VERY random thoughts & goings-on

It feels like forever since I've blogged. So much has happened and nothing has happened.
So here goes my random-ness...

- My middle daughter gave birth to our 3rd grandson on 12/19. Cutest little boy. looks just like his mama but with black hair like his daddy. We've never had a dark haired baby in our family.
- I did really well not over indulging the kids/grand kids at Christmas
- For a few years now, it's actually gotten on my nerves with how commercialized Christmas continues to be. ( like I ever thought it would stop)
- I actually think of Christmas as 2 different holidays. One might as well celebrate winter & Santa stuff. And then we need a different day to just be with family, go to church and really honest to goodness celebrate ONLY the birth of Christ. One has nothing to do with the other. The older I get the more glaring this becomes to me.
I'm thinking next year we will do just that. Have 2 different days to celebrate these 2 very different days. I found it harder this year to correlate Santa coming to bring the boy presents and us celebrating the birth of Christ. Some of the conversations I had with the boy didn't even make sense to me. We'd do the Jesse Tree, eat candy from the advent calender, then count down the days til Santa came???
- Things just get worse and worse on the *foster care front. It really seems like they are doing everything they know to do to drive *foster parents away. Not only are we no longer being *reimbursed for diapers,wipes, clothes, shoes, food. Actually it's easier just to say, all we get 10.00 per day per* Diem and now we're being told that might be cut in half. I honestly don't know what we are going to do. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, we didn't make money being *foster parents to begin with, but at least they *reimbursed us for diapers & some clothing (150.00/yr) which helped greatly. Now, I really do feel like these people's nanny.(although I'm positive a nanny gets paid better & gets the weekend off) I have to take them all over the place, miss work & not even get paid mileage. Maybe it's time to throw in the towel. AND they are no more inclined to help with transport, dr appt, ect. I think I'm tired.
- Baby K's mom is getting less & less excited about his coming home, the closer it gets for it to happen. Twice she's called to say "she didn't feel good" and could I just plan on the next week. Wish I could do that. If I don't feel good or have a headache, guess what? nobody cares and I still have to take care of the babies. I had high hopes for her. Now I just wish she would sign over permanent custody to a couple I know who would love him more than anything.
Baby criesallthetime, whom I don't talk much about (came to us in march 2009) will be 2 in a couple months. His mother shows no progress other than visiting him 3 times a week. In almost 1 yr, she's not worked 1/3 of her case plan. She really does think I'm her nanny. She told me last Saturday after her visit she would like me to go with her to get his hair cut! HELLO! I don't think so. You might just think I sit at home waiting for you to tell me what to do. But I have you know I pretend I have a life. I told her it was not convenient for me and she blew a gasket.
I think this will end my randomness. The Boy went back to pre-school today for the first time in what seems like months. So my 3 hours of freedom is about up.
I think I'll go pee without an audience. Was that TMI??