Hungry Little Fellow

2 bowls of beef & broccoli, a tortilla, a large glass of milk and 2 bowls of strawberries.

"Mama, more please!"

He usually eats more than me and ate more than Dustin tonight! Yikes! How am I going to afford to feed this kid when he's a teenager?!?!

Memory

Memory Game

Ryland - 3
Mama - 0
Papa - 1

Post Correction!

My dear, dear friend Misty is who I called on Tuesday when I needed advice & to vent.
She didn't give me any bad advice to head to Starbucks - actually the tea was calming!
I'm pretty sure there is no way she could have orchestrated the bird situation, but I will always wonder!

I love you, Misty! Thanks for always calming me down when I need it and an even bigger thanks for riling me up from time to time, too!

                                            

What a day!

At the breakfast table I talked to Ry about everything that I “discussed” with him all night. He remembered nothing. Perfect. So glad my speech had such a profound impact.


5 mins from my house while trying to get on the frontage road to get on the highway, I rear-end someone. She let off the brake, I thought she went so I looked to my left to make sure it was clear, stepped on the gas and BAM. I hit her. She hesitated. Perfect. Good morning. First time I’ve done that. She gets out and starts yelling at me that she’s late to an appointment now. I offer to give her my info so she can get on her way, but she declines. “She knows people like me and has had people do this and not pull through before”. Lovely…thanks for placing me with that group of losers. Superb. Let’s sit here, blocking traffic for a MINOR incident and wait for the police…why not?

I am stressed. Things are not perfect at home. Things are not perfect at Ry’s school. Things are not perfect at my work. My mind is exhausted. My ulcer is flaring up…bad. The OTC meds aren’t working this time…uh oh, I’m more stressed than I can easily cope with now. Yikes. Big decisions to make at work and they are weighing heavily on me.

I call a friend to vent and she suggests I run to Starbucks for the calming herbal tea (it works wonders she says). My stomach is so upset that I clearly won’t be able to eat. I head to Starbucks to get the tea, calmly wait for the lady in front of me to add at least 17 packets of Splenda into her coffee (one packet at a time, stir, check…nope, not enough artificial sweetener, let’s try one more…) and proceed to head back out to my busted up car. When out of nowhere, birds fly over me and not only crap all over my car, but also on my white shirt. ARE YOU SERIOUS? How can all of this be happening? I can’t even make this stuff up…this is my life…WELCOME.

I call my friend back to vent and tell her she gave me the worst advice ever and she starts laughing. Of course, why not?

Long and tough afternoon at work.

Pick Ry up from school. Please have green, please have green. “Hi Mama, I got yellow. Where’s Martina?” Yellow? You have to be kidding me? After my wonderful speeches? And to top it off you’re sad that I’m picking you up instead of the babysitter? Perfect.

I get home and check the mail. Today, of all days, comes the ER bill from Ry’s Thanksgiving fall. Great timing. Yes, I’d love to pay you. There’s also a yellow notice on the door from the bug guy…oh yeah. I had an appointment today and forgot. Nothing like a yellow flyer on your front door that says NO SHOW for all the neighbors to see. Perfect.

And that ladies and gents is what I call a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Here’s to hoping tomorrow is better!

Sisters Weekend Getaway - Hot Springs, Arkansas

To celebrate our big birthdays this year (Chandler turned 18 and my last year in my twenties) Dustin sent us out of town on a Sisters Weekend Getaway to Hot Springs, Arkansas...America's first Spa City!  We really had a blast!

The Bed & Breakfast

Hot Springs National Park

Bathhouse where we soaked in natural mineral baths and got superb facials.

Top of the Mountain Tower - my beautiful sis, Chandler.

Yours truly

Typical Cort

Typical Chand

Chandler has a thing for getting a snap with tour guides.  Gangster Museum of America...yes please!

Chandler HAD to go here!

Me at an actual Hot Spring

Time to try out the delicious mineral water.

Nervous about all the algae...but hey, when in Rome...

Cheers!

Deliciousness!

RED

I guess it was imminent...Ry got red at school today.

Talking too much and not following directions...when she told him he was getting a warning for that, he laughed at her and then got red.  Lovely.  Thanks son.

