1/2 day ...

Well the first day of school outfit is carefully laid out.  The first day of school hair do is complete, and should last the whole first week.  The first day of school back pack is packed.  Mama needs a beer.  In 14 hours her new life as a elementary student begins. 

Here is Lucy the night before kindergarten. 

New hairdo and pretty smile.

In other news.  Originally I had planned a boring stay at home day for Sunday.  Lucy's behavior had other plans. I knew I was going to be in trouble if I stayed home with her much longer.  The girl needed to be out and running with other folks to talk to.  Enter Lucky:

At the same time on the other side of town a facebook plea went out to the masses.  The mother of a certain 4 year old and newborn was left single parenting it for awhile and after a night of a fussy baby and similar bored child antics there was a cry in the daytime ...

So I thought, hey I'll take them both to the zoo.  They'll run, they'll be best friends forever (I've read about his love of the ladies), they'll exhaust themselves with giddiness and both of the moms could celebrate.

Poor Lucky. Lucy was most definitely not in any friendly sort of mood and all of his attempts at engaging with her ended up with her screaming at him.  He looked so crushed. He tried tickling (and got pushed), he tried singing in her face (got yelled at), he tried holding her hand (she holds no hand).   In Lucy's defense she did try to make amends.  She tried showing Lucky where the sink was (he already KNEW that), she tried pointing out a prairie dog (he already SAW that).    Ahh well, at least 3 daytime hours were killed in the attempt which shortened the day a bit.  Maybe they'll meet up again and Lucy will be more receptive to his friendly advances. 

5 days

It's our last weekend before school starts.  Crazy.  Last night we went to the open house at Lucy's new school.  What fun!!!!  Lots of cool teachers, great diverse group of families.  All at the school because they choose it, they researched it and they got a spot.  It's pretty cool.  We met Lucy's new teacher, Natalie.  She seems really really nice, energetic, a kind encouraging presence.  I didn't get to spend a lot of time talking to her but I have a feeling Lucy is going to do well with her guidance.

posted schedule of Lucy's first day.  I'll be sitting her on Wednesday

clicking on this photo and imagining what Lucy is up to.

Here she is with a couple of her classmates.  Look at how

cute her kindergarten room is!

Lucy and the girl sitting next to her have already

asked for playdates.

she sat down and started reading a book.

she doesn't do this at home.

Here is her very own locker!

She got trained in on how to open it.

she passed her first test!

6 days

T-6 days until kindergarten.  What the?   We are getting organized, finding space for order and routine and we are both excited about school starting.  Tonight it's open house night at her new (awesome) school.  We will meet her kindergarten teacher!  Very exciting.  Meanwhile we try to focus on the present as much as we can, enjoying our free vitamin D before the sun short bitter cold days begin again.

9 Days ...

Holy Schmoly.  9 days until kindergarten!!!   We are winding down summer in a fast and furious way.  Swimming in the back yard while we can, hoping that we are on the last couple days of needing the air conditioning.  We have been working our butts off scraping and painting the window trims outside, putting up homemade soffits and facia around the house and fixing bare spots in our yard all in prep for our brand new, free windows that will be installed on Wednesday.  We live in a neighborhood that has fix-it funds for lead elimination.  I am so excited and while I have small tings of sadness for loosing our beautiful historic windows I am also just happy to have easy to clean, energy efficient and lead free windows all over my house!   Hopefully the install goes as planned on Wednesday so that I can get our house put back together and we can kick it and enjoy the rest of summer.   Thursday is the open house at Lucy's new school.  I am very excited to meet her new teacher.  Last night I got an email from her kindergarten teacher explaining the daily schedule, how and what she teaches and the units of study.  SO FREAKN' EXCITING!!!  Plus the teacher gave the parents her home phone number so that we can connect should we need to.  How amazing. 

Sorry no photos.  Too tired.

Helping a friend look for her daughter's sister

If you think you can help please leave a comment, I don't have all my ducks in a row interms of contact info for Kerri (Medina's mom) ...

Looking for Eliham/Buscando Eliham


Posted on August 22, 2010 by Kerri

We are looking for Medina’s sister Eliham. We know she was adopted by a family in Spain using the agency IPI. She was relinquished sometime after November, 2007. Eliham would be 5 years old now. She was born in Dessie and their mother is named Workinesh. Their grandfather is Arage and their grandmother is Bayoush.



If you have any information about Eliham, please let me know. I would love to contact her family. Medina misses her sister very much and would love to know where she is.



