Kiss and tell.....

Here's a little fun for you. Please keep in mind that C is 4 1/2 years old. FOUR.AND.A.HALF.

One of C's speech words was "kiss" (We're working on K sounds) and his speech therapist likes him to try the word on the flashcard before we tell him the word if he won't say it on his own. So, he's sitting there, starring at the picture of two cartoon people kissing. I kept saying- C, you know this one. You know what they're doing....He finally says "Yeah, I know Mama. I do that to the girls in my class"
WHAT?!?!
I quickly said "C! You better not be kissing girls in your class!!! To that he says:

DON'T WORRY MAMA, I ONLY KISS THE PRETTY ONES.
Lord, help me.
Flashback of the Victoria Secret commercial a few weeks ago. If you're not my friend on the ol' book of faces. Let me recap for you.

We're sitting around watching something like Jeopardy. I tell you that because I don't want you thinking we were up late letting C watch late night TV. A Victoria Secret commercial comes on and C, immediately stops what he's doing and gives the TV his full (no pun intended) attention.
We go with the "don't make a big deal about it" route.
At the conclusion of the peep show, C says:
MAMA, I LIKE HER SKIN....
I bet you do son, I bet you do.

I had no idea that this fun would start this early. Should I be worried???

Party and other ramblings...

I am enjoying the few years in my boys life that I can actually choose their party theme and guest list. I have a feeling those days are over when it comes to big brother. C has already informed me that for his birthday he wants a bouncy house, Scooby Doo, and has already started to assemble the guest list. Keep in mind that his birthday is MONTHS away.
But, little man is going to be a YEAR OLD next month. Isn't it crazy how time flies? It seems like yesterday I was sitting in the hospital with his birth mom, scared out of my mind. With the normal "baby" stuff like, well, "What the heck am I going to do with a baby??!?!" and a terrible fear that she was going to change her mind. You see, we hadn't had the best of luck in the adoption department with C's process and even though that ended well, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were REALLY pressing our luck in the family department. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am the perpetual doubting Thomas. But much to my surprise, they handed me this little 7 pound 11 ounce baby boy on November 10th and my life forever changed. Our lawyer was a little high strung and was adamant about getting J OUT OF THE HOSPITAL FAST!!! once he was released to us. You see, he is an adoptive parent times 15(!!!) and his last adoption fell through at the hospital as they were getting the baby in the car. Talk about adding unnecessary pressure. I thought my heart was going to leap out of my chest as we stood in the freezing cold trying to latch the FREAKIN' car seat into the car for the first time. Finally the nurse stepped in and did it for us. She STILL handed us the baby despite our lack of car seat skills.  In retrospect, I have no idea why we didn't do that in advance. And we were almost out of gas as well (going back to the surprise that these people actually handed us a one day old baby!?!?!) In our defense we thought we had another 2.5 weeks before his arrival, but still. Geesh. Honestly, we weren't thinking of anything else except. GET.THAT.BABY.HOME!!!
Flying unicorns could have picked us up on their golden chariot and I wouldn't have thought twice about it.
Wow, that was a tangent. Still with me?
So, the pressures of a first birthday party. It's odd, because J won't remember a single blasted thing from this day. Yet, I am assuming this is a multi-million dollar industry. You would be shocked to know the amount of things that boast "My FIRST Birthday!" I'm not one for the BIG birthday hoopla. That show "My sweet 16" makes me almost vomit every time think about it. Don't tell C, but he can dream of the bounce house all he wants. There WILL NOT be one in our backyard come Spring. Nor will we ever have a petting farm, circus performers of any type, D.J.'s, face painters, tattoo artists, castles, rock walls, or anything of the sort at a birthday celebration for these two boys. Sorry guys. If it's any consolation you'll get to pick out your birthday dinner and cake flavor....
We have cake and friends at home. Period. Maybe as they get older a "location" party, slumber party (do boys have slumber parties??) I guess they are called "camp-outs" or something of that nature. But anyway, I think it's INSANE to spend hundreds of dollars on one day of fun to simply say "You were born today and I'm glad".
Don't get me wrong, I want it to be special and atheistically pleasing. I WILL buy coordinating plates and napkins. I WILL make a ton of handmade stuff like banners and cute labels for food. My goal is to make it LOOK like million dollars NOT spend a million dollars. That could be the theme of my life :)
So, we I am going with a construction theme. It's gonna be so cute! I can't wait to show you the pictures. In the meantime, here are some seek peeks! And for the record, I am addicted to Pinterest.

