Time Flies

Did a lot of running around today in preparation for a Taj trip tomorrow.  Extra prep was needed, since we'll be celebrating Tank's birthday with family while we're there.

He's FOUR.

FOUR.

Dude, it was YESTERDAY when he was born.  I swear it!  I've had migraines that went slower than these past four years.  One day, he was a 9-pound wad of fluff, snot and poop and the next, he's 3 feet, 9 inches tall, 52 pounds and ruler of the universe.  (In HIS mind, anyway)

Holy crap.  How did that happen? 

Last night, I went through a box of clothes some friends gave us that their youngest son had outgrown.  I'd put them away six months ago, since they were sizes 7 and up...thinking it would be simply FOREVAH before he grew into them.

Yeah, NOT.

He's in a SIX now.  One of his legs weighs more than the baby we brought home from the hospital.

And going through his outgrown clothes makes me an emotional wreck!  I just ache to have Baby Tank back, just for a little bit!

I miss the sweet snuffles of a baby against my neck; the feel of his little round bottom that fit just perfectly in my palm when I cuddled him.  I miss the precious baby clothes (from 5T on up, it's skateboards and skulls...no more puppies and airplanes).  I look at his baby clothes and I just want to sit and weep over the loss.  Stupid, I know, but there you have it.

Would I trade for those days back?  No...I am even more in love with the spunky, spirited toddler he's become.  Every part of his personality that emerges from the rather generic fog of babyhood is better than the last.  Oh, but for one more hour of him napping on my shoulder!  Just one sweet, Dreft-and-baby-powder-scented snuggle with his downy little head tickling my cheek.

Oh, it goes so fast!

And it's worth every wonderful, terrifying, worrisome, exhausting, beautiful minute!

Happy Fourth Birthday, Tank!

Love,
Mommy

IKEA, etc

So...IKEA.  We went, we saw, we conquered.  If you enjoy the concept of "personal space", I highly recommend that you do NOT shop the Atlanta IKEA the Sunday before school starts.  Just a little tip, there.  Having never been to an IKEA before, it took me a bit to adjust to the shopping style there.  I probably annoyed some folks at first, before I caught on to the follow-the-gray-concrete-road concept and blended into the wall of humans pressing through the showroom.  Interesting idea, painting arrows on a walkway and herding shoppers through in a single direction.  Not the way I like to shop, but given how crowded the store was, I guess it's a survival technique.

Did I love IKEA?  Yes and no.  I had some drooly moments in the kids' section, particularly over these things:

The Mammut collection is just so fun and Dr. Seuss-y that I found it hard to resist.  I did resist, though, even though I thought everything was pretty reasonably priced.  I just figured Tank would outgrow the toddler-sized bed in about 8.2 seconds, so I oohed and ahhed and walked away.

College Girl Niece found a double bed she luuurved, so we somehow strapped that on and in the Jeep, along with all four of us and made our way home.  Me?  I bought a vase.  Hey, I was walking out of there with SOMETHING, dammit!

Will I go back to IKEA?  I am sure I will.  While uber-streamlined, blonde wood DIY furniture isn't my style, I did really like some of their stuff and again, you can't beat the price.  As long as you buy it with an eye towards needing to replace it after a few years, I think IKEA purchases are great.


So, what else?
Well, the Tankster's birthday approaches.  I've been asking him what kind of party he wanted this year and I get a different response almost every time.  Egads--do they have a special training for kids on this?!  We've been through dinosaur party, Thomas the Tank Engine party, Cars party, baseball party, sea turtle party....and on and on and on.  Since he's said baseball the past several times and gone back to it after forays into other ideas, we're doing a baseball party.  Last night, I ordered cute mock baseball card party invitations.  Which virtually ensures he'll change his mind between now and his party and be all, "What's with the baseball shizzle?!"  Consistency, thy name is NOT toddler!

Oh, and there's another project soon to get underway at the Taj.  Shawn found a great deal on a fridge--we've been using Nice Neighbor's dorm fridge for a year now and we were just SO OVER THAT.  So, Shawn went to a new and used appliance place and found a fridge that had been in a model home.  We got it for a used price (1/3 the retail), but got a new warranty on it.  So...yay!  But wait...if you've read this blog before, you know better than to start celebrating just yet.

Turns out the new fridge fits juuuuust barely into its assigned spot.  So tight, in fact, that you can't open the left door.  Our options were to take it back and get a smaller one or to widen the offending doorway between the kitchen and dining room.  Since the kitchen is a notoriously dark room and that doorway was smaller than standard anyway, we opted to open the doorway 24 more inches.  We COULD have done it ourselves, but I advocated against that.  I know...can you believe it?!  I was afraid we'd wreck the old plaster walls and make a huge mess of it.  Plus, the trim on the dining room side has to be custom-made o match the other windows and doors (kitchen has different, more modern trim).  So, we made a call to the Sainted Singing Plumber/Contractor and he's going to handle it for us.  He's also going to get rid of the cheap, ugly wood paneling that is behind the fridge and up the stairway to the bonus room.  Hello, Drywall!  Where you been all my life?!

