Then we had his party at the house, and he was cordial to everyone, didn’t disappear with his girlfriend, but stayed around to talk to everyone who had come to congratulate him.  Again, a first for him.

I think my baby is growing up!

On the other hand, he and Jimmy were wrestling over who would get to put the van seats back in the locked & upright position as we were getting ready to go to the ceremony.  Robbie yanked on the seat, and something caught Jimmy in the knee, tearing his only dress pants, and putting a huge gash in his knee.  So, the sitter took him to the hospital for stitches while we were at the graduation ceremony.  During the party, Jimmy picked out his stitches, so we spent last night at the ER getting staples to replace them.

Never a dull moment at my house!

Thanks for stopping by,

Beth

Now that I have my own kids, I realize what a great job my mom did.  She had 6 kids to raise while dad was at work all day.  She dealt with everything from skinned knees to broken hearts, from running away to petty theft, from missed alarm clocks to broken curfews.

She told us she didn’t sleep well until we were all home safely, so we were to wake her up when we came in from dates or parties.  But yet waking her required a stick of dynamite!  No doubt she was exhausted from dealing with all of our trials and tribulations during the day.

I hope I provide my kids with even half of the unconditional love my mom showed me through my difficult growing up years.

Even now, I know I can call her (daily!) for advice on my kids.  She is so good at seeing the good in them at the very moment I want to kill them all.

Love you mom!

Photo courtesy CantonRep.com

Most of the school districts in Stark County sent their special needs children to a “field day” event at our local high school in Perry.  You can see the story here.

Congratulations to all the athletes who participated!!!!

This is the day, eleven years ago, when you came into our lives.  You were still too little to hold, struggling to drink even 2 ounces of formula at a time.  (Who knew you’d be eating us out of house and home now?)  You only weighed about 3 and a half pounds. 

We came and sat by your isolette for a couple of weeks, wishing we could take you home.  You were all legs and tubes, but we loved you anyways, and we love you even more today.

Billy took 1st place in the standing long jump and 2nd place in the 100 meter dash.

His big brother Robbie took three individual 4th place ribbons in powerlifting!  Not bad for his first competition!

I’m so proud of them!

(And Jimmy did a great job spectating.)

Thanks for stopping by,

Beth

After Debbie got home from work on Sunday, we went about a block away from our house to pick up Jimmy at his emergency foster home.  The fact that Lew & Bonnie lived so close to us seemed like yet another sign that these children were the right ones for us.

Bonnie handed Jimmy to me, and I just melted.  This perfect little 6-week old baby, with a HUGE black eye.  (According to his father, he “rolled over onto his pacifier.”  A real child prodigy – rolling over at 6 weeks!)  Other than the bruise, he had a perfect round little face with beautiful bright blue eyes.  Although I hate that he was harmed, I thank God every day for that black eye, because that’s what got both Robbie and Jimmy out of their abusive birth home.

Lew handed us a beat-up diaper bag with two diapers in it, and one bottle out of the refrigerator.  That, and the onesie he was wearing were Jimmy’s only possessions.  In November.  In Ohio.  I can’t believe that, even if the police are taking your kids away, you wouldn’t think to send a coat along.  But that’s just me.

So, we wrapped Jimmy in a warm blanket and tucked him away in his brand new car seat for the short ride home.  It was pretty awesome, and I don’t mean that in a good way – maybe overwhelming would be a better word, to suddenly be completely responsible for two young children.  Little did I know that this day, momentous though it was, would be one of the least overwhelming days we would have for several years.

BTW, I’m working on getting some more pictures posted.  I’m such a horrible person, I can’t even do my own scrapbooking, so a friend of mine currently has all of my kids’ pictures and is working on putting together books for me.  When I get the books back, I’ll scan some pix in.

Thanks for visiting,

Beth

After my partner and I had lived together for about a year, we found we both were interested in having kids, but that’s not so easy for 2 women.  So, after exploring our options, we decided to look into foster care.  We went through the training, and home inspections, and reference checks, and fingerprinting…

It’s really not an easy process – I don’t know how the bad apples sometimes slip through.

We finally received our license on Monday, October 30, 1995.  On the 31st, Debbie’s uncle in Michigan passed, and we made plans to go to Michigan for the weekend funeral.  Wouldn’t you know it, they called Thursday evening and asked if we could take two brothers, ages 5 years and 6-months.  I had asked for an infant, and Debbie wanted a school-aged child, so this seemed perfect.

We told the social worker we’d be happy to take the boys, but we needed them to stay in emergency placement until we got back from Michigan.  We spent Friday morning arranging daycare, then left for Michigan, and got back home late Saturday night.  I can’t say I remember much about the trip – it was all a blur, but I do remember that one of Debbie’s sister-in-laws was so excited for us.  It was great to have that validation.

