The Boys Meet Kismet

Last weekend, we decided it was time for the boys to meet Kismet. Brad and I had been disagreeing on how that should happen. He was all ready for an all-day adventure with Kismet, as he'd had her over an entire Saturday while I was out of town. But I didn't feel that the boys' first exposure to her should be an all-day adventure, since I wasn't sure how things would go. Not to mention that Brad has had more opportunities to spend quality time with her so he knows her better (and is also madly in love with her) and is ready to have her move in right now while the rest of us are still trying to get to know her.

We finally decided to have her spend a few hours with us in an informal fashion. We picked the boys up and then picked her up and took them off to Hollywood Connection to play. We got some food and played miniature golf and let the kids run around and get on some rides for a bit. Kismet connected with Frank very fast. Frank is adorable and charming (no matter what his siblings say) and interactive and girls just love him to bits, so he's used to a lot of attention from girls. Obviously, he loves the attention, too, and it goes to his head a bit.

Kismet kept hugging him and at one point, when she wasn't close by, he said to me, "I think she likes me." Of course, he meant LIKE like but I tried to downplay that a bit and just said, "Of course she likes you. She doesn't have any brothers or sisters and has always wanted them. She's excited about the fact that you're close to her age and will do the things she likes to do."

We then headed over to a mall for a little bit because Kismet loves to go. I was highly amused by the fact that she hauled Frank off to Claire's to look at girly stuff. He put up with it for a few minutes then decided he'd had enough and wanted to go look for hats. Surprisingly, she was game and the two of them went racing off through the mall to find a Zumiez so Frank could look at skater stuff, as he's a skater wannabe. As we were leaving, she made us stop at a bridal store so she could look at the prom dresses and Frank looked at me and said, "I'm not used to having a sister who's into girly things," to which I replied, "I know! I'm not used to having a daughter who's into girly things." (This because Moon Unit hasn't been into girly things since Frank was a baby.)

We eventually took her back home and she wanted to play tag with Frank, who would have been all for it, I think, but we had to end our day. After dropping her off, Dweezil made a comment about how Kismet seemed all over Frank and had more or less ignored him. I wasn't sure how that affected him, if it bothered him or made him jealous at all but he passed it off by saying, "I'd rather be underloved by someone I don't know than overloved by someone I don't know." Dweezil and Kismet will surely connect in time as they both have a deep-seated love of music. They'll probably be sharing their tunes and talking music.

In the meantime, I think I can safely say that their meeting was a success. As long as Kismet and Frank continue to get along so well, I think there's a good possibility of them being good friends. Frank has longed for a sibling as active as he is and who would do things with him and I believe that Kismet will be willing to do the things that Frank wants to do. She is every bit as active, if not more so, as he is and this could be a match made in heaven.

Foster parent training starts tomorrow. We are less than 3 weeks away from bringing her home.

Meeting Our Destiny

So we met Kismet last night. It was pretty darned cool. We met at Red Robin, which is one of her favorite places to eat. She came with her caseworker and her CASA (court appointed special advocate, which is a volunteer who is appointed by court to, well, advocate for abused and neglected children in the foster care system, see more). Her CASA had a big binder full of pictures of Kismet from their different activities and adventures together, which we had a chance to browse through rather quickly while waiting for Kismet and her caseworker. It was fun to see the different pictures and things she likes to do.

Kismet walked in and looked at us and looked all serious for a moment. Then she instantly started to dig into her bag to get some stuff out for us but we were lead off to our table. She wanted to sit between me and Brad. She then handed us some pictures that she colored for us and she gave us some bracelets that she made for us, with our names spelled out in beads. She hands Brad's to him and says, "I know your name has an R in it but I didn't have one [me instantly thinking the bracelet she made said "Bad"] so I put a green bead in there instead." So cute!

She was very chatty and a bit giddy and Brad and I were both so charmed by her and I have little recollection of most of the dinner experience, just sitting and absorbing her. She did ask us almost immediately if it was okay to call us mom and dad, which of course we said it was, and so she did. When her CASA was leaving, she decided to walk out with her, having conversed with her caseworker in whispers first, then as she was walking past me, she leaned over and whispered, "I'm going out because I'm gassy." That made me chuckle.

