Lists are my nemesis...

I make lists. I lose lists. I get sick of looking at lists and throw them out. I then make new lists. My newest list is staring at me from the side of the fridge. It is long, it is a bit daunting, and it is a royal pain in the arse. We are down to a few weeks before we have to list the house and to say I am dreading it would be the understatement of the year. The mere thought of keeping my house "show home" ready 24 hours a day, seven days a week is enough to give me an ulcer. I have no idea how I am going to do it, with five kids, a cat, and a husband who works six days a week.

Each day I make myself accomplish at least one of two things from the list. Yesterday was my attempt at making our crowded, dull, and ugly mudroom look bright, large, and inviting. I emptied out all the Winter crap, filled the dings in the walls, replaced light bulbs, scrubbed the baseboards, and the floors. Today I will paint and sand the dings and try to find a bright rug to make the room look less revolting. On Sunday I scaled a ladder onto a bookshelf to get my butt up to the this stupid plant ledge we have in the front entrance of the house. All of that just to dust and change a light bulb that is only accessible from that angle. I hate heights and getting down was brutal, although Phil found it comical.

I have carpet cleaners coming next week to clean the basement carpet, furnace cleaners a few days later. The carpet in the rest of the house is being replaced and I will be madly painting baseboards, doors, and closets till the wee hours of the morning I am sure. As soon as all of that is done I have window cleaners coming and a company to clean the blinds. I will not attempt blind cleaning again, it sucks the life right out of you.

The new house is framed, the windows are in, the basement cement was just poured and as soon as it sets the basement will be framed. I will post some pictures soon, as soon as I find my camera....

Making the transition easier...

As stated many times before the transition from a family of six to a family of seven proved far more challenging than I had originally anticipated. It was tough to say the least...I did find that a few things made it easier and seemed to work for us.

1. Exercise....I know this may sound strange but I found that as soon as I took the time to get to the gym and sweat my outlook on everything was better. I truly believe that we parent our children by example and we owe it to our kids to be both physically and emotionally fit, for the long haul. It is also hard to feel guilty about taking time to exercise.

2. Sleep routines....this one was a big one for me. I like to sleep and don't do well when my sleep is interrupted or cut short. This made it all the more important to get Wil into a good sleep routine from the beginning. We took a pretty firm stance on when and how he fell asleep. It took several weeks to get him to go to bed without crying but it was sooo worth it! Wil is now the best sleeper of all of our kids, going to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 and sleeping until about 8:30 the next morning. We still do naps around here as well. It is a bit of a reprieve for me and much needed by Wil. If he doesn't nap he is falling asleep standing up by about 4:00.

3. Figuring out my own emotions....As we navigate through the adoption process we are filled with emotions for this child(ren) that is so far away. I truly believe that in many cases we confuse the feelings we have for authentic ones. I longed for Wil to come home. I lost sleep knowing the conditions he was living in. I would have done anything to get him here. It wasn't until he was actually here that I realized that my emotions during the process were more about the actual process than they were about Wil.

4. Not assuming everything was adoption related....I know many adoptive parents would disagree with me and that's fine but for us we tried to take the stance that Wil was a "normal" two year old. We didn't assume that everything he did was related to the fact that he was adopted. Of course there were some behaviors that were glaringly obvious adoption related, but for the most part we treated him like any other two year old. If he misbehaved he got a time out. If he threw food he was given another chance, if the behavior continued the plate was moved out of his reach for a few minutes. We always gave it back but we made loud and clear that certain behaviors were not acceptable.

5. Avoid letting your older kids "parent" your new child.... In our case Wil came home to four older brothers and sisters, the majority of whom wanted to cuddle and provide for him in any way they could. Kelsey and Grace are extremely maternal and loved to act as a pseudo mother of sorts. We had to constantly remind them to not be the ones to console Wil, to feed him, to put him to bed, etc...We wanted to be abundantly clear that we were the parents, not them.

6. Talking to others going through the same thing.... I had a few other adoptive moms that I could talk to that did not judge me in what I was thinking or feeling. I could say things to them that I couldn't tell my close friends or even my family. There is a lot of guilt associated with not feeling the way we think we should feel. Talking to these other moms via facebook, email, the phone, in person, etc...was my saving grace. Realizing that you are not alone and that in fact you may be the majority is quite comforting.

Finally finding my groove....

I am not sure what has changed but for the last few weeks I feel different, in my groove so to speak. It is no secret that I have struggled since Wil came home. The change in my family, the logistics of five kids, the new sibling rivalry, and not to mention the enormity of what needs to be done on a daily basis to keep a family of seven going. I have felt exhausted, at times remorseful, occasionally over my head, and quite honestly just not myself. Bringing Wil home was an amazing experience and if you can believe it, yesterday marked nine months home! But in addition to being an amazing experience it was one that left me feeling empty, guilty, and not myself. The dynamics of my "perfect family" changed overnight and in my own naivety I was left not knowing what to do. Wil coming home home was not a seamless transition. It was full of ups and downs. It was significantly more difficult than I anticipated. While everyone around me gushed over him and fell in love right away I was left with none of those same feelings. I felt nothing to tell you the truth. The nothingness was quickly replaced with animosity and then not to be outdone, guilt followed shortly after. I constantly asked myself when things were going to get better. When was I going to feel like this little guys mother and not his babysitter.

