The difference between puppies and babies

I realize this may be common knowledge but I thought that for the most part puppies and babies are very similar.  For example, with a puppy, you change food gradually so they don't get sick. So using my puppy knowledge, I mixed two kinds of baby formula up for Cassidy, to help her switch from one to another.

For the newer moms out there, this caused major constipation. Do not try this at home.  Poor girl has finally recovered and is much better.

Our holiday weekend was busy and fun. Lots of family time and good food.  Connor loved the fireworks and Cassidy slept through it all without flinching.  She's a heavy sleeper, so that will benefit her.

Connor is still in swim class 4 times a week and coming along great. He needs the confidence to be built up and then he will be swimming all by himself.  He keeps telling the instructor to "not let go" and I keep telling her to push him.  He is fine when she does let go, but he gets nervous.  I'm hoping by the time Chelan time comes, he can swim without much help.  The Palouse pool is open so he can double dip and that will help too.

Bribery

Where did my "I do it myself" kiddo go?  Connor has cunningly gone from that two year old, to a three year old that cannot dress himself or put his shoes on.  I didn't realize how much we have assisted him with the tasks that he used to do himself.  So now that my time is precious, I came up bribery.  He has a list of "chores" that he can earn stickers for, like getting dressed by himself, getting ready for bed, and staying in bed.  So far, it's working well.  If we help him, then he doesn't get a sticker.  He gets the stickers for bedtime and naptime.

Cassidy has been good at night and only up three times at night. Once in awhile she has a rough night and stays up for longer periods of time, but usually it's about 30 minutes total.  The only issue has been I rock myself to sleep and wake up when I get cold.  Oops. Haha. 

In the mornings, Cassidy likes to be worn in a wrap and then later in the day in her bed.  She is a sound sleeper, which is good b/c Connor likes to sing at the top of his lungs and march through the house.

Time to get going to swim class! 

Day one as a stay at home mom

So yesterday was Monday, Jake's first day back at work. Cassidy was up a lot during the night, not fussy but not willing to sleep. She insisted on being held. So I kept rocking myself to sleep.  I had Connor signed up for swimming class Monday-Thursday at 10:25 thinking it would be easy and something to do. 

So Jake leaves at 7am for work.  Cassidy and I are up.  Connor gets up at 7:30. PLENTY of time to get to swim.  We make oatmeal. We feed Cassidy. I got Connor ready to go out the door...and while he's opening it, our expensive kitty that had leg surgery runs out the front door. I throw everything down, Connor and I chase Nala and climb a tree to get her back in the house. She goes in the house. I go grab our stuff and we head to Pullman.  We are early for swim.

With no swim bag.

I had a towel in the car, but no goggles or swim trunks. So our first SAHM outing I flunked.  Luckily the teacher was fine with him in his basketball shorts. Also, Cori has swim at the same time, so with some rearranging of clothes, it worked. Connor wore Cori's jeans (picture high water pants with a waist band so big he holds the back up the whole time he walks. With white flowers on the pockets), Cori wore Ana's capri's as shorts, and Ana wore a spare pair of pants.  Thank God for cousins.  haha.

Today was better though. No cat drama. Showed up with the swim bag.  We did lots of errands and met up with my favorite ladies at WSU Police.  We went to Jake's work for a BBQ dinner, and now Jake is feeding Cassidy while I'm updating this and organizing my house.  My goal is to make everything in my house have one spot that it goes.  I'm chasing my tail too much.

Left RMD House today

I think we are at the end of our leashes.  We have to keep apologizing to each other for being snippy.  We are so over being in Ohio. It's like we are being held hostage.

We started out at 10:30am this morning to say goodbye to John and Kayla.  I know it's hard for her to see us leave, but emotionally...Jake and I have checked out.  It's been a long and hard week, sharing custody of Cassidy.  I know we did what we had to do. I know that letting her see Cassidy and jump through her crazy family's hoops was the right thing to do.  But by the time it was time to leave, I felt like running.  I made sure to tell her that we will see her later, and not goodbye.  She really loved the scrapbook I did for her, and the charm bracelet is her first bracelet ever.  John was also emotionally checked out, but I'm pretty sure he's been there for awhile.  He's not a people person at all so I'd bet that me being with them every day for 12 days straight was tough.  I fibbed and told her that we were flying home today or tomorrow and that we were headed to wait in Cleveland until we were told we could fly.  As soon as we ran to the car I called our attorney and her said that Ohio signed and the papers were "on the truck to WA". So we went and packed our stuff, cleaned our room and headed to Cleveland.

I returned the rental car and we were so ready to go drink a bottle of wine over dinner.  RMD House is no alcohol and Kayla and John don't drink, so we were on our best behavior.  So the restaurant didn't have alcohol, so I'm sitting poolside with a fruit smoothie.  The room was cheap and the WiFi doesn't work in our room.  It also has a funky smell.  But it has a king size bed for the three of us and we don't need to be up early b/c WA won't notify anyone here until 11am EST.  So no one call before 9am PST. We will be sleeping. Unless the bed bugs get us.  Just kidding, I checked.  We are just waiting to here "okay to fly" so we can jump on a plane.  We are about 5 minutes away and ready to run.

