Black and White Wednesday

Ev is just not interested in photo sessions these days, can you tell? There is just too much Kung Fu and sword fighting to do!
For more B&W Wed- see Lisa's Blog....

My Husband

My husband doesn't get enough credit . I mean he deals with me AND Chatty Kathy on a daily basis.
This is a really great guy here. I met him when I was 20. We have been together as much as possible for nigh on to 17 years now.
I love him now, like I did back then- only better. I have had more time to really see him, and the more I see, the more there is to love.
He found me, this past Sunday, having a crying jag in the shower. He just.... well, he did what any woman would want her man to do in that situation. He held me and he asked what was wrong and he really cared about the answer. I told him why I was crying and he said "well, what should we do about it?".
See that? He said "we". You can't buy that. You can't fake that.
He is my rock. He is the one thing in my life that has consistency. He is here with me. You know what I mean? Invested. Genuinely invested in our life together.
He is smart and funny. He is sexy and more than a bit absent minded. He is handy and capable.
As a father, he is outstanding. He has this special bond with Ev that I have rarely seen.
He thinks of us first.
He is also really good at his job. You know, the Coast Guard.
I love that our innate geekiness really mirrors each other. I love that we can make these obscure jokes about
the Mars Rover Missions or the Apollo Missions and we laugh and hoot and actually GET the jokes that the other person lays down. I love that he is as addicted to documentaries as I am. I love that he really thinks the things I crochet are cool. I love that he teases me about the crochet. I love that he makes no distinction between when I am good or when I am bad. My best or my worse- he loves me all the same. I love that we can hold entire conversations with movie quotes.
I just love this guy.
I am so glad I had the sense to marry him at a ridiculously young age.
He's kind of cute too- doncha think?

Funny Girl

Some things that Ev says, just plain cracks us up. Sometimes I have no idea where she gets the stuff she says. Today she was eating a grapefruit that her Gma got for her - now, this kid LOVES grapefruit, loves it. She was slurping away and said,  " You know? That old girl sure does come in handy sometimes!" this was, of course, in reference to her Grandmother and I, of course nearly choked when she said it.

Just yesterday she had some hair brained thing she was doing with Billy Bones (that poor cat has been wearing a necklace for a week now) , he was uncooperative (and that means being bite-y and generally bad but not running off, he was just messin' with her-like he does) and she said " Billy wait, while I demonstrate this!"

She looked at her dose of fiber today and said " Whoo hoo I am going to be blowing that bathroom up later!" (I know! This last bit was what you might call an over-share but really? What 5 year old- girl talks like that?) (oh mine does)

While "mopping" my kitchen floor this morning, she was chattering away and I confess I was answering on auto-pilot until I heard "well, I guess there's a first time for everything! Right Mama?" I am still not sure what she was referencing but, the kitchen looked okay and the house was still standing so, you know, all's well that ends well.

We headed out on a hot tip to try and find some silly kids shoes that I heard might be at TJMaxx, the shoes were not there and on the way home Ev started talking in what I call her Scarlett O'Hara Voice and she says " Oh! Mama! I have no freaking clue what those shoes looked like but I really wanted them. sigh. (insert long stare out of the truck window here). What am I ever going to do?"

That's my girl!




Update: it's the next day and I just hugged Ev and told her what a great kid she was. She turned on her million watt smile and replied, "well you know, I do keep my room clean and orderly. I don't even let trolls in"
HA!

What's For Dinner? (or Product Placement)

I spend alot of my time, in the kitchen. It seems I am always cooking or making the menu or making The List or going to the grocery store. I call it Running the Gauntlet.
We usually have tasty and relatively healthy dinners. Like to night? I made Blackened Tilapia with home made mac-n-cheese along with steamed broccoli. That's pretty standard I would say.
However, and, this is a big however, some nights I stage a revolt and we do not eat out and I refuse to actually cook, so I, umm "cook".
On those nights, dinner looks like this:

Yes, that is what I like to call a Hillbilly Pizza Pan (some of you out there might know that as tin foil) and lots of pre-packaged chemically goodness. And it's all good for breakfast the next day! Bonus!!
What?
I am not the only one who gives her kid chocolate cake for breakfast sometimes, am I?
Am I?
Well, you are ALL missing out.

