Life as it happens with our three beautiful and adopted children, Shayla, Yamira and Manuel: Weekend fun

Friday was a really tough day. We let Olivia go at 9:00 am to the social worker. She went on to another family who could foster her long term. I shed many tears that day, but we have to move forward and hope that we contributed to her life some way.

Ping brought home "Bear" for the weekend. Everyone brings home this little guy at one point during the school year. Ping read Bear his favorite book and then made shadows on the wall with a flashlight because Bear loves to do that. Then Ping colored some flash cards. We cut them out and glued them to some index cards. They are for rhyming. Tree and Ski, Chain and Train. That sort of thing. When Daddy got home, we went to Gymboree to get clothes from the new Panda line. That was a little dangerous. Expect to see a lot of panda stuff on this girl:) We then had dinner at a Chinese restaurant we have never been to before.

Saturday was extremely rainy, but we took a quick ride uptown to see what was going on at the Art Festival. It was too rainy to enjoy. We took a quick walk around with Bear and saw a few teachers and friends. We then went home and cleaned some. We went to Target and a few other places and had dinner before returning home. We went to Red Robin. We sure have been out a lot. Seems like we never get home for dinner during the weekends anymore.

Sunday started off rainy, but ended up being beautiful. Bill took Ping to Sunday School for 9:30 am and picked her back up at 10:30 am. We went to the Fire Station around noon since it was Open House there. Bill didn't work it this year. We walked around and saw a lot of Ping's classmates. We had some pizza and headed home. I called Meri and Joe from the house and invited them to go to Marshall Farms with us. We had never been and wanted to try it. They were game, so they headed over and off we went. We had a fabulous time. The place is really cute. They have a petting zoo, a corn maze, blow up slides, a mechanical bull, a cow tractor ride, ice cream and gift shop. I am going to post some photos. I will add more later when I get Meri's. My camera died and my back up battery was dead too. We had so much fun. Ping picked up poop and tried to feed it to the camel. She thought it was food. That was gross, but funny. Bill caught her doing it. They had this great slide that the men and the kids do. The pictures from that are hilarious. The one downer was that a kid decided to make fun of my weight. After he said something five times, I literally said to him and his parents who were a short distance away "ENOUGH!!!!!!" I was really angry at that point. The kid was filling his shirt up and saying he wanted to be fat like I was. We all heard the kid. After the fifth time, I lost it. I said "Enough, stop saying that." Everyone looked. Ask me if I cared? I truly didn't. I said "I have had enough of him making fun of me." I pulled Ping out of the box and said that I wasn't going to have a little girl exposed to this ignorance. I felt awful doing that to Ping but I was really mad. The parents looked at me and walked away. No apology to me from the kid or the parents. Just another bunch of idiots trying to raise the next generation. Shame on them. I turned to Meri and said "See, there you can see for yourself that the parents do nothing!" She couldn't believe it. So many think the parents will correct the behavior. They do not and there was my proof!!!!! I did calm down, but it took some time. We then let Ping go on a slide, but an idiot mother decided to get up with a child under the age of one. Neither was appropriate for the slide, so the whole thing collapsed and Ping came tumbling down. I was scared for her, but she was okay. It says that if you are over a 100 lbs, do not get on it. Just another brilliant parent!!!!!!! Despite this, it was nice to be out in the gorgeous weather and we all had fun.

We left around 6:30 pm and headed out for dinner as we were starved. We got home late. Ping and Bill went to bed and that was the end of the night for them. I watched two of my favorite shows and did a little work that I needed to do on the computer.

Today I took Ping to Playtown Express after school. I met Mindy and Ciara there. Ping and Ciara ran around and got all sweaty, but had a great time. When I got home, Ping wanted to play with some stickers. I had a ton of cleaning to do at my desk and in my office. I am in the middle of putting some stuff away and making my office more office friendly and not fun friendly. A big task, but it needed to be done.

Bill took Ping shopping with him tonight. I was going to take a quick nap because I was dragging, but my second wind kicked in.

I told Ping that I have a calendar and stickers and starting tonight, she is going to sleep in her own room like a big girl. We are going to read her a story and then she has got to put herself to sleep since Daddy and I still have plenty to do after she has gone to bed. I think Bill and I had a harder time letting her go to sleep on her own than she did. I have been discussing this for a long, long time. She is a big girl and needs her own bed. Time to reclaim my king sized bed!!!! More importantly, it's good for her to have her space. I swore up and down that no child would be in our bed as I thought it was a terrible habit. However, she slept with her foster family in China for over a year. It was a tough trying to get her to adjust. Finally we just put her in our bed so we could all get some sleep. I did a lot of research and found that it's not uncommon for adopted children to sleep with their parents for the first two years. So I let it go and tried not to put pressure on her or me. Frankly, I love snuggling with her. It needed to be done though. The last time we tried, she cried like crazy and Bill said she wasn't ready. He in fact wasn't ready to let her go. He loved cuddling with her. No matter how much I anticipated her to cry, I wasn't giving in. Not only did she jump in bed, but she told us to get off of her bed. What a big girl. Well it's time to go check in on her. She is probably asleep in our bed and we just don't know it. Off to check.

Mama Out!!!!!