Checker at Kroger

There's this checker at Kroger I try to avoid if possible. She was our neighbor when I was a little kid and she feels the need to talk to me about her family and my family ever time I see her. Not that I mind a little friendly chit-chat, but the annoying thing is that she doesn't seem to remember anything I told her the last time we talked. Every time I go through her line she asks how my mom is doing. I tell her that she's fine. She always asks me if my mom is still living in Angleton. I tell her that she lives in West Columbia. My mom has never lived in Angleton as far as I know. I just saw this woman about two or three weeks ago and Mikey was with me. I told her a little about him at that time, just that he was a foster placement right now and that we're hoping to adopt him in a few months. I went trough her line today and she said, "Oh, you got a new one. I haven't seen you in such a long time. I didn't know you had another baby." I just smiled and said, "yep." Like what's the point of retelling the same story every time I see her. Is she just getting old? Has she had brain trauma? Does she just really not care enough to remember anything I told her last time? If that's the case, why does she always ask the same questions? Just annoying.

Great News!!

My Arrow Project worker called today to let me know that Mikey's biological mom relinquished her rights. So now, it looks like we'll be shooting for some time in November to make this kiddo a Hintze. There just aren't words to describe how excited and relived I am. Here's non-identifying picture of the little dude. Check out his Spiderman PJs. Soon we'll be able to post pictures of his pretty little face.

Some Things About Kindergarten

Jackson started Kindergarten today. (Should "Kindergarten" be capitalized or not??? Im sure Phillip or Maury will tell me later.) There were no parting tears. He did really well. And I didn't get choked up until I was out of the building.

When we went for "meet the teacher" we were given their daily schedule. It looks completely overwhelming. They pack a lot into their day. It seems like when I was in Kindergarten we just played with play dough, ate glue, read books, and played with toys...oh yeah, and picked our noses.

Which leads me to the three rules I gave Jackson this morning before school:

1. Keep your fingers out of your nose.
2. Be a good friend.
3. Listen to your teacher.

I think we could all do well to remember those three things. What a better world it would be if we could all abide by those three rules. Ok, so here are a few pictures from before school. As you can tell, he was being a ham as usual.





And here are a few from after school.


Leslie, do you recognize that kid sitting next to Jackson??

So, after we got home I pulled out the junk in his back pack and found this...


I asked Jackson what the red scribbles were all over the picture. (I was afraid I knew the answer before he told me.) And he told me that a bomb went off. That spider-looking thing below the car is a bomb and if you look closely you can see two or three other bombs in the page. I guess all of the red everywhere are flames. Lovely. I'm sure that made a great first impression on his teacher. "I'm sorry, your child needs therapy. He has some very disturbing and violent tendencies."

Alright, so that's it. My baby started Kindergarten.

Pretty sure

Mikey has a new CPS worker. She came today for a brief visit. I asked if anything new was going on with bio. mom and she said she's "pretty sure that mom signed the relinquishment papers....almost positive."

PRETTY SURE!!! Are you kidding me? So, I kept my cool. I said things like, "Yeah? Well, we'd really like to know if that's the case or not. I know you have a busy schedule, but if you could call me and let me know for sure, that would be great." (No sarcasm. I said all this stuff like the polite young lady that I'm not.) Inside I'm screaming, "What do you mean, you're not sure?? How can this be??? And if they were signed, when were they signed???? Why was I not notified????? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??!! AAHHHHH!!!"

But I kept my cool. No need ticking off CPS. She assured me at 11:00 she was going back to her office and she would check his file and call me right away. So, I held off calling her until 4:30 and I left a (calm and collected) voice mail. I will call her again tomorrow afternoon and do the same thing. Good grief, why do we have to be jerked around like this.

So, you might be wondering what happens next if mom did sign the papers. Well, there will be a hearing to finalize termination in a month or two (?). And then once that's done, we can begin the process to finally adopt this kid. He could be a legal Hintze before the end of this year.

Unless, of course, she has our case mixed up with another one and then it could drag on for who knows how long. But I'm really trying to remain positive.

Look what I can do!

Mikey started pulling himself up in his crib on Sunday. We thought we had another few weeks before he started doing this. This kid is probably going to be walking by the time he's nine months old. He is so different from Jackson already. Jackson was and is very cautious and contemplative. This kid is fearless! He is definitely going to keep us on our toes. He does not stop moving unless he's asleep. I think these two kids are going to be polar opposites. It will be interesting to see how they get along as they get bigger. (Here's a non-identifying pic.)

Good morning

I got up pretty early this morning...for me. I got up at 5:45 when Phillip got up and made coffee and breakfast for him....such a good wife, I know. Yeah, right. He was like, "Who are you? What have you done with my wife?"

Anyway, so now it's like 6:30 and it's got to be just a matter of minutes before Mikey starts bopping around in his crib and then shortly after that Jack will be up too and then my day will really begin. I will probably start getting up this early from now on if I can function though the day on this little sleep. So, now I know I should take advantage of this time and read my Bible or something spiritual like that. But what am I doing instead? Blogging.

But...I thought I would take a quick minute instead of doing a devotional, to tell you about some interesting ones I tried yesterday. My friend and I are putting devotional stuff on our church web site, but it's not quite ready for public viewing yet. We're basically just linking to a bunch of online devotionals for various "types" of people. Anyway, we put a couple of visual reflection type things on yesterday that her husband found. They're a little bit bizarro, but they could be cool for the right person. Anyway, if you need something to do, you might want to check these out. I haven't looked at the guided tour.

