GAT'sfamily

Our family: Mom, Dad, 5yr old, 2yr old, and very large, but friendly dog in N. KY

Monday, February 26, 2007

One more reason I love Hubby

A few weeks ago I came across this Blog. It's written by an American who was volunteering in an Ethiopian orphanage run by an international adoption agency. I found it very interesting so I started reading at the beginning of the archives and read it all the way through. Now where most people who found it as fascinating as I did would probably go to the AAI website and possibly choose to send money in one of their subscription programs (which was my first step, and I even received a hand written thank you) most are not going to become obsessed out of the blue with the idea that we need to adopt 2 older children (No older then #1, I'm not ready to parent a preteen yet) from Ethiopia. This is where the I love Hubby part comes in. He the "rational" person in our marriage, and instead of telling me I'm insane, he said that if I really am feeling this strongly drawn to it mabey there is a reason.

Now I have NO idea how we will afford this, or when we will be able to do this (Hubby is suppose to be going back to school soon), but I have done a TON of research on it, short of contacting the agencies for information besides fees lists, and know it's something I want to do. I even read what is touted in online forums as "the must have book on the AIDS crisis, history, and politics of Ethiopia, and the reason for the huge numbers of orphans, and abandoned children." I've look at all the pros and tried to seek out all the cons, which are surprisingly few compared to adopting children from other area's or through CPS (which I have wanted to do for years, but we've decided that it's not something we can do while our children are still young).

So now I sit and wait, till we figure out what DH is going to do for school (he's waiting on the university to get back to him about transfers. If they never do, or don't transfer enough he'll be going the expensive online route.) and, try to find a spare $15,000-$25,000 laying around in our house and bank accounts, and go from there.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

To Karate or not to Karate

K, many of you know that up until the age of 4 #1 was an extreamly difficult and aggressive child. The last two years have been seriously easy in comparison. In many ways I think a large part of the problem was his language delays, and some other issues he's been able to work through, and grow out of to a great extent. He could still tend to be impulsive, has problems with peer relationships, but hasn't been aggresive.....at least till today.

Today we went to an indoor playland (on snowday #3 , last 2 days I get, today I have NO idea why it was canceled), despite the fact that every other mother in the school district was there, and it was crazy, and overwhelming, I was taking pride in the fact that my boys are at a point they could take it in stride, not get overstimulated, and were playing very nicely together. But when they disappeard for a while I went looking for them, and found another mom looking into a tunnel..oh oh. Yup there were my kids in a fight with 2 other kids. Apparently (#1's side of the story) The boy said the tunnel was his and his sister's so #1 hit him. When I asked what was going on the mom said some kicking....after pulling the boys out #1 had some red marks on his face, but the other boy's whole side of his face was red and he was crying. I of course made #1 march over to say he was sorry, and we then left. In the process #1 was not happy, and I ended up "fining" him $3 from his allowance - a new punishment we're trying. (he can earn it back with good behavior).

This leads to my question. Up till today I had pretty much decided to enroll #1 into an intro to Karate class tomorrow (Payday!). My hope was that it would help him gain self control, and diminish the appeal of revenge he seems to have if someone hurts his feelings. However now I'm wondering if it won't just make him more violent and bring out this aggresive side to him even more. We've deiced to hold off on team sports for the time being because they're expensive, time consuming, and honestly I just don't think it would hold his intrest. So if not Karate, anyone else have any ideas for building self confidence, and self control?

Friday, February 02, 2007

I think we're mabey getting well

Everyone's been sick lately, and I think we might finally be getting over it. I kept #1 home the last 2 days because he seemed sick, untill after the bus passed our house. I think I'm getting played, and he's only in Kindergarten!!! So today he was going, no matter what...till they called a 2 hour snow delay, which means no morning kindergarten, so we're home again! It wouldn't be so bad, but our neighbors are sick as well so we can't let the kids play together.

I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to blog about, but it's gone. I've forgotten about it. I was going to take the kids to NY in a couple weeks, but that trip ended up canceled. A friend of mine's family lives in New Jersey, so we were going to drive out there with all the kids together, stay with her mom, and I was going to take my boys in on the train for the day while she was going to visit family. Oh well mabey some other time. I still think DH and I will take the boys somewhere. Just not sure where, and the only way I'll never get Dh to go to NY of his own free will. I've only wanted to go for the last 15 years, mabey I'll make sometime in the next 15 ;-) Now if I can just figure out somewhere 4-5 hours from Cincinnati to go cheaply, and without camping. It's a little cold out.