The Bailey Brag

After getting to sleep very late (early to bed, late to sleep…it’s a chronic thing with me), tossing in my sleep having had a very odd dream about my mom and an alpaca, then back up at 5:30 in order to spend 20 minutes with my husband… I am awake, fresh, and ready to tackle the busy day ahead of me which is of course chock full of a hundred things to do. So what do I decide to do to gear up for my busy day? Drink coffee and blog, of course. I just put one child on the school bus and the remaining 5 are still asleep so why not? Forget that my kitchen is a wreck from last night’s dinner, there is no less than three loads of laundry crammed in one basket screaming to be folded. Forget that I should be waking up 3/5 kids to feed breakfast, make them get dressed and do chores before their drama class. And forget that I have a list of things I should be writing down in preparation for my meeting with my resource parent support worker this morning and finding something to wear to Jason’s company Christmas party tonight. Need I continue? Seriously. If I am going to blog, it is going to have to push other things to the side. That’s all there is to it.

Yesterday we went shopping. When I say “we”, I mean myself and the 5 children who are not forced to attend school outside of the home. I can actually tell a difference with only one missing even though I still have 5 to care for. That one when couple with his 4 year old brother is a handful. When they’re apart, they are manageable. I thought fostering a school-age child would be difficult but so far it’s actually quite nice. The only major adjustment is having to make sure I do not forget to always be home when he gets off the bus. Although I am truly a stay-at-home-mom who never runs the roads shopping or doing mommy groups all day every day, I have never been bound to my house for any reason. I have just done it by choice. So it has taken discipline to remind myself I can’t hop in the truck to make a run to the bank or the post office when A will soon be getting off the bus. So, yes, the crack must be in our drinking water because I was positively on crack yesterday when I decided I could go by myself with 5 boys to spend the 3 foster boys’ DCS clothing allotments all in one trip. $200 for one, $175 for the next and $125 for the little man. You have to spend it all at one time so I had a spreadsheet of what they needed; pretty much consisting of everything except socks and underwear since we had already bought them that with our own money weeks ago. When the caseworker arrived to pay for it all, even being a bit late, I had only gathered goods for one child. She was less than thrilled but when she saw my two buggies filled with nothing but children, she understood. She was nice to help me collect things for the remaining two boys and after a total of 2 hours in Target, we finished. All the boys got one giant bag full of new clothes and a new pair of shoes. Whatever they need after this is up to us. In my opinion, for babies who grow out of clothing quickly, there should be more than one allotment issued. I’m just sayin’.

When we got to the truck and all bags were loaded, all kids strapped in their car seats, I issued a warning to all that for the next 5 minutes I did not want to hear a single noise….”or else”. I just sat in the driver seat and took nice, long and deep breaths. That’s the best time….when I am in the truck and everyone is strapped in car seats. If any one of you wants to come hang out, please do. We’ll just have to go sit in my truck.

So as if shopping with 5 boys isn’t crazy enough…..while I was shopping, the boys’ caseworker called and said she needed to pick up A from school and T from me and take them to the dentist. This was a 2 hour notice. I felt blessed to even have that. So instead of taking everyone home for lunch as I intended, I got the privilege of taking them all out to Chic-fil-A for lunch. It was bitter sweet because T had never eaten there before. I later learned that A hadn’t either. Have I mentioned how many odd looks I get when I am out with my crew and all the many “Are these kids all yours?” and the “Where’d you get all these boys at?”. Since after lunch I shed yet another boy and was down to only 4 I decided while the crack was still in my system I should stop by Earthfare for some food. Luckily, Wendy, my fellow-former-foster-parent-now-mom-to-six-kiddos-friend works there and walked around a bit with me and then proceeded to check me out (charge me for my food, not look at my bod). This was all I could handle in one day. We came home, put up groceries, and then the boys came home from the dentist, one having had two cavities filled. God made 8 o’clock bedtimes for days like this.

I officially resigned my position as Vice President of Better For Babies, Inc. this morning. I have not worked much if any since May of this year. My employer is having a very hard time economically and needed to free up funds so offered for me to have the summer off with the boys. I gladly accepted. I have missed them tremendously the last 2 1/2 years since I began working for BFB. I was hired to work only about 20 hours a week as a virtual office manager of sorts but after barely six months was promoted to VP and rarely worked less than 30 hours a week. This isn’t easy to do with three boys who are all home schooled. As a long time cloth diaper and natural parenting advocate I was thrilled upon taking this job. However, I quickly realized many things about it that I did not like and things I would indeed do very differently should I choose to start my own little crunchy store. I strongly believe that the core policy for any business should be honesty. Without it, failure is an absolute. I had fun doing what I did but I do have regrets most of which are based upon the fact that I gave so, so much for so very little (non-monetarily speaking) and I was the one who lost in the end. I lost a great deal of time with my family which I had available to sacrifice or I would not have applied for the job. However, the cause was not what I had hoped for. I will not fret. You live and learn through living and learning. One can only become better. I am always in search of what I can do and how I can give an ounce of my self toward the greater good and I am happy I have the freedom to move on once again and find that opportunity.

