Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

My sweet, wonderful child. He loves his Daddy so much and wants to be more and more like him. Daddy likes computer games? Roman wants to play computer games. Daddy likes Star Wars? Roman wants to watch Star Wars. Daddy likes Legos? Roman wants to play with Legos. For Christmas we got him a tub of Legos, the 4+ "regular" kind. Roman has tried hard, but he just doesn't have the finger strength to snap them together. So Doug and I agreed today that we should get him a tub of Duplo blocks instead, which I have seen him play with at preschool. But we didn't imagine the thrill that it would give Roman! We got home from Target after picking up the Duplos around 4:20pm. Daddy came home at 5:30ish and we were STILL playing Duplos. And it was Roman building, destroying, and building again the entire time. He brought his Duplo zebra to the dinner table, and cried when it was bath time because he wanted to keep playing. He perked up when Daddy agreed to a baby Duplo penguin in ...

We had our last post-placement meeting with Nancy today. This is what is required for Russian adoptions; reports & pictures at 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years post-placement. We've had Roman close to 3 years now - can you believe it?! I had "Records Day" today so no kids; I picked Roman up at 12:15 and we met Daddy at home, then had a quick lunch at McDonald's before we got to Nancy's office. The meeting went fine, and Roman even answered a few questions. It was leaving that finally got me, however - it's done. No more reports to Russia. No paperwork connection to Russia anymore. No reason to stay connected with the agency. We don't have to "jump" if Russia calls. In my mind, the adoption is over. Now, we still have to get it to Lansing to get apostilled, and Doug and I are planning on taking a half day to do it together, and having a short celebratory lunch afterward. But I had been treating today's appointment much like the ot...

After a sufficient mourning period of any relationship, you've got to get back out there. Even though your heart may not be fully healed, you can never find love again unless you take a risk. And so, Doug and I are ready to date again. Houses, that is. We have chosen 5 to take a look at over the next few days. It's not all about looks - we care about what's on the inside. Age doesn't particularly matter either - in fact, the two that intrigue us most are of very disparate ages; one built in 1921, the other built in 1966. And we're looking at all shapes and sizes; from farmhouse, to trilevel, to ranch. They all have some pluses and drawbacks - can we live in an old farmhouse that was last updated in the 1950s? Can we live in a house that has little privacy and is just like my childhood friend's? Or can we stay interested in a house that, besides an odd main room (is it a dining room? formal living room?) has an unfinished basement when we swore we'd never fin...

The other night at dinner, we were trying to coax Roman to eat the rest of his dinner. "Eat three more pieces," Daddy said. A few minutes later, Daddy said "eat two more pieces." "But that would be FIVE!" said Roman. We just gaped at him. And didn't make him eat the rest. He's been eating like a garbage truck for the last few days, constantly saying "I'm hungry" or "My head hurts," which usually means he hasn't eaten enough. I made his day today, though, when he found the quarter-slice watermelon in the fridge I had bought at the store. He got a huge grin on his face and came to tell me how much he "just loves" watermelon. On top of that, I decided to make a raspberry Jello salad. He's thrilled, and announced that he cannot wait to eat it for dinner Monday - he will have it for breakfast! In house news, we're beginning to obsess - and that's not good. We had a call that a realtor wanted to show the ...

Roman is, at this moment, playing upstairs with his friend Garrett. It took a little to settle themselves in, but I alternately hear doggie barking, crashing cars, and giggling. We had a reminder of Roman’s temper on Monday night when he refused to go to bed. Every time Daddy put him down, he was up. Always excuses. I tried putting him to bed… up again. Every time we put him back into his bed, he cried louder and louder. Finally I said to Doug, “Very soon he’s going to stop crying and get angry. Get ready!” Not 5 minutes later, Roman started demanding “Get in here Daddy! NOW!” Daddy didn’t move. Then came the loud frustrated growl in the throat, “Eerrrrrr!” Then more yelling, to the point his voice was beginning to get hoarse – “Daddy! DADDY! YOU GET IN HERE!” This was all with the door closed, luckily, because we were laughing so hard we couldn’t catch a breath! Things finally settled down that night, but he is fighting bedtime every night. He is exhausted but just doesn’t want to ...

School is going along swimmingly. The only crimp in my daily schedule is the fact that my main route into my work-town is closed once again. For approximately 9 months, I had to take back roads because the highway was under reconstruction. There was a month's reprieve... and now they have closed the road at the level crossing. For those of you who are not initiated into the world of railroads, a level crossing is when a road and train tracks intersect. For the next 22 months the level crossing will become a train bridge, with road underpass. So we have to tack on about 5-10 minutes to our commute once again. Boy, I hope we can sell our house and move to work-town soon! The cats had been using parts of our house as their own personal litterbox, but that seems to have been stopped by locking them in the basement since Dec. 27th. Here's to hoping they can have trial visitations upstairs again soon. I've stayed mostly caught up with life this week, even the inevitable grading...