————–



Estamos buscando Eliham, la hermana biologica de Medina. Sabemos que fue adoptada por una familia en Espana usando el IPI. Fue llevado al orfanto en Noviembre del 2007 o despues. Eliham tendria 5 anos ahora. Nacio en Dessie. Su mama se llama Workinesh. Su abuelo es Arage y su abuela es Bayoush.



Si tienes alguna informacion sobre Eliham, por favor contactame. Me gustaria much tener contacto con su familia. A Medina, le hace mucha pena no saber donde esta su hermana.

14 days

it's going to be really hard to break her outta the sleeping on the floor of mom's room habit!  I think I'll wait until she's in her 2nd week of kindergarten ... which by the way starts in 14 days.

15 days

15 days until kindergarten.  I am really excited.  Monday afternoon Lucy and I stopped in to see her new school and met some employees, saw her classroom (they already had Lucille's little areas marked with her cute cute name!), saw the school... got SUPER EXCITED!!!   I have lost a lot of my nervousness now that I know she's in a class of wait for it ... 13 ... instead of say 29.  13!  Yes 13! 

the kids used up most of Lucy's first aid supplies on a poor helpless worm.

We celebrated by going on a quicky one night camping trip with "the boys" and their mom.  It's an annual tradition that we almost didn't get to this year so I was glad to be able to do a midworkweek trip.  I am completely exhausted, but well stocked up on vitamin D and hopefully last nights insomnia combined with middle of the freezing (in the 40's) night bathroom trips, racoon invasions (not our site), and shivering cold coldness will make for a really good nights sleep tonight.

Nathan stepped up to the plate to help Lucy zip her jacket

seriously. YOU try to get these 4 to look at the camera and smile, all at the same time

                                           a good activity that doesn't take up much packing space?
                                                         rock painting.  we leave the painted rocks
                                                            scattered around the site for the next camper
                                                       to discover, or for the rain to wash, whichever comes first

17 days

17 days until kindergarten.  Decided hey why  not make it a doozy.  We partied hard all day, first at our family reunion and then at Betsy and Eric's wedding.  Tomorrow after I get off work we go for a night of camping. 

Lucy and our newest family member, Axel 

ready to go to the wedding

Lucy and Morgan decided to get married

18 days

this afternoon Lucy started taking a sour turn, started reminding me of the horrible 3's ...  an example of one interaction:  I was lounged on the sofa (mistake 1), pretending to not be listening to anything or anyone with Lucy's rock and roll ear protectors (mistake 2) when out of nowhere my 5 yr old barrels down on my stomach full force.  I yelped, I sternly told her that she is not to jump on people without warning (like I've sternly told her before) and she says "FINE, FINE, you are STUPID, you are NOT MY FAMILY, I HATE this family" ....  and i was left on the sofa with a sore stomach all stupid and apparently childless wondering "what the heck?".  

decided that after dinner we were going to have to go somewhere or bad bad things could happen to our sweet sweet relationship. 

we dropped in on the Pizza Luce block party, but since Zep was prohibitied (and being naughty) we just walked around the neighborhood.

18 days til kindergarten ...

19 days

19 days until the big first day of kindergarten.  Hard to believe that 5 short years ago I was writing things like this:

No news is just no news Aug 2005

This is not the most exciting time of the adoption process ... It's making me quite mental I must say. The next thing I am waiting for is the letter from US-CIS saying that I can take a baby home ... I expect that in the next couple of weeks. So, basically I am just waiting and doing little projects in preparation. I hung up a couple more things including a lion rug that my aunt gave me, she got it in Ethiopia a long time ago and it looks great hanging in my room. People are also starting to arrange baby showers. This at least gives me a focus. I just want to go and get her! Hopefully very soon I will be able to write some real news here. Stacy

and that 4 short years ago I thought this was blogworthy:
 
that really bites! Aug 2006

My child is a biter! I know it's nothing to be proud of or excited about, but she uses those teeth so appropriately. Let me clarify ... I am glad she gets mad and feels like she can express herself, and I let her know that biting momma is NOT OK, but deep inside, I feel relief that she'll fight for her right, fight for her right to stay in the pool, fight for her right to eat sand etc. We went to the doctor today to get her ears/nose/throat checked out, and she weighs 19#6oz. Not quite enough to face forward in the carseat. I wish I had something deeply profound to say, but when I am "blogging" it's either after 9pm and I have no brain or I am at work and trying to be quick about things.

three years ago
 
No more fofee thank you momma  August 2007
 

Isn't that just the most polite way to turn down a sip of foffee? It's true, Lucy gets a couple sips of the morning brew ... I call it bonding time. Daycare might not like to hear this! The other day she turned it down. I have a sneaky suspision that she's been ruined for home brew ever since the picnic weekend where she had a tast of heaven in a paper cup. The Caribou Campfire Mocha.
 
