bits and pieces of an over-saturated life

in no particular order . . .
* Andy starts his new school tomorrow. We are enrolling him in the private school I attended, known for its vigilent approach to character issues such as respect and obey.
* Jamie starts a turn-around next week. This is when a refinery is shut-down for maintenance and work is carried on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for several months. Jamie will be working 14 hour shifts, as he is the supervisor and has to overlap the crews that work mere 12 hour shifts. He gets a mandatory day off on the 52nd consecutive work day. So, I'll be pretty much parenting solo.
* I've been sick for over a week which means I can't go see my Dad which is a sorrow for me. Dad is, reportedly, much better.
* We have a new dog, Bear, who is staying with us while Dad gets better. He is a sweet dog and fits in nicely with our other dogs and has even learned to not chase the kitties. He regularly breaks into the goat corral where Betsy, the bearded lady goat, roundly trounces him.
* The lovely week of sunshine has come to an end and the more typical grey dreary bitterly cold days have returned.
* We are filing our post-placement reports and getting ready to start the Washington State readoption process. The sole reason for doing this is getting Washington birth certificates for the kids. In the event that they ever need to get a copy of their birth certificate, it is much easier to do this locally than to apply to Russia for one.

Kitty Treats

The kids recently told me that when they first got to our house they snuck pieces of kitty food and ate it. They apparently ran to the bathroom to spit it out. In the first few days they didn't see the kitties at all, so the little bowls of food around the house had looked like people-snacks to them. Blech.

Mupponauts

I've discovered that DVDs and laptops are the best thing ever if, for example, you need to take your children with you to your staff meeting or to your father's nursing home. Whilst watching Muppets in Space yesterday, Andy was surprised to hear Russian spoken. The English-speaking muppets go to space to find that some other muppets are already there. And what language do these other first-in-space mupponauts speak? Russian of course.

Fifth Disease

My heavens, there is so much that a Mama needs to know. This week I learned about the Fifth Disease, a common rash of childhood that Andy has brought to our attention. He is not ill, in that he feels fine and is not running a fever, but the rash on his face is not cute.

Adventures Digest

the very condensed version of our lives

• Jamie came through his medical procedure that I am not allowed to blog about just fine.
• Juliana started her "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" class and was the happiest little pink dance-class girl ever.
• Andy and Juliana got to spend the night over the weekend at their cousins. They had a blast and stayed up far too late. I can't scold, as this is exactly what I did with these cousins' mama when we were little girls.
  
• I've joined a Non-Performing Ballet class for grown-ups. This is part of my preemptive mental health plan. Dad's accident + Seasonal Affective Disorder + Jamie's Unmentionable Medical Concern + The Practical Reality of Two New Kids = Risk of Depression, so I am trying to get ahead of it before it gets ahead of me.

Mr. or Mrs. or Miss 40,000

Sometime in the near future, we will hit 40,000. If you are the one that clicks us over the top, please comment and let us know who you are and something interesting or amusing about you.

New Year, New Name

and that's all I have to say: too busy having adventures to blog about them.