Ohio to sign today...but didn't.

I called our attorney this morning and he checked on OH to see when they would sign and she said today!  So we got all excited and happy but decided to wait to book a flight until we got the verbal that she did sign.  Good thing b/c when I called our attorney at 4pm EST he hadn't heard from her.  What a pain. We are ready to come home and were looking at Friday flights.  There is still hope that we can fly Friday, but only if OH gets the papers in the mail tomorrow to WA.  Once we know OH has signed, we will check out of the Ronald McDonald house and head to the airport.

This morning we picked up the medical records from the hospital and went to the museum with Kayla and John.  We watched glass blowers for about 2 hours.  Kayla started crying when she thought that this was the last time we would see her, but we told her we would stop by their apartment tomorrow morning.  I know it will be hard on her for us to leave and I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye.  She is thinking of going back to work soon, for the money and likely to keep busy.

Cassidy is a very happy little girl.  She makes it pretty clear when she's ready to eat, get a new diaper, or cold.  She never cries just to cry (so far).  She mimics back alot too.  If grammie Gail were here, Cassidy has said "Hi".  She likes to ride in the wrap which makes the traveling easy.  She loves her binky. Her eyes track well.  She already is trying to hold her head up too.  I don't think it will be long before she's chasing her big brother and cousins.  I guess that Lucas and Malux, Kayla's boys, walked very young.

Circus Circus

Yikes.

So Tami, Kayla's birthmom, wanted to have us all meet at Sears for portraits of the kids and parents.  It was a zoo. The boys were good for about 2.8 seconds out of 120 minutes then started pounding each other in the kidneys.  The photographer was young and had to get help. So 5 adults, 2 photographers, with 3 kids, we managed to get some good photos.  Tami sent us home with two poses that are pretty sweet of Cassidy.  I also learned how to get the best open eyed shots of newborns.  Cassidy ended up naked for a couple poses and peed in my hand so there was some laughing going on with the yelling.  At one point Malux ended up missing in Sears but I was confident that he would get returned if found. haha.  When it was just Jake and me with Cassidy, the photographers said they were glad we were adopting Cassidy and taking her home to Washington.  It was undescribable.

After that chaos, we decided to drive to meet Kayla's birthfather in Oregon, OH. He....well. We met him.  And the crew that was working on the house with him.  Sketchy. At best.

We went to Donald's House (McDonald's) to eat and the van John and Kayla drive overheated. They ended up limping that home and we took Cassidy to Lake Erie.

The lake was nice and windy on a hot day.  We got there late afternoon and played in the water for awhile.  It was nice to just be us, but we miss Connor tons.  It's been really hard to be away from him for so long. 

When we got back into the RMD House, we ate dinner then watched a downpour of rain and lightning storm.  It lasted about 30 minutes and was impressive.  The raindrops were the size of marbles.

No news from the attorney on the OH papers being signed.  I think the plan is that once we get the call the OH papers are done, we will head to Cleveland and fly once we know WA okays the papers.  That way we are as close as possible to fly out. 

Lake Erie

Peek-a-boo!

This is really Donald's House. Thankfully this is where we are staying.



This is a smile for a Bruno Mars song. Every. Single. Time. She loves this song.



Cassidy is officially a Stewart!

As of yesterday at 12:00pm, the papers were all signed and Cassidy is now our daughter.  What a great Daddy Day!  I can't think of a better present for such a great dad.  Now we just have to wait for Ohio and Washington to check our paperwork and let us leave the state.

Kayla asked for one night to spend with Cassidy and we chose to let that occur last night. There was no risk of changing her mind because the paperwork was done.  It was very hard to leave Cassidy overnight, but we know that it was the right thing to do.  We left at 2pm to check into the Ronald McDonald House and settle in.  Then we went back to John and Kayla's for dinner and dessert and we watched a movie.  We left at about 9:30 last night without Cassidy.  We got there at 9:30 this morning to pick her up, and Kayla looked really tired...we assume it was a long night.

After picking up Cassidy, we went to the Toledo Zoo.  I wanted to take pictures of the real animals, but Jake said that's not nice to just take pictures of the people.  It was humid and I felt bad for the animals.  I think the best part was the baby elephant for me.  And the really heavy lady wearing torquoise that seemed to be sitting on every bench we saw.  And the Af. Am. chick screaming at her boyfriend to keep track of the 9 kids they had.

So now we are happily and legally a family of four.  We can't wait to get back to our house and settle in.  The attorney has no idea how long it will take Ohio to sign off on our paperwork.  The only lady that signs the papers is also on vacation this week, so hopefully her backup can figure it out and sign soon.

It's a Tipper!

On the train to see Africa

Why I take the photos in this family. This shows what size Monkey I am with Cassidy on me...

It says a 32 yr old female with a 6 month baby on her back. lol

Already sporting the shades.