Where did November go?

I am staring at the calendar.  November 30th.  The month is nearly gone.  Heck the whole darn YEAR is nearly gone.  And that amazes me.  I know it is because life is busy and full that time speeds by so quickly, but it still never ceases to amaze me.

Our screen saver at home is a constant stream of pictures that we have taken since 2005 when we entered the digital camera age.  I am sometimes brought up short by how much the children have changed in so few years.  Lissa in my arms with a bottle.  blink.  Lissa swinging on the big kid swing at the park.  2 years is not long.  But so much changes.  She is coming up on her third birthday and I think in some ways of all my children her changes have been the most pronounced.  She was a fairly fretful baby.  The drug withdrawals left her irritable and uncomfortable for a loooong time.  She was a light sleeper from day 1 (still pretty much is) and just seemed more traumatized by the whole experience of coming home with her new family than KC did.  Now truthfully this could be because KC was preemie and loved to sleep.  It could be that simple. 

All I know is that the baby who would not meet my eyes when I first  fed her, is now a toddler that cuddles me close.That pads into the bedroom most mornings to climb into bed with me.  The wee miss who wouldn't speak is now such a chatterbox your ears literally ring sometimes!  She has a fashion sense to rival mine.  We are both shoe divas and Lissa also  loves to wear skirts and dresses like my wife.  She at last loves books and can't wait for story time each night.  She is starting to enjoy music and playing games.  She calls "rollups" (the fruit snack) "robots" just to hear us laugh. She makes up riddles and jokes.  (they all involve a pig and doughnuts incidently!) Such a short time really, and yet, so firmly enmeshed in my heart I can not envision life without her. 

Soothing Sunday

I enjoy entertaining.  I have also come to realize that I also enjoy when it is done. Because I am done.  d.o.n.e. with my mom's little digs about my children and my relationship wtih them.  Done with the kids being a bit ramped up because it has been a virtually nonstop stream of people to entertain and be entertained by.

Though technically I could have bailed on church today; there was no Religious Ed program for Rob's group today though there was for KC.  However the speaker was speaking on Islam and about how true Islam has nothing to do with terrorism and wars and such.  It was well worth hearing and I am glad I went.  The speaker converted to Al Islam in the 70's and he positively exuded peacefulness and was a fascinating speaker.  As someone who truly worried for my eldest son when he walked downtown after 9/11 I greatly enjoyed hearing him.

But part of my reason for leaving was that if I left with the tribe, I knew my mom would be inspired to return home.  And she did.  (evil chuckle)

After church I took Chet shopping for Lissa's birthday gift and Yule gift.  KC gave me instructions to get Lissa something princess like from him for her birthday.  I did (a princess wand) and I survived taking Chet to Toys R Us.  Truly I deserve an award! Chet in a store is something you have to see, have to experience, to understand what I mean.

He is essentially instantly over stimulated.  He is in my space and the space of every other shopper in the store.  He is loud.  He is trying to push past old ladies pushing shopping carts.  It resembles a bit unleashing Attila the hun and his hordes on the shopping world.  Not that I love shopping, but I don't want to leave prone bodies in our wake! 

Chet wanted to get Lissa a doll that helps with dressing skills. The toy store didn't  have it.  They recommended trying Wa*mart.  Uh huh.  that was so not going to happen.  If Chet was over the top at Toys R us.  Imagine what it was going to be like in a bigger venue.  So I convinced him that a paint set for one holiday, and a magna doodle for the other would work well.  And we left.  Shoppers amazingly enough, were still standing!

Saturday Nana visit

My mom is here for a visit and the kids were inside out with excitement.  For the most part, things have gone well.  I have to watch as she is a bit prone to favor Lissa over KC.  She doesn't see that although she  is  younger, Lissa is the master of "set up".  Truly the child has it down to a science and KC, just like Charlie Brown and Lucy, falls for it every time.  Literally.  Every time.  Baffles me how a smart kid can do that.  But I don't want Mum doing anything that further empowers Miss Lissa along this path.  Strong assertive woman, you go for it.  Sneaky, conniving back stabbing woman--way less high on the old family goals chart.  LOL
Also, my mom asked KC to read for her and he clammed up.  He told her it would be too embarrassing which I know angered her and probably hurt her.  Realistically if she had gotten a book, sat down and read with him, he would have read fine.  He was reading stuff out of catalogs to her for goodness sake.  But he does have this performance anxiety thing going.  I think in his mind he is a perfectionist and anything less than that would let us down.  So not the case, so we need to figure out how to handle that.

There were lots of plusses though. KC wanted to have a tea party that Nana could come to, so we did that.  I made tiny sugar cookies and raspberry iced tea and we got out the fancy tiny cocoa mugs that were my grandmothers and had tea.    She played games with the kids, admired their paintings, shared two meals with us thus far etc.  I would rather have her visit here as it is an environment the kids are comfortable in and that I in a sense control.  When we visit her apartment I am hyper sensitive to anything my kids do that makes noise because she is always telling me how ill the couple downstairs are. 

We had lots of good food.  Ate the rest of my soup of last night with lunch, made mac and cheese for the kids, made a blueberry coffee cake with Lissa's help, made sweet potato meadow muffins, had veggie burgers and home made wedges (as opposed to pre seasoned store boughts) for supper with pie for dessert.  Man can we all eat!  LOL

Worked on taking down Lissa's braids off and on throughout the day.  By bedtime I had the last of them out.  Tomorrow I'll style it simply for church, probably a couple of french braids or pony tail twists.  We will keep it less styled for a few weeks and then rebraid and bead before Yule as i have red and green beads for the little princess.

I have so enjoyed this long stretch of time to be home with my wife and kids.  That is what I am most thankful for, a bunch of "family days" as my kids label them.

Let the Yule times roll!family

The meal has been eaten.  The leftovers will feed us the better part of a week.  I am looking toward sweet potato muffins, vegetable soup, corn and potato chowder, and cranberry coffee cake.  Wasting food is an anathema to me.  I don't hoard food like some of my children do.  No yucky moldy wrappers in my pillow case thank you very much.  LOL  But I do remember being hungry.  I do remember when I had to decide between potatos or pasta for a week of eating (I chose potatos in case you wondered)  So I will never let food molder in my fridge.  It can always become something good!