The past few weeks have been strangely different. I feel rejuvenated, in my groove. I feel like some weird dark cloud has been lifted and FINALLY I am me again. This isn't to say that everything is perfect but man, is it better! I am not sure if its the fact that Spring is here and the sun is out or if it has anything to do with having my IUD, which released progesterone, removed...or what, but I feel good. Oh and if you are wondering about the IUD, NO we are not having anymore babies!! I had begun researching it and to my surprise found that thousands of other women were having side effects from it. I have had it for four years and until I read more about it I didn't even realize I did have side effects! Since having that bad boy out I feel entirely different. I lost a few pounds of belly fat right away, my mood got better, and my hair stopped falling out!! Now to convince Phil to get snipped....

So all in all things are really good around here. Wil is potty training right now and is getting very good at making it to the "hotty". The relationship between Sam and Wil is getting better and they seem to like each other more and more. The older three kids are awesome, loving school and their friends. Our house has been framed and is getting windows installed as I type this. I am slowly working away at my list of things around here that need to be done before we sell. Phil and I booked an escape to Vegas in July with NO KIDS!! Life is good....

A trip to see Brit....

Now I should qualify all of this by saying that I am not a huge Britney Spears fan. I could take her or leave her but my sister and both mu daughters are die hard fans. Several months ago it was announced that Britney was coming to Canada on tour and my sister and oldest daughter announced that they would be going wherever they could to see her. Unfortunately she didn't come here but she did have a stop on her tour in a neighbouring city about three hours North of here. I agreed to go so that Grace could go too and so that my sister would have some adult company. Eventually it turned into a party of eight. The morning the tickets went on sale my sister went online and hit "best seats available"....well we got the best seats and the hefty price tag as well. The show was pretty good and my girls loved it. I thought my back was going to split open from five hours of standing. I guess the best seats are not actual seats but merely a spot in front of the stage for you to stand.

We had to arrive at the show at 4:15 to get our tickets and backstage passes. We and about 75 other were ushered into a room all set up with food and a bar and numerous circus performers. They called us up in groups of about 12 to go backstage on a tour.We were able to see the props and costumes and how the show worked, which was pretty cool. After the tour we had some more food and were able to head out onto the floor. We were literally an arms length from the stage with no one on front of us! When Britney was on stage we could have touch her, if the giant security guards would have let us!

While I would have rather bought new living room furniture with the money it was a lot of fun to get away with just my girls.






**excuse the picture quality, they were taken on my phone**

I am alive....

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote anything! We have been extremely busy around here and honestly the blog has just not been that important. So what's new.....

* We are battling the giarrdia yet again. Wil seemed to be free and clear but then a few days ago the diarrhea started again and to top it off Sam got it again. I am neurotic with cleaning after Wil and he doesn't bathe with Sam or even in the same bathtub, we wash his clothes separately, he sleeps in his own bed, etc...but it still managed to get to Sammy again. So it has not been a good week around here. Diarrhea x two sucks....

* Wil is talking more and more but what I notice is that when you ask him questions he simply repeats the last word you said to him and doesn't really answer them. For example...if I said " do you want to go to the park?" he would respond with "park?"...I am hoping to get him to the speech therapist soon and have him evaluated.

* I am officially a University student again! I have enrolled in a few courses that are done by distance learning. It should be interesting.

* I am also officially going back to work. I really need to use the part of my brain that has not been used over the past few years at home. Not that it hasn't been fun but I need to get out of the house. The nice thing is I won't have to worry about childcare. My sister will pick up the slack if Phil is not home from work and I will only work a couple days a week. We considered getting a nanny but quite honestly I think it would be weird for my big kids and with me only working a couple days a week we should do fine without.

* They began framing the new house this week and we are being told mid September for our possession date. Everything is picked out, all the papers signed, now I can relax.

* Phil is off to Vegas with the guys for a few days and I am going to work on my ever growing list of things that need to be done around here to get the house ready to be put on the market. We ordered new carpet and it should be installed next month. I am painting all the millwork and making a few new curtains to freshen things up a bit.

* The weather here is gross. It has snowed about 8 inches in the last few days and I am beyond sick of crappy weather. I was so excited the other day when I was out and I realized I could see the pavement on my street again...then it snowed again.

* Wil had his 3rd Birthday last week and was thrilled with all his gifts and knew right away how to blow out his candles. I will get some pictures on here soon.

That's all I got for now...

Duke it out...

Mandy at 3+3=6 (which you can find on the side bar of my blog) has started a Hot Topic of sorts. Everyone...join in! It could get interesting!

Did you watch Ellen???

That guy is the biggest dickhead on Earth. I cannot believe I actually liked him in the last season when he got dumped by De-ah-na.....I wish I could ask him a few things....

1. Why do you cry so much? I don't unusually subscribe to those gender stereotypes, such as man don't cry, but you really need to man-up! If I had to see you bawl one more time I was going to kick you in your mangina.

2. Why does your son look like a monkey? I think that Ty has the ability to restore the belief of even the most religious person, in the Theory of Evolution.

3. Where did you learn that dumping someone on national television is the classy thing to do? It must have been the same place you learned that exploring another woman's upper respiratory tract with your tongue right after is also cool.

I am now setting my hopes on Gillian, our Canadian bachelorette. I am hoping she does not embarrass herself and act like a complete loser.