(sigh)......Well, Crap!

We got the letter in the mail yesterday about the child support hearing.  Not only did they award the full amount that was requested, but they also made it retroactive to the date of the filing, which was like November, I think.  NOT good!  There is no way on God’s green earth that we can afford to pay that much every month, let alone catch up to four months back!  It’s insane.  I do not know what the heck is going to happen.  The order says that it will be taken out of R’s wages, but they can’t do that because he is self-employed, so the company he leases on with does not do garnishment.  So, we will be doing the very best that we can to send as much as we can every month.  But I am very apprehensive about what will happen when we are unable to fulfill the amount of the court order.  I really just wish that his ex would have had a heart and accepted our offer of the amount that we can reasonably pay, instead of being bitter.  I don’t even know what it is that she is bitter about, but it’s clear that she is.  I feel badly about that, because the last time we ever saw her or talked to her, it was all friendly and I had no clue there were any problems.  I just hope that someone somewhere will have the heart to see that we are doing our very best to keep our heads above water right now and that we are not trying to shirk any responsibility, but just honestly don’t have the money!  We are still trying to pay off the medical bills from J’s birth and subsequent hospitalization and he’s almost two years old!  We don’t live the high life.  We don’t even have cable or internet.  We don’t go out to eat.  We don’t go out for anything other than to buy food and diapers! 

 

Honestly, I don’t know where I would be right now if it weren’t for my parents and other extended family!  I just want to take the time to thank you all soooo much!  From not having to drive to work every day, to not having to pay for daycare, to having virtually ALL of J’s clothes, shoes and toys given to us……..We are eternally grateful and hope that we never forget to show that.  I assure you all that I take none of your generosity for granted!  NONE! 

 

God has truly blessed us with good family and friends, with our health, with our jobs, and we have a roof and clothes and food.  So…..I will continue to chant my mantra: “I’m too blessed to be stressed.”  Some days I have to work very very very hard to keep that in the front of my mind!

I'm a Big Kid now!

It was a big day for the little man yesterday. I got a call in the afternoon stating that he had somehow managed to climb out of his crib at my mom’s house! No injuries, thank goodness. Just a little raspberry on his earlobe. Now tell me, how the heck does one fall on one’s earlobe? Sheesh, only my child, I tell ya! But we all knew that was the big sign that it was time to face the hard task of switching over to the toddler bed. So mom and I both made the switch yesterday. You should have seen how proud he was showing me his big boy bed when I went to pick him up! He had the biggest smile ever!

So, since R happened to be home the same night, we decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and convert his crib to the “transitional bed.” I’m so glad that the crib we had bought used two years ago was a convertible one! Because if I’d had to go out right now and get him a whole new bed……we’d be so screwed! Well, the conversion project was just about the most exciting and interesting thing J-man had seen in a good long while! And of course, he insisted on being right in the middle of it. Literally, in the way in the middle of it! He was so excited he was bouncing off the walls! I finally had to cheat. I gave him cookies and milk in front of the tv with one of his movies playing! LOL Then R and I were quickly able to finish up the conversion. I had to take the mattress into the living room to get the sheet on it because J would NOT stay off it for two seconds!

We got it all put together and J climbed into it……as proud as a little peacock! I mean, he was totally beaming! He kept climbing in and out and in and out like he just couldn’t believe it. I went and got my camera and snapped a few shots of him playing in it. Then he decided to go back to the living room, but I just sat there in the rocking chair staring at that big boy bed and crying. I feel like the last vestige of his babyhood is gone now.

I was very much anticipating a LOOOOOONG night of fighting to teach him he had to stay in bed. To my shock and amazement, we put him in bed and he never budged even once! I was on pins and needles listening to the monitor for any sign that he was getting up. All we heard was every few minutes the sweetest and most joyful little giggle! It was like he was looking up and checking to be sure he was still free and it just tickled him. It was the sweetest thing I have ever heard! And he never left that bed all night long! So proud of my little man today! So proud…….

Miniature Monet

This weekend was a pretty good one. Friday night R found himself with the night off. A fairly common occurrence lately, as the grocery hauling business is in a bit of a slump at the moment. So, we decided on the spur of the moment to all three go out to supper and to Wal Mart that night. We had a lot of fun. J was excellent in the restaurant, which is not always the case. Usually he is restless and asking to get down by the time the food arrives. He did get rather beside himself in the Wal Mart, as by then it was well past his bedtime. But we got through it ok.

