Gotcha Day Anniversary

One year; 365 days and nights since I first saw your beautiful face; encircled you with my arms and held you close and took in your scent. Stared into those lovely eyes looking back at me with curiosity and intelligence and a sweetness that has been there everyday since.

I flew half way around the world to a strange land and had pictured this moment while waiting for you 3 long years. All the sadness of the wait, the adoption process, the traveling, the expenses, they literally disappeared in that moment of having you placed into my arms.

It was a long, tedious, frustrating journey to get to you, probably one of the hardest sustainable efforts I have ever set my sites on to achieve. But, the splendor of the destination point was worth every moment.

I am stronger for traversing the road that lead to you, and I am now better for having you in my life to re-set my purpose, direction and destiny. You have awakened in me the desire to share life's lessons, show you what I know of this world and guide you towards a life filled with hope and kindness to others. I have also realized how much you have to teach me in return. My heart is overflowing with love which I want to shower upon you every moment we are together.

Seeing you proud of a new accomplishment warms me, your shy laugh and gentle ways touch me. You are such a kind person, so considerate of others and wanting to please. You have a desire to know and understand the "why" of everything within your sight and grasp and at the same time a generosity to share it with those around you.

I am in awe of your physical beauty - but even more impressed by the inner beauty which shines through you.

My wish for you is that you always have the self confidence to reach for your dreams and achieve them; to know that you were born to be loved and adored by your family; that your life has it's own path for you to discover, and being my daughter has enabled our paths to become one for this part of our life's journey and I am blessed and thankful to walk with you for as long as God has woven us together.

Happy Gotcha Day Aubriana, my heart outside myself.

Public "OUTING" and Spring is in the Air

I think they could use a little "sprinkling, what do you think?

A little wee one on wee one B-ball.

The ladies team is looking good this year.

It is so tiring laying around on cows and trying to find my place in the herd.

Bull Riding Buck-a-roo.

Greetings from County General;

The last time I posted (gulp) back in February, I was recovering from Pneumonia. Apparently the address I currently reside at is some sort of cosmic petrie dish in which there is an open invitation to all manner of bacteria and virus types to drop in anytime as if we are in a perpetual state of Happy Hour over here.

The latest visitor to darken our door...the dreaded stomach virus. One with a take no prisoners approach who took out our entire squadron in one fell swoop.

I was lucky enough to experience Lil' Dudes first actual vomiting, but being the overachiever he is, it was also combined with his first "Public Vomiting; that's my boy.

I've never actually seen a wide screen edition public vomiting, but I was lucky enough to be up close and personal for this one. We were sitting down for a quick dinner at our local "Eat more Chiken" dining establishment, when Lil' dude abdicated his usual place in the booth sitting across from me and climbed under the table in order to position himself between his sister and me.

"How sweet", thought I,"he wants to be closer to me" Suddenly my husband says (in a voice that in reflection sounds warbled and far away) "He just threw up"...I looked over and saw nothing on his person, then looked down and saw "moisture" on the floor.

I retorted,"that is just spit up, he must have drunk his lemonade too fast". Then I looked deep into my little angel's face and that is when it happened. His eyes opened wide, we're talking Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein wide (google it), then his mouth opened into the shape of a tunnel resembling those seen in Road Runner cartoons and then it came. Pouring forth so fast and furious like a tidal wave of food from the previous days meals.

I was stunned and felt frozen and then some sort of Mother reflex kicked into gear (heretofore not used or made aware of to this mother). While others around me stared with awe at the site before them I jumped to my feet, ordered for food to be moved, the female child (whose name temporarily became "her" as in "get her out of the flood of vomit") and tried to ebb the unrelenting flow coming at me with napkins, menus and a free with purchase children's book. to alter the direction of the spewing human lava. His pocket bib did a fine job of carrying it's fair share of the load and will be memorialised at a special service and given a hero's send off.

Remarkably, after being rushed to the restroom for after care and a staff who thought nothing of cleaning up the "remains of the day" we re-ordered and sat down and enjoyed the rest of our meal. I can proudly mark that experience off of my "horrible things yet to do list" and pat myself on the back for a job well done.

I've included some random pictures to help you get the "bad taste from your mouth my story may have left you with. He heh, I couldn't resist it.

Hallucinations, Recuperation and Observations

First off, many thanks for the good wishes for my health. Pneumonia is a definite A** kicker.

I am on more anti-biotics than than a hooker at Mardis Gras. I have found out that opiate based pain pills cause me to talk in my sleep and have physical hallucinations while sleeping. I have woken myself up by having loud, intense conversations with various people. I woke up one night in a fit trying to get many rings off of my fingers which weren't actually there; and the night I believed I was pulling buttons off of all clothing in front of me, except the sheets were taking a beating posing as said buttons.

I had a follow up x-ray and the pneumonia is still present, but I do feel much better than last week. My Dr. said full recovery can take 6 weeks.

