Umm, what's that?

This was my question to J.T. on Saturday as I was unpacking from the beach and he and Isabella were playing in our bedroom.  Burgeoning from the wall was a bubble of paint about the size of a hoagie roll (sub roll if you grew up somewhere other than PA).  We also saw a lovely stain on the ceiling above the bubble.  Ugh, water damage of some way shape or form:(.

J.T. punctured the bubble and it was cold and clear so if we were going to hope for anything we put our hope in HVAC ($$)  issues instead of roof ($$$$!).  Turns out we were right and that there was a clog in the condensation pipe from algae.  Apparently we were supposed to be running a bleach mixture through  it a couple of times a year-who knew?  As a side note, what else are we supposed to be doing to maintain our home that we don't know-yikes!.

The pipe repair was relatively inexpensive...relative to the water damage that is!  There is damage to the attic, master bedroom (ceiling, wall and subfloor), as well as the ceiling of the playroom below.   The plumber suggested that we might be able to have the repairs covered through our home owners insurance.  Thankfully God was using him as a messenger as neither J.T. nor I would have thought of that on our own. 

The good news is our insurance company accepted the claim so we only have to pay our deductible-yay!  The bad news is the repair work is no small task.  Drying it out took holes cut into our ceiling and walls and giant fans running for 72 hours straight.  Fortunately, with Isabella's sound machine her sleeping was not disturbed.  Unfortunately the same could not be said for the rest of us.

Repairing the walls and the ceiling is the next step which is more involved.  Even though the hole in the ceiling is only about 10 inches in diameter they have to re-do the entire ceiling in the playroom AND the foyer as it is one continuous piece of ceiling.  Scheduling that should be fun considering the fact the playroom is where we spend most of our lives Monday-Friday.  Not  sure how I'm going to entertain three toddlers safely in the other rooms of our home, but guess we will cross that bridge when we get to it...sigh...it is never dull around here these days...

Beach Bums

I was a little nervous about our trip to the beach.  Well not so much the beach itself, rather the drive TO the beach.  It is a 5.5 hour car ride and the last time Isabella was in the car for any length of time longer than like 45 minutes was when she was 8 months old.   Ya know PW (pre-walking).  I used my best teacher brain, did some research, and set up a game plan.  J.T. couldn't go with us as he has to save his vacation days for his procedure and recovery (Cancer blows, man).  So I was able to get me brother to make the drive with us.  We left at morning nap time and drove to Chapel Hill where we visited the University of North Carolina Tar Heel Hall of Fame and stopped at a brewery for lunch (for my brother).  Then we stopped at a playground for Isabella.

   

To this point the trip was a success (ok we were only half way through but I was feeling good about things!), but things started taking a turn when my brother decided he needed to make a pit stop before leaving town.  Maybe because it is a college town, but we could not find a gas station with a public restroom to save our lives!  We eventually stopped at a Walgreens which was a double edged sword since Isabella LOVES taking things off the shelves and putting them back on them.  Girlfriend was majorly ticked off when we only stayed a few minutes and left.  By this point she was overdue for her afternoon nap so after some crying fell asleep but only for about 30 minutes.  We then broke out the emergency entertainment kit which was comprised of snacks and random crap from the dollar store (bendable hair rollers, a box of bandaids, a stuffed turtle, etc.).  My brother would chuck something back about every 10 minutes.  It got us within 30 minutes of the beach house before it lost its appeal as we ran out of new stuff to throw at her.  This just meant I needed a bigger arsenal for the return trip!

The house my parents rented was perfect.  It was two stories so Isabella and I claimed the bottom floor so when she woke up at the crack of dawn she wouldn't wake anyone and when people wanted to stay up past our bedtime they could do so without disturbing us.  We decided 8am was a reasonable time to come upstairs so that gave Isabella and I about 2.5 hours to kill in the mornings.  Each morning we took a walk/run and went to the grocery store.  Isabella slept very well.  Though she did prove to everyone what I've been trying to tell them.  Even if I keep her up later she STILL wakes up between 5-5:30 she can just be more cranky because she got LESS sleep.  Our room had a walk in closet where I kept the pack and play.  This would be Isabella's second trip where she slept in a closet.  It works, I swear!

                                            

 She did a great job on the beach.  I already knew she LOVES sand, but wasn't sure how she would feel about the water.  She loved it too!  We could only spend about an hour at a time at the beach because the photo above on the left is the ONLY time she sat still the entire week and after an hour of chasing a toddler around the beach this mama was TIRED!  Our house had a pool so we would go back and swim there too.

Toward the end of the week we broke up all that water with a trip to the aquarium which was a hit.  I know that most aquariums do not feature dinosaurs but I'm glad this one does because it allowed Isabella to show off the only animal sound she knows.  "Isabella, what does a dinosaur say?"  "Roooar!"

                                                                                             

                               

       

Ever since I was in elementary school my family has always gone with a group of my parents friends to the beach and this was the first time in a long time our family trip was able to be scheduled at the same time.  It was nice seeing people I had not seen in ages though with Isabella's schedule I did not get to visit very much.  It has been a tradition for decades that Thursday night is Kite Flying and Awards night.  It was too windy for kites but they still did awards for the kids.  Isabella is receiving her "Newbie at the Beach" award in the top left photo.  A new tradition that began in more recent years is apparently beer pong (though it is played with water in the cups), so yes the other picture is in fact me holding my toddler, playing "beer" pong with my mother as my teammate:).