Today is the day we start decorating for Yule. Thus far I have done the long shelf in the kitchen above our cabinets and a bit in the dining room.  K has made the two cemetary boxes that we do each winter for my grandparents grave and her mom.  The kids were finally allowed to see a holiday video.  I refuse to allow Yuletide to overlap with Thanksgiving.  It is okay for it to start the day after but not before hand!  (grin)

My mom comes in tomorrow for a visit.  The kids are very excited at the pending arrival of the Nana.  My eldest has a migraine and is lying quietly.  He was tired this morning and that is so rare that at 24 I can't think of the number of times in his entire life that he has ever said he was tired.  He is always raring for anything. It was so weird it honestly scared me.  Then the headache came so I hope when he wakens that he is feeling better.

Thanksgiving--phew!

Before we got going on Thanksgiving, Kirsty said she should take my picture.   I assume this is because my hair was actually done, I had MAKE UP on and looked fairly well dressed.  We were goofing around, she and I.  We watch America's Top Model when we work at night and so I kept asking her if I was "smizing" with my eyes like Tyra says to do etc.  It was silly but fun.

I have to say that although I am tired I am so very happy.  My kids had fun, my in laws had a good time, and the food was delicious.  I have so much to be thankful for and writing it all down would sound so trite.  But it is honestly so true and so heartfelt.  I have been so richly blessed by the goddess and my family is the best part of who I am and what I do.

No Call from Fiona

Weeks of planning, loads of emails--no call.  No email from the clinician saying why.  Nada.  I spent days prepping Rob on this.  This sucks.

Thanksgiving Entertaining Begins!

K's sister is here to spend Thanksgiving with us.  She comes out a day ahead and the kids have been so eager to see their Auntie.  She didn't realize how much they were looking forward to it and was sort of relaxing when she got here. (30 minute drive from her house to ours)  KC asked her to play a game and she said she would but kept chatting instead with the grown ups.  KC asked again, holding the cards in his little hand.  I even pointed out that he was ready to play a game.Again, she didn't clue in.  I was also cooking as this was unfolding and I watched his shoulders slump and saw him quietly walk into our dining room.  I followed him in and he cuddled up and cried softly into my shoulder.  He so desperately wanted her to play with him, to spend time with him.  My heart broke for him.  There is not a real huge window that you get with kids.  There will come a time when he is off doing his own thing, with his peers and he will likely not care one fig about hanging with his family in the way he does now.

I took a deep breath and went back into the kitchen and tried to gently tell Lynne she had let him down. KC has been counting the days till Lynne's visit. Don't tell my kids you are going to do something if you aren't.  What she had really meant was "later."  Say later.  Better yet, say a time.  But don't say something will happen and then have it not happen.

I know that we are the only folks on K's side of the family with kids. So that is probably part of it.  If you are not around children, maybe you don't get what it entails.  Auntie did apologize and later did play a game, so all is well in the world again! 

Meanwhile, I have made the cranberry sauce and tonight will get together the crescent roll dough.  K has made pies and the house has that Thanksgiving smell to it I am told. (I have no sense of smell and have to rely on others to inform me!)

American Music Awards

I  missed the American Music Awards and I wish I hadn't.  Adam Lambert had a really controversial number,supposedly rife with sex.  Gay sex.  Gasp!  First off, I confess I like Adam.  I wanted him to win Idol cause I like his audacity and I think his voice and vocal ability is flat out amazing.  That said, I wish I had seen the performance that everyone is going nuts about.  By the time the idea occured to me to check You Tube, the video had all ready been taken down because of course, it was copy righted.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I am not really a big fan of in your face sex.  That said, I think it is there all the time in music.  In the videos, in the performaces.  I remember Madonna videos causing all kinds of controversy.  I remember being surprised at some that I saw more recently. Rhianna's "umbrella" video I seem to remember as being pretty sexualized.  I think I remember some of R. Kelly's that were pretty intense.  I am really bad with connecting names with specific videos because I am always doing something else when I watch, but I know there have been lots.  The thing is, they might have caused some controversy but nothing to this level. Because at the end of the day, it was heterosexual sex that was being portrayed and that somehow made it okay.  It is "OK" for back up dancers to grind up against a lead singer in a totally provocative way.  Can anyone really believe they are not pantomiming a sex act?  Doubt it!

But Adam dared to do the same 'envelope pushing' as a gay man.  Kissing a man on stage (and I am guessing we are not talking a little peck by the furor that has ensued) and other dramatic dancing and acting that disturbed (to put it mildly) lots of viewers.  Was it appropriate to the venue, with respect to time slot and the fact that lots of kids were likely watching?  Maybe not.  But is it more appropriate for a woman to wear a bustier and fishnets and grind on a guy in the same time block? My guess is that if my kids had seen it I would have had the same discussion about the time and place for intimate actions regardless of whether it was Adam or a female star who was acting out sex with a man.   At the end of the day for me, that explanation needs to come from me.  My kids will see the world in a variety of ways whether I want them to or not.  Part of my job is to have a relationship that will allow us to process what they see, and to give them hopefully, a values set that will allow them to handle situations that may be outside their comfort zone.  Now, are y'all glad that I didn't feel like writing about how we made place cards for our Thanksgiving table today?

Television does "finding family"

I usually don't watch ads.  I am legendary for it.  So why this one permeated my consciousness is amazing to me.  I was working and watching Dancing With the Stars.  I come from a family of dancers, what can I say?  And then there was this ad for a new show premiering right after DWTS.  The premise is it helps first families and their adopted off spring find each other. 

It chills me.  Not because I don't think that birth mothers and birth fathers shouldn't find their children who were given up for adoption.  Not because I think it is disloyal for adopted children to want to look.  But because I am afraid this show will glamourize the results.  TV is all about happy ever after.  Is it going to show a reunion that doesn't work because one party or the other has issues that need time, therapy ,and more than 60 minutes of prime time to solve?  Is it going to show the pain of not finding the person you are looking for?  And is Fiona going to see this and think that because of this she can find her birth mother?  I know that is her deepest wish.  It has been from Day 1.  And for a child with the emotional and psychological issues that she has, for someone who has some cognitive delays, this is so going to look like --HEY!  It could happen to me! 

And the reality is it is unlikely that it will happen to her.  And the last thing I want for her is more pain and more confusion.  She all ready has way too much.  I have to go to bed now or I will sit here and rant and worry and rant and worry some more.

