Nothing is predictable!

Good evening~
The wind is howling here tonight and it is really starting to feel like Fall. I love it.
We talked to Gabe's parents tonight and they are coming out in a couple of weeks to meet Isaiah and visit with us. We are all very excited about that!!

Today was a nutty day. Well it started with last night. Isaiah woke up coughing pretty bad. I kicked into mommy gear...or grandma gear and got out the Vick's vaporub! Awwww yeah! It helped a little but he ended up needing a breathing treatment. That helped him fall back to sleep. He woke up this morning with no fever but still some cough. Another breathing treatment and off to day care. Went to the day care at noon to give him another treatment and he was doing well. From that time until he got picked up he had 2 accidents in his pants...meaning that he had no change of clothes.

Gabe called me at 5:15 to say that he was stuck in grid lock traffic and wouldn't be able to get to the day care in time. I had a client in my office and another one in the waiting room. I had to ask my 5:30 to come back another day and zoomed to day care before they closed.

When I got there, Isaiah was thrilled to see me and was LITERALLY wearing his long sleeve striped shirt, a pull up, white socks and his brown shoes. NO PANTS. Because he wet twice he went through all his spare clothes. He could have cared less. He was running around having a blast...in a pull up. I just had to laugh.
Tonight he came home and had a slight fever and went right to bed after dinner and a bath. He pretty much fell asleep while I rocked him.

So now we wait and see how he is tonight and then again tomorrow. We are certainly realizing that nothing is predictable and planning things doesn't always work...like going to work.

Sunday night

Good evening~
Hope you all had a nice weekend. The weather here today was AWFUL. Rainy and dismal. Luckily we haven't had many of those. When it rains, kids get cranky and bored. Yep!

Nothing significant happened today. It was just a day of keeping a 3 year old occupied while we all kind of felt under the weather. Funny how when kids don't feel so good, they still have the energy of a wild animal but when I don't feel so well I need to sleep. The two don't really mix now do they?

But we survived. And I am finally heading up to take a shower now. At 9pm. First one of the day. The good news is we made it through a rough day with no hitting and only 1 threat to have my ass kicked. Yeah, by a 3 year old. At the end of the day when you are tired and irritable and a 3 year old tells you they are going to kick your ass if you don't let them watch Barney, it is REALLY temping to say, "LET ME SEE WHAT YOU GOT KID?" It was on the tip of my tongue, I swear!

So we are getting ready for bed, watching some football, snuggling JP and reading a bit. Tomorrow starts another week. It has been 4 weeks since Isaiah has come to live here. Some days it seems longer and others not so long. Today, it feels like he has been here 6 months...but I am sure it is just because we are tired...and the low pressure of the rain is depressing.

Here's to a sunny day tomorrow!!!

Until then...

A week later!

Good evening everyone!

Sorry I have been neglecting the blog. We are still getting into a rhythm here in Colchester and the days seem to FLY by! But all in all, things are good.

First things first, we fought our first semi battle with DCF and WON! We were thrilled and we are no longer transporting Isaiah to his visits with his mom. It was just to abnormal....unnatural, if you will. We do feel like it was good for her to get to meet us and know who he was with, but the reality and is that we are not going to all hang out and be chummy so we wanted some distance. We told DCF that and they made it so. Nice.

They also upped the amount of time Isaiah sees his mom. He went from seeing her once a week for 1 hour to 1.5 hours. Not significant and not what she wanted which was another whole visit in the week. We were surprised and somewhat upset but have come to terms with it. I think we will be doing a lot of that, coming to terms with things that DCF does.

Isaiah has had a nice week. He has done well at day care and is getting ready to go on his first field trip to the Firehouse in a couple of weeks. He is already talking about it.

He continues to do very well with potty training. He loves the positive reinforcement we give him and so he tries to go more often. It's working! AND since his diet is regulated he is experiencing more normal, boy-like poop! Was that an over share???

We are VERY happy to say that JP is doing so much better. It took many trips to the vet and swipes of the credit card to get him healing, but he is doing well. Below is a picture of him in his new Doggles, which may be helping more than anything. They reduce his light sensitivity and allow him to be out in the sun with no problems. I think the big thing that went wrong with him was related to his eye sight. He would flinch in the sun and then fall over. Poor puppa! But now he is a cool dog AND can see ok. Seriously, we would do anything for this dog!

Gabe and I are settling in after a fun "Welcome Fall" party at my cousin's house. There was yummy food, friends and a fire pit blazing. Gabe and I are both starting to feel under the weather and are looking forward to a rainy day tomorrow to do nothing but stay in!

Have a nice weekend!!

What a day!

Good evening. Boy the Fall has hit CT and it has been chilly. But we LOVE IT!! Love, love, love it. We have had an eventful couple of days and, as we lay in bed with JP tonight, we are feeling more at ease. But it took some drama to get us here!

Friday was a rough day...it was a visit day. Without getting into much detail, we got some news we didn't like but more importantly we received it in a way that was unprofessional on the part of DCF. We reached out to our support worker and got minimal support, so we talked it out in the back yard last night under the stars. We made some decisions on how this needs to go for us and have drawn some lines. And it feels good. What is even better is that our transitional worker came over today for a visit and totally validated things for us and said she will advocate for us. I think we literally both breathed a sigh of relief. FINALLY! Someone is going to look out for us...and we are too...while we do what's best for Isaiah!

