I was delighted to have a little time by myself this afternoon. The foster children are visiting their parents all day and my boys are with my sweet and wonderful mother-in-law.

I decided it would be the perfect time to FINALLY get my hair trimmed. I haven’t had my hair this long….maybe ever, but it’s in desperate need of a trim and my girl only works on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She has an opening for me in about thirty minutes and I’m quite excited.

Do you remember our trouble with squirrels last fall? Well, they’re back!! I am SOOOO tired of waking up to the sound of squirrels gnawing away in my attic. I literally grab our BB rifle every time I hear them and I run to the back yard. I wait and wait for one to exit my attic. I turn the safety off and aim steadily. I’ve gotten pretty good with my aim. I’m to the point where I’m almost willing to shoot a squirrel in a neighboring tree just in case it will teach all of them a lesson to stay away from the white brick house with the black shudders!! Their attic is CLOSED to squatters! Once again, it’s a good thing all of my surrounding neighbors are quite elderly and likely cannot hear me shooting at our local “wildlife” from my backyard. I don’t know if this is even possible, but I do think our neighborhood has an unusually high squirrel infestation. I probably hit one every two months just driving in and out of the neighborhood. That’s a lot of squirrels in five years! They’re EVERYWHERE!!

We still don’t even know how in the world they’re getting in.

I will not give up.

We may eat squirrel for Thanksgiving.

~audrey

I’m not one to typically write about poop, but this story I must share….unfortunately.

**If you are one of those moms who carries around a liter of hand sanitizer, bathes her kids every single night before bed, and has a very sensitive gag reflex, you may either want to stop here or put a small trash can by your computer as you proceed.**

Today was co-op and we have a family in Jesse’s class who are adopting a little girl from China in a few short months. All this week, the Chickfila down the street from our co-op is giving 15% of all designated sales receipts to the Digsby adoption. So, many families from co-op were planning to eat Chickfila for lunch today after school. We went with two other families, totaling ten children and three adults. As we finished eating Owen asked if he could go outside and play. I saw that there were no other children on the playground, so I said yes. About five minutes later we all went out and the other children joined Owen. A few minutes into play time, one of the little girls said, “Gross, someone let their dog poop on the playground!” Of course within seconds all of the children were crowded around the poop that was on the ground just to the side of the slide. I was not about to touch it….until, from somewhere up inside the playground, Owen’s sweet voice echoed out, “Oh, I did that!”

WHAT!?

Thankfully, my pregnant friend who just happens to be getting nauseous lately, was in the bathroom with her daughter. I quickly grabbed a huge wad of napkins, scooped up the obviously human poo and swiftly put it in the trash (all of which was outside, thank you Lord!). Those poor little girls were so confused and mortified that a child would ever think to drop his drawers and poop on the playground at Chickfila. I, on the other hand, was not the least bit surprised. Owen pooped in our backyard just the other day. When I got over the initial shock I asked him, “Well, did you wipe your bottom?” Very matter-of-factly he replied, “No Mommy, there’s no toywit paper outside!”

From there, we made all of the children put their shoes back on if they were to continue playing on the playground…for obvious reasons.

We left soon after that.

Apparently I need to clarify with my three year old that the freedom of being able to go to the bathroom outside is limited to wooded areas…with permission….and ONLY NUMBER ONE!!!

Life with boys is never boring…and rarely clean.

~audrey

I can’t tell you just how many times I use that phrase throughout my everyday life: “Well, if everything goes according to plan…”

The fact is, life rarely goes according to plan.

Today was the perfect example.

I put a movie on for the kids around 9am so I could busy myself with cleaning while I waited on the outcome of the court hearing this morning. The kids were forbidden to come out of the office (where they were watching a movie and playing games) because I was steam cleaning the carpets. You see, I have been waiting and waiting to clean the carpets and I figured this would be the perfect day. I would clean the carpets and we’d all pile into the car to drive for a few hours to meet up with the foster children’s parents and by the time we got back home, the carpets would be dry. The only problem is, the children were ordered to stay in foster care! SOooo, I was stuck with five kids, wet carpet, and no where to go. Thankfully, they all had coupons for kids meals at Chickfila so we picked up some lunch and spent a couple of hours at the park. Walking back into the house this afternoon was like a breath of fresh air.

Although things did not go according to my plan, I can rest in the fact that nothing took God by surprise today. I am learning to roll with the punches. I will simply take the bare necessities out of the children’s bags that I took hours to pack after doing half a dozen loads of laundry and they can wear the same handful of outfits every week for the next few weeks as to make my load lighter when they do finally go home. The good news is, the next hearing is in two and a half weeks and I don’t know why the judge would do that to the parents unless she intends to return the children on that day. Otherwise, this is just torture!

I have said all along, if the children have to stay past the hearing today, I will enroll Sister in pre-k. I’ve already called the school, she will be in the same class as a little boy we go to church with and it’s only about six or seven minutes from our house. Even if it’s only for two and a half weeks, it will help the time go by faster and it will make the next few weeks of schooling my boys a great deal easier.

I thought I’d be very upset if they ended up having to stay (only because I spent so much time preparing for them to leave), but I have total peace about the situation.

Please keep praying!

~audrey