21 facts you may not know about me

21 facts you may not know about me:
1)    I am 28, but I’m only guessing, I may be 27 or 29. I generally have a vague idea of how old I am. 
2)    I met Willy in 1999 in high-school, we fake dated on and off for many years before officially dating. 
3)    Willy proposed to me in front of my entire family. This made me so mad I will never, ever, ever EVER let him live in down. I don’t like awkward moments and proposals are awkward, even more so with your family looking at you. I responded by saying “sure”, because I’m the anti-romantic. 
4)    I only watch funny movies, not romantic comedies, not dramas just comedy. I will also watch a few survival shows or animal shows. 
5)    I used to work at a zoo and handled snakes, chickens, alligators, lizards and other small animals. When in training, I freaked out over touching the chicken and dove. Snakes and alligators were nothing. 
6)    I was fired from aforementioned zoo for telling some kids I was not there to make sure they had fun, but to make sure things were safe. Apparently, 12 year old boys will tattle on you if you catch them trying to run on a log that you repeatedly asked them to get off. Not that I’m bitter or anything. 
7)    I teach all my kids, kids I find at the park, kids I babysit, or kids that come near me to say, “Eww, bird! Go away, bird!” and then to chase birds away from me. Birds are gross and the primary purpose of a child’s life is to chase birds away from me. 
8)    I moved from Florida to California 6 hours after I graduated high school. I really hated the town I lived in. 
9)    I have been a live-in and live-out nanny and home day care provider for so long that I can officially say everything that could happen to a child, has happened on my watch (except death- fingers crossed that never happens though). I know how to handle any terrible child, AND I’ve been puked on more times that you could ever imagine. 
10) I have 2 cats, but if you come to my house you will never see them. 
11) When we were engaged, Willy thought it was funny to tell people the wrong day that we were getting married. You know the “OHH, when are you getting married?!?!” question when you're engaged? He thought it was funny to always say the wrong date to get a rise out of me. As it turns out, I now don’t know what day we were married. Either the 4th  or 5th. Subsequently, we don’t celebrate anniversaries because I don’t remember when it is. 
12) I never wanted biological children, I have always wanted to adopt. 
13) In high school and for several years after, I told people my worst nightmare was becoming a stay at home mom to lots of kids…… let that sink in. 
14) I have 3 secret boyfriends. Secret because they don’t know about it, but, my husband totally does-  Bear Grillys, Johnny Depp and Mike Rowe. Should you ever bump into them, please mention my name and that I would appreciate a phone call sometime. 
15) I recently looked into buying a dog and my mom sent me like, a million texts, chastising me about how I have no idea how hard having a puppy is…. Like I don’t have 5 annoying kids that I deal with every day, and like I’m not a grown ass woman who has some sense about how annoying dogs are. Not that I’m bitter about this either.
16) I love hiking and adventures, but I married a man who hates the outdoors. He is, after… some amount of years that I don’t remember how long it’s actually been, coming around and starting to do some outdoor stuff. He also eats vegetables now too, which is why I am obviously a good influence. 
17) I used to read all the time, and then I had a million kids. I get really mean when I read, because I read intense books and I don’t want to be interrupted. Family + Kristen reading books = bad. 
18) I am fake famous for being that woman with a lot of kids who talks to everyone about foster care. I guess I talk a lot about fostering. 
19) Multiple times in my life I have quit soda and caffeine for extended periods of times, and then I realize how stupid that is and open an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper and accept I may die a few years sooner. 
20) I cloth diapered Eitan for almost a year and when we accepted our next foster baby Willy told me to never, ever put them on anyone ever again. He doesn’t even do the laundry! 
21) I’m still nursing Sawyer, despite my best attempts to get him off, he loves boobies more than Elmo and I’m pretty sure that if he could express himself well enough he would choose “Milky Milk” as his bedroom and birthday theme.

A guest post by Eitan

This is a post about racecars and snow-wolfeses:

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Our resident black guy with a mohawk

 In early January 2012 Willy Jr walked through our front door with possibly the worst caseworker that has ever walked the face of the earth. How he ended up in our home was quite a journey for him, us, and his foster parents.

Willy Jr was admitted to the hospital in March 2011. After a hospital stay he went into foster care. He was living in a home where he had to attend daycare full time. After a serious brain injury and several broken bones the judge ordered that he be moved into a foster home that had a stay at home mom, so he would not have to attend school until he was fully recovered. The attorney on the case knew just who to call.

