Meet Riley Paige

I know I know. It has been forever. I am so so sorry. I have not imagined how my life would change. Between the new position I got in August and meeting Riley in August and she came to our home in September and Justin also started school. Also Halloween, Justin's gottcha day his birthday, Christmas, new year and now we are leaving in a week for Florida it has been busy.

Well you all if you remember know that we choose the name Riley Paige. Her mom gave up her rights and dad didn't want to step forward to take a paternity test or anything so his rights were terminated in October. I meet her for the first time on my 30th birthday at her 3 month doctor appointment which is the first picture below. Then Tim meet her on a Monday the day after our 7 year wedding Anniversary. Another cool fact is she was born in May on my husbands birthday. Below you will see pictures from the first time I meet her the first time Tim meet her and so on till Christmas. When rights were terminated on dad the adoption worker came in and in December she sent our adoption paper work to Lansing and as of yesterday we got it back. Which is exciting. They consider that she is adopted by us but it is not by the court to change her name legally till March which would make it 6 months in our home. It feels like she has always been here though. We have enjoyed so much with her. I now have some time. I never got to take my family leave and now that my in laws left for Florida for 3 months I took an intermittent leave meaning I work 21 hours a week vrs 40 or more. I wanted to take it for the full time 3 month leave but I couldn't for many reasons. One being I don't get paid the full 3 months then when I would get back I wouldn't get paid for another 2-3 months just paying back the insurance. Another reason I wouldn't have enough time in my bank to take our vacation in July I take every year so I was kind of stuck in this position. But it is nice to have a little extra time with her. We started swim class last week. That was fun. It basically gets her use to the water. I know she has the bath but that is alot different then the pool. So we are having fun. She is 8 months now. Justin just adors her. Of course she doesn't get into his stuff yet. She refuses to crawl she rolls every where and likes us to hold her hand so she can walk. She doesn't have the concept yet that if she lets go of the couch or throws her self on the ground when she is sitting that mom will always catch her. She loves to eat and has a sassy ness about her. It is cute to see her personality. She is fun and cute and my little girl. I love having a boy and a girl and they just love each other she looks up to Justin and he makes he laugh like no one else can. I don't know the next time I will be on it is all when I have time and maybe she is sleeping. But I wanted to all update you because I haven't been on this in a long time and I just want to enjoy the time I have with her because they grow up fast and I don't want to miss a beat. Until then hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This is my birthday and the first day I got to lay eyes on her she was 3 months old

This was the day after our Anniversary August 29 and Tim meet her for the first time. We are at DHS in this picture making up the plan of when she would go home with us forever.

This was our first day visit at our house with her

This is the first day she came to stay with us and the first day Justin meet his sister
She turned 4 months this day and the carrier was a life saver at the time

Justin wanting to hold his sister after she got out of a bath

Riley turned 5 months and we had to loosen the straps on her car seat


Riley just being cute and was just kind of learning to sit up


We carved pumpkins and at 5 months she was small enough to fit in one.
Riley was a pumpkin for Halloween I know fitting and Justin a Detroit baseball player Justin Verlander

Sorry this picture is out of order but Riley turned 5 months in this picture too with brother
Riley helping mommy with the laundry

Riley is 6 months here and she meet Santas for the first time when we went to the bass pro shop


This day she actually turned 6 months because we took her 6 month pictures and Christmas pictures together on this day

This day she turned 7 months sorry I didn't upload pictures this month so I don't have eight months pictures.
Riley in a diaper and socks helping mom with laundry

Christmas eve the kids were having fun. Riley as a Santa and Justin her helper.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures sorry I don't have Christmas and this months pictures but I will try next time to get those on.

exciting news to report

Sorry I havn;t been on much but we got a special call from Justin's old social worker and a 3 month old baby girl back in August. She is now 4 months and we had 3 visits and I have been to her doctors visits and she came to live with us on September 8. I took a week off of work and decided to take my 3 month family leave act in January when my in laws are in Florida for 3 months so that she is not in day care every day during flu season and so I can be home with Justin all those vacations they get from school. It is hard because I am ending my week at home and I don't want to leave her. Well obviously I can't tell you her real name but her name we call her and her adopted name we chose is Riley Paige. She will be adoptable. Mom terminated her rights and wanted nothing to do with this precious baby girl and dad refuses to take a paternity test and wants nothing to do with her. Monday the petition to terminate on all unknown dads was granted and social worker came over today and said the court date of termination will be in a month or 2 and she has contacted the adoption services to start our process of adoption. The earliest it could happen is March as that is when she will be on the home for 6 months which is mandated in our state to adopt a child. Yeah we have a boy and now a girl. Everything is falling into place and life is great the only reason I can type this right now is she is taking her 20 minute nap that I think she is just getting up from. Talk to you soon.

