The Difference Between

being in the same room with the children and actually supervising the children..... (or what happens when you assume that since someone is sitting on the couch they will actually look at the children)

On the 15th day of Christmas

my true love...
finally posted the Christmas photos.
They don't need much explaining (although if you are wondering why everyone is in long sleeves but K- that would be because she projectile vomited all over everything, including the shirt that is supposed to go under the dress 10 minutes before we had to leave for church)











K thought the best game ever was to be on the floor with wrapping paper on your head. She played with that paper forever. Imagine the money I could have saved on her presents....

There is no Cheese with this Whine

So just when things were "beginning" to start to calm down this week happened. To recap

Monday- K had a positive test for TB. It is likely that she was exposed right before we left Ethiopia. They took a chest xray to make sure it was just an exposure, and not that she has active TB. TB is contagious but hard to catch so they are only concerned with people who live with her. So X and D (after being assured there would be no shots at the doctors) got TB tests placed. A, B and I still need to be tested

Tuesday- to make a long story short- my job share involves 3 teachers, including me. The third teacher abruptly and with no notice to us decided to leave our arrangement. The end result is that my direct job share partner and I now have one job between us and she needs to work full time. Because 8 years ago we chose her classroom, rather than mine, to work in she gets the job back so..... as of now I am unemployed effective the end of the school year. Now my boss assures me that there will be a job and it is mine but she doesn't know where or what situation it will be so there is a chance it is not a job I will be willing to take. Right now there are too many variables to know how this will all end. It could work out very well, but ....

Wednesday- I drag A to the doctor (along with the rest of the crew) only to find out for the first time in the practice's history they are out of the serum for the TB test. On the plus side, X and D tested negative for TB

Thursday- I walked in to the house with the girls late for K's PT appointment when B mentions that the cat has died in the basement. That cat wanted nothing to do with the family the entire time he lived here but for some reason A loves him and as you can imagine A was devastated. The girls don't seem to understand and X was more interested in seeing the body so he came with me to the vet. Our vet was wonderful about preparing the body so it wasn't scary for X.

I think I will just stay in bed tomorrow

An update

BW has his surgery today and is home and back on the couch. Everything went well. However, I have strep throat and not one but THREE sick kids at home..........

Yes we are that insane

Many years ago I had the brilliant idea that since the networks don't show Christmas specials anymore that is would be fun to invite our friends (and their kids) over to watch them on video. We'll pop popcorn and decorate cookies and watch the movies. Yeah, right!- the kids ran off to play and the adults hung out in the kitchen, periodically checking to make sure no one had killed themselves. So the movie party morphed, after that first year, into the annual pajama party. (a party, I might add, that some of the "regulars" begin asking me about in August) The kids wear their jammies and we do still frost cookies but other than that it is mostly organized chaos (and the adults still check periodically to make sure no one has killed themselves) This year we had about 30 kids (and their parents) so it was a busy evening.

Since I don't want to post recognizable photos of kids that aren't mine- here are only a few, although they do convey the spirit of the evening pretty well

Jumping on the trampoline


The boys made a fort of pillows in front of the landing down to the guest room. Their intent was to keep out the girls. However, once they made a barricade in front of the three steps down to the landing they realized they couldn't get in or out either- so they just started jumping over the railing....


The table after the cookie decorating frenzy


(and, of course, now you can find a Christmas special on TV at any given moment from Thanksgiving until Christmas)

Naughty or Nice

The kids were pretty evenly split between whether Santa is a bad thing or a good thing.

X and A are both pretty solidly in the "nice" camp (although A is not so sure that Santa exists)





D would not go any where near Santa- so her vote is "naughty" (although she was more than willing to walk over long enough to snatch a candy cane out of Santa's hand)



K votes that not only is Santa "naughty" but he is downright evil- She wins for most extreme reaction to Santa in the history of mankind. The photos do not even begin to show how terrified she was. She freaked out- not the normal "who is this strange guy" reaction baby's have- but complete and total, whole body, almost couldn't breath terror. Needless to say there will be no photos on Santa's lap (or even in Santa's airspace) this year

The Christmas Miracle came early

No it's not what you think (B's leg hasn't healed and the presents still aren't wrapped) but
it's that we got a fairly decent Christmas card photo of all four kids, at the SAME time!!




AND