273 Days

I am alive.

The tornado we hid from on vacation did not get us. (Though it was only a few miles away, it was an F1.)

We got back from vacation and our computer crashed, so for the majority of June, I have been sans internet.

Kasen and the little girl I babysit are both napping so I thought I'd take a moment to do a quick update, though it's nothing exciting.

I successfully pulled off my Grandma's surprise birthday party here last weekend and now have nothing time-consuming on my plate besides the yard sale stuff. The area in the basement I set aside for all of it is overflowing and I've almost got the most recent wave of donations cleaned and sorted. A few more boxes to go plus a couch to shampoo and I'll be caught up. A friend is coming this Friday and we are going to start working on pricing the stuff I do have. I've also gotten some nice things that I'm going to list on Craigslist. I'll post links for those who might be interested once I get them all up.

Kasen is officially 1-year-old and can walk but is a bit afraid to do it on his own. (He's a very cautious child.) He loves to hold your finger and have you walk him all over the place or walk back and forth between two people. Yesterday, he stood up in the middle of the floor on his own and then took a few steps to me... he was very proud. :) He can say about 15 words/phrases, too, which is amazing to hear. He also has started "singing" or humming when he's eating or playing. It's very cute!

Here is a video of him helping me with laundry:



And a picture of us and my parents at Mount Rushmore:

243 days

Kasen was not too keen on this idea...

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228 Days

Life is busy lately and my blogs are suffering because of it.

-Kasen had roseola then after that went away, he got an eye infection which scared the crap out of me. Red, swollen eye ball. Saw a pediatric ophthalmologist. Got eye drops (antibiotics/steroids and antihistimine). No clue what caused it - he probably got something in it. All is better now. If nothing comes back we'll know it was something in it. I don't even want to think about what it means if it comes back again though.

-Getting new cell phones tomorrow. Finally we will have good service out here... we will also be saving $30 a month!

-Kasen is almost one. Yikes! We're going to be in Nebraska visiting Neal's family on his birthday and will be having an open house/birthday party for everyone who hasn't met him yet to finally get to see him! We're also going to be spending a few days at Neal's grandparent's 4,000-acre farm and going to Mount Rushmore!

-Yard sale stuff has taken over my life lately so that's been keeping me busy. Sorting, washing, pricing - only to start over again when I get more donations. Yay! I'm definitely going to have to borrow some tables for all this stuff. I just got a big batch of donations that need cleaned up (they've been in storage for years) and am picking up more donations tomorrow. Between babysitting, taking care of the house and Kasen, and working on that stuff, I seem to have no free time!

197 Days: Donations welcome!

It's a gorgeous day outside and I'm getting ready to sequester myself to the basement to work on organizing and tagging items for a garage sale we are going to do this fall. Our hope is to get donations from people we know to sell while simultaneously taking advantage of an increase in traffic to our area during a particular weekend and raise a good chunk of change to put towards our adoption expenses.

We are welcoming donations and if you are in the Central Ohio area, please think of us when you are doing your Spring cleaning this year! Instead of dropping things off at Goodwill or the Salvation Army, give me a call instead!

I also plan on having baked goods/drinks at the sale and if I get any bigger ticket items, I will be selling raffle tickets for them to be won!

194 days: vans and kids

I cried as we pulled out of the dealership a few days ago driving our new-to-us minivan.

Many times I've heard people saying how depressed they were when they had to get a minivan or how they would never get a minivan because it'd be like a part of themselves dying... apparently because it's just that uncool.

That totally wasn't me.

I was crying tears of joy because the minivan is the ultimate Mom status and that's what I fought for for three years and coveted all of my life. I'm ecstatic about my beautiful (and more luxurious than my car!*) red minivan and I can't wait to have excuses to drive it around town.**

I also can't wait to fill it up with more children.

While driving to pick up my niece from school the other day, we passed a foster care/adoption treatment center that has a sign out front that said, "We had to turn away 4 children today because we didn't have anyone to call." I, of course, got teary-eyed immediately and when I pointed it out to Neal, he got sad as well.***

I would really like to do foster care some day, especially if years from now private adoption has never panned out. My cousin and his wife are fostering two boys right now and I just think it's so awesome. Ups and downs and heartbreak, absolutely, but totally worth it in the end.

*especialy more luxurious than my car since mine is currently scattered in bits and pieces all over our garage while Neal rebuilds the engine. Yes, he's so cool he can do that kind of stuff.

**I actually ran errands today with two 10-month-olds during nap time. They ended up doing great, though at first I wasn't sure if I was being adventurous and brave or just stupid!

***When something touches Neal emotionally, the hair on his arms stand up. It's so friggin' cute. :)

173 Days

The pastor never called us back about the 3-week-old baby. After hearing some of the details, I knew it was a long shot, but a return phone call would have been nice anyway. Oh, well. At least he's aware of us and knows how to get ahold of us now. Private adoption really is all about networking!

I really have no other news on the adoption front. I've given out our cards to everyone I know and even some I don't. I've been too busy with babysitting and chasing around little ones and fighting a cold that I haven't been reading blogs or looking into more networking possibilities. We're definitely in a "wait and see" mode right now.

Babysitting is going well. We're getting to know each other and H's cues and I think it's going to work out great. Her parents got me an extra car seat so with the weather getting better we'll be able to go to the park and bike trail this summer... once I get up the nerve to venture out of the house with the two of them. (And on the rare occassion that they are both up from their afternoon naps with time left to do anything before she gets picked up!) I'm considering going to laptime at the library on Wednesday...

Kasen had someone flip a switch on in him the other day. He just all of a sudden started cruising on furniture, waving, saying "hi" and "uh oh," and I think he signed "eat" to me. Today I saw him rolling his ball down the hallway and crawling after it and caught him standing on the back of his walker... he's a climber!

158 Days

I suck at ICLW. Every time I join, it's during a time when I have a little free time to update and read and comment and then by the time ICLW actually rolls around, I don't even have time to update. I'm lame.

I have been a social butterfly lately which translates into no time to update. Just this week on top of Kasen care, housework and my gym schedule, I had two playdates, trips to Cosi, Dawes Arboretum, the bike trail, the dog park, the grocery store, and a job interview. (Can you tell the weather is getting better?!)

All fun times, but the biggest news of them all is the job interview. Starting tomorrow, I'm babysitting a little girl who is 11 days younger than Kasen! I will have her Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday each week. I had considered babysitting in the past but it was out of the question during our three years of trying to get pregnant.*

Babysitting crossed my mind again during pregnancy and I thought maybe I could start doing it at some point once I got settled into mommyhood. I didn't actively start looking for anything and figured if the right situation presented itself, I'd think about it more seriously. When I received an e-mail from a friend last week about someone she knew who was looking for a part-time babysitter, I thought, "Hmm..." The situation seems perfect: It's only part-time so I can still stick to my gym schedule; I'll have Friday/Saturdays off which is Neal's weekends and still leaves Thursdays for errands; she's the same age as Kasen so I have all age-appropriate toys and he'll have a playmate. The extra money is going to go into my "I Will Get A Minivan This Year" fund so I'm stoked about that! We're very excited to watch her, too... her parents seem very sweet and she seems laid back like Kasen so hopefully I won't have my hands too full!

*It was way too heartbreaking to really be around kids during our TTC years. A co-worker (who knew we were struggling to get pregnant) practically shoved her newborn grandson into my arms at work one day. It took everything in me not to throw up and start crying right there. It literally hurt to touch him and I distinctly remembering wanting him out of my arms like right now. I cried in the bathroom after they left.