Our home is lovely but my internet connection sucks!

I'm usually a fairly diligent poster. Lately, however, it seems every time I've sat down to do a post, it ends up not happening. Aside from just being busy lately, we have a total crap internet connection. We decided to go with some "air card" through a cell phone company. It was easy to set up and the concept is neat since you can use it on the laptop essentially anywhere. However, I'm always on the desktop and it just doesn't get a good connection. I feel like I have dial-up.

Anywho, our friends Alison and Scott came over for lunch on Sunday. I made quiche which went over really well. Mary had me all freaked out since even though we love quiche and eat it quite a bit, I had never actually made one on my own.

But lets see, other than quiche, we've exhausted ourselves with finishing most of the house. Alison even commented that they couldn't believe how lived in our house looked like and that they still had boxes in their apartment that they moved into months ago. Of course, there's my high energy wife that won't let things sit and of course we knew there wouldn't be much time to work on the house once the baby arrived.

Here's some pics' of our family room...




where Camer's favorite thing lives - the t.v.!




we have LOTS of built-ins

I'll post pics' of some of the other rooms another time since it takes me forever to upload pictures. Damn this internet connection!

Mess of a Routine

This week it's operation "Get Cameron BACK on Schedule!" We normally stick to a very regular routine/schedule and it's been totally thrown off with the move. The move and scattered schedule have definitely resulted in us having a very crazy 3 year old on our hands. We also invested in those light blocking drapes for his room since even though he has ended up going to bed much later, he's been up at the crack of dawn. We thought there would be less light in his new room since there's less windows but that doesn't seem to be the case. At least the new drapes seem to do the trick. So we have done pretty good this week with sticking to our normal schedule.

Unfortunately, I made plans to go to my aunt's tomorrow at 12 (since that's what worked for her). Cameron's normal nap time is 1 so this could be dangerous. Another aunt and my god mother are going too so I'm going to try to stay as long as possible. This is the first time they're meeting him so I am praying he is on good behavior and doesn't have any melt downs.

Anywho, this morning we went to see a potential pre-school. Sort of by default, he's going to end up there. Most others don't have availability or they're ridiculously priced. I was really hoping for something cleaner and more organized than his previous one but this is some how even messier and even more unorganized. The woman kept saying they're in "Summer mode" so maybe it's normally a little more organized? I hope. However, the people all seemed super nice and there is currently another 2 mom family. It's a co-op style so one of us (most likely Mary since I'll have the baby) have to do the day there 1-2 times/month. Mary actually thought this was nice since we'll get to know the other kids and parents. I thought it should be a lot cheaper if we have to work there. LOL. It's 8:30-1 and we'll send him 4 days/week. I'm not sure how much he'll learn but I think it will be a nice social outlet for him and a break for me. Of course, he won't start until September. Maybe I'll start counting down the days ;-)

Belly Casting

So it's a Monday night and there's nothing on t.v., what do you do? Well you cast your belly, but of course! LOL! This was quite the messy adventure but I will commend my wife on her casting abilities.

It's currently drying though unfortunately for Mary she's going to have more work to do since she didn't exactly get the top the way I want it. I also need to add more casting stuff (or whatever it's called) to some of the places that are thin.


Anywho, my original idea was for people to sign it when they visited the baby for the first time but now I'm thinking I may just paint it and put his name and birth date on it. Obviously after he's born since neither one of these things are know. Needless to say, I thought it would be cool to have since this is my first and probably last pregnancy (Mary's supposively carrying the next child).

Our Cameron Michael

Our adoption announcements came in the other day.


(it's scanned so looks a lil' crappy)

We changed his middle name and obviously his last name. Michael is after Mary's "favorite" brother and coincidentally he ended up with the same initials as me :-) She chose as our compromise of not changing his first name. Even though I fought to NOT change his name, sometimes I think, I can't believe I have a kid named Cameron. It's so not a name I would pick.

And a shout out to Picture Me Perfect that had announcements that actually fit this kind of adoption. Lots of places had adoption announcements but they were definitely for babies or even specifically for international cases.

