I love my children, my life

The Mother In Me

The mother in me says to her children;

Don’t cross streets without looking both ways

Don’t talk to strangers

Don’t drink and drive

Don’t do drugs.

The mother in me thinks her children;

Should respect all people

Should treat others as they would like to be treated

Should love and cherish life

Should be all they can, because they can be anything.

The mother in me prays her children;

Will never hurt

Will be loved by all

Will never feel lost or alone

Will always know and remember I love them.

Copyright Notice
© 2005 All rights reserved.

Uggghhh! Braces

Today was Chase's 3rd opinion from an orthodontist.  Looks like we really don't have a choice.  He needs braces.  This guy actually explained things a little more, which really helped.  Basically, Chase has a couple of upper and lower teeth that are crossed.  So basically his upper tooth is back too far and his bottom tooth is too far forward, while is other teeth line up when he closes his mouth.  This will eventually cause one tooth to wear down the other tooth until it needs a crown...YIKES!  So, the estimate on this?  $5,000 if we begin in 2012.  I don't know that we'll be able to do that, so we may have to wait.  She said it's safe to wait as long as we don't get to the point it starts to damage.  She said we can watch and the dentist can watch for that.  I'll talk to our dentist next week when we have our annual there.  Also, his two canine's have nowhere to come into.  One is coming out the side already and won't drop down.  She said it will probably hover between his gum and the actual spot it's supposed to come into.  The other one, on the other side, may never come in, which isn't good either.  Chase also needs to work on keeping his teeth cleaner.  I'm glad he talked to him about it, so maybe he'll take it more seriously.

So, there you have it.  Unless we manage to sell our state tax credit, it will be hard to be for.  If we manage to sell the credit, then we'll, in essence, get that money next summer and be able to start on his teeth.

Fun, fun!

The person I want her to be

that's my baby girl, Chelsi.  I've told the kids time and time again that I don't need them to accomplish anything earth shattering.  I don't need them to be the prettiest, the top of their class or anything like that.  I need them and want them to be good people.  That makes me happy.  Today I got a note confirming that Miss Chelsi is well on her way.  Today was the last day of summer school and her teacher sent home a note with all of the students.  But, Chelsi's had something extra.  It said "Chelsi is wonderful!  I had a little boy who was crying everyday and Chelsi was able to get him to stop.  She was the friend he needed.  Such compassion from a young girl."  Makes me teary everytime I read it.  Apparently, from Chelsi's explanation, this little boy cried everyday, but she didn't know why.  Today she walked up to him and told him she liked his Transformers bag.  He asked her to play with him at recess and she said 'sure'.  This was the day the little boy stopped crying.

That's my baby girl!  My sweet, sweet girl!

Oh I hate those dreams

You know the dreams. The ones where you wake up and remember it and then ponder it all day wondering what your subconscious was trying to tell you.  I had a dream that all of a sudden we were at the point where we had a picture of this cute little Korean guy, he was probably about 12-24 months old and we were adopting him.  He was a waiting child....yeah, that's how much detail I got.  And all of a sudden we were in the throws of the adoption and I was going 'holy crap, how are we going to pay for this'.  PANIC!  I don't know why in the world I would have such a crazy dream.  We have no intentions of anymore kids.  We're good the way things are and our hands are full and our pockets are empty.  Why put any thoughts in my head that I don't need?  It's almost like if I saw this little guy in real life, I'd recognize him.  It was THAT vivid.  The ONLY reason this dream scares me is because in October 2008 (a month after Jaemin was born and 5 months before we knew about him), I had a dream that I met a little baby boy and he was wearing mint green.  Yep, that was my Jaemin.

I love birthday month

Obviously as a mom to 5, I'm lucky I get a birthday, so there is no week long or month long celebration.  However, the coupon people LOVE my birthday.  So, I show them some love by SPENDING them!  I got $10 off Kohls, so Cole got a new pair of shoes for school for $20 after my 20% discount and coupon.  I got $10 off Penneys, so Kaelin got a pair of capris and a shirt and Chelsi got a shirt for $13 total.  I even got a free meal off Lee's Chicken, so I had to use my $20 Groupon to Old Navy and had my yummy dinner for free!

Came home and Brian tells me I got my birthday coupons in the mail today too.  Our city allows vendors to submit coupons and then on your birthday you get a whole pack.  I got my favorite.....I'm hoping someone's going to take me for Chinese so I can use it.  Hint hint.  After all, I've gone to this restaurant most of my birthdays for most of my life.  Why stop now.  It's the only time I get to have it.