Debbie had to work on Sunday, and we had wanted to pick up the kids together, but they were in two separate emergency homes and one of the couples had plans early Sunday afternoon, so I said I’d go alone to get Robbie, the older child.  I spent the morning trying to put together the crib by myself – nearly had to stand on my head to hold up the sides while I was screwing in the hardware.  Once that was done, I ran to Montgomery Wards to pick up sheets and kid-themed towels, then raced over to the other side of town to get Robbie.

I knocked on the door, and who should answer but a guy who works right down the hall from me!  I’d never talked to him other than to say hello, but again it seemed like kismet – just another sign that this was the right thing to do and that these were the right children.  Robbie didn’t want to leave “Big John’s” house, but we were finally able to get him belted in the back seat of my Honda, and we set off for home.

He chattered the whole way to the house, but I couldn’t understand much of what he said.  His speech was very tough to understand, but he did have the 4-letter words down pat.  I tried to get him interested in singing some songs, but the only one he knew was “Bad Boys” from the title sequence of Cops.  Turns out he had spent a lot of time locked in his room with a TV, and that was his favorite show.

When we pulled into the driveway, he did say (very clearly), “I like your house!”  I was thrilled.  We went inside, and he was a bit overwhelmed by the dogs swarming around him.  I finally had to put him in the living room behind the baby gate, with the dogs locked out.  We played a few board games, and I went into his bedroom to put the new sheets on.  I was amazed that Robbie could get the 4th corner of a fitted sheet on all by himself.  That tells you a bit about his home life right there.

Through most of the afternoon, he kept asking where “Baby Jimmy” was, and I told him we’d go pick up Jimmy when Debbie got home.  I’ll tell you about that next time.

Thanks for stopping by,

Beth

Cooper and Penny

We’ve had four dogs in our house for a long time.  And they’re not little dogs, either!  The oldest is Maggie, a Golden Retriever we bought from a breeder in Amish Country on the way back from a weekend in Berlin, Ohio.  She is absolutely a beautiful dog, but the breeder had bred her twice, and she couldn’t bring down enough milk for her puppies, so he had no further use for her.

We got Maggie when she was four years old, and she’s about 8 now and really starting to show her age.  She had thyroid cancer a couple of years ago, but the surgery was very successful.  She’s starting to get very grey around the muzzle and we have noticed she’s lost a bit of the spring in her step.

Next in line is Kayla, a mixed breed dog we got at a no-kill shelter in Garrettsville, Ohio.  I had wanted a shepherd mix because I think they are so pretty, but I hadn’t figured on her being so aggressive.  Most of the time she’s very placid, but she is very protective and has bitten more than one person.  If she weren’t such a good dog otherwise, or if she ever went after one of my kids, I wouldn’t keep her, but I’d have a hard time giving up someone who is such a sweetie 99% of the time.

We sent out Kayla’s DNA for testing awhile ago and discovered she is mostly German Shepherd and Rottweiler, although she has traces of several other kinds of heritage in her, as well.

Cooper is a beautiful Vizsla, a breed of Hungarian hunting dog.  The Vizsla is an uncommon breed, often described as a Weimeraner with a bad dye job.  The two breeds are just about identical, except that Weimers are grey and Vizslas are rust-colored.

Cooper is a real lover.  He sleeps under the covers with us at night and is never far from our side when we’re in the house.

He and Kayla have a bad habit of running away whenever the kids leave a gate or a door open for longer than 3 seconds.  Kind of scary because we paid a lot of money for Cooper and people who know dogs wouldn’t necessarily be shy about stealing him.  Luckily, we’ve got nice people in our neck of the woods who catch the dogs and call us to say they have visitors in their back yard.

And last but not least is Penny, a Beagle we picked up near Carrollton from a man who had hundreds of puppies.  I’m not sure I would call him a true puppy mill because the dogs were very well cared for, but he wasn’t a typical hobby breeder, either.  Jimmy has sort of adopted Penny - he trained her to sit up and beg for a cookie and often invites Penny into his bedroom to sleep at night.

We also have two cats in the house.  Twiggy was a shelter rescue, so named because she was so incredibly skinny.  She has grey and black stripes over most of her body with a white chest.  Panther is a long-haired black cat who wandered into our back yard on a very cold, rainy October day.  We couldn’t just leave him out there, so we adopted him.

Most of the time, all of the animals are pretty good, but just be sheer volume, they do add quite a bit to the chaos in our house!

Thanks for stopping by,

Beth