a last minute reprieve

just a quick post.  I believe a miracle might have happened this afternoong.  Originally we had an all staff meeting scheduled for after the last family left the Harvest Feast at our agency.  Following the all-staff meeting we were each to be called individually to hear our fate (laid off, position change, ???).  Hearts were heavy this morning.   While our clients were enjoying their meal I ran upstairs and noticed that someone had posted that the afternoon meeting had been changed.  We were to meet in between Harvest Feast groups instead of after.  We were all nervous.   We sat in the conference room in near silence, all of the staff, waiting waiting waiting for the directors to come.  A page came through saying that the meeting would start in 15 minutes, a collective groan came through the room ... WHYYYY are they making us wait.

we looked up as our director came in with a huge winnie the pooh balloon and a smaller congratulations balloon.  huh?

Barb (the director) was crying.  "I have good news (sob) A miracle happened today"

you see our directors testified this morning/afternoon in front of the Hennepin County Board of Commisioners.  Giving passionate pleas for help.  Talking about the unethical RFP that was released.  While Brad (parent program director) was speaking he noticed the CFO of Hennepin county pointing toward the door.  Brad said during his speech that he and Barb were leaving the Board meeting to go lay off employees. 

The CFO stopped Brad and Barb in the hall and said "please don't lay anyone off".  The CFO of our LARGE county said that he was working on a proposal and he was fairly certain it would be passed on Tuesday.  He said that he is working on getting our program funded at 90% of it's current funding for at least 6 months.  He agreed that what was happening was unethical.

So we didn't have our individual meetings.  I hope we don't need to have them.

a CFO with a heart?  I think so!

Pants vs Slacks

FYI - to avoid a morning tantrum, figure out the pattern and memorize this for if you get it wrong watch out!

These are PANTS

These are SLACKS

PANTS

not very slacky SLACKS

I am not too sure where she came up with the word slacks.  Generally speaking we don't hang out with ancient people.  This morning she was so frustrated with me.  She wanted slacks. I kept picking pants.  She couldn't explain slacks vs pants.  I thought maybe pants had buttons and zippers but there are a couple of exceptions to that rule.  The horizontal stripes hands down were more desirable then pants but not as desirable as normal slacks, they were "not very slacky slacks".  Slackity slack slack.

Here's some cute photos of Lucy and Zep this morning (when she was wearing SLACKS)

Wild Wednesday

What a hard day.  As I recall last Wednesday was hard as well.  1/3 of the jobs at my agency are on the line and still we don't know who is being cut.  It'll be soon (some will be gone by Nov 30 and others mid December).  I have a pit in my stomache of any of the outcomes.  I'll either loose a job, or loose a lot of important colleagues/friends and no matter what my agency will be changing in ways that will offer fewer services to famlies in need. 

I have a big beef to pick with Tim Pawlenty.  He somehow made Governor of Minnesota and aspires to be president of the United State but absolutely does not even follow that basic democratic principles.  Instead of working toward a budget agreement with other elected officials, he quickly unalloted billions of dollars from the 2 year budget.   He, on his own.  Huge beef.

Lucy didn't get enough sleep last night.  She went to bed late (my fault) and the magic clock failed for the first time in a week at keeping Lucy in bed past 7:00 am.  I hope it was a temporary fluke.  She was SO tired tonight, and combined with my exhaustion/stress made for quite the volatile evening. 

Tomorrow will be a better day (in some ways).  It'll be a long day at work but I commit to having a good morning with Lucy no matter what time she wakes up.

Tomorrow night's post will be about Lucy, I promise!

Lucy and Zep

Monday

- Today Lucy started her first dance class.  I am very excited.  She got dance as a Christmas gift from her grandma and grandpa (an early Christmas gift).  The class is an hour long.  15 minutes ballet, 15 minutes tap and 30 minutes gymnastics. 

-Today I found out that 6-10 people at my small (around 35 people) agency will loose their jobs.  Some by the end of November some by the end of December.  No one knows who.  I wish they would just tell us now.

