slug

sarah is slowly trying to convert phoebe into being a girly-girl. they've got popcorn and backpacks loaded with odds and ends. perfect stuff for surprise attacking goofy brothers.
phoebe drying dishes with mint, a foreign exchange student we have befriended from thailand. we had a belated chinese new year dinner for her and a friend in conjunction with sam's birthday celebration.

my baby boy isn't a baby anymore. sam i am turned 8.

okay, each day i have less and less reason to still be soooo, shall we say lazy? i have been so unmotivated to do much of anything. i am just happy to be home playing skip-bo, reading, sleeping, doing school but at a slower pace, and not much of anything else. what is weird is that i am normally getting 'stuff' done. alot of stuff usually. i kind of like being laid back. for a change. plus i have this weird stomach thing going on. greg, sam, and about 42,000 other people had it last week so now it is my turn. plus it is cold and snowy. all good reasons to snug in and watch the world go by.

phoebe is doing better each day. i have been very blessed by some moms who have also gone through some really scary, but necessary, behaviors in kids they adopted at this age. some of them are moms that i followed awhile back through their journey to me site. it is neat to now have them write me. really, a big blessing as i feel i already know them :) it makes it all feel like it is going to be okay and probably sooner than later. i can definitely tell the difference in her moods better now.....the grieving/overwhelmed with all the change vs. i am deciding to be a complete brat right now. so the response is different too :) but she is settling in beautifully with sarah and her brothers. they run wild. they get irritated with each other. they hug. they play.

her dental surgery may be this thursday if we can get the insurance approval in time. she wakes up VERY GRUMPY. unfortunately, my first word to her most mornings is 'stop'. the whining and contortions are a little over the top. i can only imagine her coming out of anesthesia. now that will be lovely.

she is still quite the little orderly child. this is endearing to me as the rest of the things that live here are p-i-g-s. she drys dishes, takes out the trash to the garage and then puts in a new trash bag, and twice i've gotten out of the shower to find the bath mat folded :) and all this is without being asked. i call the other kids over so they can get a lesson. we just watch in amazement. the other kids definitely get a long list of chores, almost daily but they are told what to do. rarely is it just because they see a mess and just think 'hey, i will clean this up.' over time, we will find out if this is phoebe's personality, orphanage training, or she is OCD. i'm hoping for option #1.

p.s. the two books i just finished which i would highly recommend are 'a thousand splendid suns' by khaled hosseini (also wrote kite runner which was incredible too) and 'having a mary heart in a martha world' by joanna weaver. both are time well spent.