February 2008

..I’d really like someone to make me a Mug Corset. Please and thank you!

When the kids moved in, back in December, a lot of stuff in our house needed to be hastily tossed into boxes and moved.

I’m not talking about, like, a grow-op or meth lab or anything, I’m referring to endless boxes of hardware supplies, papers, books, and yes, a bunch of computers that were taking up space in the rooms that we needed for the kids.

My Dell XPS piece of shit laptop (no, really, I’ll never buy a Dell again, dude!) has been lounging on the treadmill in our bedroom alongside about 20 other boxes of crap. It overheats every time I use it for more than 20 seconds – to the point that it a) melted a power cable and I had to fight Dell to get a new one (out of warranty), and b) burned out a cooling mat that I bought to “help” with that whole overheating thing.

Y’know, TALKING about that stupid laptop makes me angry. For pete’s sake!

Sooo..aaaanyway…

Since the kids moved in, I’ve been using my Eee and my linux desktop (Nemesis) and, on extremely rare occasions, I’ve popped onto the kids’ computer to hastily check my email.

That Dell? It was my only Windoze machine.

And, of course, it was the only computer set up for my iPod or my Palm or my GPS.

Which means none of those devices have been updated since the kids moved in – other than the occasion (wireless) hotsync for my Palm.

But lo, this afternoon, I plugged my Palm into Nemesis and I spent a while futzing around with J-Pilot and, lo-again, I made it work! Zow!

And now I have my iPod plugged into Nemesis and I’m busy updating playlists (and recharging the battery, of course) and otherwise getting her all cleaned up so I can plunk HER into my purse for the joy of music.

Simultaneously, I’ve got the POS laptop open and the GPS software downloading/installing right next to me.

My Inner Geek is happily bouncing around. Nom nom!

After sushi today, Maymo and I went for a walk down the street in the fresh, cold air. I let him open the door and walk into any store that caught his eye – including TWO shoe stores – and he poked and prodded through the pawn shop and a thrift store and, in general, had a very good time.

At one of those shoe stores, however, I saw a pair of shoes that – if I didn’t have kids – would have come home with me immediately. I fell in love with them and kind of fondled them for a few minutes while feeling tingly.

I just about wept when I saw the price tag and realized that no, in fact, our budget-with-kids will not accomodate these shoes (that’s a size 9 women’s regular, oh magical and wonderful wealthy benefactor who I have not yet met..)

If they’re still around when the kids move out in 20 years, I may be able to swing it.. Maybe?

Maymo and I are going out, together, to eat sushi.

I am trying to have ZERO expectations for how this is going to go because, really, HOW WILL THIS GO?

He says he wants to “Try new food!” and he keeps chanting “YOSHI!!” over and over (when I correct him and say, “Ssssushi!” he laughs and says, “YEAH! YOSHI!!”)

And he just ran from the room shouting, “I’m going to go pee first and eat yoshi second!”

Really. This oughta’ be interesting…

Yesterday I popped over to the store to pick up some frames for The Boys’ adoption certificates.

The certificates are not “official paperwork” in the legal sense, but they were given to the kids by the adoption agency when Coffee and I signed the paperwork for the placement last week.

The certificates say, “This is to certify that [kid's name] is now permanently the son of [my legal name] and [Coffee's legal name]” and there’s a signature from our adoption worker and, of course, Coffee and I signed it too.

Have I mentioned lately how much I like our agency?

When the kids got home from school the certificates, in frames, were sitting on the dining room table. They were thrilled to see ‘em and we talked for a bit about where we’ll hang them in the house.

Within a few minutes, Oldest One had a complete and utter freak out over something very minor. It culminated in him screaming at his brother and running upstairs to cry.

I had wondered if the “official paperwork” would cause a well-up of emotions. And I wasn’t surprised that seeing it framed would set that off.

He came back downstairs shortly after (to do his chore of making dinner with me).

And an hour later, give or take, he was back to his normal self.