She was enthralled by the fact that Brad has an iPhone and wanted us to give her a ride back to her house after dinner. She asked to ride in the passenger seat and so she played with Brad's phone all the way back to her house. Brad asked her what her favorite color was and she said blue. Then he asked her, "Paper or plastic?" She looked at him and said, "That's a dumb question." And we laughed some more. Then she asked us if we swore, to which we replied that yes, sometimes we swear but not at other people. She had seen something on Brad's phone with the "S-word" on it and he told her that she would have to keep him in line with his swearing, to which she replied, "Yes, I can see that." As I'm laughing, I'm thinking, "This kid is a good match for our family!"

We get to her house and we go inside with her while she drops stuff off and then she comes back out and says, "I don't want you guys to leave," and throws herself at Brad, giving him the longest hug ever. I was a little worried with how long the hug was that she might be getting ready to have a melt-down but she didn't. Then she finally let go of him and hugged me for a little bit then went back to hug Brad again. She's really taken to Brad, although I console myself with this by saying that it's only coz he had an iPhone. I'm not jealous that she likes Brad better. (Okay, maybe I am a little bit.)

She also asked us if she could spend the weekend with us and we had to tell her not yet but that we would see her again this weekend. Brad called over to her house today and was told by the foster parents that she had a bit of a melt-down today because she wanted to be with us. I guess nothing says, "I like you guys and want to be with you," by having a melt-down at school. :-) But I think everyone rather expected something like that to happen.

We will see her again this weekend and we are looking forward to it. We have another month-plus before she gets to come home with us. Seems like a long time.

Moving Right Along

Last I wrote about Kismet, we were still waiting to hear something, anything, about training for her needs. The following week, we heard back from the caseworker, who said that the current group home parents where Kismet was living would be leaving in October. Since Kismet doesn't do well with changes, the caseworker was thinking that instead of her having to adjust to new foster parents and then turning around and moving in with us and having to adjust again a short time later that maybe it was a good idea for Kismet to move in with us in October. Well, of course we were all over that idea! Two months earlier than we'd expected? Hell yeah!

We finally got to meet with Kismet's caseworker this past Monday, along with her foster father, her therapist, a woman who I think was supposed to be the head of the group homes and also a former foster mother to Kismet, and a court-appointed volunteer who spends time with kids. We talked a bit about some of the things Kismet is currently going through, how she's struggling with the idea of the current foster parents leaving (they are having a baby in October, which is why they are leaving), some of the things we might expect from her and how we might deal with some of the behavioral issues that might come up. Then we were told we were looking at a two-week training period and some "shadowing" at the group home. I'm not sure what the shadowing would entail but I guess it's just seeing how things work in the group home.

We were then told that since she would be moving in with us in October, which previously had been presented to us as an option but is now an actuality, we could meet her this week. This week! OMG! After all this waiting and waiting and thinking that we wouldn't get her until December and wouldn't even meet her for months, everything has been ramped up and we will get to meet her this week!

The caseworker then told Kismet the next day that she was going to be adopted. We had made a little light-hearted booklet for Kismet as a way of introducing the family so that she would know some things about us. She was given this booklet and was apparently so excited, she was giggling and squealing and had to go run around the yard to burn off some of that excitement. We were thrilled that she was so excited. Who would have guessed anyone could be that excited about living with us?

So we are on for meeting Kismet tomorrow night. I think the plans are to see her again some time in the next week. Then I will be leaving for Orlando for 5 days and when I get back, we will start our training.

This is so exciting, I almost feel like squealing and giggling myself!

Who Needs Paper Towel?

The boys are up this weekend and we were sitting around the dinner table this evening, cracking jokes and eating (home-grilled) hamburgers. (I rock!) I discovered that we had no paper towels in the house to wipe our hands off on. Home-grilled hamburgers with condiments can be a bit messy. Add to that the fact that we were also eating chips and the discovery of no paper towels was a rather unfortunate turn of events.