So nice of the Dept. of Education. They finally aligned with the real world, realizing that there are middle schools of 6-8 grades instead of junior highs of 7 & 8. Effective immediately (as of November 2006) they adjusted teacher certifications to match schools, and "grandfathered" those of us who didn't align. Basically, all this jibberty-jabberty means I am now highly qualified to teach sixth grade. ACK! I was certified 7-12 for a reason! Now the greatest fear... I am able to go full time next year because I'll be assigned a sixth grade elective. I can think of nothing worse... unless, as we joked at school today, my sixth grade elective is "Training to Be a 7th grader that Teachers Won't Despise."

Overall it went well. We had 3 separate visitations (which is what we hoped for - 3 or more). The third arrived at 10 to 4pm, when we had already returned, so we pretended to be buyers and left again. It was a young woman with 2 older ladies with her. The somewhat successful part was the middle visitor, a man. He came back three separate times, more interested every time, apparently. He was "asking all the right questions" according to realtor. He will be getting a follow-up call this week from the realtor. So all in all, it was a good start. Realtor recommended having another Open House next month, as Feb. is when things really start to roll. We did, for the heck of it, look at a house a few streets over that's been for sale for many, many months. They've dropped the price about $20,000. Spacious basement, and if we wanted to stay in the area it'd be great. Now we have to go look for the cats... there's evidence that one of them "freaked" during the...

If you're the type that believes everything happens for a reason, then the previous Open House that never happened was meant to 1) get us motivated to get little projects done, and 2) it didn't happen because we weren't done doing the little things. So now we are scheduled for another Open House tomorrow. We have, officially, done every single thing inside the house that we could do, short of painting the whole darn place "sell-the-house-cream," refinishing the hardwood floors, or putting a ceiling in the basement, none of which we want to do on our dime & sweat. On the outside of the house, we do need to put a railing on the deck. According to building codes, we don't - but aesthetically, we do. So I guess that's next, but it's all "Doug work." Back to real life on Monday - I return to work, my grad class starts on Thursday, and life begins to slide past much too quickly again. Fingers crossed that we get some people looking at the hou...

A smackerel of stories for you today. #1. Roman was playing at his train table, and bent down to get on his knees. As he did, he let out this grunting "errumph" noise in his throat. He did it again for good measure. I panicked and asked him, "are you pooping in your pants?!" "No," came the reply, "I'm Grandpa. Grandpa makes that noise." And sure enough, when Grandpa (my dad) gets on the floor to play, he does make that exact same sound! #2. Roman and Daddy have begun playing Legos together the past few days. Doug has (with some trepidation) agreed to share his already-built ones, specifically the Star Wars ships and little Lego guys. Last night, the spaceships were flying around the basement, and Roman landed his on his train table. He took Han Solo out and pronounced, "Han Solo will be on the Island of Sodor." Doug and I burst out laughing - who knew that Jabba's lair was actually hidden on an island filled with trains?! Lis...

Call it what you will - Durango Dust in the kitchen, Sweet Nectar in the bathroom - our house is becoming "cream" again. It's a funny color. We bought this house partially because it was so open and bright - the whole darn thing had been power-painted cream. And then we couldn't wait to get rid of it and add some color. And now that we're selling, once again we're "neutralizing" some areas by painting it... cream. My morning consisted of a coat of Kilz on the upper cabinet frames in the kitchen, and two coats of Kilz over the beautiful red we had in the bathroom. Then, 2 coats of Durango Dust on the cabinets, and I quit for lunch. Doug is going to put coat one of Sweet Nectar in the bathroom tonight, and I will finish up tomorrow or Friday (depending on drying capabilities). Two more things I have learned about painting: 1. Kilz is the best invention ever. Covers dark colors, dries quickly, and gives paint something to stick to in high-traffic areas...

1. Don't paint trim under kitchen cupboards. Ever. It's dirty, it's hard to tape off, and stinks to paint light over dark. 2. Try to limit colors if you think you're going to sell within 5 years. You'll have to repaint, and that is a lot of work. 3. Don't let your husband talk you into doing cupboard doors different than cupboard frames. 4. Get rid of half your furniture and knick-knacks on shelves and tables; then your house will have the right amount of things in it. 5. Rent a storage unit. It's invaluable. 6. If you're going to paint, make sure it's a good TV day. 7. Try not to obsess about how many flyers have been taken from the front yard sign. We've had about 10 taken, but Doug reasons that it's probably 10 neighbors wanting to see how much we're selling for.

What to do when Daddy is watching football all day? Sleep. Yup, we let Daddy sleep in until 9am this morning, and then we switched - I went back to bed for 2 hours. I can't believe how tired I've been the past couple days! That's what vacation does for you, I guess. After playtime all morning, we all had a great lunch and Roman had quiet time. While resting, he got a phone call from his cousin Iris! Roman called her back and they had a brief discussion about the movie "Mary Poppins." Too cute. Once up, Roman and I decided to make cookies. We have "playdoh" dough - it's bright red, yellow, blue, and green sugar-cookie dough. Roman loved using the cookie cutters, and we made two batches of small and large cookies - even a blue dinosaur! We also ran out to the mall to get some "Flowering Herbs" lotion from Bath & Body Works - brought back for a limited time! And finally, Daddy did pitch in today and did 6 loads of laundry. To our pleasant...