I'm a tough lady, I run a tight ship...hoping to avoid days like today.  When I am mad, frustrated, stressed, etc.  I yell and ramble and talk in circles to make a firm point.  I'm not proud of it...but I do it.  During times like this, I find myself  talking to Ryland in words/phrases that he doesn't understand.  I don't know why I do...maybe I like to hear myself talk, maybe it makes me feel better...but he probably gets about 10% of what I'm putting down.  Tonight while telling Ryland how unhappy I was and why, I explained the meaning of respect and how important is was to me and Dust.  "Ry...I don't care what you want to do with your life.  I don't care what job you get.  I don't care about any of that...what I care about is that when you leave this house you respect people.  Period.  If you forget to respect people then I will get the word RESPECT tattooed on your hand so that you will always see it.  I'm serious.  Does that make sense?"  Ryland - "No."  Me - "It's no, ma'am...this is exactly what I am talking about.  Do you understand?"  "Yes, Mama."
Does he understand?  No...but he sure does know when I've finished my rant and say "Do you understand?" that the correct answer is always yes.

PS - As I'm having my little outburst, Dustin is in the kitchen laughing hysterically.  For future reference...probably not the best idea, or you'll get a matching tattoo as well.

Hoping for green tomorrow...

We've been home for six months...can you believe it?

Wow!  Time flies!  I can't believe we landed as a family of 3 in the good ole US of A six months ago!

First and foremost - an important update...Ryland has fallen asleep in his own bed with NO tears, slept all night in his own bed, never getting up once...for 5 nights in a row!!!!  He is so happy about this and as soon as he wakes up it is the first thing he says.  He then asks us about 40 times throughout the day if we are proud of him for sleeping like a big boy.  We are proud, we make a huge deal of it at home...but he just needs the constant re-assurance and we are just fine with that!  6 days ago we made the decision to really limit his sugar in-take to see if that would help with the nightmares.  It may be a coincidence, but I think it is really helping him out.  Ry loves sweets and asks for dessert after every meal and several other times a day!  For the last week, he's been great.  He asks us if items have sugar in them before he'll eat them, because he doesn't want anybody to "dreams him up".  (What he calls having a bad dream.)

So much has changed in 6 months, he's learned so many new things and experienced some amazing things!

6 months ago today when we landed on American Soil (America's newest citizen).  This shirt no longer fits him and looks like a belly shirt!

This morning before school!

Random Ryland Moments

Our dinnertime convo tonight...


Ryland - "I want to be married"
Me - "Why?"
Ryland - So I can sleep with somebody in my bed."
Me - "Yikes"
Ryland - "Why you be mad Mama? Because I want to marry a cheerleader? Mama, don't be mad at me for thaaaaat."


At school they get a color everyday depending on their behavior (green=good, yellow=warning, red=bad).  So far this month...6 yellows and 4 greens.  Each yellow is for talking...of course it is!  After I made him count up the yellows so far this month, he said " I need more greens".  You think?

We had homemade fettuccine tonight for dinner.  After finishing 2 servings the kid literally licked his plate clean.  Funny thing is that I typically do the same thing, but he's never seen me do it...there must be something in that fettuccine sauce.

"Mama, when I be 16, I be ride Papa in Papa's truck."  "I be drive and Papa be ride." 

"Ryland, why did you get yellow again?  I thought you were going to try really hard to get green?"  Ry's reply "I did be good, but then I have bad behavior.  Sorry Mama."

Saturday morning, we went to the bank to try to open him an account (apparently I need to stop being lazy and get his social security card...but anyway).  He asked us why he needed a bank account.  I tried to explain that he needed to start saving his money.  "For what?" Me "I don't know, things like college." Ry replies with "I go to college all by myself?" Me "Yes".  Ryland "NO, I not want go all by myself, please.  Mama & Papa come with me?"  Me "Wow...I need to get a video of this to show you someday.  Ok, ok, sorry, don't worry, it's a long time from now.  Don't get upset.  Never mind...we need to save your money for a car."  Ryland's frown quickly turned to a smile "ALRIGHT!  YES!  I think I buy a Ferarri...or something... maybe a Porche."

Ryland Dias Stone...I love you!

Pictures - Jan 2011

We had a great time meeting up with 2 other families who have adopted from Kazakhstan also!  It meant so much to me to talk to these families that have gone through what we've gone through...hard to explain, but it was awesome!

The kids had fun playing together!  I am so excited for Kazapalooza this summer, we had so much fun with this and it was just a teaser!

As Ryland puts it "I be man now with shaver".  He's been loving to shave, just like Papa!

Happy New Year!

Both of my boys were sick this week with the stomach bug...here they were trying to eat some chicken noodle soup.

Sickie...laying in the living room watching movies.