There is a lot I like about Thanksgiving.  I love setting a pretty table.  It is important to me that the setting look beautiful and allow us time to gather as a family around a  meal, filled with love and laughter.  I love the fact that our table reflects so many different facets of our lives.  There is the beautiful flatware that was my mother in laws.  She and Dad got it in Thailand when he was stationed there and upon her passing, it was gifted to Kirsty and I.  Every year I polish it up for the Thanksgiving table. The pattern is very unique and its wam golden color is perfect for a harvest celebration.   There are the silver candlesticks that I grew up seeing on the table.  There are various glasses in a wildly mismatched group that were my grandparents and great grand parents.  I would be hard pressed to find more than two alike but all our beautiful---glass itself was so thin and gorgeous back then!  The actual plates are a set that Kirsty and I bought when we began hosting the holiday dinner.  The only set we had large enough for all to eat off of prior to that was a set of Haviland that has been in my family for generations. But the menfolk were reluctant to eat thanksgiving dinner off of a plate with roses on it!  LOL  So I bought plain white plates with a simple silver banding around the edges.  They are perfect and don't clash with anything.  We do some type of handmade centerpiece that runs down the center of the table--our table is very long with both leaves in it.  You can seat 12 around it and that is almost the number we have each year.  The kids help me make place cards for everyone--that project starts tonight at our house. 

I love the fact that we are all together around the table.  It is very important to me we all sit together and not  with the kids relagated to some side table somewhere.  I probably wouldn't care if there were lots of other cousins and such, but in our family and my extended family, we have mostly all the kids!  Plus, I work hard to teach my kids proper meal etiquette and they need a chance to use fancy china and show their relatives that they know the napkin goes in their lap etc.

I love the bustle of the kitchen on Thanksgiving day.  I have memories of this from way back when I was little.  My grandfather always prepared the root vegetables, my grandmother did the turkey, my mom did sides and I think everyone did pies.  There is always a LOT of food and definately more than is needed for that one meal.  But we send home leftover dead bird with the meat eaters and I am a whiz at finding recipes that use up everything else. Soups, vegetarian pot pie,  sweet potato meadow muffins and the cranberry coffee cake are pretty much givens but there have been others.  Nothing better than home made cranberry coffee cake for breakfast the next morning!

I wish we had a bit more say in the foods themselves. There is no flexibility to try a new recipe ever, because my in laws are not adventurous eaters. I love trying new recipes.  Like I would adore making pioneer woman's roasted carrots for the meal.  But the world as we know it would end,so i will save that for a time when it is just us.  Also we are not allowed to use spices.  They like their food bland. Very very bland.  We can add salt and pepper at the table but I am a real spicy food kind of woman so it is a bit blah for me in that regard.  But I just remind myself that probably why it is so easy to figure out ways to recycle the leftovers into new recipes is that they are veyr bland and won't compete with whatever I decide to do with them the next day! :-)

I like watching my kids snuggle up on the couch with their aunt to see the Thanksgiving parade.  Myself, I have never been into parades--my grandparents were never successful in cultivating any kind of interest in that in me.  My kids love it though and I love the fact that KC looks forward to that time with his aunt every year.

Most of all I am thankful that we are together, that we have this moment in time to enjoy one another and to make memories together.

Potluck Success!

Well Marthanity moments aside, the potluck went really well. Chet and Rob were amazingly helpful getting all the tables and chairs up and the tables set.  Lissa and KC put out the salt and pepper shakers with considerable ceremony and minimal spillage. The color scheme looked appropriately harvesty if I do say so myself. 

And best of all, a BUNCH of people came! Probably 60 to 80 folks all told   And  they had fun!  I didn't plan activities for the kids which was a bit of a concern.  I am personally of the opinion that while there are many times I will do special things for my kids, that also being in a social setting with other kids and adults is fun in and of itself.  Many folks think I am nuts about that , but oddly it works!  The kids had fun and adults who didn't have kids came too and they had fun as well.  That is huge as our church tends to divide into camps at functions--the things that "families" do and the ones for all the other folks!  I really really am passionate about blurring those lines a bit more than they currently are. There is much to be gained by my kids having loving and respectful relationships with a wide variety of people and it is not significant to me that those people be someone in their classes mom or dad. 

But by 6:45 Lissa had pretty much hit the wall.  She was doing well and all of a sudden the sound that I assume terranadons made in their time period echoed piercingly.  Yup, my baby girl was getting a tad anti social.  I was able to get her interested in helping me wipe down a counter and then I gathered the troops and beat feet for the car, worrying that if my children started making people's ear drums bleed that they might not want to come to another such function put on by my committee.  However that meant leaving 45 minutes before it was over--it was a relief to find out that clean up actually finished ahead of schedule and that everyone was happy!

Today the kids were so tired they slept till 7 a.m.   You have no idea how truly late that is in our house. I lay in bed with my eyes wide open, used to being up at quarter to 6 but afraid to move for fearing of waking a little person or two! 

This week ahead promises lots of hustle and bustle as we ready for the onslaught known as loving family who come to eat Thanksgiving dinner!

Marthanity and potlucks

I am on the Religious Education committee at the UU church where we worship.  This year somehow I got made co-chair of the committee which was really okay with me.  Then I found out the director of our religious educatioin program who is an amazing director, will be on sabbatical this spring.  Also 2 more months next year.  Hmmmm, can we say the bite we took to chew got a wee bit bigger?

Everyone on the committee also takes on a subcommittee.  I have been diligent over the years in this.  I did the really icky task of recruitment once, helping to round up unsuspecting folks to implement the program each Sunday.  Our church and church school is large, with 2 services so we need a lot of bodies for these kids teachers and assistants.  From that um, interesting experience I moved for some weird reason to the budget committee.  Yup that was WAY more fun than harrassing people (oh, I mean inviting people) to assist with the program. 

I was on the social action committee for a while and that was a lot of  fun but then the focus of the committee changed and I was less enthused. Sometimes I am as flighty as my kids in my interests!  So this year when the sub-com sign ups went out, I signed up for the FUN committee.  Yup, that is its name. Doesn't that sound cool?  Who doesn't want to have fun?  OK turns out my fun committee is responsible for creating a couple of events for families and other church folk to come to and enjoy one anothers company.  We came up with the idea of a pot luck dinner just before Thanksgiving.  People might not have a place to go for the holidays and perhaps a relaxed dinner with friends would brighten the week.

I host Thanksgiving dinner at our house.  I have a kabillion things to do to get ready for that.  And I thought this potluck idea up.  Yup, clearly brains are not a big requirement for the Fun Committee.  So all week I have been visiting iparty getting table cloths (orange, cream and yellow for those interested in our color scheme).  I have a giant cut out of corn stalks and small table decorations.  I have coordinating napkins and russet colored dessert plates.  My wife kindly baked her killer apple pie and made a pot of arroz con gandules to bring.  (we call this spanish rice at our house but it is really rice with pidgeon peas). I will pick up copious quantities of apple cider for our beverage.