Always a reason to celebrate when you get coupons to help you out!

Official switch from 'WHEN' to 'IF'

I hate, hate, hate doing this because it feels like I'm telling myself I've lost hope, but I have to do this to not feel so stressed.  I'm talking about our once in a lifetime trip to Korea as a complete family.  We may go, we may not. I've been mulling this over in my mind and on paper for the last few days and I just don't see any alternative.  Going to Korea for 7 is not as simple as it may seem.  \

First of all, finding a hotel room to accommodate 7 people together is near to impossible.  I'm willing to split the adults up to find two separate rooms, but that definitely adds to the cost.  Not to mention Korea's rules are stricter than here in the US where we can stay in a suite with 2 doubles and a fold out couch.  They don't allow that in Korea.  We finally found a decent place to stay that would only be $180/night...as of now.  So we're figuring on $200/night just in case rates change.

Food's not a terrible worry, but even if you figure $50/day (cheap) you would be spending $6-700 over the 12-14 day stay.  Which yeah, we could stay for a shorter time, but if you're going to fly for 14 hours you want to stay a bit.  If anything it helps a little with jet lag.

Transportation within the country's not terrible either.  We can get around on the subway and cabs for probably less than $500 the whole stay.  Then, there's transportation to Gwangju and Jeju (their birth cities); that's another $1200 for both and a hotel stay at each if just some of us go.  Like me and each child that was born in the city we were going to.

Airfare.  Here's where I can't cut the cost at all.  We're obligated to pay whatever the going rate is at the time for economy class tickets.  So, if oil goes up, so does our airfare, which at a good June rate will be $1500/ticket if we're lucky.  With 7 of us, the price of our family's airfare can fluctuate anywhere from $10,000 to $13,000 for all of us.  There's not getting around this part.  You can't just choose to drive or take another mode of transportation.  This is the part that really stinks!  We can afford to be in Korea, we just can't do the high end of airfare.

We've been planning for this since Kaelin was about 3 and told me she wanted to go together.  Then we emptied the whopping $800 we had in the account to get Jaemin.  I got serious and started saving $100/month after Jaemin came home two years ago.  Then came my $250/month pay cut thanks to our stinky contractor who can't get us a better deal on health insurance.  Due to that I had to go part time to afford my bills and get the kids out of daycare.  And with all this went the $100/month I was saving for the trip.  So, there we stand at $3,800 in our Korea account.  If you added the above up, we're need about $17,000 to go.  Only $13,200 short.  Not bad huh?  UGH!  We have our regular savings and it has some in it, but you can't drain your savings to nothing with 5 school aged kids.  We're already living paycheck to paycheck...literally.  There's nowhere to go.  Then, we have the potential that either we're going to have to fix our septic's drainfield or hook up to our city sewer.  Either way it will cost about $3500.  And Thursday after our 3rd orthodontic opinion Chase may still need braces.  Poor kid has two permanent teeth coming out the side of his gums.

So, it's time I let myself down a bit.  I was so psyched for this trip.  It's not like I was completely doing it for Kaelin, Chelsi and Jaemin.  I was planning it for our family.  It's bonding.  It's a special link for us.  It's how we became a family.  It's been important and driving me for years, but it's time to let go so that I don't let it's dream consume me.

The plan is to wait until next Winter when we had planned to start buying tickets or watching for decent fares to reevaluate.  If things seem okay and maybe we manage to save some more we'll think a little more about it.  Otherwise, each year it will get pushed back another year until we decide if we'll ever go at all.  Really, you don't have forever.  Cole will be 18 in just 4 years.  One year he will have his heart surgery and that is how we'll spend our summer.  So, all I can say is IF we go to Korea as a family it will be the best trip ever!

Our Outing

I took the kids to a state park to look around and walk.  They enjoyed it. It was a perfect 80 degrees, but was a little muggy down near the water.  Somewhere during this outing I hurt my knee.  I'm guessing anyways.  By Saturday night my knee was swollen and warmish.  I can't kneel on it or put pressure on it, so I've been icing it.  It's sort of white and then red on my knee cap.  Weird.  Who knows.

This is how far up we were.  We drove down the hill and then walked the trail along the spring.

The kids at the ruins of the castle.  It took almost 20 years before it was completed and was gone in another 20.

This is a glimpse of what the house looked like prior (during) it's burning.  It was HUGE!

Happy little camper running along.

Chase just had to take this picture.