Monsters Update

The monsters are still here and part of our life.  We have small successes from time to time and overall this week was better than last; we're trending in the right direction.  I'm actually up right now because of another scare.  It's now progressed to all kinds of other nightime fears...ghosts, cats, wolves, bad people, etc.  He's much better about going to sleep in his own room, but awakes constantly throughout the night.  To top it off he's had a rough time at school while all of this is going on and has been getting bad reports sent home.  ROUGH TIMES.  We're just trying to make it through this phase and keep heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

The setbacks that we're facing are almost ridiculous.  One night we had a big talk with him about our alarm system and showed him how it worked and that if anyone or thing came in or out of our house at night, the sirens would go off and we would know.  This brought peace for 2 nights and he was able to sleep through the night.  On the 3rd night, for some unknown reason, 3 of our 7 fire alarms randomly went off (full siren mode) in the middle of the night.  Scaring all 3 of us to dealth.  "Why the alarm be broke?"  Perfect...we've lived in this house for 4 years and that's never happened...so glad it could happen while we are in the middle of this phase...perfect.

Sorry for the gaps in between blog posts, but we've just been exhausted.

Dust & Cort

Mission Successful

One little boy asleep in his own room!!! Monsters Be Gone!

Monsters - GO AWAY!

This has been a terrible week – the worst week since we’ve been home with Ry.  Period.  Dust and I are exhausted, emotionally drained, frustrated and at our wits end…and it’s only Thursday…

 

On Sunday evening Ry, unfortunately, saw a monster on the TV screen.  He immediately came to find me and tell me that he was scared and had seen a monster.  The kid was honestly freaked out.  We tried to calm him down, immediately went to find where the monster was and dealt with that.  He was freaked out all night.  He didn’t want to go to sleep in his own bed.  We fought it and told him there was no such thing as monsters, suck it up and go to sleep.  He finally fell asleep, just to wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake for 3 ½ hours…which also meant we were up.

 

FRUSTRATING!

 

We then started researching to figure out how to handle this and guess what?!?!  We were handling the worst possible way…go figure!  So now on top of frustration and exhaustion we felt stupid and like bad parents…great…  Kids Ryland’s age can’t separate fantasy from reality yet and the worst thing you can do is to discount their fears and tell them to be a big boy and get over it.  Whoops.  So we tried all the advice we could find online.  We asked friends.  We asked family.  We tried lots of things.  We’ve had Ry sleep on the floor of our room.  We’ve stayed right by his side.  We’ve had all lights in the house on, at the same time.  We’ve hunted the monsters.  We’ve thrown everything that he deemed scary out.  We’ve tried.  The dang monsters will not go away.

 

He really is scared of monsters, I believe that…but I also believe he is milking this for everything that he can, and I’m not one that likes to be “had”.

 

He is relentless.  The first thing he said to me yesterday when I got home was “can I sleep in your room?”  Not even Hi, Mama – I missed you…  He cannot do anything on his own anymore…ANYTHING.  He doesn’t want to shut the bathroom door.  He will not play Wii.  He will not watch cartoons.  He will not play with his toys in his room at all and he will only play with them if he is in the same room as you.  He will not do anything unless one of us is right there.  The other morning he was told to go in the bathroom and brush his teeth.  In the course of 10 minutes of flossing, mouthwash & brushing he called out to us 8 times… “Mama – where are you?  Mama – can you come in here and check on me?  Mama, Mama, Mama.”  Yikes.  We can’t accomplish anything without feeling the effects of this monster.  He’s not listening or following directions…I’m about to lose all my hair (and I really don’t want to do that; I got it done recently and it looks really cute).

 

Anyway…tonight is war.  Prepare yourself monster and please, please go away.  I want my space back.  I want my room back.  I want my sanity back.  I want my little boy that can entertain himself from time to time back.  Dust and I are armed and dangerous.  We’ve got books.  We’re making Monster Be Gone Spray.  We’ve got the flashlights and the walkie-talkies ready.    And, hopefully this works…I’m tired, exhausted and frustrated.  If this doesn’t work, I’m out of ideas…maybe burn the house, with all the monsters in it, down and start from scratch?

 

Wish us luck…we’re going to need it.

 

Cortney

 

 

Why do we look when we aren’t supposed to?

You know how every now and then we get the opportunity to look at something that we shouldn’t look at. Why do we look? What’s happened to our self control? We know if we look it will upset us, make us angry, etc. etc…but we do it anyway…Why is that? Why is there this crazy ‘need to know’ that takes over your sanity? I’m one of those people that would rather ‘know’ everything…but sometimes when you are presented the info…you wish you didn’t want to ‘know’ everything. I guess living in a bubble has its advantages…I’ve never been able to see them before, but I’m starting to get it…a little…

Is it better to know? Is it better to have everything in black & white? Or is it better to live in the bliss of the gray?