Last week was a difficult one. We recently met and fell in love with a beautiful set of twins. They are in the foster system, so right from the start we were hopeful to adopt them.
We were building a wonderful bond with them and had them in our home every few weekends for sleepovers. We loved them dearly, how can you not love precious little babies who have no parents loving or caring for them. We were excited and hopeful to adopt them. Just waiting impatiently until the court date when they will go up for adoption. Then last week some things came to light surrounding the twins. A bunch of terrible things transpired and our hopes were dashed.
We have decided to take a break from the adoption journey and travel a road better known by us. 3 adoptions falling through in a 5 month span is more then i had hoped to have to endure. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

                            

        So now we are going to do what we do best.....make babies... :)

This is a predictable road, one which we know the outcome,  9 months from conception we get to hold a precious, darling brand new, healthy baby in our arms. Plus I get to do one of my favourite parts of it all, labour and delivery, there is nothing like it. To all you women who have not yet experienced the empowering joy that is birth, I highly recommend it, its not bad like everybody says, it's glorious and wonderful!

This weekend we are excited to be taking our precious 3 boys on a mini vacation to forget about all that we have recently been through. A time to just play and laugh and love on each other and when we come home, have a fresh start.
We are looking forward to knowing what this new chapter will look like. No more waiting and wondering. Predictability is under-rated.

I am so incredibley blessed to have my perfect husband and 3 precious boys along on this journey. It wouldn't be worth it without them.

Blessed Mommy

So it's been over 1 month now since our adoption fell through and we are doing well. I found myself holding out hope that his mother might change her mind. It's difficult to think about him being homeless and not having the necessities he needs. But I try not to let myself think about it too often, I know that God is taking care of him, as well as me. I know that there is a baby waiting for our love, we cannot wait to know who it is! Recently 2 people close to me have dreamt that I had a baby girl with brown curly hair, hmmm, it makes me so curious, not that my 3 beautiful boys don't keep me busy. I'm so thankful for them. They are so hilarious they keep me laughing all day. Today I walked into the toy room and Diesel was bent over mooning his baby brother. The look on his face was priceless. Eyes closed and the biggest smile i've ever seen. He was being sneaky because we've been cracking down on the boys mooning each other. He thought he was safe because Jordy cannot tell on him. I watched for a second until Diesel happened to look over at me standing beside him. His expression quickly changed from sheer joy to uh oh. I had to leave the room because i was laughing hystarically. I spent a minute gaining my composure and went in to talk to Deez about what happened, the minute I saw his face I burst out laughing again. We had a good laugh together all the while I continued trying to tell him what he had done was wrong. Even though I don't agree with what was happening, I welcomed the belly laugh with my precious son.
This afternoon nixon called me into his room when he was supposed to be napping because something was bothering him. He told me I had to smell his shirt, the words "mommy smell this" usually send me running, but I was curious what smell could be keeping him awake. I smelled his shirt and didn't smell anything, he made me smell it again and this just added to my curiosity. I asked him what he thought it smelled like and he said "croutons". So random :) My funny boys always keep me on my toes. I'm so very blessed to have my little comedians to spend my days with.