Make Way for Ducklings

Our first weekend in the Boston area and it was a good one. Of course, we're in that "vacation" stage of moving where everything is new and exciting but it's definitely nice to have different things to do. In Maine, we were near some beautiful places but most were about an hour drive. Here, we're about a 10 minute drive to downtown Boston which is so convenient.

On Saturday afternoon, we went in to the see "the ducks". I find it amusing that kids are SO entertained by these little statues. It's also even more amusing to watch adult tourists wait for the kids to get off to get a picture of them - ummm, it's not going to happen! For those of you that don't know, they're from the book "Make Way for Ducklings" that's about a group of ducks that live in Boston.



After seeing the ducks, we ventured over to the swan boats.





Then we hit the crazy playground that's on Boston Common. I say crazy because the place is always packed and just insane with kids. Of course, Cameron loved every minute of it. Afterwards, we got a balloon sword. Unfortunately, dealing with weapon toys and scary faces is just something that comes with having boy children. At least he debated for a moment on whether to get a sword or a flower.



That lasted about 5 minutes before he popped it and then asked for another one. Ummm, no, I told you that it would pop if you were rough with it. It was a great afternoon and these types of things will even be more enjoyable when this baby is out of my belly. It's become a bit difficult to walk, my legs hurt and breathing just isn't as easy.

And of course, it wouldn't be complete with the token side profile shirt. Can you tell that I'm having trouble finding shirts that are LONG enough. Oh, being tall and prego is not fashionably easy.



Sunday we went to a nearby beach area for lunch. Most of the beach areas around the city are pretty ghetto but still nice to be able to go to a beach and get some fried fish. No pics' since we didn't actually hang out at the beach very long. There was a major wind storm so we ended up getting food and after sand blowing in our faces, we ended up eating it in the car. So much for that ;-)

Moving and Having a Baby

It's been a crazy week. We headed down on Sunday with 2 car loads of stuff though 1 car was filled with the kid and the animals. Of course, my lovely wife was in charge of driving that one. LOL. Hey, I'm already uncomfortably pregnant, I don't need a mental breakdown due to a screaming kid, 3 screaming cats, and a neurotic dog. :-)

Mary headed back up to Maine on Monday night to coordinate the movers on Tuesday. Thursday our furniture finally arrived - and not soon enough. The night before was my breaking point for sleeping on a blow up mattress. I'm VERY happy to have our furniture though of course, the house is in much disarray. The kitchen seems to be the most difficult as our cabinet space has been cut down dramatically.

Today, I met my new midwife. The hospital doesn't seem stellar but I think it will do. I had gone back and forth with a birthing center and this particular hospital. I'm just going to pray that I don't go into hard labor during rush hour since it's a pretty crazy location to get to. Afterwards, Mary and I went to Babies R Us. She kept wanting to go this week though I wasn't sure why. We have bought a few things there but we usually just end up browsing or what not. Well, apparently she wanted to do an entire shopping spree and let me get just about everything off my registry. I was excited :-)

We went to town and bought quite a few things so I think we are totally ready for baby. Mary's mom also gifted us the crib and changing table and those are on the way. It's nice feeling more prepared and like we are really having a baby. The reality that I'm REALLY having a baby hit me today. It's been a long wait and I just can't believe I'm having a baby soon. It's crazy and amazing and just mind blowing all at the same time. Words cannot describe it.

Quick Update

We are officially living in Massachusetts. Our house is sold and our furniture is FINALLY here :-) Now it's time to actually organize all the stuff in boxes...

Hopefully pics and more updates to come once I have a minute and a good internet connection.

Just Send an Email!

This may be slightly repetitive of my last post but I felt the need to vent...

I feel I'd rather do pretty much all correspondence via email. It's just easier. There's the convenience of emailing whenever and of not needing to write appointments down since they're right there in an email. And when you have a 3 year old at home, it's not exactly easy to be on the telephone. Today, I went back and forth with both a pre-school and my doctor's office.

