Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Storm Passing

By time Florence got to our location is was a tropical storm. Around us folks lost power for short periods of time and some trees fell but our biggest issues was a messy pool and a few scattered branches. North Carolina bore the brunt of the storm and water. We are thankful that we came out of another storm with minimal damage.



I did receive some pictures from my son Jason of his car. A sizable branch fell on it causing quite a bit of damage. Thankful for full coverage and even car rental.

One impact we are seeing is shortages of different food items. Our local Walmart has many bare shelves and some of the local restaurants have low supplies.


While our kids are back in school and life is resuming for us, there are many areas struggling and people who have lost everything. Please say a prayer for them.

Friday, September 14, 2018

Weather

Hurricane Florence now listed as a tropical storm slowly heads our way. We went to Columbia today and stragely the wind was stronger than it is at our house. We are about 20 minuted away.


We are that blue dot, if predictions are correct it is coming our way. We have been told to expect power to be out by our power company. My husband wants to invest in a whole house generator. I don't know, haven't researched it yet. Anyone have one?


We expect rain and wind tomorrow. Until then, we watch.


Thursday, September 13, 2018

Preparations

Hurricane Florence is heading our way, I believe that by time it gets to us it will be a tropical storm. I am not sure what weather we will get. Just in case we did some preparations. The yard has been picked up and supplies purchased. I am unhealthy and don't like the taste of water so I did go out and buy myself some Dr. Pepper and made some sweet tea.


I even got some oil for my lamp.


I actually bought more water than I normally do because we have so many babies around. Seeing the stack of water actually made Michelle concerned. She came to me and asked if she should be concerned because I normally just buy a case of water!

Anyone else in the path?

Emma is 12

Since the kids are getting older and their places that they want to eat at are getting more expensive and we are growing we have been doing lunch with mom. Emma chose Chili's

Then she asked for a kids menu and ordered grilled cheese. 






So far this year she is doing well in the 5th grade, it is hard to believe that she will be in the middle school next year. This year she has really worked on consideration for the babies. She is more understanding of their needs and willing to hold them.

I asked her if she felt older, she said no she still felt like she was 10. I had to remind her that she is turning 12! Well, that explains a lot!


Sunday, September 9, 2018

Stress

I assume you realize that when I disappear it isn't because I have nothing going on, it is at that time that I am the most stressed! This last week was crazy stressful. Naturally it coincided with my husband going out of town. After all, isn't that when everything breaks down.

First I guess I should say that we received placement of a 10 day old baby boy. Challenges with that are that we have no information on him, no medicaid, no WIC cards. This is a challenge when they have thrush. His worker did come and take him to the doctor to get some medications for it. Too bad she didn't bother to stop and get the meds because on my first attempt to pick it up it wasn't there. This made me wonder if I had the wrong name or birthdate. Second day I did successfully get his medication but since I had no medicaid card I had the privilege of paying for it. They speak of reimbursement but I wouldn't plan on that, I am still waiting on the placement check for the boy I got the first of July.

Anyone with a baby with thrush? It doesn't seem to be clearing up. He has been on the medication for several days now and it looks the same to me. Perhaps it isn't because instead of drinking less than 2 oz every two hours he will now drink 3 oz every 2 to 3 hours.

Little man was suppose to have a court date next week to change to concurrent reunification and TPR, the judge cancelled it (no, I am not happy with that as I was hoping things would start to move along) Court coming close meant that his worker realized that he was supposed to have DNA testing. I got to take him to that and we had an appointment. An accident and traffic caused by that meant that we got their late which meant that we went into waiting list mode. We waited about an hour and then suddenly right before noon they cleared the place out. Then he was teething, then got a runny nose then a fever. I knew that meant ear infection. It was after 5 when he came down with the fever so I rushed him to urgent care before they closed and yes he did have an infection and is currently on medication. But as usual with him, that means he also wants held all the time or he is fussing.


Our older boy we received in July I shall call Mario. I have been struggling with his school placement. His teacher and I agreed that he needed help, lots of help. The records from the other school didn't show any testing or interventions. I felt that something was missing. I requested testing. The school scheduled a meeting three weeks out so that they could collect data. I said that was unacceptable as he couldn't wait that long. He was crying over homework every night. They scheduled a new meeting for next week then called while I was at Labcorp, he has an IEP and is in a self contained classroom. Our principal had to call the school and dig up more information. You would think that they would have sent this tidbit of information when records were requested! This means Monday he goes to a different school. This led to more phone calls as I tried to set up transportation. I can not take him with three kids 4 and under in the house, I would go crazy. Finally on Saturday I talked to his bus driver and we have everything set up.

He also had a visit this week. It didn't go well, his mom pretty much ignored him. His GAL talked to me and said that he doesn't talk much (he doesn't) but that he did make it clear to her that he didn't want to go back home and he wants to stay at our house. He told a friend of mine the same thing this last weekend. I don't know what to think about that as normally kids want to go back home. They really need to have family counseling but as the mom is fighting placement they haven't even got a plan yet. Court might be in October.

Between homeschooling, social worker visits (we now have three different social workers and three GALs), licensing worker visit, dance, doctor appointments, sick kids, school issues, taking care of my mom, training class for foster parents and even feeding everyone it was a stressful week. There was one day, Tuesday where I actually felt that it was an unhealthy level of stress. I deal with stress very well so when I feel that it is feeling unhealthy that The stress level is bad! I fielded so many phone calls last week between the house phone and my cell phone that I seriously contemplated cancelling the house phone, there were times that both were ringing!



I took the time to paint one rock, one. I needed to. 


I also needed this........


How was your week?

Monday, September 3, 2018

Dance Season 2018-19

The new dance season has begun. My dancers were excited to get back into the studio.





Larissa wanted to try pointe again this year. She had such a hard time with ingrown toe nails the last time that she steered away from it last year. If you have any pointers on that let me know! Naturally we have googled the issue already.



Who else is dancing this year?

Photos by Ben

If you give a 4 year old a phone and he loves to take pictures you get a glimpse of our life.