A Tough Weekend

This top picture makes me smile. And I need that!

It was a tough weekend. Kayla decided to rage Friday afternoon and Saturday. Wrote the F word in cleaner on the kitchen ceiling. Made threats against the pets and siblings. Not the cheery stuff blogs are made of so I'll spare you the details. Waiting to hear from the counselor tomorrow.

A classmate of Jasmine's got a sinus infection. It went into his brain, and he died Friday. Just like that. Jasmine has been having bad dreams about it. Going to talk to the counselor about that too. Have already talked to her about some ways to process it. But the raging from Kayla has made it all worse.

Kaleb had a swim meet. He moved up from novice to level one. His starts from the blocks are better, but he still came in 23 out of 24 on 50 yard freestyle, 23 out of 23 on 50 yard back crawl, and he DQ'd in 50 yard breast stroke. He used a scissor kick instead of a true breast stroke kick. His freestyle was 10 seconds faster than last time. His back crawl was 10 seconds slower. He slows down as he nears the wall because he doesn't know how close he is. I told him to use the flags. Once you go under the flags, count your strokes to the wall. I don't know why the coaches haven't worked on that. It's pretty basic. If he'll do it, it may help his time next meet. Thing is, he has no competitive spirit at all. When he saw he was 23 of 24 he said, "But that's good, right?" Well, that depends on how you look at it. Good he finished. Good he didn't DQ. Good he is okay with it. But he's also very complacent about it. That's okay unless he wants to compete in high school or wants to get a scholarship. Time will tell.

The twins spent some time playing trombone together this weekend. I played saxophone with them, and Jasmine played drums. It makes practice time more fun to do it together. Jasmine has marching band assessment next weekend at a different high school. 

We ended the tough weekend with some music together.

River is getting more and more mobile. She walks quite well with her push toys. She interacts and recognizes her special people and rewards them with a smile. On Tuesday Jessica, Tyler, River and I went to Dory during the day while the others were at school. River and I lasted about five minutes. I was actually happy she was fussy so I had an excuse to leave. We went out and played in the mall play area.

much more fun than sitting through a movie!

My 9-year-old step grandson is in football and taking down kids three years older than himself! He's in Indiana, so I won't get to see him play.

Fun Friday: An Oldie

Probably everyone has heard this one before:

You’re standing in a hallway with three light switches on the wall, each of which turns on a different lamp inside a closed room. You can’t see inside the room, and you can’t open the door except to enter the room. You can enter the room only once, and when you do, all the lamps must be turned off. How can you tell which switch turns on which lamp?



Last week's answer:  Take the first letter of each word and place it at the end. It will spell the same word backwards. So you had it right, Christina!

Child 9?

Yes, there may be a number nine. We have felt for a long time that there was an empty spot in the family. But our state is not easy to work with. They are much easier now that we are looking for a teenage boy!

Our children go like this:

Ashley    33

Tyler       26

Jessica     25

Jeff          23

Adam      21

Jasmine   15 

twins       11

Jasmine is so much younger than the original four that she never had a playmate. Ty and Jess played together, and Jeff and Adam played together. We tried to adopt from the state and nothing. So we adopted from Haiti. I should have realized that by getting twins and them being four years younger that they wouldn't be her playmates, but it seemed like they belonged in our family. And they do!

About 18 months after they came home, a caseworker in Daytona Beach who had our very outdated home study wanted to place a child with us. But our county and their county did not see eye to eye on things, and he was placed in a home she wasn't as sure about. A year later he was back on the list and we went through the same thing. But he has since then gotten a family.

Jasmine has wanted a brother near her age. There is one child she wants who is closer to the twins' age, but she likes his looks, description and hobbies. However, he may be snatched up before we complete class and get our home study. We have to do the class because they switched from MAPPS to QPT plus we are 8 years outdated! We have finished week 3 out of 8.

There are four children we are looking at. Two are five hours away, and two are farther. We don't know if they will be a good match or if they would be willing to move. Plus there is the chance someone else may choose them. 

Since they are already on the photo listing which is public, I'll post their photos here. Two are 15, one is 14 and one is 12. The problem with the 15's is that they could be 16 by time we get them and we'd only have two years to really parent them. Of course if they turned out to be awful, we'd only have two years :) One wants to go into the marines. The 12 year old is only 11 months older than the twins, so I'm not sure about that. But he looks like an amazing kid. Wish he was a year older!

Christian, 15

Justin, 15

Parris, 12

Antwan, 14

What do you think? I'd be in trouble if I had to choose between these four. I want them all!!!!! Good thing a caseworker will be the one to decide if we are the best family for any of them. We also have to realize that things might not go as planned and for some reason we don't get a child. Sigh.

Those of you who have adopted teens, what do I need to know? How did you prepare?

The Weekend

Monday is usually when I talk about what we did over the weekend. This weekend was stressful. Jasmine had to march at a football game Friday night. The band left school at noon on Friday. They went to an elementary school for a concert. Then they went to the game. They got back to the school to unload after 11, and she got to bed after midnight. 

She was up the next day to help us set up at a flea market. We were selling stuff to help the twins raise money for their mission trip. Unfortunately we didn't raise a lot because people wanted to pay a quarter for everything!!! I had all the clothes for $1 and people would walk up and ask if we'd take .25 for an almost new pair of men's pants. So frustrating. I had taken some of my books to sell, but never put them out because I knew they'd offer me a quarter!

Tara came to pick Jasmine up at 9:30 to take her to the school to go to two competitions in AL. The bus had problems, so they missed the first one. They were supposed to be home at 10 p.m. but got home at midnight! 

While Jasmine was at competition, we took the jet ski out one last time for the year. That's because the flea market was at the bay where we jet ski. Jessica ate lunch and took out a kayak and the jet ski once and then headed out. She'd been at the flea market since 6 a.m. setting up and had to work in the evening.

It was a beautiful day and hot even though it's cool in the mornings now.

We even went back and got the dogs after most people had left. First time the dogs had kayaked in a year.

Sadie's first time in the kayak.

Travis even went on the jet ski, although he wasn't sure he liked the noise.

I think they liked the grill hot dogs best of all.

Fun Friday: A Matter of Letters

 What is unusual about the following words: revive, banana, grammar, voodoo, assess, potato, dresser, uneven?

Post your guess in the comments section.

River

Corny Fun

We finally had a Saturday that many of us could all head to a corn maze an hour away and then go to the nearby springs.

 Before we started. Once we got in the maze, Hunter and Jessica split off from us. Tyler and Adam ran around trying to jump out in front of us to scare us.

 Tara, her son Kealen and her niece Sierra went with us.

 Not sure what Adam is doing????

Sunflowers were 2 for $1.

After the maze, we went to the springs which were just a few minutes away.

The water is 70F (that's cold for water!!) year round because it is a spring.

 

 Be sure to read River's news in that last post.

And don't forget to check out the interviews and reviews on my teen blog. It normally has the same fun Friday post, but I try to have interviews on Mondays. Some times I have none and other times, like right now, I have four interviews lined up for the next four Mondays.

And my blog for parents has parenting advice, quick tips and an assortment of posts.