Five years ago today my husband and I set eyes on our beautiful daughters for the very first time. Alley was brought in, holding a caregiver's hand. I have to be honest and admit that for a split second I was sad. As beautiful and perfect as she was, I thought she was the "baby" and was a bit disappointed that she was as big as she was. She was placed on my lap and was all smiles, touching my face, looking right into my eyes. I fell in love immediately. Then Kat was brought in. Teeny-tiny Kat. I was relieved at that point. Our baby was truly a baby. She was placed on LDP's lap and was a bit apprehensive but soon seemed very comfortable.

Alley was just eight days shy of 4-years-old and the size of maybe a typical 2-year-old. Kat had just turned 2, but appeared to be quite a bit younger than that. Alley wore size 2T, Kat was in 12-18 months.

We presented each girl with her first kukla (doll) and they played with them on our laps, making them dance, identifying their body parts, and just plain being silly with them. We talked with the director, educators, and caregivers of the baby house. We all laughed and had a very relaxed time with the girls. We visited for about 45 minutes and got as much information as they were willing to share with us at that point. We were then given a time frame of 24 hours to decided whether we were going to go forward with this adoption or not.

As the caregivers were saying goodbye and walking the girls out of the room, Alley turned to her caregiver and said, "Next time I will go by my papa." When we were told what she said, we both just melted. There was truly no way in hell at that point we could say no to them and not welcome them into our cozy little family. We still sent their info. to our IA doctor that night, but no matter what he said about them, they were, in our hearts, already our daughters.

And the rest, as they say, is history! Or, HERstory? ;)




(I hope to post a picture or two from our first meeting, but at this point, I can't find them. I have hard copies that I could scan, but I cannot find any pictures on any of our computers and it makes me sick. We couldn't find them for a while and I kept putting it out of my mind. There's an album for the day we think we probably downloaded (uploaded?) them off of the camera, but the folder is empty. I still have to check in a few other places, and hopefully I have a disc that I may have gotten from the Wal market at the time, but I'm not sure where that would be. Thankfully we have lots of hard copies, but we never printed out all the pics we took at the time. When I get a chance to get to the scanner, I'll try to post our first family photo.)

I had every intention of keeping up with NaBloPoMo but it just ain't happenin'. Obviously. My mom's situation is the main reason and she needs me more than you apparently do, so that's where all my time has been going. She's doing all right. I wish she were doing better, but she's just hanging in there. We're hoping she can muster up enough energy to make it to my brother's for dinner tomorrow, as she really wants to be there, so I'm thinking positively tonight.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone. I believe I will be. :)

You take them both and there you have...(Come on all you Alan Thicke fans...finish the line!!)... ;)

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Oldest crazy sister has apparently disowned her two younger sisters.
Claims she never fit into our "clique" among other things. We're 9 & 11 years younger than her. She just realized this NOW? So many emotions to deal with right now. Most of me wants to just say screw it and move on, but that's not me. I just can't do that. Obviously it's up to her at this point, but in time things die down and that's what I'm hoping for.

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On a happier note, I saw my mom today and although she was tired and had absolutely no energy whatsoever, she was hungry and happy and talked my arms off. Yes, both of them. I take that as a great sign.

sisters' still feuding, Mom's still ailing...film at 11:00.


Also, I just downloaded a bunch of recent pictures so hopefully I'll get them up one of these years.


Also also, parent-teacher conferences were tonight. I'll be back to brag soon! :)

Apparently the antibiotics were too strong and that's what was bringing her down. Unfortunately, even though she was only on them for 10.5 days, they've done some permanent damage that her doctor doesn't feel she's going to recover from*. I'm not sure I totally understand that (nor was it explained to me thoroughly) so I'm just going to have to wait and find out what that's all about. I talked to her pretty much as soon as she and my father got home from the doctor and she was pooped. Basically she told me that she's going to go back on one of the meds, one pill every other day, to see how she does with it and that they had a long conversation with him about her quality of life, and it's not good. I didn't press about anything as I knew she was exhausted and just wanted to get into bed.

*My sister (my oldest, meanest, vindictive-ist sister) emailed me about the over-use of the antibiotics, so as of right now, I'm not totally dismissing it, but I'm considering it heresay. I just want to have a heart-to-heart with my mommy to figure out what's going on with her and what I can do to help her out.

That's it. Once again, I am so done for the day. Both sisters are stressing me out and it's very new to me. I don't get stressed. Well, I didn't until now. :(

She's feeling a bit stronger. She requested food today -- chicken nuggets and a chocolate shake. This is big. :) I did not see her but my SIL did and she said although she didn't look much better, she acted like she had a teency-weency sliver of energy. That's more than she had for the past week.

She goes to the infectious disease specialist tomorrow morning, so we'll hopefully have a different plan of attack then.

Until then...goodnight.

...She did it herself -- miracle of miracles -- she called the doctor...

My mom was told to stop all meds (except her nebulizer and her inhaler). If she has no relief by tomorrow, she goes to the ER. If she feels a bit better, then she has an appt. set up for early next week to see the infectious disease specialist (ids) who prescribed the antibiotics. At this point the ids thinks her condition may be due to a drug interaction of some type. She's on heart, blood pressure, and who knows what other kinds of meds, so something may have caused a bad interaction with the antibiotics. Hopefully that's it, or we're back to square one.

(My mother is 84 years old. Her body may be failing her, but she is of very sound mind. She's just started to get a bit forgetful, but with 8 kids and numerous in-laws and tons of grandchildren, etc., it's hard to remember what you told to whom, so if you repeat yourself here & there, no biggie. My father will be 86 next month. Also of very sound mind. He's more forgetful and more apt to lose his keys, but he's gonna be 85 for cryin' out loud! My point is, neither of my parents really need to be told what to do. Suggestions and subtle hints are another thing, but being outright told is out of the question. Something one of my siblings will never ever realize...)

On another note, my sisters are fighting and it's pissing me off. My oldest sister (11 years my senior) was on my mom's back all along to call the doctor. NO ONE tells my mom what to do. Well, no one except for nagging oldest sister. And Mom doesn't take too kindly to being told what to do, so that sets both of 'em off. My other sister (two years older than I) and I tend to agree on a lot of things (although we disagree on much, too) and formed a united front against nagging oldest sister. All day long emails were flung about between the two and I'm sick of them. I let older sister know loudly and clearly that I am on her side but nagging oldest sister is not thrilled. Oldest sister is meanly sarcastic and older sister told her she didn't have to be such a bitch and well, let's just say it's going to be an interesting holiday season, to say the least.

I hate this. I am the baby. The youngest of eight. The peacemaker and keeper of the peace (when there is peace!). This does not sit well with me.

One day dear readers, I will tell you all about nagging oldest sister and her issues, but tonight I am burned out. Seriously fried. It's been a hellish day and I'm done.