Missing Summer Already

It's barely even cold here yet, but still I miss Summer. Here are a few pics from this past Summer.


Liv swimming in our friends pool complex. Thanks Bean for letting us use the pool Liv loved it.

One of my favorite pictures of my Mom and Liv. Bean, My Mom loved the pool also!!!

Addie, Liv, and Emily enjoying dessert from our 4th of July party!!!

Liv and her friend Johnny riding scooters in front of the beach house!!!

Invasion of the body snatchers!!!!!!!!!

What a cute and innocent and sweet face.


Can someone tell me where this sweet child has gone. For the last few weeks she has morphed into some type of toddler alien, sent down to push every button I have. She is caught somewhere between a stubborn three year old and a bratty teenager. Please this is not my child, not the child who would do anything I say, answer every sentence with a please or thank you, and cuddle every chance she had. This child is demanding, "Give me that", she snapped as i was fixing her toy. She will yell, "don't laugh at me", if you smile at her and she does not want you to. And God forbid you don't let her choose which apple she is about to eat. Seriously she has been in time out more in these past few weeks than she has in her whole life. So if you see my sweet Liv tell her that I need her beautiful, kind, loving, self back, before I go absolutely raving mad.

PS If this is the terrible threes, I don't think I can survive till her next birthday!!!!

Please grab some cheese to go with this whine!!!!

This post is long over due so please bare with me.

Allot of people know that we are in process doing our second adoption. For this adoption we could not go through Guatemala, where Olivia was born, because adoptions shut down January 1 2008. We chose to go though Mexico this time because we wanted both children to share the same heritage, Mayan, and we might have to spend some time in country at the end of the adoption and it would be easier for Vinay to fly back and forth to the states as needed for work.

Currently we are at the beginning of our paperchase, compiling our documents that will be sent to Mexico. I am happy to report that we have finished our home study. A series of interviews by a social worker, that took all summer to finish. This should have taken a month, but it was slow going with our social worker and things kept cropping up to halt the process.

Let me just say that I feel like I am falling under a mountain of paperwork!!! But you have all day to do this right???? WRONG !!!! Last week I brought Liv with me to go make copies and FedEx something, now Liv is a good kid and she is well behaved, but she's a kid. She had half the Hallmark card display picked apart while I was making copies, and then I almost left my folder of paperwork at the smoothie place next door. Yes my Dossier folder was sitting on a table ready to be thrown out. I can hear all my fellow adoptive Mommas gasping for air as I write this.
So luckily Liv is going to school and I will have 5 hours a week to do paperwork now.

But the paperchase seems so much harder this time. The documents needed are double that of what was needed for Liv's. For Liv's I needed 2 witness statements, this one I need 5 and 2 have to be neighbors. Vinay an I both need psychological evaluations, wasn't that what the homestudy was all about? I also have to write to the FBI and ask them to look at my fingerprint results and OK me to adopt. I didn't even know you could write to them!!!!The list goes on and on.

Today I wasted half a day in Trenton to obtain documents, that I wound up having to mail away for anyway. All because when you call there is never an actual human to speak to.

Ughhhh why do they make it so hard. So many children need good, loving homes, and I have one.

The fact is I felt the same anxiousness and frustration during Liv's adoption. I remember looking at the document checklist, and feeling like I would never be able to finish.

But I did, and I will.

So if you'll excuse me I think I'll go drown my bad attitude in some wine and get back my current checklist and see what I can work on tomorrow.



Today I hung on the fridge both old and new checklists.

Here is Liv's adoption,
Here is the new one, notice how it's 2 pages!!! Sigh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We don't even call it school!!!!

Many of you will remember that last year I put Liv into a school program for 2 year olds and had to take her out. Yes she would cry, but if it was just crying I would have kept her in. Liv tends to be a nervous child and she has a memory like an elephant, she remembers everything!!!! She would be so nervous that she had to go to school, even on the weekends. First thing in the morning she would look at me with those big eyes filled with fear and ask "School today Mommy?". When I said no, she was relived, when I said yes, and so would begin the crying and pleading for her not to go to school. I also noticed that she had started picking very badly at her cuticles. So I caved and took her out. I just couldn't see my little baby so nervous.

We figured wait a year, and then at 3 she will forget the bad experience and be ready to go. Well not my Liv, if anyone ever asks her "Do you want to go to school" she will always answer. "No school for me, Mommy go bye bye". Last spring I signed her and I up for a Mommy and Me program, at Sand Hill Presbyterian Preschool. I figured if she had me with her for the whole time, when September came she would at least be familiar, and have happy memories from Mommy and Me. We also always called it "Sand Hill" because the word "School" had too many negative connotations.

SO last week when we started school Liv was happy to go, of course she had no idea I would be leaving halfway through the class. She was hesitant at first but then she was excited to play with all the stuff they had out. She went from table to table happily playing, drawing, and painting, with the occasional look up to make sure I was still in the room.
Then came time for the mommies to leave the room and go to sign papers and listen to the director talk. I said " Liv I'm going to go down the hall and have coffee with the other Mom's." "Where?" she asked like I was making it up. "Right down the hall, and I'll be right back." She didn't answer, so I took that as a yes, and said good bye.

It was a long 15 minutes as I sit in that room wondering how Liv was doing. Finally we could go back and pick them up. I walked in and saw Liv's blood shot, puffy, eyes and she was clutching the teachers hand. Liv said "Mommy you were gone too long" and then the crocodile tears started, she also wanted out of that place. We said good bye to the teachers and talked about going on the playground next time.

Since Thursday whenever asked about "Sand Hill", She says that she didn't like it and that "Mommy left me". I try to reminder her of all the fun she had, and the cool things to do.
We'll see what next week holds!!!!!



Only a milkshake and a McDonalds playplace could cheer her up.

This is the attitude look I've been getting lately!!!

Happily showing off her outfit befor school!!

Modeling her new "Pack Pack", as she calls it, the week before!!!