I have spent a lot of time in bed sleeping/resting/thinking and I find I do my deepest contemplating of the big issues when I am at my lowest points in life. I.E. after a funeral, break up, sickness.

Is it me or does this just seem like bad timing? Why would one reflect and analyse and review your life's purpose, meaning, worth, value while you are in a deep pit? The pit just gets deeper and the situation completely unresolvable while in this state of mind.

Therefore, I am going to play the Scarlet O'Hara card and think about these things tomorrow; after all, tomorrow is another day.

I have noticed something troubling to me; personal contact is dwindling into distinction. There is an evolution of human contact we are living and experiencing and it bares, concern and recognition.

We have gone from a people who once used to seek out our neighbors and friends to keep up on the comings and goings of one another. Afternoon cocktails, coffee with the neighbor, calling to chew the fat. Do you remember getting a handwritten letter? It was always exciting to receive something just for you, and someone had thought enough of you to take the time to sit down and write down their thoughts of and for you.

Email arrives, it is less personal, but it does allow one to communicate on a more spontaneous basis, but is often misunderstood and cold.

Blogging: Putting oneself out there for all to see and know, hoping someone takes notice and might just leave you a comment about what you had to say that day.

My Space/Facebook: Just the stats please and a come one come all policy. Pretty much anyone can find you with a couple clicks of the keys.

Texting: where the language is a code and although the communication can be frequent, it is often dull, meaningless and silly.

Tweeting: when you only want to say one quick thing to the world.

I am old fashioned in my thinking, but this lack of human contact is bothersome to me.

I want to be more than a bleep on a screen, I will not remember you sent me a joke, or video clip. Memories come from time spent with one another and taking the opportunity to soak other people in.

I hope we can all take some time to tend to our friends far and wide by reaching out in more concentrated ways that impress upon them how special they are by sharing with them the most precious and limited gift we all have - our time.

I'm off to pull buttons off the sheets.

Valerie

Attention All Moms!

Plese take a moment to think of yourself and what you need. I know how hard it is to take the time to care for you, but it truly is a gift you give to your family with interest.

I have been literally sick since Thanksgiving, we have all had it around here and for some reason what is a runny nose and cough the kids is much harder for me. Case in point on Thursday night I started to feel horrible again, soar throat, chills, aches and extrememe pain in my upper back and left ribs - it was awful. I finally told G to call 911 and they came out and checked out my blood pressure, temp, heart rate etc. which were elevated. They offered to take me to the ER, but I politely declind and then went on to spend the longest and most painful night of my life alone in a chair. There was no relief for even a moment, and I started to get panicky since it was so hard to breathe.

The next day I had thought I would go my regular Dr. to find out what the problems was when I was racked with coughing which felt like getting hit with a sledgehammer and noticed the sink was filled with blood.

I knew this was serious, so and I decided to go directly to the ER and after being there for many hours, 7 SEVEN sticks to start an IV, tests, two bags of IV antibiotics and wonderful pain medicine I was diagnosed with Pneumonia. They chose to let me recuperate at home, becuase apparently people do better at home with oral antibiotics. I don't know about that, today was more of the same pain and any coughing is excruciating and I am so scared the babies will get this too. If I'm not feeling any better by tomorrow they want me to come back for more IV meds and both of my arms are covered in bruises and sore from all of the sticks.

I encourage everyone who is so used to trying to do it all to invest some time in your own health and well being, you and your family will thank you for it.

V

Splish - Splash

Hey, is this a tushy shot?

A day at the spa (sort of)

Nobody pull the plug, I'm tellin' ya for the last time.

Hey, they pulled the plug!


What is that camera doing in here? I'm not ready for my close-up.

I was talking to my sister on the phone the other night and telling her another bath-tub story about the kids, when I heard her say (for what must have been the 20th time) "you should take a picture of that". It occurred to me, I didn't have any bathtub photos of the kids together.

With Lil Dude, we had nothing but photos of him in water; you would have thought he was

a member of Jacques Cousteau's lead diving team.

When Aubriana arrived on the scene, suddenly our wash load doubled and who had time to capture water frolicking on a memory stick when there were twice as many everythings to be cleaned and scrubbed?

Then it dawned on me, flash forward to the future when the kids are bickering and yelling some

nonsense about cooties and "no boys/girls allowed" yadda yadda yadda and I could pull out one of these gems and say,

"Do you remember when you loved and adored each other; when every night you would come to me pulling at your clothes wanting them off so you could get in the tub together?

Do you remember when brother would push you down and get put in time out and while he was crying, you would go and sit with him and put your hand on his shoulder and share his timeout with him?

Do you remember that whenever I got brother up from sleeping he would race me to your door so he could be the one to wake you up with a scream of joy and a smile?

Do you remember how the two of you would jump on our bed in diapers and roll over each other squealing and laughing as if it was the best thing in the world?

Do you remember when you couldn't walk yet and brother could and he would go to the staircase and call to you in a language only the two of you understood until you crawled over to him and you would ascend together?

Do you remember? I do..."