…so I’m working on paperwork. Tomorrow I have to turn in the kids’ med logs and the two pages (each) of adoptive notes so I have to get those filled out and scanned. The doctors visit forms from the month have to be sorted and put in the kids’ binders. Then I have to print next months med logs, doctor forms, and notes so those can be filled out over the course of the month. Three more full months and one partial month. We’re almost there!
Monthly Archives: July 2020
Two More Enrolled
We enrolled Fritz and Adrian in public school this week. We decided to fully take advantage of the pandemic academically. Our school district is beginning the year with 100% remote learning and then once they can begin face to face learning parents will still get the option to keep their kids on remote.
So our plan is to keep those two on the remote option. I would not be surprised if remote continues to be an option for the entire school year (they are planning to continue to offer it as long as the state allows them to). Then starting next school year, we’ll switch both of them in the virtual school. In Texas, they have to be enrolled in public school for one year before being eligible for the virtual school.
The boys are a bit nervous about it, but since they can do school from home most or all of the school year and then the virtual is from home, too, they are okay with it. Adrian was concerned about all the coloring he remembers hating when he was in public school before. I assured him 7th graders do a whole lot less coloring than kindergartners. Fritz will be in 9th grade so I figure that’s the best point to put him in public school if we are going to at all since that is the beginning of high school.
Not having to spend tons of time creating a curriculum will be nice and with raising a million kids now it’s such a relief not to have to. I’ll still be spending about the same amount of time helping them with school and keeping Adrian on task, but that’s no big deal. I’m used to it.
Grocery Shopping
I usually order groceries for pick-up or to have them delivered, but recently the quality has not been that good at either store I order from and the substitutions have been downright dumb (note: onion salt is not an appropriate substitution for onion powder; an appropriate substitution would be one of the other brands of onion powder).
So my mom and I went grocery shopping last week and I was reminded of why I usually just order it. My cart was overflowing and hers was very full. Thirteen people equals a LOT of food needed (this is groceries for just one week).
He got his hairs cut
E had very long hair, almost all the way down his back to his butt. We usually would pull it back in a ponytail every day. It tangled easily, though, so it took 15-20 minutes every morning just to do his hair.
He asked a few times to get his hair cut so I scheduled an appointment at a barbershop near us. I figured he might want to go with shoulder length since he’d had long hair as long as he could remember, but when he saw a picture of a short style he liked, his eyes lit up and he said that’s how he wanted his hair.
It took the barber over an hour and a half to cut and style E’s hair, but it turned out so amazing! He’s loving have the (much) shorter hair. He really likes that I barely have to spend any time on his hair in the mornings now. Two minutes max and he’s done. He looks like such a big kid with this cut. As he would say, it’s so much cute!
Two Threes
A turned 3 on Saturday and so for the next almost week and a half we have two 3-year-olds!
(Side Note: M’s hair… she must’ve had a wild day at school because she came home with some crazy hair.)
Lola’s Turn
Every morning I get out the hair stuff and this blue cube and the kids take turns sitting on the cube and getting their hair done. A couple weeks ago Lola decided she wanted to have her turn as well, so now every morning I include her brush in the hair stuff I pull out of the cabinet and she gets her turn on the cube, too.
2 months down, 4 to go!
Sometimes I get a little impatient waiting out the clock until we can complete this adoption. There’s a lot less paperwork as straight adopt placements than when they were still foster kids, but there is still some I have to fill out each month (x6) plus the annoying forms doctors have to fill out at every visit. There’s still a case manager visit from our foster agency once a month and a caseworker visit from CPS once a month which involve disrupting the kids’ normal routine of going to daycare/preschool (and soon elementary school) in the morning since they need to see them in the home. It’ll be nice to be rid of all that and we can see that point come closer and closer. As of tomorrow, we are two months down with four more to go!
A New Name
Our 5-year-old has been a bit resistant to the whole new last name thing. After all, he’s had the same last name his whole life and even though there are some triggers associated with it, it is his and all he has known. We’ve been talking about his new last name – our last name – and adoption a little at a time with the kids and something clicked in E over the weekend and he suddenly started introducing himself randomly with his new name like he was testing it out. He still doesn’t totally understand or believe that he gets to stay with us permanently, but for now, he’s content with the whole new last name thing.
Fourteen
On Saturday Fritz turned 14! He’s 5’5 3/4″ now and just such a good human. His happy place is still Code Ninjas. He takes classes in digital logic and Python from home and is part of their esports competitive team and goes to the dojo to code for an hour twice a week. He’s a purple belt leaving just brown, red, and black to go. He had already done his two hours during the week, but asked if he could pre-do one of his hours for next week on his birthday. See, he spent an hour of his 12th and 13th birthdays coding at Code Ninjas so he wanted to spend an hour of his 14th there, too. Crazy to see how much he’s grown.
So. Many. Diapers.
This is what the shelf in the laundry room looks like just after getting your monthly Subscribe & Save shipment when you have four in diapers.
Smaller on the Outside 