have a question I will tall you more later

Did anyone or has anyone known of someone who adopted when child is on methadone and being weaned off? If so how did it turn out? What is mom did heroin and opiates? Anything to watch for? I researched it but didn't find as many bad things as if mom did alcohol which is surprising to me because I thought drugs were worse for a baby.

Off the subject I turned 30 yesterday and it was good and bad. The good parts I will explain later but the bad was the kids had visit with dad and was told they are being taken out of the house and they were not happy and made me sad for them. It will be a crazy and emotional day tomorrow. I was packing the kids stuff today and I can tell 7 year old girl is trying to take stuff out of the bags so she can hide it so she has a way for us to connect. I explained to her that this is not good bye just see you later. After meeting dad 2 times now he seems to like us and we offered that if he ever needed us to watch the kids we would be more then happy to help him out and he actually seem to mean it when he said I might have to take you up on your offer. The social worker said he probably will call you which is fine with us. I gave 7 year old girl a journal today and I wrote on the last page to her and gave her our number in case she ever wants to contact us or if she needs us we are there for her and it seemed to put her at ease she is already planning when she is coming back but I had to explain it has to be okay with dad. So crazy month emotional birthday with ups and downs and tomorrow will be ruff.

I was just wondering about my above question and I have been trying to look into this heroin with mom and child being weaned off methadone not sure if from personal or know someone to give me heads up on this research would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much. I will keep you posted.

not a good time right now

I am going to take a short break or as long as I need to post again. I have a bad taste in my mouth about DHS. They have lied to me yet again when they said they were adoptable and then she calls me less then 24 hours to tell me that they are having a visit with there dad and she is picking them up. I was told adoptable and no visits and goal terminating rights. After seeing dad with them and them with him and knowing he has a disease but he can very well get these kids back as he almost did and went through many hopes to get them back and almost had them till the day before they came. I know he is capable and talking with the social workers supervisor she was very honest with me unlike the social worker. They lied to find a home for now for them knowing I wanted to foster to adopt. Now if something fell through when going toward adoption fine but to upright lie makes me mad as can be. After dads visit they were a mess because they didn't think they needed to listen to me and felt they were going to be back with dad anyway. I am happy for them that they are probably seeing there dad again hopefully for good but this is not a situation for my family. Justin took it hard when she said she didn't want to live with us anymore and he was listening to them talk about there dad he felt like why didn't he get to visit his family. He is starting to try to mimic her behaviors and I am trying desperately to stop it. My other issue is I just don't have a connection with her and that hurts me. I felt a connection with Justin and he put us through a lot but there was just this bond and I feel it with her brother but just not with her and I think she feels the same way. I told DHS on Tuesday to have them removed after all that has been going on and now the social worker is treating me like I am just the most terrible person in the world. I told her first you lied to me then you told me that it was just going to be a visit on Aug 1 and then you called me that dad and asked me to take them and they were here in 2 hours so she didn't have to scrabble even though I really was not ready for them, she tells me the day before that she is taking the kids to visit dad when dad was to supportable have no visits, she never comes to pick them up as promised when I took part day off work and asked me to drive them last minute when we had plans that night and screwed up the whole day, the kids were in a tail spin because they were not prepared about dad or told now don't want to listen and I find out he can get them back soon and my son is getting into bad habits and upset and don't understand what is going on and he almost wants them out because the hurtful things they said about not wanting to be here and all that. It is not there fault they are in the middle and the worker lied and that I feel falls on her. I am not feeling what I think I should feel for this little girl. I truly thinks if she were to go anywhere she needs to go to a 2 parent house with no other kids and a stay at home mom that can focus all there energy on her. They are making me jump through hoops and feel bad that this is not the right situation for us. I have to think of everyone not just myself or I would take every child in. My family comes first. I need a break my heart aches from all of this and I just need time to heal. Not sure if I want to continue with DHS. Until next time. This must just not be meant to be. At least it doesn't feel like it and I guess everything happens for a reason even though I don't know what the reason is.....