- Today I wrote a very crabby email to Gov Tim Pawlenty.  Please if he ever runs for president, think about 100 million times before voting for him.  Arrogent, doesn't follow the rules, impatient with democratic process.  Ugggghhhh (I had to go political)

-Today Lucy had a fit about taking off her tights at the end of the night (again)

-Tonight all of her tights were hidden away until she's safely dressed for school tomorrow (in non tights).

-Tonight I am worn out, tired, worried. 

Sunday snapshot

Lucy's in charge of feeding the dog. 

Rockn' Lucy

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Tick-Tock Tick-Tock I love the My Tot Clock

Product review time:

This is the My Tot Clock.  I googled alarm clocks for children.  I wanted a clock that I could use to help keep Lucy in bed until 7:00 a.m.   My first thought was a clock with a radio alarm, so that I could have it turn on very quietly at 7:00 and I could tell her to stay in bed unless she heard music playing.  I found this during my google search.   This clock has many functions.  It has an analog face that syncs up with a digital back.  You set the back for bedtime, wake time, length of desired rest time, length of time out, and length of encouragement.  

Let me explain how I use (plan on useing) each function:

I set Lucy's bedtime for 8:00pm.  When bedtime comes the clock can do many things (if you desire).  1. the face starts glowing blue  2. it can play lullabies for 30 minutes  followed by white noise (along with the blue glow)  3. it can do a story,lullabies and white noise (with the blue glow).   Lucy can go check on the clock to see if it's time for bed yet.  When it starts glowing blue she knows it's time to hop in.

I set Lucy's wake up time for 7:00 a.m.   At 7:00 am the white noise turns off and the clock glows yellow.  You can also have it play music at wake time.  If you choose (at bedtime) to have no music/white noise, the clock would simply switch from glowing blue to glowing  yellow at wake time.   Now she knows, if she wakes up and the clock is glowing blue she needs to rest until it turns yellow. 

I set Lucy's time out time for 4 minutes.  If she needs a time-out, I just push the red button on the top of the clock and the clock glows red for 4 minutes then switches back to yellow.  She gets a real time out and can "police" herself in regards to how long she needs to stay.  It's more consistant for me too.

Haven't used the encouragement timer yet but you can set it for however many minutes you need and hit the green button.  The clock will glow green for that time then back to yellow.  Suggestions have been to use the encouragement timer for tooth brushing, sharing/turn taking, reading etc. 

I love this clock and Lucy likes it too, it gives her the independance she craves but allows for limitations (ie she doesn't get all the control).   Here's the best thing.  The first clock I received had a broken digital clock.  I was bummed.  At 9:00pm (on a Sunday) I emailed customer service.  Within an hour I got this response:

Hello Stacy,

OH NO! I am so terribly sorry! It sounds like there is definitely something wrong with the digital clock. It would be my pleasure to replace your Tot Clock right away! I will include a return label, so you can send back the defective unit. I want to return it to the factory for analysis. This is an issue I haven't seen before. I would also like to send a special gift to your little one to say that we are very sorry for all the trouble. I know she must be very disappointed....

Seriously!  Who offers this kind of customer service these days????   I received a new clock within a couple days along with return postage for the old clock.  Meaning, she sent me a new clock and I still have the old one (which is getting sent back on Monday).   Wow!  The new clock works wonderfully. 

a little relief

This afternoon Lucy received her first dose of H1N1 vaccine.  Whew.  I didn't debate about this vaccine at all.  OK, I have fears about vaccine related injury and illness, I do... I delayed vax Lucy and had her titers checked so as to not unnecessarily revaccinate her for anything she had immunity to from her time in Ethiopia.  I am a careful vaccinator but a vaccinator nonetheless. 

Another confession:
I fear that my child might die.  Yup. I think about it a lot. Don't know why .. be it from the grapes, a car accident, adenoid/tonsil surgery I worry.  I worry a lot.  She had a lot of respiratory issues starting in Ethiopia.  The day after we got home from Ethiopia she started getting a fever, which didn't go away which ultimately had her dx'd with RSV which led to the asthma.   She had sinus infection on top of sinus infection and from my monitor (that i still have)  I could hear her snoring snoring snoring ... silence, dreadful silence dreadful silence (i sit up in bed, i start toward her door) then GASP, turn snore snore snore ... for YEARS.  Haven't heard that since the tonsils came out.

