Whirlwind

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind and completely changed everything!  Well, maybe I should say completely kept everything from changing (for me at least!).  Since Troy works on the other side of the city, we've been talking about moving closer to his job.  He's been trying to get a job on this side of town, but there aren't many teaching jobs out there, and there is a ton of competition.  And with teaching, the more experience you have the harder it is to get into a school because of salary requirements.  This spring he applied everywhere, and again didn't even get any interviews.  So we met with a realtor about putting our house on the market, and started looking at some houses on the other side of town.

Contingency loans are very rare right now, so we were looking at putting our house on the market AND buying another at the same time, which scared me to death.  I'm not a risk taker, and the thought of having two mortgages or having no home was not at all appealing.  Not to mention trying to move with two (possibly three) little ones.  I was really stressed about it, and after watching some of the houses in our neighborhood that weren't selling, and seeing some of the houses that were in our price range, I did not feel good about it at all.  We decided to put it on hold.  Fast forward a few weeks to last Tuesday when Troy got a call about an interview with the school district next to us!!!  We were completely shocked, and even though we were booked solid the following day (2 doctors appointments, social worker visit, baby J's visitation, me working half a day and driving to Maryland), we squeezed in his interview.  Within 24 hours he had the job!  So starting this fall, he'll be driving about 10 minutes to work instead of 40 minutes, and we will not be moving!  He's really excited about the opportunity, and I'm happy for him.

In the midst of all of this job craziness, we were trying to take a trip to Maryland to see my family.  I've been wanting to do it for awhile, as I don't see them that often, and when I do it tends to be a really quick trip.  We were trying to make room for a longer trip, but with baby J's visitation with her mom, it's pretty impossible.  We didn't even have confirmation of approval to take baby J until about 4 hours before we left, so we were scrambling quite a bit that day.

The trip went really well!  Baby J traveled really well, and Keragan had a blast.  She's been doing great with the baby, but I know that it's taken away some of the attention she's used to having.  So, getting that one on one attention from Nana and Pap Pap was exciting for her.  We also got to visit some of my family, and spend some one on one time with them.  Even though we're so far away, I really want Keragan to grow up knowing them.  I wish we would've had more time, but ultimately it was a great trip.

Next up is the dreaded potty training.  We started potty training Keragan in January, before she was even 2.  She did pretty well, and was fairly excited about it, but then we started taking classes for fostering and everything got crazy.  She was going to school every morning, babysitters every other afternoon, and often a babysitter in the evening.  So we decided to put it on hold.  And now she will NOT go on the potty.  I'm worried that we've missed the 'easy' window.  But we're going to try...

Baby J is doing really well.  I guess the country air was just what she needed, because since we've been home she's been sleeping through the night!!!!  Well, she still gets up around 5:30 or so, but we'll take that.  She's also found her voice.  Keragan talked a lot, but baby J kind of squawks?  It's odd... and loud. Almost like a screeching.  But she's smiling more and more, and even starting to laugh a little.

This past week at visitation she cried when her mom took her.  This was the first time it happened, and it caught me a little off guard.  Mom was not happy about it, and I had to squash every maternal instinct to take her back and rock her the way I know she likes to be rocked.  It was hard for me, and I know it was hard for mom that the baby didn't recognize her.  It's one thing to know in your head that it'll happen at some point, but it's so much harder when it actually does.

We're licensed to have 3 foster kids at once, however we only technically have room for 2.  So we are still waiting to get another baby.  We've gotten numerous calls about kids, but they're all for older kids or sibling sets.  It's hard to say no when these kids need a home so badly, but at the same time we have to think about our family, and especially Keragan.

Speaking of Keragan, my new pastime is figuring out "who said it?".  Keragan is a little echo right now, and we hear all kinds of stuff come out of her mouth.  Not bad stuff, just phrases and things. And when she finds a new word or phrase, she doesn't just use it once, or ten times.  It's like the word of the week, and it gets used over and over and over.  When she was in school we blamed most of it on her teachers (and babysitters), but now that she's at home almost all the time we only have ourselves to blame.  Today's overused exclamations (thanks to the nursery workers at church) were, "Awesome!" and "That's so sweet!"  Last week it was "Oh, my GOODNESS!"  That one made me laugh, because she's such a drama queen, so it fit her perfectly.

I was planning on writing more, but I"m falling asleep.  We had a 3 year old and 5 year old here this weekend, and they wore us out!  And reinforced our desire to keep Keragan as the oldest in the house...