Saturday it was nice to be home and not have to go anywhere. J and I went to the store in town for our meat, as that is the one thing that I refuse to buy from Wal Mart. IMO, the meat there just plain sucks! AND it’s cheaper in town. Later, we were able to go out to the backyard and play for a while. J sure does need a swing set out there. I wanted to get him one for his first birthday…..and here we are nearing his second and he still doesn’t have one. That night, while R was out working, I decided to get brave. I got out some paint for J! He had so much fun. He really loved it. He liked dipping the brush in the paint over and over and over. I took his clothes off and set his easel up on top of a big sheet on the floor. I put an oversized t-shirt on him and he painted his little heart out. When he was done, he turned to me and asked for a “bass” (bath). I looked him over and said, “good idea!” We went into the bathroom and I decided to take a few quick pictures of him before the bath. I was having a hard time getting him to stand back away from the camera so that I could get a good picture. Then he reached up to the counter and grabbed my toothbrush. I thought ‘good, he’s distracted. Now I can get a picture.’ And then it was one of those moments. You know, the moments that you experience and remember like slow motion but they happen so fast that you have no time to react to them? The moments they dramatize in movies with slow motion effects? Yeah, it was that kind of moment…..he looked up at me with that ……glint……and in a flash he reached over, lifted the lid on the toilet and chucked my toothbrush into the bowl!!! As I was diving toward him with my arm extended saying “no….No…..NOOOO!!!” So, now I have to buy a new toothbrush. But the painting was lovely. I forgot to take a picture of the actual painting. I’ll do that tonight and update with the pic later. For now, here are the pics of the artist!

Sunday was fun. J and I went over to spend the afternoon with The Great Aunt C for her birthday. My mom and Grams were there also. J really enjoyed running around on the tile floor and the sound his shoes made. He also loved playing with Aunt C and Uncle C, and he especially loved running loose outside since they live in the country. We took him out to see the goats, but he was so impressed with being unfenced that he didn’t stop running long enough to really notice them. He ran till I was out of breath and then we made him go back in!

Hope everyone else had a great weekend too! Thanks for dropping in on us!

T is for Truck

We have been working a lot with J lately on his letters.  He can name almost every letter of the alphabet, and we have been working on the sounds that each letter makes.  We do this with the help of starfall.com, which I highly recommend, and on our own.  We say things like, “Muh, muh, mouse…..M.”  So this morning when I got him out of his car seat at mom’s house, a pickup drove by, and he started saying “Guck! Guck!”  This is how he says ‘truck.’  I encouraged him, “yes, that’s right.  That’s a truck.”  Then he says to me, “Tuh, tuh, Guck.”  I had to fight so hard not to laugh at him!  He’s so adorable!

 

For those of you who’ve been wondering……things worked out nicely with my vehicle.  The mechanic finally got to it at about 4 o’clock on Friday.  It started right up for him!  I could not believe it when he told me! He said it ran “rough” for a while, but smoothed out and was fine.  He idled it for about 30 minutes and shut if off and started it again and never could find a problem.  I picked it up and asked what I owed him and his response was a wave of the hand and “I’m not going to charge you for that!”  Mind you, it had taken up an hour of the mechanic’s time!  I am so thankful to God and to everyone who prayed about this, and to the mechanic.  I feel that this was a direct answer to a lot of concentrated prayers on my behalf!

 

I also think God was giving me a little lesson in trust.  Because this weekend, R’s truck developed a leak.  We are pretty sure that it is the water pump.  He did not have the tools necessary to fix it, nor the money to buy the tools and parts.  He was off to try to get what he needed to take care of it today.  I hope that it works out as smoothly as our personal vehicle did!  So……..keep praying everyone.  IT WORKS!!!!

 

Thursday the 12th

So, you guys already know about the issues with R’s ex taking us to court for child support for Little R.  I believe that the hearing was yesterday, and R did not go.  So, you know how I’m sure that went.  I don’t know how long it will be before we hear word on that officially. 

 

Yesterday my dad called me at….time to leave AM…..and said that he had slept through his alarm and he would be late, so he wanted to know if I wanted to wait for him or go on in to work by myself. (I live 40 miles from work, but my dad works in the same office and lives in the same town, so I ride with him) I made sure that R didn’t need the vehicle, and I drove myself to work.  Last night after our meeting, I went out to go home and my vehicle would not start.  It’s not something simple like battery.  The battery is good, and the starter is good.  It may be a fuel pump or something.  It was all I could do not to break down in tears in front of my coworkers who had come out to try to help me.  One of them offered to take me home, which was wonderful, since that is about 80 miles round trip.  He is a sweetheart!  But my head was swimming with “we cannot afford this.”  Also, I had to leave my beautiful Maria (my vehicle’s name) in the parking lot here all night.  This is a very bad neighborhood!  I was very worried.  Three guys helped me push it to the area that is covered by our surveillance cameras, in hopes that would prevent anyone from messing with it. (thankfully, it wasn’t touched)

 

The one good thing is that my dad is using his AAA membership to get my vehicle towed so I don’t have to pay for a tow.  But the repair itself is still a concern.

 

Put all this together with the work disaster I had yesterday, and once again my belief held true…….Thursday the 12 is ALWAYS infinitely worse than Friday the 13^th!

 

Please pray for us.

 

Next Time Won't You Sing With Me....

Last night was another big first for the J-man!  We were just finishing up our supper when he began saying, “XY….XY……XY.”  So, I took his cue and sang the alphabet song to him……………and to my tremendous shock, surprise, awe, and sheer joy……. As soon as I was done, he began SINGING!  He sang over and over and over again….