The most annoying part of the doctor's office was their answering service. Answering services suck! I would prefer to leave a voicemail than play the telephone game with someone who's completely clueless. Needless to say, I thought I had everything settled until another woman in the office left me a message that she needed more information but she was leaving the office that instant and wouldn't be back until Monday. I really wish she had let me know what info she needed so I could have at least left her a message instead of having to reach her on Monday.

Then we had the pre-school dilemma. My correspondence with one pre-school started via email which is easiest to make an inquiry. Of course, I was emailed back that it was filling up quickly and to call to schedule a time to meet and see the place. Of course when I called I got a voicemail and one of those mysterious ones that only recites the number your calling. It was also a scary man's voice so I wasn't sure if I was even calling a pre-school. In my message, I said the earliest I could meet was Thursday afternoon or Friday morning so let me know what worked for those days. I thought when she called back, if she got my v/mail, she could let me know a time and I could confirm. Nope, I just get, I'm leaving the office right now but I'll be in later. What does later mean? Of course, when I called back I got the mysterious v/mail once again though I thought it was pointless to leave a message since I thought I'd sound b*tchy repeating my last message.

Needless to say, it was a frustrating day and Cameron wasn't exactly on stellar behavior. I was hit multiple times and at one point had a stick thrown at me. Lovely. I also expected Mary to be back around 3 and she wasn't back until 6. By this time, Cameron had behaved so badly that he was sent to his room until dinner. I thought I relayed this to Mary then the next minute she's in his room rocking him in his rocking chair. I'm like, "Mary, you just completely undermined me, he's supposed to be in trouble". She's like, "Oh, I didn't know, I thought his time out was over". AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

Dirty Diapers

I feel like I'm working in an office today. I have made so many calls. We're trying to figure out things with our insurance company to get an "out of network approval". Apparently, pregnancy qualifies as some sort of emergency medical situation so we may not have to pay anything for going to a provider in Mass. That would be sweet! Anywho, first we were told to have our midwife's office call, they did and were told to have my primary care call.

So now I've been going back and forth with dumb receptionists and even dumber (is that a word?) answering services to get the information to them. I've been to my primary care doctor once so it's annoying to have to deal with them in this. I hope they get it done.

I've also been in the debate of how to diaper the baby. After seeing the amount of diapers that kids go through and for many years, I definitely knew I wanted a more environmentally friendly source for the baby. It's disturbing that my diapers from when I was a baby are still in a landfill. I planned on using GDiapers. They're kind of like a cloth/disposable hybrid. I went ahead and purchased some little G pants and refills at a local store. However, I don't seem to see any stores that sell them where we'll be living. You can order them online but it's pricey and kind of negates some of the environmental benefits. So now I contacted a diaper service to see how that would work and if they service the town I'll be living in. I think I could do cloth if I had a diaper service, I just don't want poop in my washer and it sounds like you have to wash them multiple times to actually clean them (?). I'm a total priss when it comes to dirty things especially poop. Oh well, hopefully I'll find a "green" way to diaper this baby.

I have also been on a crazy search for pre-schools. I had looked into stuff months ago and then sort of put it on the back burner until recently. I think having him attached to my hip for the past few weeks got me in gear. So I've contacted numerous places and everything is already full for September. Oy. I'm even on a wait list for 2 Catholic schools. I find this quite amusing. Needless to say, I hope I find one because I think I'll definitely need some relief from balancing 2 small children and Cameron definitely needs to be around other kids and be learning something.

Baby Check

We're just back from seeing "baby brother". We had a midwife appointment that included a quick ultrasound to see baby's position. He's head down which was kind of shocking, I would've sworn even last night he was not. He's a mover so I wouldn't have been worried if he was breach right now but it is a relief that he's not. Cameron came along since we don't have anybody to watch him and we thought it would be nice for him to see the baby. I think he was utterly confused by the entire thing but had a big smile on his face the entire time. He loves everyone referring to him as the big brother.

