My GNO was great as usual. We went out to dinner at Uncle Yu's, the best chinese restaurant ever and then we headed to church for the Women's Christmas Event. They brought in a speaker who was fabulous and it was just a great way to kick off the week. I went to the tire place bright and early Monday morning and they found a screw in my tire (probably from our garage....I wish I could say Ryan put things in their place and picked up after himself, but it is clear where the kids get it!)
I am not sure what was going on with the kids, but I couldn't get any of them to move. I would ask them to get dressed in the morning or brush their teeth and it was like I wasn't even talking and then when they did acknowledge I said something, they would start to move toward completing whatever it was and never get there! I watched K and Ainsley wander aimlessly in their own little worlds. It was amazing and extremely frustrating, but we were managing! There's a lot of running around when there is only one of us. Ainsley has gymnastics from 3:30-5:30 in Pleasanton and then Reggie has to be on the other side of Livermore (a good 20 minutes away) at 6 for swimming and somehow we squeeze dinner in there. That schedule is 2 nights a week and is a bit challenging.
And then came Thursday....I had toffee making day with my girlfriends, while K was at a visit. Problem is transportation didn't come and the visit didn't happen. So, poor guy had to come with me, but he did great! The best part is we didn't have to deal with all the issues he has when he has a visit, so that was a real blessing. We made our toffee and Moose Munch and it was a nice break in the week. Until I got home and the social worker decided to schedule 2, 8 hour visits for next week on his school days, one of them being his pajama day. He has been looking forward to pajama day for several days and was in tears when I told him. Mama bear came out and I told him I would fix it. Long story short, after many phone calls to his dad and social worker, I finally got it figured out, phew! However, the amount of stress put on me and disgust for the lack of regard for K was more than I could stand, so I have escalated things up the chain in hopes that someone will think about this little child for once. This system is so very broken and I could write pages and pages of terrible things that we have experienced, but I am choosing to see if there is any way I can help fix it.
On to better things....Reggie had his swim party that night and although I didn't feel like going, the kids were super excited for Mountain Mike's pizza. It turned out it was just what I needed....the coaches he has are great and it was fun to hear their stories about the kids. I had no idea there were so many talented swimmers on our team! Reggie got most improved swimmer and he felt really good about it. That was one of the first things he told Ryan when they talked the next day. Reggie is funny because he will swim fast when they are doing relays in practice and will swim faster than some of the big kids, but put him in a swim meet and he'll take his sweet time :o).
Thankfully, the week ended much better and we went to Wonderland for the Foster-A-Dream Christmas event. The kids made cookies, played games, sat with Santa and picked out gifts. The amount of gifts they get is ridiculous and it initially bothered me, but it has been a long year and my kids have to put up with a lot of extra junk due to the foster process, so I say good for them. I was looking for the adult present shop....I could really use a spa day or an IPAD, but no dice! I did get a very small manicure set :o). I digress.....anyway, they gave Ainsley a new bike and I just couldn't go for that, so I talked to her and she didn't even want it anyway, so we gave it back for someone who really needed it. Then we went out to lunch, which we never do and they were so very good that day! Ryan finally flew home (thank goodness he made it out of Chicago, just before the snow really hit) and met us after lunch to take Reggie to a birthday party, while I took Ainsley to her gymnastics/dance performance.
Ryan had quite the week in Chicago. His boss was fired last week and his new boss is interesting to say the least and he had really, really long days. He was so ready to come home and we were asleep by 9:30. It was the first good night of sleep I had in a few days.
Today was also fun. We had a message at church that was tailored to the both of us.....how to have hope in hopeless situations. It is just awesome when you go to church and feel like the pastor is talking directly to you! We even visited scripture that I had quoted earlier in the week...Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose :o).
From there I took Ainsley to her gymnastics party where they exchanged gifts and watched a slide show. The food was terrible and we left absolutely starving, so we came home and ate a bunch of toffee! After dinner we went to a live walk-through nativity. It was so impressive. They build an entire village and have actors, dancers, live animals and village activities from that time period. It was really busy and I wish we would have had more time to explore the village, but the kids did write their names with feather pens and dipped them in ink and Reggie wrote his name in Greek. We saw how they made "flashlights" from pinch pots, wick and oil and how they made bread. We learned about the census and it really felt like we flashed back in time. Mary came in on a donkey and we saw the story come to life. It was beautiful and a good reminder of what this season is really about. I think K thought baby Jesus was really in the hay!