Still I fear.  I fear the H1N1.  I fear she'll be one of those that gets hit hard.  So now, just a week or so until some immunity kicks in ... and hopefully in a month we'll be able to find a 2nd dose for her.  Now to find me some vaccine so I don't leave her orphaned again (another fear). 

Do I have anxiety issues??? 

How I ended up in a closet with Diane trying to open a beer with an Iron

It all started about 12 years ago.

My MOM told me to buy a house.
I bought a house.
I found a JOB at a church that I wanted because it was THREE blocks from my house.
At this job I became inspired to go to grad school MSW.
Because I knew that DEB (who was a member of the church I worked for)was a MSW instructor I started hounding her.
We rode together to go on a retreat and she talked about her and her husband's plan for adoption.
Soon they brought home baby Isaac.
I became his babysitter and my friendship with his parents grew.
Life happened.
I had a semi-hysterical "If I can't raise a child then I want to move to South America" breakdown in front of Deb after babysitting Isaac one night.
Deb suggested that I look at the possibilities of international adoption and close my eyes (for the moment) to the barriers.
I went to an information session.
Isaac's little brother Nathan came home.
I applied to the Ethiopia program.
I got my referral.
I travelled.
I started connecting online to people who were in the process or recently home.
I wanted to connect to people with children from Ethiopia.
I "met" Diane through the forum.  She was hysterical.  She was adopting (as a single mom) a toddler boy.
I laughed when I read her blog.
I was happy when I heard that she not only met her son in Ethiopia but also her future husband.
I went to Nancy's house one weekend.
Diane came.
We met again at culture camp.  She was really pregnant with baby Og
She drove to my house with a newborn plus her other two sons.
We camped again.
She drove to my house again in October.
She got us free hotel rooms and brought beer.
I packed the beer in a cooler but forgot a bottle opener.
We tried desperately to open it.
We failed.

In 2002 (or 2003, or something)

I was in my first year of graduate school of social work. I had to pick an internship. I knew life was going to be challenging. I had a full-time job, was going to be in full-time graduate school and had to put in 20ish hours a week at a foundation internship.


I originally picked (and was chosen for) an internship at a domestic violence shelter. I was pretty excited. The work sounded hard but good, I was able to work some evening/weekend hours and the internship seemed to fit with my goals and aspirations for my future (i.e.: NOT working directly with kids). Sadly my university decided to pull students from that placement at the very last moment due to staff changes.

I was stuck at an agency that I did not choose in an internship that had a lot to do with young children. I was unhappy. With a heavy heart I trudged myself in that first day. Immediately I was enveloped in a cushion of warmth, nurturing and I felt "a part of" something really big, something really powerful and something really intense. I was at Southside Family Nurturing Center.

Southside Family Nurturing Center serves families who are at risk of neglecting or abusing their children. These families have layers and layers of stressors and histories that could so easily lead to abuse or neglect. Many families and children have in fact experienced both of these things and so much more, at the hands of each other, community and most recently politicians.

Southside is unique (in my opinion) in how we serve families.  First we truly do NURTURE families.  Many of the children here have missed out on nurturing primarily because their mother's have missed out on nurturing as have their mothers (and fathers).  We take the children into our therapeutic preschool and nurture the heck outta them.  Then we work with the mama's and the papa's (and the siblings) and we see the child in them, we nurture them, we at times love their children for them, until they are able to.  We teach them how to play.  Sometimes we give the mama's back a piece of their childhood that was stolen from them.  All the while we are assisting in taking care of business.  Finding resources, filling out medical assistance forms, getting them help with mental health, physical health, housing.  Sometimes we are the first they call when they have new babies.  OH and we LOVE those new babies.  We have staff that have been around for 20+ years.  Staff that once taught the same mama's who are coming in with their own babies.  There is something about an agency that wraps it's collective arms around people who might otherwise be wrote off as hopeless. 