 

“Namma Nomma ABC’s…” (Now I know my ABC’s)  It was totally adorable!!!!  I just wept like a little girl.  I called my momma and she could hear him singing it over and over.  She was shocked into silence.  I tried to call Elizabeth so she could hear it, but she must have been out for the night already, or had her phone off.  E, you missed out, girl! LOL  Then I tried to get it on video on my cell phone to send to Daddy, but of course then J just wanted the phone.  He got so mad that I wouldn’t give him my phone that he forgot all about the song.  I got him to do it a couple more times later on, but that was it, and never in front of a video camera, though I tried really hard!  This morning I could not get him to do it at all.

 

These are the Days of Our Lives....

So, just to keep everyone up to date…..I’ll do a little whining about all that is going on in our lives.  There is a hearing this week regarding a child support request that R’s ex has made for their youngest son R.  Please pray for a reasonable result there, as we are very scared and nervous about it.  The amount that has been proposed would likely cause us to loose our house.  In addition, we got a lovely little notice this weekend that our house payment is going up by $115 a month starting in May.  NOT cool!  This is because the amount of the escrow is going up because of our property taxes going up.  In addition, next month R’s student loan comes out of forbearance, which increases that payment by about $50 a month.  So, there is a lot of financial stuff landing on us right now, all at once, and it has me very apprehensive about the future, and struggling to trust God.

 

On the upside, J is back to 100% himself now, and my neck/back is all healed up.  And my mom made it safely back home from her trip down south after a big scare that ended up being only a minor repair to her vehicle.  R has been busy this week playing cupid….hauling flowers to the local grocery store floral departments to stock up for Valentine’s Day.  He says he feels like he should be wearing a diaper and carrying a bow and arrow……I strongly discouraged the idea. LOL

 

I’ve been insanely busy at work lately.  Old jobs to service, new jobs to quote, and discovering a slew of mistakes that have me chasing my tail trying to fix things.  And that is the only excuse I have for not updating more often.  I promise that I will try to get you some new pictures very soon.  I know, I’ve been saying that for a while….

 

J is learning new things all the time!  His little brain is growing and growing!  He can now tell you that a duck says “Gack, Gack” and the names of Grams’ dogs.  He can only name one of our own dogs, though.  Spike is called “Buck” and Jack he just calles “dah dah,” which means doggie.  He can say his own little versions of water and snack and bread and bites and barn and binky and rock.  It seems he picks up something new almost daily.  My very favorite, though, is when he comes to me with a book and takes me by the hand to which ever chair he wants to sit in, then looks up at me with that adorable sweet face, and pats the seat where he wants me to sit.  We do love our reading time!  More than once, though, I’ve caught myself in the adult world expressing my discontent by saying, “Do I like this?  Oh no, I do not!” so I am considering hiding the Cat in the Hat book for a while.

 

The other new trick J has developed is to talk to us “through” his stuffed animals and toys.  His conversation skills are a bit lacking, but we are working on that.  For the most part, he will hold up a thing…..for instance, this morning it was a Big Bird doll, and point it at your face and say, “Allo.”  Then we say, “Hello, Big Bird,” as ask a question, or make a comment about the day…..to which J, as Big Bird, responds, “Bye,” only to come back mere seconds later and start over with “Allo.”  LOL  It is adorable.  Once in a while, he will make the object say something other than hello and bye.  Yesterday he had me carrying on a conversation with a semi truck.  Do you have any idea what an odd feeling it is to find yourself saying the words, “Hello Semi Truck, how was your day today?”

 

Yowza!

Happy Monday to everyone.  Another bright shiny new week.  (barf)  Ok, I’m done being Miss Sunshine.  Ha Ha.  It was not the best weekend I’ve ever had.  I pulled a muscle in my neck on Saturday morning while changing J’s diaper.  Ugh!  So so so so dumb!  Don’t you just hate dumb injuries?  I reached over to get his cup of milk for him and BAM!  There goes my neck.  So, all weekend I’ve been dealing with ice packs, heating pads, icy hot, and ibuprofen, and still walking like a zombie.  It’s better, but not great.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to hold my own head up all day long at work.  Seriously, this weekend I had to take a break from it ever so often. 

 

Also on Saturday morning our furnace quit working!  Ack!  Thank the Lord for two things: 1) It was a record-breaking warm day Saturday, and 2) My brother in law does HVAC!  So, with his help we got the furnace rigged up to limp along till I can get the new part at my lunch hour today.  Hopefully it won’t cost me a fortune.  At least we didn’t have to pay a repairman.  That would suck.  Have I mentioned lately that I L-O-V-E my brother in law?  Seriously R, you are the best!

 

This week I am on my own getting back and forth to work.  My dad always takes the first week of February off work at his regular job and works full time at his second job as a tax preparer for H&R Block.  It is a long and tiring week, but he enjoys the work.  And we always get to hear some good stories out of it.  The IRS is one giant mess, let me tell ya!

 

Nothing much is new for us around here.  We just keep on keeping on.  I hope to have some new pictures up for you soon.  It’s a simple matter of remembering and having the energy to download them from my camera in the evenings.  Till then, have a great week!