The good news is that the refrigerator and dishwasher work great and life at the Taj is about to get a LOT more convenient!

Hacking...

Don't worry--it's not what you think!

I found the site IKEA Hackers today.  I don't know how I've managed not to see it before but I've really enjoyed wasting half the afternoon briefly glancing at it!



This in particular caught my eye.  Follow the link for instructions.

Not to be overly picky, but Jeeps have a seven-slot grille!

So, the Farm Maven and I are plotting a trip to IKEA soon.  Maybe genius will strike.  Hey..it could happen!

Anyway, that's all I have at the moment.  Back soon with tales of misadventure and mayhem!



(You Can't Even) Take Me Out to the Ballgame...and We Wobble

You'd think that, as much death-defying stupid crap I do in a day, injuries are fairly commonplace around here.  I always forget to lift with my legs, I check the milk by drinking instead of sniffing it, I have been known to lean precariously on a ladder to reach just a leeeeetle bit farther with the paintbrush...you get the idea.

Yet miraculously, I don't usually sustain any real damage.  The occasional strained back muscle and a constant collection of bruises notwithstanding, I am invincible.

Oh, but let me go to the minor league baseball game and it's all over.

Tank was walking behind the bench I was on (I had moved up a row to sit and talk with a friend, while Shawn stayed in back, talking to more friends).  I reached out to playfully smack Tank on the rear and SLAMMED the back of my hand into the metal frame of the bench.  I hit it right on the back side of my palm, at the base of the pointy finger.  HOLY SH*T, that hurt.  And now, it hurts to grasp anything or make a fist.  I can't live through a day if I can't make a fist, people!!  Oh, the humanity.

Well, despite my little pointy-finger drama, we had a great time.  Our team won and Tank got to hug the team mascot twice.  For years, Tank had a love/hate relationship with the mascot, but this year it's been pure love.  He stalks the mascot, pantomiming that we should "sneak up" on him and attack unexpectedly with many hugs.  Thank goodness the person inside the costume is a kind soul and patient with fixated toddlers!

So, all in all it was a great day.  We didn't stay for the whole game, so we missed the "Sweet Caroline" audience sing-a-long and also missed the mascot dancing the Wobble.  That alone is worth a trip to the ballpark!

There's not a video from the game online, but here's the dance.  Just imagine a 6-foot bug doing it and you've pretty much got it:

Happy Monday...now go get your Wobble on!

Big Lots Bargains and I Dismember Mama

Yesterday, Tank and I got a touch of cabin fever and we decided to go stake out the local Big Lots to see what was new.  I haven't been in a Big Lots in a year or so, but I do love to poke around for treasures once in a while.  On this trip, I scored a few fun things:

Jessica McClintock Home

Cute ceramic apple and pear with metal stems and leaves.  Just $3 each!

This starfish photo frame has soft sea glass colors and will work with what I'm trying to do in the master bedroom:

But it's not all fun and games, you know.  I do still have to get up and drag myself (and Tank) to work.  Yesterday morning, we went to my part-time job at the church (stop laughing, they DO let me in!).

The pastor is out of town, so it was just the two of us in a big old church.  Tank wanted some juice, so we went to the kitchen where I promptly lost about ten years of my life:

Yes, it is a severed mannequin leg.  Not what I was expecting to see when I went to throw away the lid to my yogurt container.  What the #*$&T%^ is that thing doing in the church trash can?!  And, more importantly--is it so wrong that I immediately started trying to figure out how to turn it into a lamp? 

Don't worry...I left it right where it was and abandoned the lamp idea. 

The questions, however...those remain.

Hope you get a leg up on a great weekend!

(oh, like YOU could have resisted!)

Whew!

Well, despite a number of hiccups, we made it through the 10-day revocation period on the adoption I mentioned in the last post.  The birthmother hasn't been in touch since Saturday, and while I hope that she is staying sober, I doubt it.  I can only do so much and, like anyone who interacts with an addict, I have to maintain a safe distance between her messes and my life.  The baby was released from the hospital without needing a prescription for methadone, which is wonderful!  The happy new family have returned home to the Midwest, where this child will enjoy all the love and support her parents have to give.  I am confident that she'll have all the tools necessary to meet her full potential.  I've bene working to get birthmom into a rehab program, but she is resistant.  I can only hope that the judge in her DUI case will mandate treatment.  Even then, it's a long shot that she'll get sober and stay sober; addiction has been her life for too long for this to be an easy recovery.