Cake inspiration

Trip to the ER

Well, that was fun. Monday I picked C up from school and as soon as the door closed he burst into tears. Totally weird for my child. He's just not a crier. He says his belly hurt. Asked him 500 annoying mommy questions- what did you eat? have you been potty? Etc.
We get home and he can't stand up straight. He can't walk out of the car without doubling over and holding his tummy.
My brain is screaming- APPENDIX!!! I try not to panic and overreact. We go in, try to go potty. We lay down and try to get some rest. I give him a warm bath. I rub his back. Gas drops. Pepto. Nada.
Now, you should know, C has guts of steel. He NEVER complains of an upset tummy. In the close to 2 years we've been home I can't think of a time he's been sick in the tummy department.
Hmmmm. Since he still can't walk straight, we decide to take him to the ER.
We take J to a friends house because babies and ERs DON'T MIX.
At the hospital, C barfs in the lobby and poof, we're taken right back. Apparently they think it's his appendix too. This is NOT looking good.
Tests, tests, and more test. They poke him, prod him, take 5 vials of blood from him, x-ray him.
His nurse is from Russia. She has a tiny matroshka pin on her lapel. I tell her that C is from Russia too. She starts speaking to me in Russian. I tell her "I'm not from Russia, just C..." she is puzzled. But keeps talking to him in Russian even after I tell her I don't think he understands her. But then I look at his face and I think he might....Hmmmm....At least he is very comforted by what she is saying.
After hours of tests, and a hefty chunk of change, the results are in.
MY CHILD IS FULL OF POO.
Awesome. They give him a prescription for some Miralax and off we go.
So, did I overreact? Probably. Was I scared out of my mind? Definitely.
I would like to think I perform well under pressure. Apparently not. I was a crying, blubbering mess. I yelled at my husband, I came unglued that I didn't know what to do. Lord, please keep additional emergencies OFF my plate, because I really did NOT do well. I failed the "Keep Calm and Carry On" portion of my mommy test.
P.S.- The next morning after the Miralax did it's ahem...."Magic" C says "Mama, my sleep made me all better! It fixed me!" Thank goodness baby, thank goodness....

Welcome!

I have totally gotten myself into a mess I'm afraid. Who knew switching over a blog to private would cause such a giant headache. I have been importing, exporting, dowloading and uploading. Some contacts stick (Yeah! You're here!!!) and others disappear. Hmmmmm.....So I have a ragtag half list of people that want to read my blog.
So if you're not here yet it's not that I hate you and don't want you reading my blog. It's either I am technologically stunted (likely) or Blogger hates me (likely)....
Sooooo hang in there. I am working it out. I need tech support. Hubster????

Going Private...

After thinking long and hard about this decision, I have decided to take this blog private. Why you may ask?- Well, I am planning ahead for the very near future. Soon, it won't be so cool to my boys that their faces pop up when you google their information or the word adoption. That and I am concerned about privacy and the recent influx of "Nutters" accessing my blog according to my stats page. You may be asking- what does that mean to me?

Well, if you send me your email address I will add you to the approved readers list. Not so bad, right? If you could help me out- if you are anyone other than my mom, sister or in-laws, include a brief note- something to the effect of "You know me you ninny- we went to the third grade together" or "I'm so and so, we adopted so and so from such in such" Just to jog my memory. My memory is really, really bad. Sorry.

I am aiming to switch everything over within the next two weeks- so....email me by lets say September 17th.

Here is my spanking new email address for blog purposes only:
sarahblogger1@hotmail.com

(If you have my personal addy, keep using it- I am not switching permanently to hotmail, just wanted to have a nice clean slate for blogging usage :)

If this is the end of the road for you following my blog, let me just say it has been an absolute pleasure. I never thought that so many people would care about our journeys to bring our sons home. It has been a humbling and encouraging experience. I am now connected to more adoption loving people than I even knew existed. We've laughed together, cried together, experienced great loss and great joys together, and cursed various government employees together. What a ride.

Never in a million years would I have thought that this blog would become a way to speak out about adoption, get sound advice from fellow parents, and expand our friendships with other people going through similar circumstances. You have given us tremendous support and love and I can't say thank you enough for the joy you've brought to our corner of the world.

Bye Church School- Hello Pre-K!

