The Big Apple & a Beatle

Last week my husband came home from work and told me to not spend any money between now and July. Yeah, right. I needed a little more information than that.

He said he made vacation plans for our tenth anniversary and it was a surprise. He told me no matter how much I bugged him, he wasn't going to tell me. We haven't been on a vacation alone since our honeymoon. This was BIG!

I started in on him:

"You have to tell me where we're going."
"Nope. You'll see when we get there."
"How will I know how to pack? How will I know how to dress? What if I wear the wrong shoes? I could wear sneakers and it could be fancy, or I could wear sandals and my feet would hurt from..."
"Fine, fine, I'll tell you!"

I knew my nagging would come in handy some day.

He's taking me to New York City to see Paul McCartney at the new Yankee Stadium! I saw Paul twice before (once in '89 and again in '91) in Toronto. I never thought I'd see him again since it's so expensive. Plus, we have two kids now and it's not easy finding a babysitter (you can't leave a foster baby with just anyone). So our five year old is going to a friend's house for a few days, and the baby is going into respite care. I'm really looking forward to this break, but I will miss the kids.

I bought tickets to tour NBC studios at Rockefeller Center. When we went to NYC a few years ago, the tickets were sold out, so I wanted to make sure we got to go this time. We're planning on staying at a hotel in New Jersey this time. It's much cheaper than the city, and a bus will take us to Time's Square every day. I can't wait!

How Do You Keep Your Characters From Sounding Alike?

I have this problem, especially with female characters, where I think I make them all sound alike. I know you should be able to cover up the character's names and just read the dialogue and figure out who is saying what. I don't think I could do that with mine. At least not yet, but I'm working on it.

I've learned two things recently. One, if I go more than a day without writing or working on my story, I start to forget what the characters sound like. And, two, having pictures of what I think my character looks like really helps. Sometimes I use New Faces Model web site to find pictures of people, or I'll use famous people. Either way, it helps to put a face with the person I've created.

What do you do to help your characters sound unique?

Homeschool Mother's Journal

 Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week…  We found out that our five year old has cough variant asthma. I was happy that he was finally diagnosed after being at the doctors six times in less than a year for coughing. He now has an inhaler he'll use every day, and his own nebulizer when he has an attack. The doctor gave us steriods and a nebulizer to try for the week, and the results were amazing with how quick he got better. Now the baby is sick with a cold:(



In our homeschool this week… I haven't been doing as much homeschooling this week, but I did get my schoolroom totally organized. Now all of my son's toys are in the walk-in closet (off the bathroom which is off the schoolroom). And the schoolroom is filled with educational things. I have bookshelves with games, school-related books, his workbox, my own shelf with teacher-related materials and lots of other things. Now I'm just trying to get rid of our piano so I can have even more room!


I am inspired by…  Other homeschool moms I meet who homeschool more than one kid at a time. There are some amazing moms I've met online who have four or more kids at once that they homeschool. They make it look like a breeze, and I can't wait to start Kindergarten with my son.



Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… I met a great mom today at the park who homeschooled all four of her kids (now all grown). We talked a while and it turns out she lives right near me and we're going to try to meet up at a local park.
My favorite thing this week was… We spent two days this week at my girlfriends house. Our kids played all day, while I helped her her reorgainze her schoolroom. That was lots of fun!



What’s working/not working for us… My girlfriend and I started a Park Day every Friday morning. We invited all moms and kids to pack a lunch and come hang out at a different park each week. It was a lot of fun today, and I can't wait until next week. I love mixing and matching friends! 
Things I’m working on… I'm still working on my young adult novel. Sometimes I only get a paragraph here and there done, but I love the fact that the story is with me all day and I'm constantly taking notes.



I’m reading…  I'm totally addicted to Deb Caletti right now. I've read almost all of her books in the past few weeks. My favorites so far are Stay and The Six Rules of Maybe.  The way she writes gives that burning desire to sit down and write and write. Who could ask for anything more in a book?

I'm Not As Good As People Think

Foster care is something I never blog about. To be honest, besides the kids, I don't have many positive things to say about it. But right now I'm feeling burned out. Really burned out.

When people hear we're foster parents, they usually say what a wonderful thing it is we do and we are amazing (or fill in adjective here) people. The truth is, we're not. Sure we're on our tenth baby, we've adopted one, we go to court when there's court, we're super friendly to the meanest of bio parents and we love the kids unconditionally. But we don't do all of that out of the kindess of our hearts. We do it because we want to adopt.