So everything was good with baby though my midwife always seems slightly nervous but maybe I'm just paranoid. She was all, maybe you'll have the baby at 36 weeks. I was like, do you KNOW something??? We're heading down to Massachusetts on either Sunday or Monday and Mary has to come back up to Maine for a couple of day so I'll be solo on Tuesday and Wednesday. Of course, it's early but I still freak out about going into labor on one of those days.

Anywho, this was our last appointment with our midwife. We LOVE her though it turns out she accepted a different position so wouldn't have actually been able to deliver our baby anyways. That made us feel better about transferring to a different practice since I wasn't a big fan of the other midwifes and OB in the practice.

Baby was moving like crazy so the pics are low quality, they're supposed to be his face.

Happy Adoption Day!

Well, we had a lot of fun but it was a LONG day. It started with us having to be at court at 8. I hoped we wouldn't have to wait long as ummm, we have a 3 year old. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Luckily and unluckily, our caseworker and adoption specialist showed up with gifts for Cameron. In the midst of waiting over an hour, we started talking about potential names for the baby and the adoption specialist suggested HB's name as a name. Ummm, wtf?!? That was just strange (on so many levels). Anywho, we finally got in and the 100 year old judge granted us our adoption. In our wait, we managed to get some cute pics.







Afterwards, we headed to Cameron's favorite restaurant for breakfast. Not my idea of a place to go while dressed nice but it was his day and the restaurant has a train which is key. Then it was time to head home to change our clothes.



We headed to the mall to build a bear...or rather a moose.



Introducing "Mainer", we just couldn't leave Maine without some sort of moose thing. And yes, he does have adorable Sketcher sneakers.



After making the moose, some rides at the mall, and a picnic at a playground we thought Cameron would take a decent nap. Nope. Though Mary and I probably shouldn't have told him that he'd get his gift from us after his nap.


Needless to say, he got his scooter. Later, T, P, and Q came over for pizza and cake (yummy ice cream cake).



To end the day, we read our Happy Adoption Day book which is always weird because it's actually a song but Cameron loves it. Though you can't tell from the pic since by this point, we were a bit grumpy and over tired to say the least.



Now, one very tired little boy is in bed and this "new" Mommy is about to have another slice of ice cream cake :-)

FINALLY!

Our Cameron is officially our Cameron :-)



(details to come later)

A Massachusetts Baby

I finally made an appointment with a new midwife. I have been procrastinating in making any appointments but luckily it was a fairly easy process. I'll see her at the end of next week when our move is complete. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on here but we've decided to transfer care to Massachusetts instead of our original plan to move things to southern Maine.

We'll have to pay some out of pocket expenses because of our health insurance situation but we feel a lot better about it. Not only will we be about 20 minutes from the hospital (opposed to over 2 hours and possibly in the midst of southern Maine tourist traffic) but we feel much more legally sound in Massachusetts. Mary can even be on the birth certificate which is a nice bonus.

Mary sort of freaked out a few weeks ago when she called with a question about a bill we received for one of my appointments. Our insurance covers everything so the question was basically, why are we being billed? Needless to say, they wouldn't give Mary any information because she's "not a spouse". Not only is she the one that pays the bills but she's the primary holder on the health insurance. Since she wasn't even asking for any medical information, it kind of freaked us out. We feel totally respected at our current midwife office but who knows who we'd be dealing with when we actually were having the baby and not being recognized in Maine as a married couple could be a hinderance.

Since the production of this baby hasn't exactly been cheap, what's another few thousand for some peace of mind and a beautiful Massachusetts legal situation :-)

Hot as Heck

So after I wrote my post the other day, the weather actually improved. It was too late to go to Bar Harbor but we were able to walk around our "downtown" in the afternoon and have dinner outside. Not bad. Then on Sunday, it was 90 degrees. Geesh! I can't complain because it's better than the rain and nastiness but some transition would've been nice. From 60s and rainy to 90. At least the nights are cool though aside from our downstairs, our house feels like a fire pit.