My internship was soon over and I tearfully said good bye to my clients, my co-interns and the staff of Southside. Within months, while I was deeply entrenched in my clinical internship and my final year of grad school I heard that Southside had a staff position open. Despite taking a fairly significant pay cut (even while accumulating student debt), I knew I had to do this work. I've been working directly with the mothers, fathers and children of Southside ever since.

Last year our agency took a pretty hefty pay cut from Hennepin County (we are contracted through them), even though the expectations of what we needed to do (for the county) increased. It's been a stressful year.

A few weeks ago we were dealt the lowest blow. Funding towards social services was unalloted by our governor. Letters were sent. Budgets were cut in half for the first quarter of 2010 and no guarantees of contract extensions were made beyond March 2010. No matter what our agency will be laying off staff and cutting programming by the end of this y ear. We will all suffer. Staff will be cut, and jobs in the field are scarce and competitive. Worse of all, families we serve will be left without supportive services. The children who thrive in our therapeutic preschool will have nowhere to go. My heart is so heavy.

On Monday we will hear our potential fate. We will at least be able to plan for the future.  Here is a link to our GiveMN page.  It has a very nice slideshow detailing some of our work.  There is also an opportunity to give (if one is so inclined). 

Monday

I am sort of failing in the whole blogging before I am too tired to write department.  Maybe tomorrow I'll start earlier.

Until then.  Here is Lucy in another vintage fabric dress.  Awhile ago I dug up some fabric that I've had forever (and my grandmother had forever before me) and had a co-worker fashion a couple of dresses for Lucy Lu.   I love this one!

Sunday

This is all I got left in me,  see ya tomorrow (photos are from 4 years ago this month!)

Lucky NaBloPoMo #7

It would be hard to beat the perfectness of this day, unless it involved sleeping until 7:00 and having a cook and a maid.  OHH wait, I was a little irritable until about 10:00 am.  Then the day turned perfect.  It was bright and sunny.  We were out in our yard bright and early.  Mel and Mo came over and we headed to my favorite playground where we met Betsy and Ivy. 

Lucy loves this equipment because she can spin very very fast! 

She throws her head back and puts her whole soul into enjoying the thrill of the spin.

Then it's off to her second favorite thing:  monkey bars!  She's getting so strong and can move herself half way across the bar.

Morgan hung out with her awhile.

Time for spinning on the tire swing!

We went home and had about 1/2 hour quiet time, and costume change before heading to enjoy the sun in our back yard.

Lucy found a tree to climb.

She did some serious raking.

and of course Zep got to run crazy figure 8's in our back yard. 

Friday

A quickie type post today because our day goes like this:   school drop off - work - school pick up - kuk sool - dinner - hang with friends till beyond bedtime - drive home- put kid back to bed- chill.  Won't see home until almost tomorrow and I didn't want to FAIL NaBloPoMo so soon.

A lot of mornings I let Lucy eat her cereal while watching Sprout.  While she eats I am able to wash my hair and make her lunch.  This morning I came out of the kitchen to this scene:

I took the photo and she put her legs down saying "I'd better not sit like this, the last time I made a big mess."   We've had a good morning. 

confessions ...

So I am going to risk getting teased by slacka-mom (you know who you are Diane) and confess a few uptight (helicopterish) parenting issues I currently have:

#1  See the photo below????   That's a photo I took from my bed.  That dark room right across the hall with the cat prevention gate, that's Lucy's room. 

Now look at the photo below ....  right down there,  that's the baby monitor.  I still use it.  The base is in Lucy's room (you know the room right across the hall) and the receiver is on my dresser.  I still don't know if I hear Lucy in the morning from the doorway (right across the hall) or through the monitor.  I tried turning it off and had a mini anxiety attack.  So I keep it on.  I'm sort of weird.

Confession #2 
   I still use a 5 point harness carseat for my 4 1/2 year old.  We'll probably use it until she's 12 and can ride in the front seat.  The thought of putting her in a booster type seat just makes my heart race.  I can see her sliding the belt under her arm and then us getting rear ended ....   I can see her falling asleep and having the belt misalligned. I get afraid almost every time we are in the car together that something bad is going to happen.  I worry all the time.  I constantly have to check myself on judging other people for being less then completely anal retentive when it comes to car seat safety.  I hate letting Lucy ride in other people's cars.   I myself survived riding in the front seat, in the driver's lap for my entire childhood.  I believe I started using seatbelts consistently when I was 16. 