 And today while K works I have to get the troops to our church and set up for this so that when the doors open at 5 it is welcoming and we are ready.  My other committee member informed me at the 11th hour that she couldn't be there till 15 minutes before things start.  So I gave her clean up!  How's that for putting the fun in the Fun Committee!  LOL

Technology baffles me sometimes!

Actually that sould read that technology USUALLY baffles me.  I belong in a little cabin, off grid, heating my house with wood.  I know wood.  I even know how to cook some things on a wood cook fire.  I am far less facile with so much modern technology. 

The examples of my ineptness are fairly legion.  When I was given a cell phone from a resident, I had to have my boss figure out how to look for the phone number and show me um , how to turn it on.  Yup, I couldn't do much more than keep it in "paperweight mode" there for a while.

Then there was this morning.  I opened up my blog and noticed I had one more follower than before.  Always exciting to think someone would want to read what I write.  Who could this new follower be?  So I click---and find I am following myself.  Yup. I am following me.  I suspect it happened when I was trying to follow someone elses blog but it so succinctly sums up both my life of late and my challenges with technology!

Sleepy Lissa and a clean yard

My beautiful sleeping daughter!  Normally such a sight is not real significant but in Lissa's case it is because she has never been able to sleep anywhere but in her room.  With the shades down.  With the curtains pulled.  With the white noise machine whooshing loudly.  But today, after music class, after outdoor play, she lay down on the couch and slept.

And this is the back yard after the final rake, composting and bagging.  The front and side yards are done as well.  We have composted where we can and covered perennial beds with leaves as well.  But I have limited storage space for composting so some has to get trucked away and the city gets to compost it and use it in their beds.  I don't feel too badly about that because our city  has some really lovely gardens in the center of town and I think a lot of the compost is used to maintain those.

I changed my blog settings to the new and improved gizmo for pictures.  Pictures give me such grief.  Supposedly the new thing would be so much better.  Not sure about that!

We get closer to talking to Fiona

I had another email from Fiona's clinician when I went into work on Monday. She had lost my previous email answering questions on our family, our relationship with Fiona and a host of questions on the bio family in general.  I found my other email and sent it off to her again.  We are looking like we are on for a 5 minute phone call on Wednesday night but I won't actually know until that day.  I suspect that they are tieing the phone call to behavioral choices, which I understand at one level and hate at another.  That dynamic is a part of why I think Rob has distanced himself from his sister.  There is the whole anger/fear thing over her assaultive behavior, but there is also frustration up the big wazoo about times we were supposed to visit and we would arrive and due to her behavior we would be told, so sorry--go home.  Now when she was in the RTC near us it wasn't too bad.  But there were times we were travelling 90 minutes one way and Rob was missing party invites with friends to go see her. . . only to not see her after all.  So I hope that they don't cancel the phone call at the last minute.  I don't want to be her carrot for behavior.  I want to be her family.

Crafty Shopping

Nope, not clever shopping, shopping at the craft store! LOL Sort of a field trip for the kids who are still miffed that we can't go to the park after supper. I needed to buy supplies for the kids to help me make place cards for thanksgiving and yarn for K to make fingerless gloves for Chet for Yule. That done I also bought the kids a small craft thing each --we are all about crafts! And I bought a few inexpensive craft items for a family who moved in where I work. They drove here from far away and their furnishings have not caught up with them. Due to some bizarre snafu their things won't arrive for a few more weeks. I can't imagine being in a new place with my tribe and having next to no toys to help them adjust and keep busy. So I found things like paints, crayons, sketch pads and bubble juice to tuck into a welcome basket for them tomorrow.

KC noticed that we saw the "wishing" star right away. He is very in tune with the stars and the moon. My celestial child! Of course he told us that we all had to make a wish. I am blessed. What more could I wish for?

Good Eyes!

I worry a lot about Rob's eyes. He has a form of juvenile glaucoma that was discovered by our regular family eye Dr when he was only 6 or so. Maybe 7. But young, very young to be formally diagnosed. I remember the specialist saying how lucky we were--though we didn't feel very lucky at the time--because she said most patients don't come to her office till they begin to lose peripheral vision. Rob had not yet experienced vision loss.

Yesterday was his regular eye exam and he still has great eyesight. In fact, our family eye Dr. said that in his 43 years of practice he has only had one other patient read the lines as far down the chart as Rob can! Sort of explains why Rob is such a good bird watcher. He has really really keen sight. The Dr also checked for any corneal scarring which can be a result of the eyedrops taken to control the glaucoma. No signs of any problems there either.

And my eyes have not changed since 2000, which is extremely good for an old broad like myself. And no bifocals in my future yet, though we are inching toward that. However due to my very extreme nearsightedness the dr wants me to see a retinologist. Not because he sees any problem as yet, but because I am considered high risk for glaucoma, macular degeneration, detached retinas and more. Normally I pretty much don't do testing. But oh, my eye doctor somehow knew just what to say.

"I know I am over the top in protecting eyes, but I am old enough to be your father--and this is what I would have my daughter do." OK how can I argue with that? So I will call the retinalogist.

Hello, is this the party to whom I'm speaking?

One thing that is unusual about our family is that until today, we had no cell phone. We had no cell phone when we drove across the country to bring home KC and later Elisabeth. We intended to get a throwaway phone for those trips but the calls for our children came at unexpected times and we didn't have a chance to get them.

Our families were horrified. Imagine driving from MA to IL with no cell phone. Seriously, we were treated like we were hiking into the Wilderness with only a spare pair of undies in our packs or something. It was ludicrous. I told everyone who was worried that everyone else in the country had a cell phone and I was sure in an emergency someone could be prevailed upon to call a tow truck, or 9-1-1 or something. (Picture me in my best imitation of Blanche DuBois saying "I rely on the kindness of strangers."

Years passed. Family kept hounding us to get a cell phone. K and I looked at our finances and it was not in the budget. Totally not in the budget. And still not a necessity. I sit by a phone all day at work. I also work very close to home. We are talking a 3 mile commute. If I can't handle an emergency 3 miles from home, I need more help than a cell phone can provide. LOL

OK so there is the story of why we had no cell phone. Now how we got it. It was a case of doing something nice for someone and having them repay you with another kindness later, in an unexpected way. I have a disabled tenant who more than a year ago had a financial crisis. Since this person had no family in the area, I was the confidante to his fiscal mistakes. And privy to the knowledge that his access to food was limited. About that time we had a big family party and i had a ton of meat left over. I am vegetarian and the meat was not going to get used by our family any time soon. So I asked my tenant to help me by taking the meat, under the guise of cleaning out my freezer so that i could put in my garden produce. This wasn't a total fabrication. We were putting veggies by that year. He, I think, saw through the thin veil of prevarication but the story left him with some dignity in the exchange and he agreed to take the food.