two years ago
 
Summers ...  August 2008
 

 

Even though I work and for the most part summers are status quo regarding our M-F daytime schedule it still feels really wild and crazy this summer in our casa. We are less boxed in and our world is so much bigger. Some times it feels almost out of control. Maybe this is in part what is happening with Lucy at times. There are days when she is calm and peaceful and falls in the normal range of good/bad behaviors but then there are days when she seems "un boxed" in her emotions and behaviors. Like there's a glitch and whoooaaa baby stand back when the glitch kicks in.



Part of me (and I know I'll eat these words soon) longs for winter and the physical boundaries that winter puts in place in Minnesota. I feel like it'll give us a chance to catch our breaths and review all that has happened over the warmer months. Lucy has turned into a kid this summer. Today it occured to me that we just have incredibly easy conversations, its' no effort to understand what she wants and needs. Lucy can understand and accept delayed gratification. She can participate in our daily routine in a way that makes her a partner. It's a lot of fun
 
and just last year
 
things and stuff  August 2009
 

It's been a long long week (anyone see a pattern?). Lucy had her last week of summer preschool arts camps. We now piece child-care together until after labor day when we resume our regularly scheduled program. Can you believe that next year at this time I'll be blogging about kindergarden?????? Holy Crap!

Sunday!!!

What you say???  Stacy is excited about a Sunday evening?  Has she had a horrible, awful weekend and does she want time away from Lucy?   NO readers NO.   I am excited about it being Sunday night because I am on vacation (staycation).  Lucy and I are just going to hang and be together Monday and Tuesday.  Wednesday - Friday I am going to get some grandma care for Lucy so that I can scrape and paint the outside window trim in preparation for our new free windows (thank you city of minneapolis, hud, Healthy Homes Lead Project!!). 

So instead of pouting, cleaning and prepping on this Sunday, Lucy and I headed to the airconditioned chaos of Mall of America.  We walked around.  We saw a friend.  We tried hard to find the giant shark giving out free ride tickets.

In the end I had to buy a pass so Lucy could go on some rides.  I couldn't resist.  She was disappointed when we didn't run into "free-ride shark man" in the mall but understood that our funds were limited and that we might not go on any rides. I mean, if she would have thrown a fit, or whined and cried, I might have saved our budget. 

but really, to deny her this joy?  for $9.00 (unlimited rides).  I couldn't.  Of course, I will be denying us that trip to the movie theater on Tuesday because of today's lack of denial.  Oh well. We'll do something free and fun instead.  I really wanted to support her good nature.

and i knew she loves the thrill of a good spinny ride! 

I really loved that I could be a spectator while she loved the spinny rides.

and the hoppy/droppy rides

and they danced ...

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Monday

Seems like life has been a struggle lately.  I should step back a minute, it seems like the moment Lucy got her crap together and our life together became more peaceful all hell broke loose at work.  It's been a pretty miserable couple months.  I am torn between really loving the agency I work for and really hating my new role in that agency.  I've looked for new work, had interviews but nothing has come from them.  Now most nights I am pretty exhausted after working all day (half of it with toddlers) and parenting/housekeeping/babysitting all night.  Looking for jobs is sort of waffling off in that great exhausted atmosphere.  Not that there are any jobs out there. 

I am coping by really really enjoying my daughter, probably more then I have since she jumped into the horribly 3's a couple years ago.  These are the days where dropping her off at daycare is almost as painful as it was in the early days right after my maternity leave vanished.  I also enjoy nights away from my daughter (keeping it real) even if I just use those nights to hit the grocery store in a leisurly fashion, or organize her closet. 

I am really looking forward to having next week off of work, having a visit from out of town friends who've I have missed dearly, and getting my house in shape so I can get some new free windows installed (if you are in Minneapolis, and live in an old house, and have kids under 6, and are relatively poor, let me know, I'll hook you up).  

what a disjointed blog post.

Cooking with Lucy

Is fun, educational, a good chance to bond and a great way to get her to eat new foods.

tonight's cooking with Lucy episode included Swedish Pancakes, topped with brown sugar and bananas.  Lucy was in charge of chopping the bananas.  At one point during the banana chopping she proved once again that she does indeed listen to my "stories" she was chopping and muttering to herself "see the problem is Blueberry does not know how to hold a knife".   Lucy did manage to chop the whole banana with a sharp knife and some silly antics with nary a scratch.  Whew.