- 4 Rooms

- Labyrinth (self-guided)

- Labyrinth (guided tour)

Ok, well, I better go try to get something meaningful done before they wake up. Is doing the dishes meaningful?

http://www.ordercats.com

Jackson wants to get another cat. We went to the SPCA site just to look at the cats and see what kind of mongrels they have. Anyway, Jackson asked if we could just order a cat online and they can send it to our house. I told him that you can't order cats, but you have to go to the place and pick one out and bring it home. He didn't believe me and told me to go to "www.ordercats.com." So, I did and it's not a website. It's so funny that these kids are growing up knowing that you can get almost anything online.

Bulcher

Jackson is pretty good at coming up with some strange names of characters. He is playing with some toys right now and he decided to name one of the little guys he's playing with Bulcher O. Disguise. Disguise is a pretty interesting last name, I think. I'm not sure what the "O" stands for. Jackson doesn't know what it stands for either.

Preparing for the wedding

Phillip's brother, Josh is getting married this evening. And I got a new (used) camera just in time to use for the occasion. It's a Canon 10D and we bought a new Canon EF 50mm lens. We just bought one lens for now and it's a pretty good, basic lens. It does really well indoors without the flash. So, anyway, here a few shots from the rehearsal last night and one of Ashley's hair from this morning. There will probably be lots more to follow in the next few days.

What a beautiful baby!

We get lots of comments from people when we're out with Mikey. He is a very pretty baby. Big eyes, long eyelashes. Most of the comments we get are just about his eyes and that kind of thing. Almost every time we go somewhere in public with him, someone says something about what a beautiful baby he is.

But we've gotten a couple of comments that are kind of funny. A few weeks ago our waitress at a restaurant called him "sexy daddy." We thought that was pretty funny. Today I went to the grocery store and an old man said, "He'll be drinkin' beer before you know it." That's encouraging.

Mikey is Hispanic/Caucasian and I've had a few Hispanic women come up in the Mall and start speaking to him in Spanish. And calling him "Papi" and "Mijo" and that kind of thing. I think that's pretty cool. Sometimes I wonder what people think when they see us all together. It's pretty obvious that we're not both his parents. They probably think Phillip's some kind of Saint and I'm some kind of floozy. I don't really care, it's just kind of funny to think about.

Wreckless

Mikey is crawling for real now. He's still pretty clumsy. He's not just crawling a couple of feet anymore, but all over the house. But the funny thing is that even though physically he can crawl, he's not quite smart enough yet to know what the heck he's doing. He crawls right into stuff without even slowing down. He'll crawl right on top of a toy instead of around it. And then he'll just keep going and kind of drag the toy along under his belly. If he runs into something (like the entertainment center), he just stays there with his head against it and cries because he doesn't know to turn around. Phillip said he didn't pass the written exam. I know he's fairly safe in the living room. I've made sure there are no small objects he can put in his mouth and that kind of thing. But I can't exactly keep him from running right into a hard surface. Hopefully in the next week or so he'll figure out what's going on.

Lookin' good

I had to come home from church because I remembered in the middle of the service that I forgot to send a bottle in the diaper bag. So, it's heating and I thought I would take a quick minute to blog.

As I was coming into the church building this morning with both boys, the diaper bag, and some soggy toast feeling rushed and sweaty, a really creepy weird guy at our church told me I was "looking good." What a way to start the day! Maybe I should have been flattered but mostly I felt disgusted. Anyway, just thought that was something worth sharing. Ok, gotta go.

On the move

Well, the little guy is crawling. He's not quite seven months old so it's kind of early for him to be crawling. He doesn't go very far yet, but it won't be long until he's all over the house. I wouldn't be surprised if this kid is walking by the time he's ten months old.

Forked again

Someone forked our yard again. They did a pretty pathetic job. If you're going to bother doing something, ladies, do it right. It took me and Jack all of two minutes to pick up the few forks you bothered to scatter around. I'm ashamed of you.

Camping Part 2

We've been home from our camping trip since Sunday, but I haven't taken the time to blog. It's really hard to find the time with two kiddos.

Anyway, we had a good trip. I realized that camping is not really much of a vacation. I think it's more work to try to keep a camper tidy than a house. And there was no dishwasher so that wasn't fun. But other than that, we really had fun. Jackson wore himself out everyday that we were there. My brother, his wife and two boys came to the campground on Friday evening. Their boys are 5 and 7 and Jack has a good time playing with those guys.

Jackson started doing something kind of funny while we were there. He's been blowing zerberts. Yeah, I don't know how in the world you spell the word zerbert. But he blows on the palm of his hand to make a farting noise and then he blows it to people like you would blow a kiss. I thought is was pretty clever. Rachel, did he learn this from one of your boys, or did he make it up?

Here are a few pictures from the trip. I'll be glad when I can actually post some pictures of the little dude. I probably could and get away with it, but I'm not going to take any chances. I love the picture of Jackson and my nephew, Garrett going down the water slide. Jackson is practically see-through (like his mom) and Garrett is sporting a nice tan.

By the way, I was able to get in and out of the camper. I had no more problems with the front door. I did, however, have a hard time with the microwave, the oven, the mini blinds, and the shower. All of those things work just as they should. The problem was the common denominator....me.