Adoption, not for the faint of heart

Our family is on the adoption journey and we have had a whirlwind of a time. I know it is widely known that adoption is unpredictable and matches of children can fall through, but as smart as I am and as hard as I tried not to get attached, I found it impossible. How do you not love a little child who until you arrived on the scene was unloved? How do you keep your heart in check and not let your emotions run away at the thought of adding a new precious baby to your family? This was the case for us. We were matched with a 1 week old baby boy. He is the picture of health, the most adorable little boy you have ever seen. His mother is homeless and we were told the father was unknown. His bio mom decided to give him up for adoption because she said she could not care for him the way he needed. Because of this we went shopping for him to buy diapers, formula, bottles, clothes and all the other necessities of a baby. We also added a teddy bear that each member of our family kissed and hugged for him to feel all of our love and fedexed it straight to him.
The law in Jamaica is that a baby must be 6 weeks old before the mother can sign off and hand over her parental rights. That was a long few weeks waiting. 6 weeks was getting closer, so our facilitator flew to Jamaica to get our paperwork handed in and the baby's medical and passport started. She met the bio mom and our little son. Mom once again assured us her full intentions were to sign him over to us.
Jordan and I were strongly contemplating the possibility of moving our family to Jamaica for 6 months so we could personally care for our newest son while immigration and all the loose ends of the adoption were being completed.
Yesterday we got the call that she has changed her mind, there is a father and he is going to take the child. Part of me was happy that he gets to stay with a birth parent, but a bigger part of me mourned the loss of my son. How could I have allowed myself to get so attached? How does one fall so deeply in love when you've never even met in person. I tried to guard my heart, but in the end I allowed it to open widely and love a precious little person who I knew in every fibre of my being was my son.
The pain I felt as my facilitator uttered the words "she's changed her mind" can only be compared to the feelings and emotions I experienced when I had a miscarriage. A child you are expecting is no more.
I am so very thankful that he is alive and thriving, but it still feels like I am grieving the loss of a child. I didn't expect this to affect me so deeply.

I know we will have another match in the future and I am hopeful and excited for whom God has for our family. In this moment I'm trying to find and focus on the positives. I have 3 beautiful boys who I love and cherish every day and a husband who has devoted his life to making my dreams come true. I am truly blessed. I'm also thankful to have a strong network of family and friends who support and love us and are along for our journey.

Through this experience, I still don't think it would be possible to keep emotions under wraps.
Head knowledge says don't get so emotionally invested next time, but the heart is another thing.
Next time we will love as hard as we did this time and I'm believing it will have a happy ending for us.

The World is a Boys Buffet - A Craving for Christmas Trees

Just over 1 year ago my boys and I were exhaustedly erecting the final Christmas tree in our home. We go a little nuts with the decorations around here at Christmas time and by “Christmas time” I mean November 1 and by “we” I most definitely mean I, and over the top, crazy, old saint nick badgering woman would probably be a more accurate description then just the lonely simple word “nuts”.
By this point in the evening it was past the boy’s bedtime and as any parent knows starting a huge task after the kids should already be in bed, however fun it may be, always makes for a poopie head screaming, hair pulling, back punching gem of a time for all children involved.
Bedtime is a great time around these parts. By 7pm the mood has generally shifted from happy and calm to grumpy and whiney and the boys are usually tired too.
Anyways, the boys were tired, I was exhausted from the decorating festivities of the day and Jordan was working late and not home to partake in all of the “fun”. My youngest at the time decided the toy room Christmas tree in all of its child-decorated glory, looked appetizing.
Now I’m a mother of only boys, so I have the understanding that there is something woven into the fibers of a boy, deep deep down, its un-explainable and un-changeable, a boy will eat anything and everything he sees.
I would more easily understand this whole fiasco had there been popcorn cascading enticingly off the branches or if cute little gingerbread men adorned the tree, but that was not the case. My sons delicious, festivous snack choice that evening was glass light bulbs. And they were not even the colourful kind! Oh what a merry time that was.
I was in the kitchen grabbing something and my oldest yells “mom, Nixon’s eating light bulbs”.
I ran to the toy room to find my sons mouth bleeding while he’s holding up a string of lights with one missing. All that remains in its place are a few jagged shards of glass. A very pregnant and frantic me packed up the boys and we headed to the hospital where we got to sit and wait for hours. Eventually he had an x-ray and nothing showed up. He was fine and we never had any issues, I’ve always been curious how that glass made it out.
This season I’ve been on guard and so far no bulbs have been harmed in the decorating of our home.
So a word of warning, if you have young boys, they will eat anything and everything. Keep an eye on your Christmas tree.