Step in Gina and Kevin, Willy's foster parents for 9 months. Without them by his side I shutter to think of what would have happened to my boy. Willy was assigned a new worker shortly after he came into care. She never did see him while he was in the hospital, maybe that was part of the problem, she never knew the severity of his injuries.

As a foster parent our job description according to the state is to help reunify families while taking care of the child. In reality good foster parents love those children no matter how they behave, and detest people who hurt their babies. Of course I believe in rehabilitation, success stories, not stealing kids from good parents and all that other crap. The truth is, after a few cases as a foster parent you care about surviving the kid and whatever else the workers, attorneys, judges and guardian ad lidems throw at you. It's sadly some of the best foster parents who don't last long because they care so much. (On a side note, Willy Sr is doing some extensive research in foster parent retention)

Anyways, back to the actual story, what happened to Willy Jr was terrible. The judge on the bench described it as "The worse case of physical abuse I have seen in my 23 years". It's not exactly one of those cases where you really want to help with reunification. None the less this worker that he had was really pushing for reunification. Without turning this into a bashing caseworker section, instead of a post about my awesome son, I will highlight some things I can not stand about this woman. She told me she felt like he should live with a colored family. Umm, colored?  Also, you don't like me adopting him because I'm white? How many other people you got lining up to adopt him, bitch woman? She filed medical neglect claims against his foster parents because he had ring worm. You know, because heaven forbid a child get ring worm. She has never answered her phone ever, or returned a phone call, ever. 

OK, ok, o.k. We met Willy Jr during a birthday party. We had known Gina and Kevin from our foster care classes and spoke periodically about the trials of being a foster parent. Gina told me when she got the call for Willy, the girls and I prayed for them when he came. I fell in love with Willy the second I heard of him but Willy Sr really fell in love with him when we went to Gina's for another party (we like to party). Willy Jr walked up to Sr, held his hand and called him dad. heart, melt. They played ball and talked about spider man all night. After we left he told Gina that his daddy came to visit him. How could we NOT buy him?! I mean, seriously.

This is his real hair, not a wig

It was several months of hell trying to get Willy Jr properly terminated on. We were in the middle of a move from Houston, TX to Tallahassee, FL so everyone knew it would take a while to get Willy moved to us and the judge made it clear that he WOULD be moving to us. To get Willy properly terminated on ended up being quite an ordeal. His alleged father lived in another state and was incarcerated. To serve him with papers required several state employees, across several different states, to communicate. By the time someone went to the prison to serve him, he had been released to a half-way house. So, the process had to start all over again. But, guess what?!?!?! yeah, by the time they were going to serve him at the half way house, yup, he had moved into a home for house arrest. Third times the charm he was served. This process took close to 5 months. Then, oh, hey, guess what, he has some great aunt who may be willing to raise Willy Jr. So, then it's onto contacting great aunt, background checks, home studies. Nope, she can't take him. After several relatives later (this is very common in foster care - parents keep naming relatives who can take the kids) they finally decided that no one could take him. His bio mom went MIA after testing positive several times for drugs. 

After Willy's TPR (termination of parental rights) it took 3.5 months to move him from Gina's to us. By this point we lived in FL and to cross a foster child over state lines requires an ICPC. This paperwork is NUTS. Our homestudy had to be sent from our caseworker to the ICPC office in Tallahassee, they sent it to the ICPC office in Austin TX, they sent it to his worker in Houston, TX, the worker approved it, she sent it back to Austin, who sent it to Tallahassee, who sent it to our caseworker, who emailed his worker in TX to let her know she received the approval. True story.

It took Willy Jr several weeks to not cry every night for his momma Gina and daddy Kevin. Even though he was very excited to move in with us, it was still hard on him to leave the family who helped him heal from the most traumatic event in his life. Without them, he wouldn't be as well adjusted and happy as he is. 2 years later all the kids now call them momma Gina and daddy Kevin. Their children are still his brother and sister. He still talks about his best memories there. His middle name is their last name.

Willy Jr has never once asked about his past. If you ask him, he says "it's in the past". The picture we have of his bio mom, he says all he knows is that she knew the guy who hurt him and he doesn't want to look at her picture ever again. That's it. For having been almost 4 years old when all of that happened, he is amazingly unfazed. He spent time in play therapy and was released from it when the therapist said "I don't know why he's ok, but he really truly is". Willy Jr is quiet, reserved, sneaky, has the worst smelling feet, and the most snuggly personality ever. I love him and trust me, when I say that should I ever come across the man who hurt him..... it would not be good for him.