He has visited me at least twice weekly at the office since. Usually to share his take on an unusual new story or some urban legend. It is sort of like talking to Chet and I don't mind. In amidst the discussions of whether BigFoot lives under a bridge in our local city I try and sandwich in suggestions on how to apply for various services that would prevent the kind of crisis he was in a year ago.

Today he came up to show me his new cell phone and asked me about one of the features. I explained that this was one area where I was useless to him because I had no cell phone. He smiled and said actually that was why he had asked. He thought it rude to ask me outright, but it would help his ego, he said, if I would consider taking his old phone. He had to get a new one because the buttons were hard to read on his former one and his eyesight wasn't what it once had been. He told me I would need to buy minutes and I said that was no problem. He immediately went home and got me the phone pictured above. (didn't I center it artistically on the cable converter box??) I put some minutes on it and spent 16 seconds of the first 120 minutes calling K to tell her the phone worked. Then I hung up. I never gave her the number. Which explains why she couldn't call me and tell me to buy Italian bread to have with the pasta tonight!

Smiling through Sunday

Most of the rain has passed and left in its place unseasonably warm temps. I"ll totally take them, dreading as I do the onslaught of truly cold weather. It has been so nice to flex my fingers without pain in NOVEMBER! Really unusual. Today was so warm that after church the little kids and I took a long mile and a half walk with no coats. Sure we had on sweatshirts, but people, sweatshirts in November in NE? Don't tell me global warming isn't a possibility! LOL (this is an ongoing debate between my wife and I. I think it is a real risk, she thinks it is a normal part of a larger cycle. . . but I digress)

I was amazed that both littles wanted to walk so far and so long. But we were taking our time, feeling moss, looking for acorns and beech nuts. Throwing rocks in the fast flowing streams, and finding the last few blooming flowers in sheltered nooks of gardens that we passed. We walked on stone walls and marched, skipped, leaped and jumped.

Lissa also got her hair braided while the boys and I were at church. You can't tell well from the picture but the beads are all harvest tones to go with her Thanksgiving dress which is tan with apples across the border. I love the colors of the beads, they are soft and warm and remind me of kernels of Indian corn.

Swimming through Saturday!

It is a deluge here in N.E. folks! Pouring down rain since early a.m. with no stopping. The brook in our back yard is very very full. The streets look like brooks with "puddles" that are 36 inches wide and deep enough to go above the ankles. Such a great day to be out and about! (laughing)

But our Saturdays are for the most part rain or shine events and this was no exception. K was supposed to have the day off and visit with my mom in Maine. They do a bunch of church fairs every year on this weekend. However K is still weak as a kitten from the flu. Not as sick as she was but no real oomph. So she opted to stay home and it was a good call. She slept late (I think it was nearly 8 when she got up) and her day was a quiet one. I took the tribe out early to Staples to get printer ink, then to the bank, then to KC's dance class. He was so glad to be back! From there we sloshed to the library and got books for the week and then I brought the kids home.

I figured they could be warm and dry while I did the grocery shopping. Usually that option is not available to me as K typically works on Saturdays. But since she was home, I thought it kinder to the tribe.

And it probably was as I got drowned in the parking lot. Between the vast expanses of pavement that don't give the rain water anywhere to go, and the sheer volume of water getting dumped, I was saturated before I got into the market.

The funny thing is though that I really LIKE shopping with my kids. I am guessing from conversations with friends that this makes me pretty darn weird. And thinking back, I am pretty sure I wasn't really a cheerful shopping companion at the grocery store when I was a kid. I preferred to be left in the car with a book to read while my parents shopped. But my kids, make a task that I don't really enjoy, a lot more fun. They are funny and often the comments they have about the store crack me up. They are helpful--both Rob and KC routinely grab some of our groceries while I grab others. So I finish quicker too. Exactly the opposite of most of my friends who say that it takes 3 times longer to get through the store if they bring their kids. Who'd have thunk it?

When I actually *think* about my rant!

So yesterday I did this big old vent/rant about my sister and her rather abrupt self invite to our home for Thanksgiving. I hoped of course that venting about it would make me stop thinking about it but that is of course not usually the way of things. At least not for me. I have to puzzle away at something until it makes sense to me and then I can let it go. And my sister is a puzzle. A big fat Rubiks cube puzzle to me. I could never DO Rubiks cube. LOL Her motivations mystify me. Our differences sometimes stagger me. I also understand that although I very much want a relationship, I don' t want it at the expense of feeling used. And I realize also that there really are not words,or at least I don't have words, for how all of this really made me feel. There are some obvious ones, but they tend to be superficial. The incident was very much a "call to Jesus moment" for me on our real-ationship. Because the one I want, and envision may not be what she wants or envisions. Or is emotionally ready to give. And I very much suspect, given the fact that she is 47, that things are not gonna change any time soon. I am working on being more open to having the relationship on terms she can be comfortable with, without permitting myself to be an emotional doormat.

And why is that important? Because Rob and Fiona have a very flawed relationship too. Theirs is so much more damaged than my relationship is. I have a lot of good memories of the 2 of us from childhood. Rob doesn't. There are fearful memories, scary things, both caused by Fiona and caused by their shared reactions to experiences kids should not have. There are memories of rages and assaults, property destroyed, and the times we sat waiting to visit with Fiona while she raged screaming in another room.

Rob's response to this at the moment, seems to be to decide that Fiona isn't part of his life. He does not want to write or communicate much with her. When I told him one day that I had talked to his sister's therapist, he acted like he thought i meant Lissa. I doubt he really thought that. I think that he has a coping mechanism right now that involves just shutting a door. I suspect when he is ready, he will open it. Because if my feelings are any kind of bell weather, there will come a point when he is ready to dig a little deeper, and to see what kind of relationship they can have. I want to watch for the signs and support him when he is ready.

The joy of family! (rant)

There have been times when people have told me that it must be "hard" dealing with all the bio family issues that come with adopting. While i would agree that it adds a layer of complexity, it isn't always "hard." Hard is reserved for my personal biological family, thank you very much.

Feel free to click to the next blog where someone isn't cranky and feeling persecuted. Right now. Fair warning! I only have one sister and our relationship has been very on again off again. I have expended considerable effort trying to be much closer to her over the past 5 or 6 years. However, she remains one of those people that I really only hear from when she wants or needs something.