Poop And Other Matters Of The Heart

Top 10 things I never thought I would have to say

1. Take those toys out of your underwear.
2. Don’t touch your poop.
3. No you may not switch your crocs for you pointed cowboy boots so that you can kick the stray cat harder. (where would he ever get this idea?).
4. Stop eating your boogers.
5. Please don’t play with cat poop you find in the sandbox.
6. No! Don’t drink the bath water, we just watched your brother pee into it!
7. No sorry, we cannot eat poo poo soup for lunch (this one I find myself repeating every single day).
8. Please stop examining your brother’s bum with your finger.
9. You pooped where?
10. Please stop gangnam styling and eat your lunch.

As you’ve just witnessed, poop seems to be the most hilarious thing in the world to 2 little men in my home. Actually I’m not gonna lie, we all have poo poo humour to some degree in this household. But, my kids have good hearts and are exceptional boys, so the few times I have to try to convince them its gross to let the dog lick the spoon their currently using to finish their breakfast or I have to scrape poop from under their finger nails, I count my blessings, after all it could be much worse, it could be in their hair or even worse then that, it could be in mine. My silly boys and their crazy antics make me laugh more times then I can count in a day. I’m so blessed to have 3 little comedians to tickle my ribs.

Fecal Folly Meets Creative Parenting

Today was a rather exciting day in my world of parenting. In trying to be a good mother I sometimes use creative parenting. Today came the pinnacle of creative ideas.

My son was fully potty trained for months, he was easy to train and we had relatively no issues with his potty habits. 4 months ago in an effort to assist in the household running smoothly and in wanting to make moms life a little easier my son decided he didn’t want to be potty trained anymore. How kind and thoughtful of him! Imagine the joy I experienced in washing out grown man size feces from my little boys red baseball underwear.

I’m quite the party pooper in matters of this sort and in an effort to help my son achieve success in bowl displacement I tried everything. I mean everything. Nothing has convinced him that using a toilet is more fun then watching mommy scrape ripe gotchie gifts from his favourite race car under garments.

A few days ago I started toying with the idea of reverting him back to a baby.

After one to many sphincter retraction mishaps I warmed up to the idea and decided to give it a try.

Mommy, “Nixon you seem to enjoy pooping your pants like a baby, do you want to be a baby?”

Nixon, “No”.

Mommy, “well if you continue to act like a baby with your bathroom habits I’ll have to start treating you like a baby”.

Nix, “I’m a big boy, no more pooping in my underwear, I’ll poop in the toilet”.

I reveled in my great parenting skills and felt like a good mom and like I had done a good job solving this issue.

The next day another underwear mishap, okay Nix, I’ll give you grace, don’t let it happen again.

The next day, same thing. We have the whole baby talk again and he once again declares in a loud strong voice that he is a big boy and he’ll use the toilet next time.

Next day same thing. I remind Nixon that in being a baby he will have to eat baby food and sleep in a crib.

Day 4 arrives with another excrement package for this mama bear. Okay, time for creative parenting.

“Nixon, I see you’ve decided your breakfast of champions this morning will be a jar of baby food.”

Now at first I felt bad, I wouldn’t want to eat baby food, but then again I use the toilet so its my privilege to eat yummy food. I had already given a gazillion chances so I stood strong. I offered a choice of baby food, after all I’m not a monster. But the choice wasn’t delicious strawberry or raspberry apple, his delightful options were chicken & vegetable or peas and carrots. Peas are Nixon’s nemesis so naturally he went for the scrumptious choice of chicken & veggie. In my kindness I heated it and added a touch of salt to try to make it edible. I taste tested a miniscule amount and barfed. It was much worse then I imagined. I for one will no longer be feeding my poor 7 month old jarred baby food. Gross. Anyway, I strapped my self described “Big Boy” into the high chair and gave him his first bite. You should have seen his face. It was awfully wonderful. I have to be honest, I laughed hysterically on the inside half way through the jar. Sometimes I couldn’t hide my sheer joy, so I had to turn away and hide my face. I don’t think he figured out that my body convulsing in silence was me laughing on the inside.

My poor boy choked down most of the jar and upon completion once again declared he will be using the toilet from this point on.

Here’s to hoping…