Fortunately the trip home was more smooth than to the trip there.  Same game plan (leave for morning nap, extended stop, continue driving for afternoon nap, arsenal of Dollar Store crap), but without the bathroom scavenger hunt we hit the afternoon nap time better and didn't even have to use all of the Dollar Store items for entertainment.  The picture above was taken at an awesome kids museum we stopped at during our mid day stop in Raleigh.

Overall Isabella's first trip to the beach was a raging success.  I really wish J.T. could have been there and my nephew and sister-in-law's absences were also felt (he just graduated high school and was on a senior week beach trip and my sister-in-law had to work), but it was a lot of fun and look forward to doing it again next year when hopefully EVERYONE will be there:).

The Big 4-0

I used to be the queen of "to do" lists.  Personal, professional, you name it and I had a list for it.  Over this past year my only formalized to do lists revolved around my assignment calendar.  Earlier this week I tried to remember how I had been keeping my list of to do stuff organized and I couldn't ("Mommy brain" and my increasingly horrible memory will be a topic for a different day).

As a result I started from scratch.  I looked at bullet journals, but paper and I are not BFFs.  So I needed something electronic.  Sometimes I just have my phone.  Other times I couldn't tell you where I set my phone (see above) and my computer is easier since it is usually in the same place.  So I landed on Google Keep.

So far so good.  Nothing like a little check mark motivation to get me moving on things that have been occupying brains space for months.  You know like thank you cards for Isabella's first birthday that got mailed out almost two months after her party.  Forget etiquette...team better late than never here!

Speaking of list we did do another list earlier this year...bucket lists.  They are a list of things we want to do over the next 10 years.  Which I failed to recognize at the time will pretty much encapsulate my 40s.  40.  Dang that sounds old!

The 40 I picture in my head is old, but I am not old soooo time to to revise that image.  I had no qualms about turning 30 and have no qualms about turning 40.  23 now that was a different story.  Random I know.  I think it had something to do with becoming a full fledged adult.  I digress...

Back to the bucket lists.  We each made a personal one and then a collective one which is mostly comprised of places to which we would like to travel.   Here's what we've got.

The tiny creatures around me are getting restless so will share in more detail tomorrow...stay tuned!

Counting Every Blessing

So I won't bore you with the details of them all today.  Rather I want to share two which I believe were delivered directly by the big guy upstairs at exactly the right time.

In all the cluster that was this past spring I held things together relatively well (on the outside at least!), but one area I pretty much just gave up was tracking my spending to stay in budget.  As a result we hemorrhaged money in 2018. 

This overage took a hit on our savings to which I honestly had not paid much attention to since I automated all of our payments back in January.  Actually had J.T. not asked last week what was going on with our savings account I would probably still be on budgeting autopilot and none the wiser.

This discovery led to our Saturday couch date night transforming into a State of the Keller Family Budget meeting.

Woo-hoo do we know how to have fun;).

Obviously it was not fun, but it was enlightening in more ways than one.

When we looked at J.T.'s medical expenses we figured out the amount that is needed to meet his deductible.   It is not a small figure and given the fact we were already concerned about our financial situation we were more than a little nervous.

Well wouldn't you know? The total is covered almost exactly by the tax refund we got at the end of April and hadn't touched.  It is no happy accident that the timing of its deposit into our savings account coincides directly with the discovery of the kidney stone and tumor.

When we looked at the spending over the last few months we figured out the amount that was used from our savings.  Again, no small figure.  Again it was covered.  This time it was covered almost exactly by the money we had saved for the legal and travel expenses for our anticipated but never meant to be adoption the door to which we officially closed the morning of the day J.T. noticed something was up with our savings.

Though I have always been a Christian I also used to believe there were coincidences.

Now I see them for what they are-God's handiwork.

Despite all of my many failings God has my back every. single. time.  For this I count EVERY blessing.

"I am counting every blessing, counting every blessing

Letting go and trusting when I cannot see

I am counting every blessing, counting every blessing

Surely every season You are good to me."

This is Just the Song I Needed Right Now

One and Done...is that your final answer? Yes.

I got married when I was 30. We started trying to start a family exactly one year later.

When I was young I wanted 6 kids (Brady Bunch influence maybe?). As I got older that number started to seem far too ambitious and so I settled on four. My parents had four kids, so could I. Then I met my husband who had been perfectly content as an only child and had spent no time around kids. His party line was let’s start with one and take it from there. I just knew he would be good with two and felt confident I could persuade him to have third when the time came.