I have not heard from her in more than 2 1/2 months. We had no fight, she just stopped emailing me and started emailing my mom. If I affronted her I really don't know. The door just shut. I would occasionally get a 2 sentence facebook hello. That feels very superficial though. We used to email each other nearly 4 times a week and talk by phone a couple times a month. Something was up but as i said earlier, this is also a pattern of my sister's relationship with me. Whenever I look to what was going on when my sister was close to me, there was a need in her life that she wanted me to fill. Once that was filled, she disappeared again.

Today at work she called and asked what I was doing for Thanksgiving. I said I was hosting dinner for 12 people. She said how about 3 more, essentially inviting herself, her on again off again husband and one of her daughters. I almost dropped the phone.

I tried to be nice. I said how about dessert and coffee after dinner instead of coming for the meal. I legitimately have a huge problem just getting the 12 people to table and not a room where I can put another table without folks feeling isolated or like they are somehow second class citizens. I don't want to do a childrens table as it pretty much means only my kids wouldn't be at the table (sis's dau is 16 and I am sure would balk at a trip to a kid table).

And I was feeling pretty bad about modifying her self invite that way until she pipes up: "Well I figured Mom should get to see my daughter and this would be the way to do that ." Uh huh. Feel less bad about it now!

Leaves and more Leaves!

The magical thing about kids is that their simple existance means you stop stressing for a moment. You stop thinking about the 5 trillion leaves that you are not sure you'll get raked before snow flies. You stop stressing about what the yard will look like when the family comes for Thanksgiving in a few weeks.

Because when you come down to it, when you find imps like this in the leaf pile, nothing else seems as important! :-)

The Flowers in my vase . . .

are dying. Normally, this isn't a big deal. Each week one of the really sweet things K does is she puts fresh flowers in the bedroom when she changes the sheet. Not fancy bouquets, but little vases of the flowers from our yard. Early spring brought snow drops, then daffodils, then violets. As early spring gave way to the more active growing season, I had rhodedendron blossoms, roses and iris. Then in summer lots of cone flowers and daisys. Fall brought asters which are one of my favorite flowers. In that movie "You've got Mail" Meg Ryan's character talks about daisies being the friendliest flower. Maybe, but asters are the bravest. They bloom their hearts out as daylight hours are retreating and temperatures become uncertain and erratic. And they bloom for a long time. Into November in NE to be precise.

But alas, the reign of the asters is over. There is nothing to put in the vase any longer. Sigh.

Martial Arts and adoption

I totally managed to surprise Rob yesterday and didn't even plan on it! We were sitting together in the work room and I was doing piece work as we watched a football game. A commercial came on and since I find such things boring, I always start talking. I told him I had been watching an MMA fight the night before but didn't get to see who won as KC woke and was coughing and needed some cuddles and care. It was meant just as an aside on my part but Rob's jaw literally hit the table! He stared at me like I was someone he had never met before and said in this tone of shock "YOU watch MMA?" Well truthfully that would be the first time as I had never happened upon it before, but yes!

I asked him why he thought I might not want to watch MMA and his answer was that since I hate wrestling I would hate MMA. I do hate wrestling. It is fake. And stupid. And boring to me because of the first two reasons. But MMA is strategy and real fighting and a chance for me to pick out moves i know, styles I explored as a martial artist, etc.

Rob knows I studied karate for 12 years. But I stopped studying actively about 6 months into his life with us. Too much was going on with Fiona and I felt that integrating kids into the family was not hte time to spend 3 hours a week at the dojo. The family kept getting bigger and life got even busier and I have never returned to the dojo except to chat and say hi.

But for a long time it was huge in my life. I still remember my shodan test. It was fall in NE. Not early fall when it is still warm. Cold chilly fall. The test was outdoors and started in the afternoon. It was after 9 p.m. and pitch dark when we finished. They had flood lights so we could see. My feet were frozen blocks of ice. But in so many ways it was a transformative experience. I did something that prior to that I would not have thought myself capable of. I achieved a level of fitness that I was proud of. I had to create 5 of my own defenses and I was proud of my creativity as a martial artist and my ability to handle the surprises and stresses built into the test.

My nidan test was exciting too, but shodan has always stuck out in my mind as the most exciting, the most difficult, even though theoretically your second degree black belt should probably seem harder than first!

But actually, from an adoption standpoint, what it reminded me of, was the layers of which we know one another. Chet knows my karate life intimately. He grew up essentially with me as a martial artist. He watched me practice, and during the time that he too studied, we occasionally worked out together. The implements that hang on my wall are real to him in a way that they are somewhat mythical to the younger kids.

And it is like that for me with older child adoptions. I "know" Rob and Fiona's stories from the perspective of written assessments and verbal anecdotes shared with me by the children or adults who were present in their lives. But they too, have an air of mystery and myth. They are not our shared history. They are something before that colors and flavors our present, much like my love of martial arts flavored our conversation last evening.

Sniffly Sunday

Kirsty is now sick--she seems to get things in her throat so that is where hers has settled. Rob is sniffly, Lissa unusually quiet and KC coughing a fair bit. No one has temps.

I read somewhere about a blogger challenge to post every day for the month of November. Clearly a lot of bloggers must not yak as much as me. The challenge for me would be to NOT blog as frequently! LOL

We are all home from church today which is really weird. I have promised the kids i will at least take them to Dunkin Donuts. They have no temps so according to the medical professionals in our neck of the woods I am not endangering anyone. They are so stir crazy they are endangering my sanity! ROFL

At least there is football this afternoon. That will keep them all busy for a while. We may not agree on our baseball teams but we unite behind the NE Patriots. And Rob and I have a hot contest going on our fantasy football teams. We are each #1 in our leagues but I have more points than he does. OK there is something pathetic about a grown woman bragging that she is beating her 13 y/o son at fantasy football on a kids website! LOL It is a fall tradition with us though that we do this little friendly competition all through the football season. In the beginning it was easier to beat him because he was all about total team loyalty. In other words everyone on his fantasy team was a Patriot. Whether there was a better player out there to draft was irrelevant. Now he is a little more savvy but still refuses to have anyone on the team that the Pats are playing against that particular week. ( he finds my sneaky strategy of having some of both teams on my fantasy team particularly horrid!)

So now I am off to see if there is a paltry little apple scone left for me after the hordes have breakfasted and to see what other mischief I can find to do today!