Confession #3

Most of the time I still cut Lucy's grapes in half.  To better preserve the freshness of the grapes I do send whole grapes in Lucy's school lunch bag.  I worry on grape day that she'll act crazy when she puts a grape in her mouth and choke. 

#4 Wednesday Hump Day

Some Wednesdays (aka hump days) go like this:
Horribly hard
Uggghhhh  I need a beer(ssssss)
Mama is missing mental stability
Perfectly painful parenting palpatations

Dang is it almost Friday?
Ample avoidance of authority
Yawning and yelling

But then sweet things happen and I realized that my irritation with my child is really my problem.  I "social work" myself on the way to swimming lessons and see my babe for the amazing person she is ... and all is well in our world.  We're allowed bad days right????

#3 How we Roll at Dinnertime and some cute photos

So tonight at around 5pm I started pondering what we might have for dinner.  A quick check of the fridge showed nothing by way of fresh anything (except milk and grapes).  Freezer was similarly barren.  I just did not want to turn to pasta so early in the work week.  Ahhhh I think, we'll do pancakes.  I went to grab the cranberry pancake mix that Diane had so thoughtfully brought and left when it occurred to me that my last two eggs were baking in the oven as part of the cake Lucy and I had made for a later "hair do night" bribe. 

Voila, I had an emergency pack of just add water pancake mix.  I needed to spice it up a bit.  Folks, I created a culinary masterpiece and I am going to share it with you!  

Here are the ingrediants (water not shown):

1. take a ripe banana (i sometimes put my over ripes in the freezer for baking) mash it up in a bowl.

2. add about two cups of complete pancake mix (i use fiber one for the health benefits)

3. add a packet of instant oatmeal (i used apple cinnamon)

4. add about a tablespoon of brown sugar (for the yummy goodness)

5. add water until it's a thick pancake consistency

6. cook and eat.  syrup is not really necessary but obviously a yummy topping

we had our pancakes with some deliciously fresh clementines. 

now for some cute post hair do photos.  she wanted her hair like a ballerina.  the braids took so long to take down that it didn't leave much time or patience for the updo or for actual bun making.  but she's still quite a lovely ballerina.

NaBloPoMo Day 2. Halloween

We had a fun Halloween.  Started in the morning with a pancake breakfast (cranberry pancakes with cranberry jelly, mix provided by Diane).  Yum!  We bid farewell to Diane and the boys and began our post-goodtimes mood crash.  After lunch we went for a nap drive, and she fell asleep and stayed asleep on the sofa for two hours. 

Lucy woke up and decided definately that she wanted to be a witch for trick-or-treating. Great. I was counting on her sticking with the skunk costume (that she used for Zoo Boo, and that she used last year for halloween).  That left us about 20 minutes to put a costume together.  I had a hat, the hat I bought at the beginning of the season.  We were really lucky that Lucy had already decided on an all black outfit that day.  I threw a black dress over her leggings and sweater.I pulled some halloween theme mama size knee high socks on over her leggins.  Threw on a pink wig that she had in her dress up box, and a cape that she made in preschool and VOILA!  Punk rock witch!

Punk rock witch, is not overly into candy so she made it about 2 blocks before she gave up on walking.  Thankfully a stroller from a younger member of our trick-or-treating team helped ease the transition back to home base. 

NaBloPoMo

It's Day one of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month).  I am going to attempt to do one blog post every day for the month of November.

Here are a couple photos of the visit with Diane and her boys.

Happy Halloween

ahhhhhh the quiet of this moment.   We've just had a very fun few days/nights with Diane and her boys.  Hanging out here, playing in the hotel pool, celebrating with 30 of our closest friends/family members our 4th famiversary (sorry Diane that one just got out of control, it shouldn't surprise me that SO many people want to celebrate Lucy, but it did surprise me ... and the restaurant, and probably every other diner at the restaurant).  By the way, I should mention that the folks at Fasika Ethiopian restaurant in St. Paul are incredibly patient and accomodating.  I don't think I've ever been disappointed at that restaurant. 

