My little shadow

I must confess that for the amount of pleasure that Tullah, my almost 1 year old puppy, brings me, she also brings me much stress. I spend most of my nights afterwork washing the carpets or floors from her accidents, or picking up the stuffing from some toy she has recently torn to shreads. I can't say that I didn't expect that my time would be spent in this manner for puppies are a lot of work. I just forgot how much. She is a lovable little girl for all her quirks, she loves to snuggle, and much of her day is spent following me around. I am excited with the prospect that she will eventually mellow though, and I am counting the days.

Now for some good news. We have another appointment scheduled with our SW for next Thursday over lunch. I glad that we are seeing progress again, but I am guarded because she has yet to contact Elisabeth and Josh, and she must complete those interviews before our paperwork can go to committee again.

Family Photo Shoot

IMG_0050_filtered, originally uploaded by gemjlo.

This weekend I was lucky enough to have a photo session with a family of my coworker. When I woke up in the morning it was misty and foggy, and I worried that we would not get good shot. I was a little disappointed about the lighting, but overall I think that it went well.

Why DH and I should not talk politics

DH and I got into an argument last night, as we usually do when speaking about politics. You see within the past year I have been really paying attention to politics and trying to interpret what democrats and republicans truly stand for. It’s helped me to truly shape my views and what I think. DH is not at the same point, and I get frustrated when trying to point out that he’s regurgitating what the media is saying.
One thing he said last night was “give me a gun and let me protect myself”; I tried to point out that his was conservative view. He also said that the government doesn’t know what it’s doing. I tried to point out that he would then be in favor of less government, not more, which is also a conservative view. So, I came to the conclusion that we have the same views on more points then not. His reply was, “except for one thing, I want to help poor people and you don’t.” Who said that? Just because I believe that everyone should be held accountable for their own actions, and I think its fare that everyone capable of paying their own way should, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to help poor people.
It means that I would like to have control of my money and how I choose to help said poor people. I don’t want the government to take my money and give it to whomever they think deserves it. It’s my money and I earned it. I should be able to give it to the people I deem worthy of helping. It’s never a good idea for DH and I to talk about politics and I don’t know why we tried again last night, but one thing’s for sure. I won’t be baited to talk about it again anytime soon.

This weekend we had a little visitor. Her name is Savannah and she's our nephew Josh's little one. She's 13 months old and just a cutie. Josh brought her over on Sunday for a couple of hours to visit. Most of the time when he was there he and Jerry watched football, but that was alright with me because I got to spend some time playing with her. Although she's only a little over a year she's got such a personality. She's very curious and has the most infectious laugh. I wish I was able to see her more often. Every time I have seen her I have been tempted to tell Josh that I am willing to babysit whenever, but I know that offer would get abused and so I do not make the offer. I feel like I am losing out, but I know that I wouldn't be able to say no each time he asked. I love having children around, but it also frustrates me to no end when they leave because I have been waiting so long to have my own.

Another thing that makes me feel a little strange is that I am not sure what role I play in Savannah's life. I have parented Josh and feel maternal in that reguard, so she feels a little like a grandbaby, but alas, Josh is not my child, he's my nephew, so she's inevidably just a niece. I wonder how much attachment to her is appropriate. I don't want to step on anyones toes. She has a grandma. So, because of this I remain indifferent to her. I enjoy seeing her when I do, but I don't take any liberties that a grandmother might, by requesting time with her, or doing the little things a grandma might. I feel a bit cheated.

Josh and Elisabeth

I occured to me after Torina asked that I might not have mentioned Josh and Elisabeth before in this blog. Well, here's a bit about Josh and Elisabeth. A year after Jerry and I were married we got custody of his neice and nephew through the county because thier mother lost custody via a child protection call for neglect. At the time Elisabeth was 12 and I think Josh was 15. We had always been close to Josh and his brothers since they were little guys. They came over to our house every weekend to hang out with us, and I suppose to escape a bit. Elisabeth didn't really spend much time with us, and I suppose that was just because Jerry was closer to the boys being a "boy" himself.

Needless to say it wasn't a great experience since the whole family was still involved including their mom. Josh has FASD, but we didn't know it at the time. He has a low IQ and comprehension issues. He is smart enough to want the things that everyone wants, but gets frustrated with relationships and has a hard time working and keeping a job. All of these things we helped him deal with.

Elisabeth was a different story. I am pretty sure that she has RAD. She never really warmed to us and just did her own things no matter what we said or did. We had a very hard time with her running away all the time, stealing from us and other people. She even went to her mom's for a weekend and came home sick. We found out later that mom took her to have an abortion, but no one told us anything. She always went to her mom, which is understandable, but her mom would never keep us in the loop and would try and hide things from us. In the end the only way we could be sure where she was at, was by agreeing that she would live with her mom until she was 18. All in All she lived with us for 4ish years.

We still have an alright relationship with Josh. He calls once a week and comes over about that much, but we don't have much contact with Elisabeth. I don't trust her since she stole over 5000.00 worth of Laptops, Cameras, etc from us, with not so much as a sorry or feeling bad about it. Having read about kids with RAD etc, I understand the behavior, but it's hard when they aren't yours, and thier mom is family. I hope that doesn't sound like I mean that if I ADOPTED kids that it would be hard because they aren't mine. Because, in that situation, they would be mine.

