Snow & Wheat

This is a picture looking out my front door at 11am on Thursday. As you might notice, there is no snow on the driveway, none on the walkway and none on the street. However, when we arrived at the bus stop at 8:09am, we were informed that school was CANCELLED! What? There was not a flake of snow or rain anywhere to be seen. We live in NEW ENGLAND people. They name storms after us. We're tough, we can handle snow. Or even the slightest possibility of snow. I find this to be so annoying. Especially because the kids can't even put on their snow gear and enjoy the first snow day. They actually rode bikes on the first snow day! We are becoming soft. Snow days when it might snow, trophies for every kid who even wore the soccer shirt so that no one will feel left out. What ever happened to the hard lessons in life? You don't always win, snow days are a rare (and fun) occasion, life is unfair. I feel like that served us well, but I'm afraid that my kids won't learn this. Don't get me wrong - I want them to enjoy life, but don't we enjoy the ups more when we have to experience the downs too?

Anyway, one down part of my day today is that we found out today that William is allergic to wheat. Yes, he is almost three and we're just finding this out now. We suspected lactose intolerance, but even that was only a few months ago (and we won't even know if that's true until we let his belly heal a bit from the wheat overload). I'm feeling like a bad mom that I've been poisoning him for approximately two years now with no knowledge of this fact. I guess technically it's a wheat intolerance, since it's not life-threatening and is really just an intestinal issue. That's a positive. The second positive is that he's not allergic to gluten, which is in far more things than wheat alone. So, once I become educated on the best wheat-free products to buy, it will be fine, but right now it's kind of a bummer - no bread, most cereals, crackers, cookies, pasta, pizza. Granted, they do make all of these things with no wheat, but I don't know how appetizing they'll be. The loaf of wheat-free bread I bought today resembles a large brick more than a loaf of bread. Anyway, I am happy to know why the poor kid has the largest, hardest, distended belly at bedtime and rarely eats dinner. I think he just got accustomed to feeling lousy - poor kid.

As far as Sophie, she's doing really well. She is still sleeping like a champ and starting to eat a lot more big people food despite having only two teeth (I can practically see all the others, so apparently they will all arrive at once - that should be fun!). She has gained a pound and an inch each month home. She is over 50% in height and head, and catching up in weight. Her Dr. is pleased and so are we - she's healthy as can be.

We have our 3 month homestudy update on Monday. In Connecticut you don't have to "readopt", you simply validate the international adoption in the local probate court, which took all of 30 seconds with a very nice judge. By the way, anyone who is adopting in Connecticute, DO NOT hire a lawyer - I almost paid $3,000 for a random lawyer to stand with us at this 30 second court date until our social worker told me I didn't need him - thank you Barbara!

She's definitely expressing herself these days (often screaming at the top of her lungs just to hear the sound) and absolutely loves wrestling with the big kids. And I mean full-on, tackle to the ground, wrestling. She loves it! It is so funny to watch. I love that she is going to be one tough cookie.

Ok, well I feel like I have whined enough in this post. I just sent out our Christmas cards today, so once I know that people have received the paper version, I'll post the pictures on the blog. I love how they came out - they really captured the kids well. Before I go I also want to say a big congratulations to the Runnions, the Clevingers and Ethiopia Mama. They are all officially parents of beautiful Ethiopian babies and are in various stages of travel or prepping for travel. I also want to congratulate Jocelyn on the referral of Pacey - she's had a long road and by the looks of the pictures, it was worth the wait - Pacey is beautiful!! To the Quinn girls, Frey family and Renee and Geert, we're thinking of you and have the court dates on the calendar - we can't wait to hear the good news!

Oh, I almost forgot. For those of you who haven't seen this Elf site, I can promise you it is the funniest thing I have seen in a VERY long time. If you don't know my kids, it's probably even funnier if you do it with your own, but it's hilarious nonetheless. Check it out for a good laugh. Have a great weekend everyone!