought he’d test the theory by dropping Burke’s name in a phone call to our Mortgage Company. I have a SNEAKY feeling our next payment will be waived.
The funny thing is that we’re still old farts. We sat down to eat our totally free ice cream and felt bad. We now relate more with the ice cream shop Owner who inadvertently hired 16 year olds who hand out free ice cream to whoever they feel like deserves it.
Sorry Ice Cream Shop Owner. But your ice cream was amazing.