craziness yesturday with my 7 year old girl

Well Tim has his own business and he had to leave for work early yesterday so he had asked me if I could take off like 2 and a half hours off of work so he didn't have to get the kids up so early to go to camp and the 4 year old day care. Well I asked off and got it. I woke everyone up but 7 year old didn't want to get up. I was nice, I rubbed her shoulder, called her honey and explained she needs to get up so you have enough time to get breakfast. Well I got Justin and the 4 year old dressed and teeth brushed and they were eating there breakfast. I go back up there she had the covers over her head. I told her sternly that she needed to get up right now and I started taking out her clothes. She proceeded with she is not going. Now she loves the camp. When I pick her up she is a jumping jelly bean telling me about her day and she in traduces me to her friends and they all are nice and like her. She loves going but she asks me every night if she has to go and the answer is always yes. Well she decided to test that yesterday morning. For a half hour we went back and forth to get her out of bed. She would refuse. I took away her privileges and snacks. She could have fruit and vegetables but no sweet snacks at all. I tried everything. I pulled her out of bed and started to try to get her clothes on her but then it started to get physical with the pulling and her resisting so I just let go I was not getting it to a physical level. I warned her and told her I was giving her 5 minutes to get dressed and have to teeth brushed and her butt down stairs or she was going in her pajamas. Well needless to say she thought I was kidding even when I came back up and had to pick her up and carry her all the way down the stairs. She tried to run in the bathroom to lock the door but I got to here before that she didn't want to put on her shoes so I picked up her sandals and put them in her bag. She realized when we were in the car I was serious because then she said she will change but honestly she was so mean and got my heart pumping so hard I didn't even think to bring a change of clothes and she can change there and I told her I gave you a chance and you had 40 minutes to get dressed and you choose not to do it you choose to go in pjs and I might be late for work now so we have to leave. She was not happy cried the whole way I had to get her out of the car. I explained to the camp what had happen. I called my mother in law and she dropped off a change of clothes for me. The boys were excellent and like little soldiers then just were ready got themselves in the car. I now think I did the right thing but at the time I didn't think so. I found out I did when I picked them up and the 4 year old started to not listen and she said you better listen to mom because she will not play around. I think she won't do that again. At least I hope not because it rattled me all day. Talk to you soon until my next adventure.

update on the munchkins

Yes they are still living with us. We are working things out with an instant 3 kids. It is not easy and I know 3 is more then enough for our family. Justin is adapting pretty well. He still has some issues with the little one but is doing much better. I have more issues with the 7 year old just testing me the most she can. She acts like a little premadonna and I am trying to give her a little more of real life. To be a kid but make up and perfume is not right for a 7 year old girl. She has temper tantrums like a teenager and acts like a teenage instead of a 7 year old and I have to constantly remind her she is 7. I also have to constantly explain to both her and Justin that I am the parents and I will make the rules not them telling each other or scolding each other for the rules. 7 year old she just craves attention and I try my best to give it but with 3 kids, a dog, a husband and my new position that demands me to now be at work with no days from home, you can imagine how much time I have just to shower. I don't know how people do it with more then 3 and work it is a crazy schedule but I do it for them and Justin. Justin is so happy with them. The kids already call me mom or mama. I keep reminding them to do it when they feel more comfortable but the social worker explained they never really had a mom and 7 year old and the little guy crave for that mother's love. As far as birth dad he is so far not following the plan and we find out the first of November if the kids will stay or not. Everyone is telling me it is an adoptable situation but you know I have to have a little guard up to protect myself but even though I keep reminding Justin this can be temporary I can tell he is attached.

We had the little guys birthday party yesterday and he loved it. He got Mickey, Cars, and Toy Story and loved it. He had so much fun playing with his siblings.