He made this necklace for his brother and sister at momma Gina's house

Every night at 8pm he says "I'm ready for bed, then gets in bed and falls asleep before I'm done saying good  night. This, hands down makes him the coolest kid ever on the face of the planet.

Willy Jr's adoption 2013!

We survived our kid led vacation

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I let the kids plan and budget our family vacation. I gave the kids a total of $500 to go anywhere and do anything they wanted. They wanted to go to the beach, hiking and caving. A friend that Willy Sr works with offered up his beach home in Cape San Blas, FL for the cleaning fee and utilities (score). We borrowed a kayak from a friend, made homemade meals, loaded up the fishing poles and we're off!

Load'n up the kids and Kayak

Shhh don't tell anyone I forgot to pack my own underwear and wore Lisa's all week but I TOTALLY remembered my Diet Dr. Pepper

Before we even left the house we were already down $100 in shark fishing supplies. Our fishing poles were not equipped properly to catch sharks, and of course what happens when you mention to Willy Sr that there is a budget, he gets some hair brained idea and spend every last penny, plus some. So, he convinced the kids that shark fishing was an intercal part of family vacations. We spent another $120 on food and snacks to last us all week so we would not have to eat out and also because there is no where to eat out there. So before were out the door were already down $220.
 
We left around lunch time with the intention of getting drive-through, drive and have Sawyer fall asleep as soon as he was done eating. Sawyer is still rear facing so Lisa is in charge of him during our long drives. It is only 2.5 hours to Cape San Blas but it's amazing what happens to me when I get behind the wheel, the need to pee overcomes me like waves in an ocean, so all of our trips require me to stop about every 1.5 hours. With that knowledge we started out our trip with the kids debating between Wendy's and Jimmy Johns. Even though Jimmy Johns is more expensive they chose that. At that moment, I was not feeling to confident about how their budgeting skills were going to go over. $40 later were on the road.

Aunt Becca before being attacked by a 100 lb tarpin jumping out of the water.

Uncle Hunter keeping Sawyer warm

Aunt Becca and Uncle Hunter came to spend 2.5 days with us and it was great. The kids love them so much and hopefully they had a good time with us too! Naturally in my typical style I came down with a stomach bug on Wednesday and threw up all over my car (in a plastic bag, not literally all over my car).Other than an illusive light house that was "In transit" (how and why do you transport a light house) we had a great week. We fished, ate, laughed and relaxed. Sadly, we did not catch any shark. We did however manage to catch 2 sing rays and get to observe how amazingly well they blend into the ocean and billions (8) of sea bass. We also found 2 horse shoe crab carcasses which were really fun to observe (and maybe Eitan peed on one on purpose).

The art of selfies needs to be taught at a young age.

Our last day we went down the the national park for some hiking. As soon as we stepped out of the car it started sprinkling and then pouring.We ended up just driving around looking for wild critters. We did manage to find a few deer and steer the car towards a few sea gulls while I may shouted things like "GROSS" and "I'M GUNNA GET YOU" , though, I never did successfully run over a gull. 

I was hiding under a pavilion with Sawyer strapped to my back, because, cold + rain = stupid.

On our way home, in Apalachicola, Willy Sr asked that we stop at a Marine Antique shop which was awesome. We picked up our first taxidermy while we were there! Nothing says family vacation like taxidermy. We are now the proud owners of a taxidermied alligator skull and crab. We also got a shark jaw, which, according to Tilly is "probably a Mako sharks jaw, you can tell by the structure of the teeth" (She's 5 ya'll - shes not messing around when she says she wants to study shark teeth when she grows up).

My marine Biologist

And also my only child dedicated enough to the ocean to fish in the cold, over multiple days in an attempt to catch a shark.

Sawyers first artic expedition

In all after gas, taxadermy, eating out on the way there and back and other odds and ends we still have a remaining $49. I am not including the cost of getting my car detailed/vacuumed out because, lets be real, I could have done that myself but I'm just lazy. The kids requested that we put that money towards our next trip so we have even more money to spend next time. I was really impressed with each purchase that we made how cognizant each of them was about our budget. After each purchase we made, everyone would ask how much do we have left. They really did a great job planning, facilitating and staying in charge of the entire vacation and we all want to do it again! Plus, now that they are all adopted and we FINALLY have passports, we can start our over-seas adventures.

Budget planning committee starts NOW! But not literally since, it's 1am.

They are all smiling in the picture but as soon as the flash went off I started yelling at them to go to sleep.

Willy Sr. really, REALLY wanted that shark