Ding Dong the Mouse is Dead, Mini Imelda and More!

A couple days ago, our cat Maui caught a mouse.  Unfortunately for us (and luckily for the mouse) he apparently experienced performance anxiety when all the family were there.  In his shock he dropped said mouse  in front of us and it escaped down a crack in the dining room floor.  I am not particularly squeamish about mice.  But it IS why we have a cat and Maui received  a stern talking to about his dereliction of duties.  Today, Mousie met his Maker.  The littles had to parade upstairs and view the body.  Very funny actually.

Then, readers may remember the less than stellar results I had buying Lissa shoes this weekend. A friend at church said that if I knew her size I could order from Zappos.com and just return any that did not fit well.  Made sense and I am really all about shop from home if you can.  One only needs to take 3 or 4 kids shopping at once to know why the internet is my friend. LOL  At any rate, sometime this weekend I actually had time to place an order for 4 pairs of shoes. One pair were sneaks that had velcro.  Tie shoes are all ready becoming a royal P.I.A. for Lissa and it will only get worse as the weather improves.  So I extravagently threw those in and then picked 3 pair of dress shoes.  Note to self:  For this to work the styles you offer to your child have to be sort of similar.  Or  you have to have a child who would wear anything and has no real style preference.  Do NOT buy one pair of glittery pink shoes, one smooth lilac patent leather shoes and one pair of brown suede.  At least don't do that and think anything but the brown suede are going back.  Mini Imelda, aka Lissa is in serious shoe love.  It is ridiculous and I am usually all about practical.  But I also know that she also hardly ever finds ONE pair of shoes that she both loves and that fits.  To hit the mother lode has just rocked her world. So for this one time, we are letting extravagence rule.

Then tonight Fiona called. She sounds so good.  She talked about how she is wanting to know more about her first mother, and her biological family.  Her cousin N is able to fill in a lot of those gaps for her and I am glad.  I said that I knew it could be hard not to know things about your family.  I don't know a lot about my dad's side of the family and I do not know where my father lives--only that he married three times and is now living with another woman. We had this really mature conversation about how families can separate and lose contact for many kinds of reasons and how hard it can feel when you don't know stuff.  I never realized till I adopted, that my father's choice to cut me from his life would ultimately prove so beneficial in my parenting.  If I had a real dad, I wouldn't have an inkling of what my kids feel.

  Jane also said that she and Fiona have decided to slow things down in their interactions with cousin N.  Cousin N lives much closer to the Great School than we do and I suspect that a flurry of visits have been perhaps more than Fional could process easily. Even if she WANTS it, it doesn't mean she is emotionally ready for it.  I am pleased that Jane is there to see that and that she found a way to help Fiona see this in a way that does not seem to be causing her any internal conflict.