Tonsils and Schools and Chores, Oh My!

Our lives are just plain busy. Next week is March, bringing with it Andy's birthday which means Micah's is close behind. I still need to rotate the 2 bedrooms which including painting them both. Our Dave Ramsey class is continuing to go well, but it's a LOT of work right now. Laundry is piling up and really need to find the surface of my desk again. Needless to say, I've been struggling to find time to blog.

Jason had his full day trial at the new school on Tuesday. He said it went well and he really, really liked it. I hear a lot about the kids, the gecko and the gym. I also heard a little about the classes, but, well, he's a 10yo boy and felt he had already covered everything that was important.

The admissions director gave me good feedback when I picked him up, but nothing concrete yet about if he gets in yet or not. She is supposed to call me sometime later today or tomorrow and let me know if we move forward to the testing phase, so I am a nervous wreck every time the phone rings. Still, we are moving closer and closer to the end of the process and with each step I am holding a bit more hope.

Hannah tonsils will be exiting stage right tomorrow. It's a much needed and long awaited surgery that has my little girl all tied up in knots. She was just fine this morning until she realized that tomorrow is the day. I know she's afraid of the pain so we bought a bunch of popsicles, puddings and ice cream to soothe her throat afterwards. I have a feeling she'll be just fine and going stir crazy in a few days. Still, it's going to be a long day tomorrow with lots of tears from us both. I'll post an update tomorrow afternoon when it's over.

Our class has showed us how important it os for our kids to learn how to handle money now rather than in the future like us, so taking some ideas from Dave Ramsey, we started the kids on a chore chart. Lots of basic stuff them need to do and a bunch of stuff they can get paid to do. then we help them divide it each week into Spend, Save and Give envelopes. Hannah is taking to this with gusto, counting off her checkmarks and looking for more to do at every turn. Micah is enjoying it, but he has the attention span of a gnat, so we might get half the bed made before he wanders away. Although on payday he certainly is engaged because he likes his "monies."

Jason is the one who is driving me to distraction with his chores. He's decided that half done is good enough. Um, sorry. NO. Then I just make you redo it and take away some privileges. I've also started offering up his pay chores to his brother and sister which he doesn't seem to mind right now. Of course, that may change when he realizes I was serious about him paying them for doing the chore.

Oh, and things are moving forward on the adoption front. We decided to pursue adoption from the foster care system. It will be like it was with Jason, a straight adoption without being foster parents. We were thinking about that but decided that the cost to our kids was too high right now. Surprisingly, I haven't had much flack outside of the training department at our county about the age range we are looking at. Because we will not adopt out of birth order, we need to find a child 3 or under. A couple people I have spoken with have been very encouraging. I think us being experienced adoptive parents makes a big difference. We know more of what to expect from a child in care and how to deal with the long term ramifications of drug and alcohol exposures, abuse and neglect. So, training starts in July and depending on the back log, we will hopefully be licensed by Christmas.