Lucy was a pretty darn great hostess.  There is nothing she likes more then a house full of boys.  This morning she covered Irmao with two blankets, brought him some hand sanitizer and offered (very selflessly) to watch hime play Nintendo DS.  She's quite the giver.   Wendim and Lucy spent quite a fair amount of time rekindling their friendship and baby Og, well he just charmed the pants off of everyone he came near.  I was on the phone with my mom this morning and I believe she said something like "oh my god he is just too cute" and he is.  Diane KEEPS claiming that he's not very cute in the middle of the night but she never once offered to let him sleep in my room, so she must secretly like all that extra time she spends with Mr. Perfect in every way.  

Today we lost a little love (Lucy and I) because I was pretty much ignoring her as I put our house back together and obsessed over our stinking washing machine that wouldn't spin our blanket yet REFUSED to unlock itself so that I could redistribute the weight.  Shoot, I even unplugged it.  Lucy stared at my as I hit the machine and screamed "NO NO NO NO NO!" I think she was glad that I was refocusing my irritation from her to it.   She went up stairs and I sooned joined her to be presented with a beautifully spit cleaned back door window.  I now refer to that window as either 1. an H1N1 factory or 2. privacy glass. 

So in desperation we went for a nap drive.  A nap drive is a test to see if she's really tired.  We get in the car, no jackets, nice warm fleece blanket.  We drive towards the drive through coffee place.  My rule: if she falls asleep before we get to coffee place I get nothing but a nap outtta my kid,  if she is awake when we get to the drive through I get coffee but probably no nap.  Today she was awake at the coffee place (rats), so I got coffee (!!!) and as we turned around to head home voila, she crashes!!!!   Dynamic duo, coffee and a nap!  

no photos, my camera is being held hostage by a famiversary attendee ... will post photos later.

Four Beautiful Years

10-24-2005  within moments of meeting for the first time.  She was already talking.

October 2006  from baby to toddler.

October 2007 a glimpse of the preschooler. 

October 2008 my baby meets baby M.

October 24, 2009.  My baby is a little stinker.

Hair Hair

I swear Lucy's hair changed over night.  What happened?  It was never "easy", not for me anyways but we had an established hair care routine that at least worked and ended up cute.  These days it still ends up cute but getting from point A to point cute is really changing. 

Old hair care routine:   once a week (or so) take down hair from whatever style it's in and either rinse it with conditioner in the tub or wash with shampoo then rinse with conditioner.  While conditioner is in hair I would have her lay in the water while I underwater combed most of it (the comb used to to through fairly easily under the water).  Then she'd play in the tub while I parted and combed and put her hair in sections.  I'd either finish the style in the tub or do the rest while she watched a movie.  During the final styling I would put a heavier leave in conditioner in her hair.  Viola, fairly drama free hair (always dramatic fussing leading up to the hair doing, but usually only fussing if I pulled during the hair doing).

These days something is happening.  I haven't changed products, well I have but I haven't had one solid product I've stuck with during the years.  Now, I take down her style, get her in the tub and when I get it wet it almost immediately sucks up and starts matting.  Tonight I tried washing it (it's been awhile) to get the products out, then conditioning it.  It took a long long time to coax the mats out of her hair ... and the thing is, the hair was in pigtails and mostly combed out before we started.   This is the second time this has happened.  The last time, I thought it was because I had let her go a couple days with free hair.  That time ended in a funky "trim", that still needs to be addressed by a professional.

Tonights episode was not as traumatic for Lucy.  I got the mats combed out and used a lot of conditioner to help, it didn't pull on her too much and she stayed mostly busy playing with water.  Her hair ended up really cute in 6 braids.  I think it helped that I washed one section at a time after I noticed it was starting to mat up when I got it wet.  Once I had the braids all in, I rinsed her hair off really well with water from the sprayer, then I put some olive oil in to condition it.  

Anyone have experience with any of this ... any one???  Suggestions?