We weren't able to do much on Sunday since Mary was giving the keynote speech at a local high school graduation. We found this highly amusing that she was asked to do this. Mary was also amused by the fact that I was WAY more nervous than she was. I mean, public speaking totally freaks me out and Mary was way too relaxed about it. She didn't even start writing her speech until Saturday and then finished it Sunday morning. She also went out to buy something to wear to it less than 2 hours before the thing. Oh lordie, how we are opposite. I skipped massage class the one day we had to give "presentations" because I was just too nervous about the entire thing. Keep in mind, I was in a class of TEN. LOL.

Anywho, most of the days this week Mary will be on the coast doing research for her fishing study. Since she'll not only be somewhere in the ocean, she'll be about 2-3 hours away once on land. So I asked her for T & P's phone number. You know, I am 35 weeks pregnant and you just never know and if something were to happen and I have absolutely no resources to watch Cameron. Mary was all, "you're freaking me out. Are you going to have the baby this week?". LOL, ummm, no, I would just like to be safe. Needless to say, she called their house yesterday to get their cell phone numbers. Apparently, they don't have cell phones. Who doesn't have cell phones? Mary thought it was nice that they didn't have them and said there was a phone everywhere they went. Umm, the car, hello...and do pay phones even exist anymore? So my one resource in town doesn't have a cell phone and oh yeah, the bumbling professor (a/k/a Mary) didn't leave me the home number anyways. Thank goodness we're moving back to Mass.

Cloudy Days

Ugh, the weather has been pulling me down. We have been stuck in the house for most of the week. We did go to the playground after play therapy the other day but otherwise the weather has been cloudy and rainy so we've been stuck in. Not exactly what I planned when I thought of keeping Cam home starting in June. We were hoping for good weather today because we really want to get over to Bar Harbor and Acadia Nat'l Park before we move. But again, it's a gray nasty day.

Yesterday afternoon, we all went to see Kung Fu Panda. I thought it was kind of dumb but Mary and Cameron thoroughly enjoyed it. I bought Cameron the book and "Tigress" stuffed animal earlier in the week so of course it also went to the movies. For the first 20 minutes, all I heard in a little whispery voice was "that's my tiger" in response to the movie. LOL. It was pretty funny because Mary and I were way too excited that a kid's movie was out. Cameron's great at the movies, probably because we let him eat popcorn and twizzlers and it's something we can all enjoy.

Have I mentioned that I can't wait until the move is over? The house is totally dishoveled and I feel bad for Mary because she is doing all the packing. I am organizing some things but otherwise she's doing all the heavy lifting. She has also been a good girl and pretty much sticking to our agreement of being home around 3:00. That was our agreement since it's the summer (she's a professor so just doing some research right now) and she can work shorter days though I doubted it was going to actually happen. Good wifey :-) Of course, I'll be cursing her out next week since she's supposed to be over at the coast for most of it.

A Seat for Baby

Yesterday afternoon when Mary got home, I went to see Sex in the City. I loved the show and I loved the movie too :-) I'm pretty sure I had never been to a movie by myself and it actually wasn't as strange as I had imagined. I don't mind being alone and I've gotten used to flying solo since babysitting is not cheap or easy to come by. Later, Mary went to see Indiana Jones so we went to the movies just not together. Kind of silly but whatever, we have totally different movie tastes and I was just figuring out that we have not been out since it's just been Cameron, aside from hypnobirthing class and the occasional daytime lunch date.

Cameron's only been home full time for 3 days and already I'm totally exhausted. I'm hoping it's not a preview to the next year of my life and more the fact that I'm a tired pregnant woman and he's in a brat phase. Yesterday was his last day of play therapy. Woohoo! I'm glad we continued it after HB left because it's been helpful with the baby stuff but I am so happy to not have a standing appointment once/week. Since we became foster parents, our lives have been appointments, appointments, and appointments. And as I've joked, I didn't expect my children to be in therapy until they could drive themselves there.

Mary worked from home today so we went for bagels in the morning and did a few errands. We purchased a car seat/stroller system.