Disappointed yet again

Well, after a call and an e-mail we got an update from the SW. Seems she met with her boss and the homestudy panel and there are yet more interviews to be done with Josh, Elisabeth, Andy, and us again. The questions that she outlined have already been answered once. I don't know if she just didn't write down the answers, but's it frustrating that we must now make time during our lunch hour to go down and meet with her again and answer the same questions over. She wants to meet with Josh and Elisabeth, whom we had custody years ago. She said that it's their policy to talk to adult children of those wanting to adopt. Even though they weren't are children, and all our parenting efforts were thwarted by their mother and other sibs, they still get to give input. Jerry and I still talk and see Josh often. I have no doubts what he might say, but Elisabeth is a different story. We never got close to her, she never let us. She also left under bad circumstances after running away repeatedly and stealling over 5000.00 worth of things from our house. We saw her last week at her grad party, but I have no idea how to get ahold of her. I know that she has no phone, and her mom's in a halfway house again.
So, here we are, still waiting. I am sure that we will be waiting until after the holidays, as our SW works at a glacial pace and they don't place kids around the holidays.

It's Here!

I have a new photography website. I am still in the process of adding things, but feel free to go check it out!

www.osowskiphotography.com

Keeping her Calm, it's impossible!

On Tuesday my little Tullah had her spay appointment. Upon picking her up I was told that I would have to keep her quiet and calm for 7-10days. This is proving to be a very hard thing to do. My darling little puppy loves to fetch and play tug. Every time I sit down on the couch she brings her ball to me and whines for me to throw it for her. It breaks my heart that she thinks I am ignoring her requests. When I let her outside, she immediately finds her “outside” ball and drops it at my feet. I have been trying to give her extra attention, rubbing her belly, and scratching her behind the ears, but it doesn’t appear that this is helping a bit. Any ideas other then keeping her confined in her kennel 24/7 would be appreciated.

Recently, I have stopped reading adoption blogs as much as I used to. Although there are a few that I read religiously, I have cut out many of them. There are two reasons for this. One reason is that I tend to do a lot of my net surfing at work, and I have been very busy lately. Second, I have been feeling like I will never be one of them. It feels like our adoption process will never get to the matching phase. It’s been a long time since I talked to our SW over the phone or in person, and when we e-mail back and forth there is not much substance to her responses to me. It feels like we floundering.
Doesn’t it seem like this is a common complaint with me?On a lighter note…I will finally be finished with our den tonight. Last night I finished putting up the remaining trim and putting the first and second coat of paint on it. Tonight, I will finish up the painting, and wash the floor again. Then, all we will need is carpet installed. That will have to wait until the bedroom is ready for carpet though. We plan to do the two rooms at the same time. It feels good to be finally getting it done, as the project has dragged on all summer long. Next up, the bedroom, then the bathroom, then we move!

This weekend was a success. You are probably wondering why that might be. Well, first of all, we were lucky enough to have Naz and Tekaija this weekend, and second, I felt like I got a lot accomplished.

Friday, we picked the kids up. It was kind of late, so we just watched a movie and ate some popcorn. We all fell asleep on the couch. On Saturday, we went to my step-dad’s house for a picnic, and to watch the annual Osseo Lion’s Roar parade. I planned ahead this year and brought zip lock bags with the kid’s names on them for all the candy. The plan was to go back to the house and let Naz take a nap, then go up to the fair and have dinner and ride rides. We never made it to dinner and rides because it started raining. So, we took the kids to Chucky Cheese and used up 200+ tokens. That Uncle Jerry is so generous with the little ones. After that we went home and got ready for bed. Sitting on the couch with popcorn we turned out the lights and watched the fireworks from Osseo over the treetops. We have a perfect view from our addition.

Sunday, we woke up and made Cinnamon pull apart for breakfast. Everyone had a bath, and we headed over to Cousin Elisabeth’s Graduation party. Sunni took the kids home from there, and I was able to finish up my laundry and hem my curtains.

Now, I hope that this week just flies by because next weekend we have NOTHING planned and it sounds very good right now.

Squirrel Monkey

Squirrel Monkey, originally uploaded by gemjlo.

When we were in KC we went to the zoo and my favorite animal was this little guy. I suppose that I liked him because he was so colorful and playful. But, I also liked him because the little kids got such a kick out of them. He and his brothers and sisters were really fun to watch.

So, I started school last week and I am excited about it. The class I am taking is called Concepts of Creativity. I wasn't sure if we would have to do art projects or not, and as it turns out we do!!! One of the projects given out last week isn't really "art", but it is inspired by Leonardo DiVinci. We had to come up with 100 questions that were relevent to us and we had to do it in one sitting. Let me tell you that it was really hard towards the end to come up with questions. The more and more I came up with the deeper in meaning they got. I guess that's the point of the assignment. I am just glad it's done. It's been a while since I was in school, and I'm a little rusty with assignments that use my brain so much, ha ha.
Speaking of school, all the little ones are back at it this week. It's so fun to hear the stories of my co-workers kids first days. Soon, I tell myself, soon...