Photographer In Training

Lillian is a budding photographer! All of her practice is paying off- no more knee shots or cut-off foreheads! Here is some of her recent work:







Here are some that Mommy and Daddy caught:



So...who's ready to book a session? :)

State of Emergency

I found this photo on my camera today. It's from a couple of months ago.


Holy smokes! It looks like Hurricane Lillian passed through in full force. President Obama must have declared a Federal State of Emergency that day. I'm still waiting for relief efforts to arrive . . .

Poo-Pee-Palooza

Sydney has been on a roll lately. Yesterday she sprinkled me with a fountain of pee while I was changing her diaper. Later that afternoon she soaked her carseat with pee (in her defense though, she was wearing a swimmie diaper because she was on her way to the pool....proves every mom's theory that swimmies don't hold a darn thing).

But today was the kicker. I finally got the girls and the jogging stroller loaded in the car and we were heading out for a nice, leisurely jog down by the river. I heard Sydney grunting in her carseat behind me, which was soon followed by the unmistakable smell of poo. No big deal, I thought- BEFORE I saw the mess. Sydney blew the poop straight out the right side of her diaper, all over her leg, her arm, and even some on her face!! Ewwww! I drove right back home, stripped her down and put her in the bath tub. So much for my jog. Too bad the effort alone isn't enough to burn the calories.

Adoption

I got an urgent phone message from a case worker from the foster agency that we used to work with. Our file has been closed for about seven months, but they were desperate for help. They have a little boy who just turned five who has been living with his very elderly great-great grandma and great grandma (70 and 90 years old). The agency and the state don't think that's a good environment for the little boy, so they want to place him in another home. His mother's rights have already been terminated and his father has an abusive record. No one else in the family is able to take him in. He's already been bounced around four or five foster homes. The little boy is Caucasian, so they want to place him with a Caucasian family who is interested in adoption. We were the only Caucasian foster family on record with the agency. I wish we were in a position to help, because it breaks my heart to think about that little boy and the situation he's been forced into. I just want to wrap my arms around him and make him feel safe and secure.

I know this is a total long shot, but I'm just wondering if anyone knows anyone who is interested in adoption and would be interested in taking this little boy in as a foster child (with the possibility of adoption). Unfortunately, I don't know anything else about the little boy, except that the case worker said he doesn't have any medical conditions (I don't know if that includes psychological/behavioral problems). I do know that if you go from foster care to adoption, the state will pay for all of the legal fees associated with the adoption. They will also expedite the process of approving you as a foster parent.

If anyone is interested, please let me know and I can put you in touch with the case worker who called me.

Silly Comcast

FOLLOW-UP 5/8/10: I made it back to the Service Center to try to get yet another modem. However, after standing in line, the only thing that the lady behind the scary bullet-proof glass said was, "Those are the only types of modems that we have." I feel bad for all the other poor souls out there who have taken the advice from the service tech on the phone and tried to get a "new" modem from the Service Center. I wouldn't be surprised if they turn around and give my old, broken modem to the next sucker who goes in there, AFTER I emphasized the fact that it was old and it didn't work. I'm no Comcast customer care specialist or anything, but it just doesn't seem smart to hand out old, turned-in modems to people who need new ones. Did you ever stop to think about WHY the person was turning in the modem in the first place? Maybe that's too much to ask....

Despite all my efforts to fix the problem before Wednesday, we were left with no choice but to wait for the tech guy to come to the house for an appointment. I think he was sent straight from heaven. He arrived on time and he got the job done. He even checked out our wires and switched out the unnecessary splitters so our internet connection would be faster. Thank goodness for reliable technicians with real, brand-new modems.

Our modem is working like a charm. However, we have yet to get the wireless router and Vonage to work. Oh well. You can't hope for too much at once, I guess.

- - - - - - -

Comcast wins the "that was dumb" award this week. Our internet has been cutting out several times a day for the past few weeks. I called tech service on Sunday and they said a tech couldn't come to the house until Wednesday morning to look at it. That was too long to wait, so I found a babysitter for the girls and went to the service center in the shady part of town to turn in our old modem for a new one since the tech lady on the phone said it was getting a weak signal.

I proudly came home with our "new" modem and Bobby got to work setting it up. After 45 minutes on the phone with Comcast trying to get the modem registered and working, we finally got an internet signal. I fired up Firefox and watched in dismay as google.com took more than 10 seconds to load, got stuck in middle of the Google sign, then finally finished loading. It was slower than dial-up!!!

It turns out that they gave us the same modem that we had FIVE years ago when we first signed up with Comcast! So we got an even older modem to replace the modem that they told us was too old. Go figure. Way to go, Comcast. That's what I call intelligent customer service. So guess what I'll be doing AGAIN today? The nice thing, I must note, is that we will be credited one month's billing fee for the inconvenience- now that's good customer service. If only the rest of Comcast could figure it out.

Now I will click on "Publish Post" and wait 10 minutes for the slower-than-heck internet to do it's work. Geez, I've become so dependent on fast internet....