Our precious and eldest son, Wheat, is now also our Christian brother! Actually, he has been for nearly a year but he made his decision public today before our church at our annual Cove Park service at the lake. Our church has been doing these services for several years now and while we have a baptismal at our church many choose to be baptized at the lake. I love it and am so happy that Wheat chose this option as well. Not only was he able to be baptized in this beautiful setting but he also chose to have his dad baptize him. It was such a special day…great worship music & words from our pastor as well as the great company of our friends and family and some pretty yummy food to boot! We love our sweet Wheat and are so happy for him!

“And this water symbolized baptism that now saves you also – not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”         1 Peter 3:21

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One of Wheat’s assignments for spelling today was to take the word “mail” and replace the beginning consonant with other letters to form different words. One of the consonant examples was the letter “h” so when he came to it he read it aloud and we all gasped, especially the younger boys. Wheat rolled his eyes and said “Not H-E-L-L, H-A-I-L like ‘All hail king Lakelon’ and like ‘I see hail falling from the sky’” and then Lake chimed in and said “And like on America’s Funniest Home Videos the other day when that guy said “What the hail are you doing outside?” Umm…yeah, not exactly, hon.

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Today we had a meeting with one of our pastors at Two Rivers. Wheat is being baptized on Sunday after accepting Jesus as his Savior last October. The church prefers that each candidate meet with an elder or a pastor in person to talk, pray and make sure that they fully understand their commitment, especially the children. During the meeting today (with both brothers in tow, of course) our middle school pastor, Jon, was explaining to Wheat that the decision he made last October meant that the old Wheaton went away and the new Wheaton was here to stay and how baptism is simply symbolic in that before you go into the water you are the old Wheat and when you are raised out of the water you are a new person. River, all the while listening intently on my lap speaks up and asks “So it’s kinda like shedding?” It’s no secret that our kids have a basement full of reptiles and ‘shedding’ is and has always been a part of their early vocabulary. Too funny…

We recently took the boys down on the day before River’s 4th birthday to check it out. We didn’t know what to expect but were at least praying for water as it has often dried up for long periods of time. We have had an abundance of rain this summer so it was flourishing. The boys had the best time. They are truly in their element when they can bang around in a creek, get dirty, and look for cool creatures. I wish this were our back yard.

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Lake has been chatting a lot about old Adam & Eve lately asking all sorts of questions. Last school year he decided to read his bible for his reading each day. It is a children’s bible, of course, but a large one and he read it cover to cover.

So last night I was in the kitchen making dinner and Lake asked me if Maggie (our young, energetic cat) liked Stevie (our elderly, blind & deaf dog with dementia). I told him she probably didn’t because Stevie is real stinky and cats typically do not like stinky things. She truly does watch him walk past her, snarls and I swear I think I have seen her roll her eyes, too. She absolutely hates it when he bumps into her, too, and paws at him for punishment. Hilarious. So Lake and I begin to talk about how cats are so particular about their hygiene and things. Lake says “I know, after EVERY time she uses her litter box she has to lick her butt for like 10 minutes!” I said “That’s pretty odd, isn’t it?” Then Lake said…”Do you think God decided that cats would have to lick their butts clean because Adam & Eve ate from the tree?”

“Preeshiatecha, Adam & Eve…”….Maggie says.

…hackers only THINK they had me but thanks to my determination and a little help from my hosting service I have restored my beloved blog with my own two hands! This javascript is becoming second nature to me…

For all my followers, (all 2 of you), I’ve been playing catch up with my blog entries…enjoy!

Cheers everyone, I am back!!!!!

Mama’s in some serious trouble when daddy-o gets back from Illinois. And aside from that, the boys want a boat. Great. The boys’ good friend, Beckett, is in the boat with them.

The thought of being outdoors, the simplicity of having only what you need (plus a whole lotta stuff our husbands claimed we didn’t need), in the presence of best friends, lots of happy children, the smell of a campfire, a cup of hot coffee in hand and leaving no trace that you were even there when you leave is pure heaven to me. If it were my choice, I would live like this.

We recently went on a weekend trip to the Standing Indian campground in Franklin, NC, in the Nantahala National Forest with our best friends and their beautiful trio of babes. We had a great time despite the hard work of camping with 6 children (our 3 and their 3) and all that entails and my getting very sick halfway through the weekend. Jason was able to do what he loves which is dig around in the earth looking for native creatures. I just got to enjoy the company of my girl and watch our little ones love on each other.

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