Then my thirties became one big run on sentence of chasing that very first kid and the possibility of an elusive second. We tried for a year, then we visited a Fertility specialist, we tried IUIs, when faced with IVF or adoption we chose adoption, we waited years without success, we revisited assisted reproduction options, waffled back and forth between donor embryos or donor eggs, had success out of the gate with IVF using donor eggs, our miracle baby is born, turn back to adoption for #2, wait longer without success, my biological clock screamed “mercy” long ago, feel like we used our 50/50 shot to get our beautiful daughter so another $30k for a repeat seems like a long shot, 40 in a few months, nearly a decade revolved around family planning, time to make room for the next phase in life, finally accept the conclusion we are one and done.

If that period could convey the weight of my emotions in its placement it would need to be the size of a bowling ball. We are one and done, but in my case it is not by choice. My friends who have struggled with infertility fall in one of two categories. Either they found success and completed their family through IVF, adoption or eventually naturally conceived or they are still fighting for #1. When I look at the first group I am green with envy and when I look at the second I am wracked with guilt for not being 100% content with the beautiful and amazing gift we have been given already.

That’s the danger in looking side to side rather than looking forward. No good feelings ever come out of comparing our circumstances with anyone else’s. So I’m praying each morning for God to guide me through this and looking forward.

I just finished this book:

It provided great insight into the blessing of only childhood—both as a blessing to the parents and to the child. It provided a lot of excellent evidence that refuted my concerns (primarily a life of loneliness for Isabella as a child and a life of burden as we age in her adulthood and not being able to recreate the love and camaraderie my parents did for myself and my own much smaller family).

However even with the logical part of my brain satisfied their still remains a tiny grain of discontent which the author summarized perfectly:

"It’s an emotional struggle that, it turns out, no set of numbers and analysis can erase."

I am 99% at peace with being one and done but I am currently indulging that tiny 1%. I’m giving myself a week to feel my feelings, seek out others who are one and done not by choice and then I am respecting the period at the end of our very long run on sentence and joyfully moving forward into the next phase of life as a family of three.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Well finally found resolution on one front. Hit my breaking point with the adoption agency. Below you will see our final exchange. After which I blocked all email addresses from the company and am working through the steps of my first break up of a long term "relationship" in about two decades

Hi Beth,

I’m not sure how to answer what Land of Cricket’s success rate is. You may think it is an easy answer, but it is not. For instance, this week, we had a birth mother go into labor and choose a family on the same day. The family had not updated their home study, and sadly could not move forward with the situation. Similarly last month, we had a mom due in about four weeks choose a family who had a trip abroad scheduled during that time and opted to pass. How do we factor those into any type of success rate??

Similarly, we have families like yours, who we anticipated being able to present you to the many requests we get for couples without children. You were blessed with a beautiful baby, and this affects the opportunities we anticipated we would have for you. Or a family who narrows to Caucasian only, or no on visits, or any other preference narrowing. How do we factor this into the success rate?

And then there are families who simply don’t get chosen by a birth mother. Would you suggest we force a woman to select a family she doesn’t want to pick? We do call families who are not getting picked when a birth mother declines to choose, but even if she declines to choose, she often has requests, such as race, religion, location, or size of family that we need to honor.

And, what does “success” mean when we have families who don’t take our advice on the profiles, who don’t update photos, who don’t keep a home study current?

I realize you haven’t adopted, and therefore don’t see a success for you. I understand that. And we are doing everything within our power to present you to birth mothers who have requested families like yours. But there isn’t an easy answer to the success rate. In the last year, we have been extremely busy, in fact in our recent audit in Florida the auditor noted that we are the only agency she has seen with an increase in adoptions. But whatever that looks like, it hasn’t resulted in a baby for you – I understand that.

Warmly,

Here was our response:

"How do we factor these into a success rate? Let us offer our thoughts...

The first two you count as success because you offered them a match.

You don't consider us a success because as you and P both fail to acknowledge it's not a though interest in our family suddenly dried up because we had a baby. There was never interest in our family, so you can count us with families for whom no birth parent shows interest. This group makes up your unsuccessful group.

We find it highly unlikely that families that narrow their preferences make up much of a statistically significant group, so feel free not to include those individuals in your rate. Also feel free to discount families who have major illness and decide they no longer wish to adopt, divorce and no longer wish to adopt and/or have chosen they no longer wish to adopt for some other personal.

So you take the total number of families, minus the third group, divide the number of families offered a match by that number and you have a success rate.

However, we all know that such a number makes it less likely for families to pay Land of Crickets tens of thousands of dollars for your "service" so this formula nor any other will be utilized to determine whether or not Lifetime is a successful or not. Though messages like the one delivered in the FAQ that started this entire line of questioning sends a message that your success rate is higher than others are in fact false since you and P both claim to not know how to develop such a thing.

Yes, in Florida families have been very successful. Living in the Southeast region we followed the website diligently and celebrated each family's success. North Carolina was mostly stagnant for 2015-2016 though 2017 saw an uptick for which we were again pleased for these families.

While we are happy for these families, it goes without saying, we have not been pleased with our experience with Land of Crickets. As a result we are making the difficult choice to no longer live our lives in limbo. Our contract ends June 12. We are not requesting an extension. We are done.

We understand you will send a letter for us to sign. Save the postage. We will not sign it. We have done all the work we will ever do for Land of Crickets."

Anger and sadness are the current status post breakup...hoping that peace begins to enter the scene very soon...