Obviously we love our five year old. We've had him since he was three months old and he is the love of our lives. But we went through three and a half years of hell before it was decided last minute that we could adopt him. Three and a half years of waiting, wondering, crying and praying. I know there are many other foster parents out there who have waited much longer, only to have the kid returned to the bio parents. And my heart breaks for them. I feel like I would have died if that would have happened to our son, and it certainly could have.

I am in love with the four month old we have now. We have no idea what will happen with him. I was frustrated in the middle of the night when he had me up for two hours. He wasn't hungry, he was dry and he was happy and laughing. The last two things were not what I was up for at three a.m. By five, I was in tears. I was mad that I've taken care of ten babies in the middle of the night like that and only adopted one. I was angry that this is what I have to go through to have children. Young, unfit, irresponsible mothers pop these kids out one right after the other, and I'm forty years old and exhausted and crying because I'm taking care of them for the parents without an inkling of an idea of whether or not we'll have them a month from now.

I've always wanted a big family...four or five kids. But I am so tired of taking care of babies. My husband refuses any child over the age of one, and I'm starting to believe I don't want any more babies. That means we'll be done with fostering, which is sad. I didn't want our son growing up an only child.

And if it's not the sheer exhaustion of getting up all night that's doing me in, it's the system itself. It is a sad but well-known fact that nowhere in the law does it say they do what's in the best interest of the child. This was pointed out to us by a family law attorney. The bio parents are given chance after chance after chance for years. Meanwhile their child is lingering in the system, becoming attached to another family, and has a life.

I'm not saying all kids should be left in foster care to be adopted. I want bio parents to get their act together, clean up and be responsible enough to get their kids back. But if they can't do that in six or nine months (not three years!), then they should lose their rights. You either want your kids enough to straighten up or you don't. And if you can't get clean, then for God sakes, do the right thing and surrender your rights or find a suitable relative to step in.

And I won't even start on the judge(s) who is so pro-bio parent that when the parents actually want to surrender their rights, the judge refuses. Yes, this has happened numerous times in our county, forcing the bio parents and foster parents to hire their own lawyers and do it themselves. It's also the same judge who has sent a child back to a completely unfit bio parent and the parent drowned him in a bathtub.

Out of the ten kids we've had, only one has gone back to a parent. One. I was told recently by a foster care worker that more and more foster parents are quitting because of the system. And I feel bad saying we're probably going to be one of them.

This Just In...Exercising Does Work!

So I finally weighed myself last week. I found a scale in the girl's locker room at the Y. I've always weighed around 107-110, but a few months ago I creeped up to 127.5. That was the last time I weighed myself. I was positive I've been in the 130 range lately, and would enter that amount on any machine that asked for it at the YMCA. Turns out I'm only 122. Since I've already been exercising for a few weeks, I'm not sure if I lost weight from working out, or if I lost it from being a full-time mom and chasing a five year old and taking care of a four month old all day. Either way, I was a very happy girl. Plus I got to go out and buy a bunch of work out clothes from Old Navy. That's enough to keep any girl going.

Friday my five year old came down with a sudden cough, and my girlfriend (who was over) asked if he had asthma. I said no (I'd never heard him wheeze) and said it was just a cold. At her urging I called the doctor and they wanted to see him right away. After two hours, a nebulizer, and a prescription for steroids, they said he has asthma. He's been using the nebulizer they let us borrow every four hours, and he has the steroids once a day. We have to go back next week and they're going to give us an inhaler. The poor kid was so sick yesterday. He coughed so hard he threw up on his dinner (luckily it wasn't mine this time).

I've still been taking lots of notes on my novel. Yesterday I came up with, what I think, is the perfect title. It's much better than the working title I'd been using, so that's exciting. I've been writing a paragraph or two every day on it. It's not much but it's all I can manage right now with the kids.

On top of meeting at the Y three times a week, my girlfriend and I are going to start going to a different local park every Friday for the kids to play and eat lunch. Anyone who reads this who is in our area and has kids, feel free to join! It's not just for homeschoolers.

Last night we watched Hot Tub Time Machine again. I love that movie. Blockbuster has this weird deal going on where you rent a movie, bring it in the next day and get another one for free. Over and over through June. We've gotten two for free so far. They also have a sale and I got The Invention of Lying and Broolyn's Finest for $.99 each.

My husband just ran out to get us some Dunkin' Donuts coffee, so I'm going to make the most of this time and get some writing done before I feed the baby breakfast.