We have been truly blessed for C to attend school at our church (where we work as well as worship). One- it's down a flight of stairs from my office. and Two- The teachers there have been patient, kind and loving to take care of a little boy fresh from an orphanage, not really sure about this whole "daycare" thing, because I'm sure to him- a bunch of kids in a class with a caregiver didn't immediately bring warm fuzzy feelings. When we arrived home in February of 2011 with C, our goal was to return to work by May. When we took C for a "tour" of downstairs he literally froze in my arms. He couldn't say the words, but his panic was palatable. Something about those long hall with cheerful paintings and noises of children made him come undone. Rightfully so. He just wasn't ready. And I wasn't either. After fighting for a year to get him home, I wanted to wear him like a sweater everywhere I went.
So we set up a little school in my too-big office. Train tables, books, puzzles, blankets on my sofa, even a little potty in the closet. C hung out with me while I worked for seven months. Then we re-toured that Fall he was like a different child. He was so excited to go to school. You can see his joy on the picture from September 2011.
I cried for the first week. He wanted to go to school every minute of everyday. I would go in to pick him up at 2:30 and the popular phrase became "No, Mama...I stay...." So we let him stay until Hubby was done working at 5:00. The difference was like night and day. He was confident that we would return, loved being around his friends, and loved his teachers. Ms. Pearl, Ms. Heather, Ms. Judy, and Ms. Vicki were angels in disguise. They were so loving and nurturing of my little guy. Hopefully, he didn't get too much special treatment due to the fact both his parents were staff members. But if he did I can't complain. I know what a difference a little bit of nurturing can do....We called his first class the "International Room" because of the 8 or so kids, three were from different countries.- India, Russia and Ukraine. He flourished. Coming home with new words and phrases on a daily basis. And a love of Dora the Explorer. So some of the phrases were Russian-English-Spanish hybrids.
A year has passed and now it's on to Pre-K at a great Christian school. Uniforms, school supply lists, class rosters, and school calendars. 5 days a week (!!!) Again, I am feeling so fortunate at the level of education he will be receiving. It's going to be strange to not have him "under my roof" during the day. I guess it will just take a little getting use to....
So, thank you church for making my boy feel loved. Thank you for taking what could have been a bad experience and making it joyful. Thank you for understanding my little guy's needs even though at first you couldn't understand a word he said. Thank you for fostering in him a love of learning. Thank you for letting me experience the fun of every single field trip. Except the corn maze, I didn't really enjoy the corn maze. You made C's first educational stepping stone a firm one and I can't thank you enough.

Busy. Busy.Busy

We've been on vacation! (It was wonderful!) I flew to Orlando solo with the boys. That was fun. (Insert sarcasm here....) You may recall how much I hate to fly, but it's amazing how you forget your fear when you are entertaining a 4 year old, opening snacks, digging through a diaper bag and trying to keep an infant from grabbing the hair of the lady sitting in front of you as he octopus climbs up your face.
We ate at our favorite restaurants. I saw two of my closest and oldest dearest friends. We went to Legoland. We went to Disney. We went to the Science Center. We went to the Disney Marketplace. We ate at the T-Rex Cafe. When we asked C what the best part of vacation was he says- "The pool" (as in my parents and in-laws pool) Further proof that it's the simple things in life :)
Both boys great throughout the week. They were champs. Despite their schedule being seriously disrupted and the super intense heat. I am truly blessed with wonderful, easy going boys. High energy, but truly go with the flow little guys.
I still haven't unpacked our bags. I should say "BAG". One thing Russia has taught me that I feel liberated to know is that Americans carry too much stuff. One suitcase for the three of us. Yes, I am bragging. You should try traveling with 4 outfits. It's quite liberating to be quite honest. You do laundry mid-week and feel all travel savvy. You don't even have to recycle your underwear, I promise. Pack half of what you think you need and you'll thank me for it, I promise.
So, we are back to the swing of things- back to school shopping. *sniff* My baby has a school list. With a lot of stuff on it. I finally gave up couponing and picking stuff up from here and there just to save $ and just bought everything in one trip to WallyWorld today. I surrendered to the school list. I just wanted it over with. But then I realized I forgot an entire section on the page. Ugh. I guess I'm not done after all. You moms out there are saying "oh no....you're never done...." I hear it gets worse and more expensive.
So, I am excited for C to start school. He is going to a top notch private Christian School with a VERY small class size. I am hoping this year allows him to make up some lost ground by leaps and bounds. I am really excited. He is not. He keeps insisting he is NOT going to a new school and wants to stay at daycare. Hmmmm.....
In other news:
1- J's two top teeth are in!
2- He is standing up and kinda walking along furniture
3- He still HATES to crawl. But will do it as a last resort.
4- C is having some dental work done on Tuesday (prayers please) We are going with another dentist and trying a different approach. 
5- I got a crazy wacko comment on my blog concerning the Warm Shelter Auction. I wasn't really sure what was trying to be said since the person writing it was obviously poorly educated and used several words out of context, but if any of you saw it, I apologize. I am now moderating my comments. I tolerate a lot of crazy, but I will not tolerate taking my Lord's name or motives in vain or people that speak poorly of Russian adoption or orphans. Now if the coward that posts "anonymously" will have to man up and have her crazy comments made public to me if she wishes them to be shared on this blog.
That's all. :)