So I started wiping my hands together, as if that's somehow going to rid me of the mess on my hands. Then I reached out towards Brad and Frank, who were sitting on either side of me, and wiped my hands off on their shirts. (I also let out an unexpected belch that set the wine glasses to tinkling in their rack and the whole family falling out of their chairs with laughter but that's another story all together.) Then I stuck my sticky fingers under the table to let our dog Sunny lick them off but that didn't help much either.

Brad, being the totally chivalrous dude that he is, leans his shoulder towards me and says: Here, go ahead and wipe your hands off. That's what shirts are for.

Me: Give me your pant leg.

Brad gives me a look.

Me: Oh yeah, it's not your pant leg, it's your socks.

Me, to the kids: Brad will wipe his fingers off on his socks when he's wearing them if he doesn't have a napkin.

Me, to Brad: So what do you do when you're not wearing any socks? Do you wipe them off on your ankles? I guess that's why men have hairy legs, to wipe off their dirty fingers.

Dweezil: I don't even want to know.

Me: No, it's good because then he has this stuff in the hair on his legs and then the dogs go up and lick his legs and the circle of life begins all over again.

Moral of the story: Make sure to always have paper towel on hand in case of emergency so that your wife doesn't share your dirty little secrets with the kids and her 9 blog followers.


Addendum: Now that I think about it, I think we might actually have some napkins in one of the storage cabinets in the kitchen, making the wiping off of my hands on other people's shirts totally unnecessary. I'm sure we all learned a very valuable lesson from this.

"You Don't Suck"

So on Friday, Brad and I had picked up the boys to bring home for the weekend. And our normal silliness ensued. I don't recall exactly what the conversation was at that moment but I said something about how I was so awesome. Conversation went something like this:

Me: I'm so awesome!

Dweezil (14): No you're not.

Me: Yes I am! Ask Brad!

Dweezil: He's your husband, he's supposed to say you're awesome.

Me: No really, he doesn't have to.

Brad: I think you're awesome.

Me: See? I am awesome! Why don't you just admit that you love me coz I'm awesome?

Dweezil: I love you coz you don't suck.

Me: Aww, come on!

Dweezil: All my friends at school say they hate their moms and I say, "I love my mom."

Brad: Why do your friends hate their moms?

Dweezil: I don't know. But they're always saying they hate their moms and I say, "I love my mom, she's awesome."

Me: HAH! You DO think I'm awesome! You just admitted it!

Everyone, even Frank, who had been sulking about something or other up to this point, started laughing.

I'm on Cloud 9. That's high praise from a 14 year old! AAAND, he admits to his friends that he loves me. :-)

Being a Family

It's been 8 years since my ex and I split up. Life has gotten better over time and now that I'm with Brad, I have discovered real happiness. Probably the first time in my life, I'm happy because Brad and I have a solid relationship. But if I have any regrets at all, it's the decision I made to leave the boys with my ex.

My life with my husband, the life I thought I wanted and had worked so hard to have, was unraveling. I was in a pretty deep depression when we split up. I thought about what I should do about the kids but I felt incapable of properly caring for my children emotionally. I know that leaving the kids with their dad was the right decision at that time in my life. It was only a year or so after I left before Moon Unit was living with me again, but that doesn't mean that I don't regret that decision every single day of my life.

They were at our house most of last week and while they were doing a lot of bickering and fussing and hitting each other, there's something about having them here longer than a weekend that makes me feel like a parent again. By that, I don't mean that I haven't felt like a parent to Moon Unit, although she hasn't responded well over the years to being parented. But having us all together, the boys, Moon Unit, Brad, and me, I feel like we're a family. I feel like we're more of a family when we're all together. To me, this is what I think a family should feel like.

We played some board games a few nights in a row. We even got Moon Unit involved, and it's a lot more fun when she is involved because she is clever and has a wicked sense of humor. Brad is too cool for board games, though, so he wasn't playing. We play Wacky Words and Imaginiff, which are hilarious games. Some of the stuff we come up with for Wacky Words has us laughing for days, and even weeks, on end. We also painted the hallway, went out for pizza for Dweezil's birthday, and went to see Toy Story 3 together.