(I feel like the one we bought has more green but it is the Chicco Key Fit Travel System)

We still need to get a crib and changing table but we'll wait until we're in Boston to get those. Plus I just can't decide what exactly I want! As it was, the car seat decision was difficult - one involving consumer reports, safety ratings, and of course style :-)

I felt like we should have the car seat in case, you know, I suddenly had the baby. I keep feeling like he'll come early but maybe it's somewhat wishful thinking. Of course, I want him to come early without any medical complications but I'm at that point where I feel as though he may just drop out at any minute. But I guess it's the fact that he's growing SO much. It's crazy how much the baby grows in the last weeks. The baby is gaining something like a pound a week and so am I which is equally disturbing.

Can You Say Chaos?

Friday I was left with a list. I don't like to be left with a list of things to do. I also had until 11 to get everything done as I had to be at Cameron's school for his graduation. As I was at the store getting prizes for his classmates (each graduation is a little celebration), Mary called to tell me that Cameron had bad poopies at school. Yes, I say poopies. Needless to say, we had to move up graduation time and I flew over to his school while shoving prizes in "loot bags". Just another day in the land of our chaotic family. Geesh.

Then Mary decided we were taking 2 cars down to Boston. We planned on 1 so that was what was packed up and I was looking forward to relaxing in the passenger seat. As part of my agreement to drive a car, I said I would want to drive alone (sans child). Though some how this deal was thrown out the window on the way back....at least 1/2 the way. Anywho, we needed to get to Boston by 4:30 in order to get the key to the house so yet again more chaos ensued. We were running around taking every thing off our walls to pack into the 2nd car.

We did manage to get to Boston in time and at least I had a nice sleep on Friday night for the first time in days. My dad watched Cameron on Saturday so that Mary and I could paint on our own. That was key as nothing could be done with Camer around. That night I met my friend M for dinner. We planned on our usual Cheesecake Factory. When I got there, it was packed and they told me an hour wait. Whatever, it's a Saturday night and it's at a mall so I figured we could chat and walk around a bit anyways. Well, some how we ended up waiting 2 hours. I'm not sure I should even advertise the fact that I waited 2 hours for CF but 1 hour turned into an 1.5 hours and then we felt like we had already invested so much time into this that what else were we going to do. We were prisoners of the Cheesecake Factory. LOL. Aside from nearly passing out from hunger, we did have fun and it was nice to catch up. Usually we have the children with us so you can't really talk....at least not actual adult talk. Of course our spouses didn't think we'd be out so late and Mary kept making fun that I had a "late night". I didn't get back to the hotel until nearly 11, the latest I've been out in 1.5 years. Oh, I'm getting old.

Today, Mary left the hotel early to finish up the painting. I was just going to deal with Cameron and checking out of our hotel since prego can only do so much painting. When we got to the house, Cameron was super excited to see his room painted blue. It was pretty cute. We hung out there for a while and walked to the nearby playground. We also got really excited to hear the ice cream man until we realized he wasn't on our street. We don't have an ice cream truck around here so I think Cameron was utterly confused about the potential of getting ice cream from some truck.

Mary finished up most of the painting (we need 1 more coat on baby's room) and we all went for lunch before heading back up to Maine. Now, I want to go home! I think I'm going to love the new place and neighborhood, it already feels like home. As much as I love our current house, the location has just never been right. Though I think I should start studying a map of the town or something. When I went out on Saturday for a snack and drink run, I found a place in about 2 minutes and then it took me 20 minutes to drive back to the house. One way streets can be very confusing. At one point, I thought of parking the car blocks away and just walking back to the house.

Oh well, here's some pics' of our "work". The living room isn't the color I had in mind but at least it's no longer "institutional white". Usually, I would do many samples of paint on the wall and not just pick a color and go but we wanted to get things done in a limited amount of time. We decided to do the same color for both Cameron and the baby's room...that color I really like.


Cam's Room


Living Room (a/k/a Piano Room)


Baby's Closet (and some of his many adorable outfits). I decided to bring all his stuff down though now I feel I may have jinxed myself and if he arrives early, I'll have nothing. Oopsies.