Today 7 year old girl told me today for the first time she loved me. I was amazed. The kids right now are swimming in the pool. The 4 year old is in his life jacket and floaty and my chair is sitting next to the pool with this on my lap because this is a minute I have that I can share my adventures. They are having a ball singing and enjoying the sun and pool and asking me mom watch me do this and this and now watch me. They are having a great time. Hope you enjoyed the post I will post more when I have more time to share.

update on the kids

So I am at work on lunch so limited time but kids came over around 6. I have to admit I was so nervous and so was Justin and Tim. They came cute as can be, polite. I know honeymoon phase but the social worker told me they are great and aunt who can't adopt them because of illness prepared them this last week and a half so they were excited when they came. They told me how nice our house was and how they can't wait to live here forever. And the 7 year old girl asked me if she can call me mom and I told her to wait until she feels comfortable but she felt this desire to jump into our family and fit in as if she has always been here which was great she included Justin which was my fear but she was great with him. The little guy who turns 4 next week is also cute as a button and both very outgoing and nice kids. The workers told me 7 year old would be a pleas er because she always is with everyone. But Justin is jealous especially to the 3 year old. He needs more time obviously but Tim is getting all frazzled about how this is going to effect Justin. I told Tim "you asked for kids that didn't have to many issues and they don't. You asked for kids who want to be part of a family not like we are forcing them into the family and they are more then willing to jump in and you asked that Justin not be left out and they get along, the 7 year old always included Justin in everything, was friendly with him and got along it is just Justin was being mean and acting out from jealousy" I explained to Tim. But he doesn't want Justin to regress or anything. I explained to Tim what if I was pregnant then Justin would have to adjust to that how do you think he would feel same way.Tim is a little overwhelmed with 3 kids but like I told him not everyday is going to be like it was last night. Don't get me wrong they slept good and all but we didn't have a routine in place yet and we will work into one and it won't feel so hectic but my husband just worries about Justin and if we can do it all. I just feel this way if it was meant to be it will be. So right now we are there foster home until we decide or the courts bring this to adoption. I will keep you posted. Like my job thus far. I like my new position everything is going well except for the craziness all at once I hope things will turn around and I am sure they will. talk to you soon.

so an update

Vacation is over and I started my new position or promotion today. I like it but I miss our vacation. I got a call today that said the kids need to be placed today as there care giver and relative goes for her chemo treatment is why she can't adopt them. Well I am nervous as all can be because it was just suppose to be a visit and I have a long day of work tomorrow and haven't planned accordingly and not sure what to do. My head is everywhere they are suppose to be here in 3 hours and I am not prepared at all. I know calm down take a deep breathe but my mother in law offered to help watch them but that is another face for these kids and I got this promotion how is that going to look me not going into work or giving 24 hour notice as we are suppose to and I was thinking day care for the little guy and summer camp with Justin for the older girl since she is old enough to go to it. But is that right either. The worker was suppose to fax me all there info right away so I can register them for school but she hasn't yet and it has been over an hour and the school closes in an hour and a half. I am like a chicken with my head cut off. All over the place. I guess if it was meant to be it will be.

new things to come yeah

So this is very exciting. I was told a position was open at work for a job I have made my goal for at least 7 years now. I went in for an interview and it went great. I had got the call on Friday I got the promotion. I am so excited. Also we had got a call on 2 kids on Wednesday from DHS. We left for a week vacation yesturday and DHS told us that these kids are going up for adoption but we will meet them when we get back August 1. I still have my lisence with catholic Social Services and I was told to let them know if we got any calls but I have not met them yet so I haven't told them yet. I figured when I meet them August first that I would tell her if these kids seem like they fit with our family. I was on the fence whether to post this as I didn't want her finding out or being upset for not telling her but we just found out then the promotion and then we go up north for the week. I figured enjoy the vacation then figure it all out when we get back. Lots going on. From not having anything going on and nothing to say except for my freak accident with my car but now all at once everything comes. It is nerve racking and exciting at the same time. I am very excited about the promotion and meeting these kids. I wish I could have meet them before we left to get an idea about how this will go. When I mean that I mean that Justin and the kids get along for the most part all kids will argue but that it fits. You just know it fits when it does. I know we felt it with Justin. I am thinking the same thing here. These kids are important but Justin is our number one priority right now until we find out they are ours. I have good feeling though on this one. I am excited and will let you know more when I come back from vacation and I meet them and tell Catholic Social Service once all happens. Wish me luck. :)