After all the madness of the last two weeks, I really needed to unplug for a while.  Tank and I headed to the Taj MaHell to decompress and hang out with family.  Shawn stayed behind at Gilligan's Island to catch up on some work he needed to do.  Unfortunately, the craziness I was dealing with bled over into his work life, too, since he had to leave work early several times to keep Tank while I ran back and forth to the hospital.

Tank and I laid low for the most part, although we did tie on the feedbag at the Farm Maven's a couple of times...wonderful, fresh-from-the-garden veggies and even some home-made ice cream made with milk from the Maven's new cow!  Yup, she has a cow.  Me, I'm sticking with Publix, but I'm all for her freedom to shovel cow sh*t if that makes her happy.  And it apparently does!

Tank also had a blast in Papa's pool...now that he will use the water wings we got him, he loves swimming from one end to the other and would stay in all day, if he could. 

One happy dude

Since I can't resist tackling a project, I primed the back porch/mudroom.  On our last trip to the Taj, we removed the old upper and lower cabinets that used to be there.  While the extra storage was nice, they just weren't doing it for me.  The cabinets were hung off-center which made the doorway to the kitchen tight and created a useless corner next to the window.  I took off the old chair rail, since it had been cut around the cabinets.  The chair rail was nailed on with 3 1/2 inch nails, so that was tons-o-fun right there.

Here's the mudroom when we bought the Taj:

Here it is, minus the cabiets and chair rail:

And here it is, primed.  The plan is to paint the bench either red or black, add a coat hook above, refinish the floor and just generally spiff it up.  But for the time being, this is an improvement!

A couple of trips ago, we bought twin beds from the Amazing Sister In Law.  She'd painted them black, but I needed white in Tank's room, so a few coats of primer and paint later, we had white twin beds.  The bedding is from Target...it was a great deal and should be versatile enough for whatever we decide to do with his room.  I still haven't finished the toy box.bench, since I'm not sure what I'm going to decorate his room with.  Leaning towards baseball, but we'll see.

And I couldn't resist painting this dresser while I was there.  We scored this at a yard sale on Gilligan's Island for $10.  The drawer slides are broken and will need attention, but for now it provides storage for t-shirts and shorts and we can deal with floppy drawers until I get around to fixing it.  At least it's painted and has new knobs!

And after all that, who wouldn't need a mini-treat, courtesy of a local Mexican eatery?  I said I wanted a margarita the size of my head.  I had to make do:

Until next time.....

Is it just me? Wait...don't answer that!

Sometimes I don't post for a week or two because I really don't feel that the thoughts in my head ever need to be set down for other eyes to see.  This has been one of those weeks.

I started a post about it and realized that some things are just too messed up to communicate.

As I've mentioned in other posts, I have worked for several years in the adoption world.  It's a crazy, beautiful, heart-wrenching thing and I have felt lucky to be a part of it.

But sometimes it just sucks.

For the past six months, I have been working with an addicted birthmother.  Working with addicted people is never a walk in the park, even if they're currently exercising some sort of control over the addiction.  Combine addiction that is not under control with pregnancy and you get a hot mess.

In the last nine days, I have been on a non-stop rollercoaster of emotions, stretched between a birthmom whose demons are in the drivers seat in her life and a terrified family who are already in love with the baby that joins them all together.  Watching a once-pretty woman sink to the lowest point possible to a human brings out all the compassion within you; but then you walk a few steps to the nursery and watch an innocent baby in the throes of withdrawal.  Compassion goes out the window for me and I just want to pick up the mom and shake the snot out of her.  How could you DO that?!  Why don't you CARE?!  I honestly cannot fathom an addiction so strong that it takes away your humanity, that it can make you look without pity on a newborn who is struggling to survive because of your own actions. 

 The nurses in the NICU told me that a baby who's detoxing feels like she's falling all the time.  Pats and jiggling motions, comforting to most babies, only make the withdrawing baby more anxious and frantic.  Imagine feeling as if you are falling backward down a tunnel that has no end.  No touch is comforting, no voice can soothe.  That's what this mom's pharmaceutical adventures did to her child.

And the hospital released the birthmom with 30 Percocet two days later.  Less than 48 hours after she left the hospital, she returned as a patient in the ER.  Handcuffed to her bed because she'd gotten high on her pain medication and had slammed her truck into a daycare bus loaded with kids.  Everybody lived, which is a miracle.

What's not a miracle is that the SAME hospital released her home 20 hours after the accident with a prescription for 60 Percocet.

There's nothing cute or funny to say about all this.  Not right now.  Maybe not ever.

The only thing that I can hold on to is the fact that the baby who is now just a few days old is set on a course for an amazing, beautiful life.  After a gazillion stupid-ass choices, this birthmother made one good one.  She gave life to her child and then she gave a GOOD life to her.

That's enough for me.