Convalescing

I never realized quite how badly I do "resting" and "relaxing" till today. I can go no where because the kids are still technically contagious. If we make it through today with no temps for anyone then we are allowed to venture forth into the world. I am wondering if Lissa and Rob are only going to get a light touch. Lissa has the cough and the congestion but not like KC did. Rob only has the sore throat and says it is less than yesterday. So perhaps their shots are at least helping them to fight it more effectively.

But back to the boredom. Saturdays are usually busy for us. We are out of the house from 9ish to 1ish and go lots of places and do lots of things. Some are routine like shopping and dance class but I usually try to squeeze in something kind of different too. Walk by a duck pond, lunch with K, visit an apple orchard. Not today folks. Today it is all about being home.

So, since we are early risers ,it is 10:05 a.m. and i have made a lemon dream pie for tonights dessert. I have scrubbed the bathroom totally and am washing the shower curtain and tub mat as we "speak." I have sterilized the entire kitchen, scrubbed two foot stools and am soaking tub toys in a mild bleach solution. I have tidied the living room. I have showed Rob how to set up his Facebook account.

Truthfully there is not a lot of housework left. I have beds to make (I stripped them back to air) and the kitchen and bathroom floors to wash but beyond that, I am pretty well done in the house chores dept. There are 5 billion leaves out there but I can't leave the kids inside while I work on them and I can't send Chet out to work on it unattended. He needs constant redirection for that task. Don't know why; we rake leaves every year, but it is what it is.

I figure after lunch I am putting a giant sheet of paper on the island and we will finger paint. And i have plans for making a holiday paper turkey with the littles if they feel up to it. But it is going to be a loooooong boring day for the Ooma! LOL

The Pigs keep marching on!

The good news: KC is improving and slept ALL night last night. (which incidently means I did too!) He woke w/ no temp and now we have to see if it stays down today and tomorrow. If it does, he is officially in the clear and can begin to be outside around others again.

the not so good news: Rob woke with a sore throat and Lissa has a cough. She says she has a sore throat but this is hard to verify as she also said she had purple eyeballs and was hollering loud enough to be heard next town over when she didn't think her breakfast was coming quickly enough. But it is clear that we are still a plague house and i have emailed folks at church that we will not be present on Sunday.

I opted to have Rob not school today since he is feeling not up to par. I figure it isn't likely he isn't going to remember anything if he tries to work anyhow, so rest and relax. I told him about looking for Dee on FB and how after months of waiting i had heard from him last night. I told him I had sent him a few pics of Rob which made Rob grin (nary a one of my kiddos is camera shy!) and that I had sent him a short greeting. I asked Rob if he would like a FB account now that we had a way to connect with Dee, but also tried to make it clear that I have no idea how frequently the other boy is on line or checking his account.

Rob definately wanted a FB account and didn't mind the parameters I had set up. (I am all about internet safety and firmly believe that kids need to learn to use the net safely.) He said all his friends at church had FB accounts. I asked him why he hadn't ever expressed a desire to have one then, especially since he knew I had an account.

His answer was that since I had told Chet he could not have a MySpace account, he assumed he would not be able to have a FB account. I said that was too long a conversation before I headed out to work but we would talk later about why the situations were different. What he needed to remember was to ask for himself. That there are some things that are different for different family members based on their abilities and their willingness to follow certain guidelines. But that he was lucky I was psychic and asked if he wanted the account because most parents would not guess that since he spends all his computer time at SIkids and NFLRush. LOL Even he laughed at that.

It is hard to help the younger kids understand that there are things Chet can't do and may never do. I would let him have a FB account if I could trust his ability to be appropriate in what he wrote. But I can't. He would likely wind up in a very serious situation--we narrowly skirted out of one when he had a computer a few years ago. A big part of the problem is that he really still acts like a teen boy and at some levels even still thinks of himself that way. So things that would be probably if not ok, likely overlooked, if said by a teen are not when it is found to be written by a man in his 20's Chet also tends to try and be very secretive--he will not happily accept any kind of check in system on his writings and web sites being visited. His literal mind doesn't see that because a site is labelled "cute pictures" that it could be so much more than that for instance. Keeping him safe on the net was quite frankly a huge ole nightmare.

Thankfully while "working" on his computer a couple years ago, Chet deleted the entire operating system on himself including the secret files that DELL put into the computer at the factory and it could not be restored. Wise old Ooma just didn't replace the computer. LOL He got an ipod instead.

So anyway, if Rob is well enough tomorrow I will help him set up his account. It was cool to see his face light up like a Yule tree when I told him Dee had friended us. I am so glad I didn't tell him I was trying to do this months ago though; he would have been upset when it took 4 or so months for the connection to happen.

I "hear" from Dee!

OK this day is way too surreal for my poor sleep deprived self. Waaaaay back in the summer I found Rob's brother Dee on Facebook. FB is not a thing I particularly love or even use often, but I would ck once a week or so to see if he had responded to the invite. He didn't. I noticed that his school was listed in his bio and thought maybe the page is only used during the school year. School started and I heard nothing. Then today I learned he was living at a residential facility. I thought perhaps that meant he had no internet access. . . and tonite the invite was accepted! Go figure!

I put up about 5 pics of Rob over the past year so he could see them and wrote a short hello on his wall. We will see what unfolds.

Fiona's news

Of late there has been a positive flurry of email communications between myself and Fiona's clinician Jane. (I finally remembered her blog name!) She is a very very nice person if her emails are any indication. She has told me that Fiona is emotionally fragile (which I knew) has exhibited behaviors that make it clear she can not function in family settings in the long term. (sad but validating--part of me always wondered if it was just us, if we didn't try hard enough/long enough/creatively enough.) She also said that Fiona feels very conflicted--angry (perhaps nebulously,perhaps at us specifically) at whoever she perceives caused the removal of her from our home. She also loves us and wishes she could have been adopted by us. The reality of course is that in so many ways, I feel exactly the same way as she does. Except that I don't have cognitive disabilities, a history of trauma and neglect and all the other alphabet soup diagnosis that she does.

Jane has been trying to piece things together and more or less get a chronological picture of Fiona and of our family's participation in her life. I have been emailing trying to fill in the gaps for her. She was missing information on our interactions with various members of the bio family, and of bio-family interactions with Fiona and with us. I was able to put those pieces of the puzzle in place for her.

In turn, she had a bit of information for me which was sad. Dee, Rob's older brother is now in a residential placement, though I don't know why. So very sad to me. I don't know Dee well, but he seems a bright, caring and amazing young man with a lot of potential. It does explain why we never heard anything about future visits. Still, it just kills me. I hope he is able to attend the art school he had planned to be at . . .