The rest of the evening he spent calling me “Mom” and kissing me on the head whenever he walked by me as I crocheted on the sofa.

He told me he loved me. He snuck up behind me and hugged me. He joked around with me.

I frequently remind the kids that being adopted doesn’t mean they have to forget their biological mother. But I realize, too, that it’s a huge conflict for them to be adopted and to love more than one parent at the same time.

Me: Hey, Maymo, how was school today?

Little One: Good. Hey, know what?

Me: What?

Little One: YOU are MAYMO-MOM! MAYMO-MOM!

Me: That’s true! I am your Mom! And you are Maymo!

Little One: Maymo-Mom! Maymo-Mom! Maymo-Mom! Know what?

Me: What?

Little One: Maymo loves Maymo-Mom! Maymo-Mom, Maymo love you!!

And he continued that the WHOLE WAY HOME.

Little One works with a speech therapist, through his school, and we regularly get updates from her as to what they’re working on together so we can continue the work at home.

A while ago, the task was to add the “-ing” sound to words. Little One mastered that in a few quick days and had a very good time showing off his new skills.

Then the speech therapist started working on the letter “k” – specifically, the hard /k/ sound – in the middle of words. Little One has been reluctant to use that sound at all, but he’s been making some good progress with it and, if all goes as planned, he’ll be able to use that sound at the beginning of words (or Oldest One’s name!) soon.

Endearingly, but not to his speech therapist, Little One prefers to use “him” and “her” in place of “he” and “she”. (“Him is going to school!” “Her crashed!”)

We correct him, casually, and he’ll occasionally revise his statement to add those words in, but mostly he’s unconcerned with the difference. It’s not something we’ve been working hard on.

Yesterday we were driving home from school and Little One commented that we were driving past Coffee’s office. Suddenly his little voice piped up, “HE’S AT WORK” and I just about drove off the road.

He said “HE!” And he did it totally unprompted!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

I know it’s great that he’s making progress, of course, but man, I”m really going to miss his weird little speech habits when he’s fully outgrown them.

Middle One is learning to knit. Coffee is teaching him.

Oldest One informed me, last night, that he’d like me to teach him to crochet.

Little One, at four, might be too young to handle anything complicated but I’m planning to see if I can get a crochet hook (a big, fat, huge one) into his tiny little hands later this week to see what happens.

At the store today, as I picked up yarn, he informed me that he “already knows” how to crochet and thus would like me to buy him the big fancy hook so he can make “a blanket” like the afghan I’m currently working on.

I think we’ll test that “know how” before we go and buy him a lot of yarn and fancy hooks. Call me paranoid..

Perhaps I really can realize my dreams of starting a child-labour sweatshop in my home. That extra income can’t hurt, of course, and they really don’t need school, do they?

Yes. Yes magic crochet ring! YES!

We take bets on which kid will cry first in certain circumstances. Like, say, when we leave the house to run an errand together as a pack.

No, really, we do.

We don’t do it NEAR the kids, of course, and we certainly don’t high-five each other when we win by guessing the right kid.

But it makes the whole “breakdown in the middle of the store” thing so much easier when we’re stifling giggles.

I mention this because tonight we’re having stirfy for dinner.

Stirfry means a LOT of vegetables, of course, and everyone knows that the only vegetables our kids will eat are those named CORN or POTATO or SPAGHETTI SAUCE WITH NO CHUNKS OR LUMPS IN IT, EW, EW, I THINK THAT’S AN ONION AND NOW I’M GOING TO CRY BECAUSE YOU’RE CLEARLY TRYING TO KILL ME.

*ahem*

I have been missing vegetables for a while now – other than corn and ‘taters, I mean, which aren’t really vegetables so much as sugar in vegetable format – and Coffee is anxiously anticipating tonight’s meal, too.

This can only mean that one of the kids will be in hysterics within 20 seconds of the food reaching the table.

I have yet to hear who Coffee is betting will cry first, but I’m putting every penny on Oldest One.