Finally!

A baby I picked up from the hospital 3 1/2 YEARS ago was finally adopted today.
He left my house 1 year ago to go to his foster to adopt home. It was to be a very short time
until his adoption was to take place. Because his bmom had signed over her rights & bdad was no where in the picture. Never had been. So it should have been a no brainer. Right?
If they can mess something up I guess they are your people.
Why it took so long to get him to a foster to adopt home and then take yet another year is
a shame and a horrible injustice at the very least to that little boy,who should have had a home years ago.
(They knew we did not want to adopt, but I guess we were a safe "parking" place") 
Congratulations Big Ole Boy. I pray you grow up to be UGA's greatest football player of all time.
You deserve all the good things this world has to offer. I will always love you.

Reading Eggs

Who knew eggs could read! right?

I was looking around for something that could help The Boy not forget everything he had learned
this year in kindergarten. Like reading. Like all the 250 sight words I or I mean he worked so hard to learn. He likes to read books, but gets bored reading the same old books on his shelf over and over. And quite frankly starts to memorize them after a few times reading them, instead of actually READING them.  Those little reading books cost between $4-8. A trip to the library from the boonies where I live also costs a small fortune. So this is the alternative my frugal self found.
www.readingeggs.com     Reading Eggs is an Online Learn to Read Program
The site even gives a short placement test to see where to start your child out at. Even if your child is not yet reading, you can start from the very basics.
There are so many great educational things about this site, I don't even know where to begin.
Sight words, reading, word groups, counting, spelling, rhyming. It has everything that he ever brought home from school as homework.
Bonus: They earn golden eggs for each lesson completed. They can spend them playing some pretty cool games,which slip in a little education without them realizing it.
My only complaint it that it is evidently English as in England. The Boy was completely stumped on "a lamb in a pram" and "a man in a lift". In all fairness I helped him on those. I wouldn't have known what a lift was unless my Canadian friend Roz hadn't used the word and I asked,"Lift? lifted what, where?" He also had no idea what a Gay-Rog was either. At this point I did a brief explanation on accents and dialects. Also educational in it's own right. (Have you ever heard a southern explanation on how other people talk? Interesting and sure to hurt your feelings if you're not a southerner) They also use learnt instead of learned.
But I digress.
I really do find this the perfect summer time bridge so that everything I've paid to have him learn the last 9 months doesn't fall out of his head. 
Go,go. See if it's what you're looking for.
www.readingeggs.com

Life

Our life is down right boring right now. The Boy and I just sit and wait for things to go right with the new house. I refuse to even think about the actual MOVING part right now. After 20 yrs of moving every few years...I am too old for this crap.
See that first picture? The love that boy has for that dog is the only think saving that 3 pound bladder of pee. I can not get that dog potty trained. I don't even make the thing go outside. I'd be happy if he made it on the pee pad! And by the way, HOW on earth can a dog that little, PEE it's own weight 17 times a day?
One day the boy got into my 5x7 cards, which would normally get him a stern talking to. (cause mama needs those to remember everything from grocery list to breathing.) When I ask him what he did with all of them, he showed me. He made about 10 of these and taped them to my bedroom wall (which would usually bring on a talk about not puting tape on the walls) But all he got was alot of hugs, a few tears and his own pack of 5x7 cards. And I may have told him that one day in the very, VERY far away future he will make an excellent husband & daddy.        

What I did not expect

The Behemoth left as scheduled on 5/31.
I was not sad. My back,neck & shoulder were very grateful. I do feel bad for whomever took him, because I know they were not truely informed of all his behaviors and needs.
I have been doing this for more than 7 years. I have never gone more than a week without having
a foster*child in my home for all of those 7 years.
I have always felt at *dfacs* beck and call. Always felt my house must look a certain way if by chance they drop by unannounced. Felt horrible guilt or fear or both if a child was hurt in my care. Because what if they thought I had harmed the child. Oh the horror stories I have heard of lives wrecked because of false allegations. I always felt guilty if I took an hour to go to the store by myself, get my hair cut,nails done, ect. What if I ran into them and they wanted to know where a child was? (of course they were always with my husband or daycare) But I always felt my time and even my life were not my own, that I had to in some way answer to them no matter what I was doing. They may very well not have cared at all what I was doing as long as the kids were taken care of in the manner deemed fit by them. But it was my perception, therefore my reality.
When planning a well deserved vacation or just a weekend get-a-way with family I felt like a servant going to them with hat in hand to beg to be let free if only for a week. They had a way of making you feel like dirt to actually leave the child/ren behind to rest your body and spirit. And rarely did they make the arrangements in a timely manner, so that you were close to a breakdown when they finally called 8 hours before you were to leave to say they had *respite care arranged for you.
What I did not expect was a TOTAL weight lifted from me. A fear of being "blamed" for a child's injury. Or of my house not being good enough, clean enough.
I no longer have to have to make sure that my family's plans do not interfere with a child's dr,therapy, or visitation appointments. We can actually go out to dinner if we wish. It is a new feeling. One I have not experienced in so many years, I have forgotten how it feels to be free.
I did not expect the great PEACE that came with the decision to close our house.
P.S On the home searching front we have put in a bid on a little farm that was
accepted! They are to

do their part of the paperwork on Monday. I pray this closing will be VERY fast!