But back to Fiona. We are working toward a phone call with her the week of Thanksgiving. Jane is amazing because she is putting so much thought into this. Prepping Fi with topics, checking to see if I have anything I don't want discussed. The reality is that I am pretty open about that. There was only one brief period years and years ago when Fi had some issues with saying inappropriate things to Rob (like "do you want me to come and get you so we can go away together?") Unless this type of magical thinking has resurfaced, I am pretty okay with just about any topic. Jane said Fiona wanted to give advice to Robbie. Jane didn't want that. I suggested that if the advice was sort of that "work hard at your school work" "keep your room clean" and "listen to Mom and Ooma" that it was okay with me if she wanted to do that. Most older sibs consider themselves fountains of advice to their younger siblings. Jane thought that sounded pretty good and if those type of things will meet Fiona's needs, they are not going to bug Rob to hear them.

What I needed more guidance with, was what would be a good topic for US to share with Fiona. Rob's experiences are pretty typical for a young teen but I don't want him to inadvertantly make Fiona sad by sharing something he thought was "fun" that she hasn't been able to do herself. (i.e. Rob going to a concert in December is not a cool topic to share with his sister.) Jane agrees that some extreme sensitivity is needed in this regard.

So we are moving forward with a list of possible topics and hopefully in a few weeks, we'll hear Fiona's voice again!

A bit of good news

THE YANKEES WON THE WORLD SERIES!

OK I know I am not from NY. I have not even LIVED in NY. But there was a time in my life where the location we lived in only got NY radio and TV. See, I am old as dirt. Well, older than cable anyway and in those days, in certain valleys one didn't get other stations. So as a 9 year old i watched the Yankees with my family on TV. With only one station coming through it wasn't like i had lots of options. And I became a Yankees fan.

I confess I am the only Yankee fan in my family, but I have remained true to "my" team through thick and thin. I am a pretty easy going fan. I figure there are lots of teams for a reason--so that everyone can have something to cheer about some time. Rob is a died in the wool Red Sox fan as is most of my family and my extended family. KC has decided he is a Yankee fan. I have no illusions. This is because at 5 it is all about tweaking your older brother. The two of them talk an unbelievable amount of trash to each other about their respective teams. LOL

But at least this morning, after a mere 3 hours or so of interrupted sleep, I could share the good news with KC. He may be sick but he beamed!

Still Sick Here

We have some of the best friends in the world! When our dear friend Holly heard that KC could not go to the concert, her son (KC's best bud) picked out two of his favorite Wiggles movies and lent them to KC so he could have his own "wiggly concert" right here at home. KC is very good about finding joy in things; he loved every minute of the movies.

Unfortunately, he is still quite sick. Most of last night I would waken off and on, checking his breathing, feeling to see if he was getting hotter etc. He must have been having fever dreams; lots of weird mumblings and he was grinding his teeth big time--something he hasn't done in years.

Today we called the Dr. who was not in. Story of my life! LOL The covering MD is the doctor my co worker uses. He is not really someone I want to take KC to, based on how the Dr handled my co-workers daughters recent bout of swine flu. (he did not want her in the office and sent her to ER where she spent 7 fun filled hours and received no info.) I figured unless things worsen dramatically he is better at home being carefully and lovingly watched by eagle eyed parents.

He is well hydrated, not really eating but that is okay with me as long as he drinks. The fever is being kept at 100 or so. Once today it hit 101 but that was the only time. So we are waiting till our Dr. is in tomorrow to see if he has any other pearls of wisdom for us.

It is hard to isolate when you have 4 kids. We have set KC up during the day time on an air bed in our work room. He is quite comfortable and Lissa can not get at him. She can play in the living room and the other side of the house but not do anything but holler hellos to her big brother. (much to her intense distress, but we are doing all we can to try and stem the spread of whatever plague has come to visit us.

I actually have more to write as I have been exchanging a plethora of emails with Fiona's clinician but I am honestly too brain dead tonight to attempt it.

No Wiggly Fun in our house!

Several months ago I bought tickets to see the Wiggles at the Big City near us. KC adores the Wiggles and was over the moon with excitement. The performance is a mid day thing so it was perfect.

Till he woke up sick this morning. On Sunday at church there was a little boy in his class who coughed non stop through the morning. (I was working in the same class so I saw first hand) The child was doing all the right things as far as coughing into his elbow yada yada yada. Obviously, that doesn't necessarily stop evil germs. I had KC wash his hands right after class. Obviously that didn't help either. His throat sounds funny too. sigh.

When I broke the news to him he didn't even cry. Just sagged against me with the saddest big brown eyes looking up at me. Just broke my heart. I wanted to cry. We are calling his best friend to see if he and his mom would like to go. I hate to see the tickets go to waste. I

More Halloween Pics

Lissa is just too sweet as a yellow M & M! OK, sorry folks, couldn't resist the play on words. Yellow is her new fave color and the costume was her choice. Kirsty, our resident seamstress extraordinaire, made both KC and Lissa's outfits.

KC is showing how fierce black cats are on the spookiest night of the year! The pose was his idea, such a shy, retiring little child! LOL

It was a wonderful night and we did tons of walking through the neighborhood after our spooky supper and a visit to my job's party. I am all about packing in the fun. I wound up carrying Lissa home as she was exhausted, but for the longest time she wouldn't give in and let me carry her.

The majority of the wind and rain held off, there was rain periodically and the wind though warm lent that "spooky" feel to the night as leaves whipped past us and the occasional branch lashed out at us.

Chet surprised me and wanted to pass out candy at our house and was bitterly disappointed that he only had 2 customers. Usually he stays in his room and I was impressed and excited by the fact that he was a more participatory member in the festivities. He jammed a little red bike helmet on his head and put on his red coat and informed me he was a "biker dude". It was all good to me!

The 2 younger boys traded out their candy when they got home. This is an annual ritual as KC hates chocolate and bargains his chocolate to Rob for anything he does like. Poor Lissa by this time thought they were EATING all their candy and was furious that I was saying it was time for showers and not eating. Just not a bone of rational thought left in her mind, but KC helped calm her and soon the two of them were showered and storied and off to bed. . . to waken at 5:13 this morning! Gotta love it!

I believe the veil between our world and the afterlife is thinnest on All Hallows Eve. I hope the spirits of those departed family members could see the love and laughter that lit our house last evening. It was not just candles lighting the dining room, it was sparkling eyes of our children. I felt so lucky.