Stuff

• It snowed yesterday. ACCUMULATION!!!! What the sam hill is that all about?!?!? We want warmth, sunshine, capri weather. It can not get here soon enough. 
• Ev is currently working on school work and weeping over lower case s. She hates, I mean HATES writing practice. I have comforted her and helped her and reminded her that this is why we practice - that every single thing she does , does not have to be perfect. Still- she weeps. She said, "I will just leave them out and you can write all the s's in for me later" Sorry kid. Gotta learn the s. I had to drag out some of her early writing so she could see her progress, that seems to have helped. I still hear the occasional groan and sniffle though. I can not wait for long division (snort)
• Our friends are coming for a visit tomorrow-5 of them. Ryan has been teasing me about making him a turkey dinner for about 4 years now. Guess what I am hauling my arse outta bed to put in the oven tomorrow? yes and most of the trimmings too. HA!
• Billy Bones is driving me nuts. He is wild and wants either shrimp or to be let outside- all. the. time.
• I have this whole Zombie Apocolypse/ Vampire thing ya know. I just watched Zombieland for the second time the other night. HA! Love that movie. 
• I have some deep emotions going on, about the wait, about infertility, about.. oh mostly those two things. I am just pretending that I am doing ok. Why? Because I am sick of being upset about the wait and infertility. Because I want to have my son and daughter under one roof and to be just moving on with life. 
• We are still re-doing the downstairs. I am currently using old blankets for curtains on the living room. Classy. We will be ordering new window treatments soon but these will stay up until then b/c I will be jiggered if I hang the old, putty colored mini-blinds back up!
• ( oh we just had a revolt staged over commas - I had to quash that rebellion- there's 5 minutes I'll never get back ; ) )
• There was another deep sigh and frantic erasing......ok. This post is over as I must go supervise The Attitudnal Pupil.......

Chapter 27: In which the adoption agency tosses us a bone and then Ev has an episode

We really did get tossed a bone last night. We had an e-mail from the agency that was all,  "hey- download Travel Packet 1". Now, no one loose it here okay, it was just one of those things they send that basically says, "hey -check your passports and here's all the money you still have to have to get that cute little guy home". It's one of those things they send to stave off crazy mothers from calling all the time (cough cough)  - you know busy work. How pathetic is it that I sat and wept with joy and fear that something was "happening". Shoot, that's a whole other blog entry. So anyway....
There I was getting all hopped up looking at passports and refiguring travel budgets. Les was on the couch asking questions and sussing things out in his mind. Ev was in-between us getting more and more silly/hyper.
In the middle of what I was doing, I sort of casually mentioned to Ev that she would be going to the Dr. and getting some immunizations. Now this is NOT something that would normally upset her. She is truly curious and interested in all things Medical. So when she started crying about "getting so many shots", my Mama/Spidey Sense kicked in.
I knew that she wasn't really crying about the shots. I stopped what I was doing. I pulled her onto my lap and I held her and rocked her as she cried for awhile. She calmed down soon enough and was busy wiping snot on my t-shirt. We chatted for a bit longer and she made a move to get off of my lap.
I listened to what my heart was saying for once. I stopped her. I looked at her and I touched her face and I told her this :
"Ev no matter what happens, if I have 1 kid or 2 kids or 20 kids. You are my first. My daughter. I love you beyond all reason and I always will. I will NEVER let you go through anything scary without me. I will always have time for you. I will always hold you when you want me to or when you need me to."And many other bits of my heart poured out to her.

Sometime during this statement, my daughter, that strong little person who never lets anyone see inside. She just melted in my arms. All of her defenses crumbled and she sat there, trembling in my lap. We cried together she and I.

She chatters so much. She smiles so much. She has learned to hold lots of things inside. That... I just forget sometimes. How very fragile she is, how very sensitive and just how much she needs me. I forget this chasm of grief that lives in her.

She doesn't not want her brother. She does want him. She just has this huge ball of very deep and complex emotions to go along with getting him that she just has a break sometimes. She will be super hyper or cry over something small. And I know. And I stop. And I hold her. And we talk.
And maybe someday she will learn to let me in more easily. Maybe someday she will understand that I am here forever.

Referral Pictures Side by Side

Is it me, or are these a couple of cute kids?