I started to wonder last night what kind of parent I was when I let Moon Unit play Grand Theft Auto, but she is 19 and if you know anything at all about that game, there's a heck of a lot of humor in it. Moon Unit is particularly funny when playing games like this because she deliberately goes overboard with some of the violence in such a way that you can't help but laugh at what's going on. For instance, she kept choosing to have her character steal a scooter because she would run it into something and he would go flying into the road. I suppose if you're going to be overly serious about the game, it might not be that funny to you, but we find the humor in most things and we were all laughing our heads off. She gets a bit giddy with these things and it's just fun to watch her and laugh. Then of course, Dweezil picks up the game and is having fun with it, too. And I go, "Hmm, should I be letting him do this?" But to me, the best part of being a family is not about being a hard-ass about everything, getting down on your kids, telling them all the things they can't do. Sometimes you have to do that, of course. Sometimes you have to tell them how things are and discipline when rules are broken. But the best part is creating a loving, happy environment for them, being there for them whenever you can, and creating happy memories.

I love sitting around the dinner table with them and cracking jokes and having burping contests with Frank. I love being able to make them laugh with stuff that's just off the wall. I like the fact that when they come to our house, even if they still haven't figured out that being with us is better than being at home with their dad who yells at them all the time, they can still have a good time with us and feel loved and accepted for who they are and not get judged or yelled at, that maybe they can be inappropriate some times with the things they say or do something that maybe somewhat inappropriate for them to be doing and not get in trouble for it. Maybe I'm a little too liberal with them but their happiness is of the utmost importance to me. I want them to feel like our home is a happy home, a place where they can go and know they are loved and the world is an okay place.

Should I have been letting them play GTA? Technically, probably not. But I look at our interactions with each other and I like, for the most part, how we are with each other. I sit at the table or the sofa and watch our interactions with each other, when we're laughing and laughing and everyone is feeling good, and I think, "This is going to be so good for K. She's really going to enjoy this family." Because I enjoy this family and I wish for all the world that we were together all the time.

Crime and Punishment

The other night, Brad and I were lying in bed chatting before sleeping (coz bedtime is a great time to be in bed). This used to be a nightly thing, chatting in bed before going to sleep, until Brad started working all the freaking time, staying up until midnight or later and not snuggling with me until I'm ready to go to sleep, the bastard!

Where was I? Oh yeah, so we were chatting and talking about our daughter, Moon Unit. Moon Unit is, for lack of a better word, a slug. Okay, so that's not entirely true. She is, in fact, a person, not some slimy, creepy, insecty-type garden creature that's pretty much a snail without a shell. But she reminds me of one sometimes most of the time all the time. Because she is so seriously unmotivated, we were supposed to be all structured with her and stuff, making charts and what-not, to encourage her to do... something. Anything. Only, you know, I've only tried to do that her entire life to absolutely no avail. This was something I was informed by Brad that we need to do, which I can only assume came as a directive of some sort from Moon Unit's therapist.

Anyway, since Brad works from home and since Moon Unit seems to ignore almost everything I say to her, he's been the one who's been implementing some of these things. He's the one who's been trying to get her on some sort of schedule, getting her to do some work for him, etc. Except that Brad is really not a hard-ass. He just can't be. It's not in his nature.

So while we're chatting the other night, he goes, "Oh, I need to take Moon Unit's chair away from her", referring to her desk chair, as she spends like pretty much all day on her laptop. So I go, "Why do you need to take her chair away from her?" And he's like, "Because she didn't get up on time this morning."

Silence for a minute.

"So you're taking her chair away from her because she didn't get up on time?"

"Yes." Silence again.

"You do realize that she doesn't actually need her chair. She can sit on her bed with her laptop. Or at the kitchen table. Or on the sofa," I say, thinking this is completely obvious.

"I know but if I take her chair away, she'll remember to go to bed on time and get up on time. And next step is turning out her lights."

Crickets chirp.

"So," I say, "you're going to take away her chair, turn out her lights, and let her sit on her bed in the dark with her laptop. Or she can go into another room and play on her laptop with lights on."

"Okay, so I'm not very good at punishment," he says defensively.

"Ya think?!?"

This is why I love Brad.