Today was a BIG day. Gabe's company has been planning a 5K fundraiser for months. It was Gabe's idea and he was a big part of the planning committee. It was stressful over the past couple of weeks for him and to have the day come was a relief. Add to that perfect running weather and a lot of runners and we have a happy Goobie! Isaiah and I went and played in the park while the run happened. Then there was a picnic that we went to. Friends and family came out to support the cause and it was so beautiful outside. Isaiah had a great time playing in the dirt and with sticks. Riveting!

Then tonight we drove about 40 minutes south to the shore for dinner with some friends. It was the last trip of the summer to this particular restaurant and it was fun. We ate great food and there was music...and Isaiah got ice cream. Before we drove home, we changed him into his jammies, put his cozy blanket on him and put the sleepytime CD into the player. He didn't fall right to sleep but he was yawning back there and went right into his bed without incident tonight.

So, it was a jam packed day and it was great. I think we are all feeling relieved a bit and hoping for a more balanced experience with DCF starting next week. We'll see.

Until then...

Lots of stuff!

Greetings everyone!
Well, I know it has been a while since I wrote...things have just been going so quickly this week.
Gabe is back to work...and he was met with a pleasant surprise yesterday. His coworkers got together and threw him a surprise party...shower if you will. Everyone was so nice and generous and gave gifts for Isaiah. Gabe was so touched with their planning and sentiment. It was a wonderful surprise!

Isaiah is at day care most days now and is loving it. He hugs his teacher good bye every day...and it happy to report that he doesn't hit her at the end of each day. We had one day when he did and we jumped all over that. So now he is proud when he doesn't...that works. He will start getting speech services next week twice a week for an hour. During that time they will be evaluating him for any additional services that may be needed. We'll see.

We went to another local fair this weekend with some friends and Isaiah had a BLAST. There were 2 other little girls that came, a little older than him. He loved hanging out with them and they took him under their fair going wings and had a blast. Above is a picture of him holding a baby chick.

JP is still a little under the weather. He has been struggling to walk this week...and last. The doctor think it is something in his back pushing against his spine and causing some numbness. He really just looks like a drunk dog who can't quite walk straight. We don't think he is in any pain and he is still eating and pooping like a champ and that is always a good sign...at least to me!

This weekend we have Gabe's company 5K run to go to. While Gabe works we will play at the playground the park with my cousin's wife and her son. Should be fun!

We hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the Fall!!!

Testing, Testing, Testing!

Good evening~
Gabe and I are settling in for some evening Football! Ahhhh....just what we need after a ROUGH day! I will first back up with a PPT update. Isaiah has not yet started school because Colchester did not officially honor his IEP so they are reevaluating him. It was a frustrating meeting for us but Isaiah has an educational advocate who was there and who will be sure his needs are met in the end. So he is in daycare now and luckily it is a great day care run like a school so he will be getting educational components. We will meet with the distric again after their evaluation in mid October to see if they have qualified him for Speech and Special Education services.

Yesterday Isaiah had another visit with his mom. She brought him some of his old toys and Barney videos and we have seen some regression since getting those reminders of his old home. A lot of accidents in the pants today after nearly a week without one, more aggressive play and increased aggression towards us in the form of hitting and kicking. Today made Gabe and I miss our old life. It was beyond challenging.

JP seems to be on the mend...albeit sloooowly. This is a huge relief for Gabe and myself. We were both a wreck with him being so sick, but are hoping we have turned a corner.
Tomorrow is another day...and hopefully a better one. Between the adjustment and JP being sick I don't know how many more tears we have to shed. Personally I think we are both dehydrated!
We hope you are all having a nice weekend. And we hope ours improves tomorrow.
Until then...

Back to work does not equal blog post!

Hi all-
My apologies for skipping an entry last night. I went back to work yesterday and was exhausted by the time I got home at 8pm!
I know people are wondering what happened in court yesterday. The short answer is: nothing. The hearing was about Dad and the fact that he has still not been served neglect papers or notification of the state's intent to file termination of parental rights. Apparently he is on vacation so they gave more time to serve him blah blah blah. A couple of good things that came from the hearing are that we were able to see what it is like and we were able to meet Isaiah's attorney. He will be coming out to the house to pay a visit in the next month or so!
Listening at court also made us realize how far we are from really keeping this little boy. If Dad decides that he wants to be a parent DCF has to try to let that happen. I don't think he does though since he hasn't returned any of their calls in the past. Just interesting.
This morning we got up and took JP to the vet. He has been ill and come to find out it is his kidney disease progressing. So we were there for 2 hours, just me and Isaiah. That was interesting. It gave him enough time to poop on the toilet though. In the vet's office. Lol, he told everyone in the waiting room when he was done. The nurse gave him stickers! It's the first time in a public bathroom. AND he stayed dry all night last night. Amazing potty training progress.
Tomorrow we have a PPT at his school and he will spend the afternoon at his new daycare. He may start school Friday...or the following Monday. We are all looking forward to getting into a regular schedule...especially JP!
Tonight I am heading to the spa in town for a 1 hour massage! I can't wait!!!