Disaster

Ever worked on something for an extreme amount of time, put lots of effort into it and it turns out terrible. Well that's what happened today. I spent about six hours on this cake. Granted this is a practice cake and will not leave the house but I am very disappointed in it.

My fondant is lumpy and bumpy, creased, actually tore in places, the bow is not good, and the little flowers I thought were whimsical are just sort of sad.

I do know where I screwed up though, the cake was too soft, I used a devils food cake mix, I wasn't even able to frost the cake without it tearing hence the bumpy fondant. I also shouldn't have wrapped the fondant under the upper layer but I couldn't really pick it up it was so fragile. UGH, should have quit when I realized the cake was too fragile but I forged ahead. Just a disaster - at least I learned a few things not to do. Oh well that's why it's a practice cake and thank goodness it's small - only a 13 x 9 cake cut up. The worse part was the major mess it made of the kitchen.


Igor is totally testing my patience this last week. He has hit three years old with a vengeance. The kid whose nickname could have been "Mr. Mellow" has now turned into "Little Brat" and I don't mean brother! ( Brat mean brother in Russian if you didn't know) I have a hunch it has something to do with something happening at school. I've talked to his teacher and she hasn't seen anything out of the ordinary with him. I've tried to talk to Igor about things happening at school and the only thing he tells me is that A called him a "pumpkin". A is a pretty high strung kid so I'm wondering if more is really going on than Igor has the language skills to tell me about. Most of the bad behavior seems to happen right after school and then he'll settle down and be his normal self. Thankfully there is only about three more weeks of school left, hopefully if it's school related he will settle down.


The school district here has faced severe budget cuts this year and has decided to eliminate their Pre-K program next year, but they still haven't decided on just how they are going to handle IEP's. The difficult part is there are few options for pre-school here in Kornfield, only two small church based schools and neither are of denomination that we are comfortable with. Speaking with one mother of the pre-K crowd she has signed her son up already in one of the pre-schools but doesn't just how things will work. The school district is really leaving us hanging.


Well I suppose that's all. Look for my latest creation on that Cake Wrecks website.

We Ran Away...

Well at least for the weekend. We had a wonderful little get away, my mother-in-law flew in and watched the boys while Hubby and I had a nice get away here. Hubby and I found the place just wonderful, the owner Carol as friendly as could be and prices for a cabin rental very reasonable. We totally plan on taking the boys for a weekend when the weather warms and swimming and floating the river is an option for activities. The weekend was great, though the weather left a lot to be desired.

Two years Home.

Can you believe it's been two years already? My how time flies. Igor is doing wonderfully. He of course has some quirks, he, of course acts like a three year old but overall he's perfect. (though at this very instant he's sitting in time-out for fighting with his brother - brother is there as well)

Another blogger suggested we tell the success stories of adoption in light of the recent craziness by that woman. I'm not a writer, or a great story teller, in fact I read over every blog entry editing like a maniac at least 10 times before I post it. I don't have wonderfully syrupy words that portray our adoption of Igor as glorious. The process was horribly stressfull, we came home with a jet-lagged, terrified child and the first few months were quite the adjustment process. We made it though. Igor has adjusted wonderfully, he is mine, I am his. He will also tell you that. Unfortunately he doesn't include Daddy in this, but I think he will in time, when he realizes Dad is king of all things loud and masculine. It works in our family as Sonny Boy has always been Dad's boy from birth, one for each parent.

WE ARE AN ADOPTION SUCCESS STORY. Nothing fancy, just plain us. Igor home for good - no shipping him back like a pair of shoes (like I would anyway)

Random thoughts that have me on edge.

Bear with me here, I'm tired, should really go to bed but know things will swirl around in my mind too much to sleep tonight so maybe by writing all this brain garbage down it will dump into cyberspace and and allow me some sleep tonight.

I was just recently linking round on some blogs, just browsing around not looking for anything particular and came across a couple of blogs written by irate birth mothers that really ticked me off. I understand that these women feel as if they were forced into placing their child for adoption, and I will probably even give them the benefit of the doubt that some unsavory practices were used to get them to sign over their rights. However what I don't understand is their total nastiness to all adoption. I got the distinct impression that in their eyes adoption is awful, no matter what the circumstances and that really makes me mad. I really wanted to know if they thought that my adoption of Igor (or any other adoption from an orphanage) is a horrible thing, but quite frankly I'm tired and didn't feel like the fight, maybe I'll go battle it later. One blog had something to the effect of you don't know how a child's life would have turned out, you don't have a crystal ball. No, I don't have a crystal ball but I know what I saw with my own two eyes. I know I met a child who did not utter a sound because no one interacted with him beyond the bare necessities of keeping him alive, I know the child I adopted came to me with a back that was bruised black and blue and yellow from neck to tailbone, I know I adopted a child who was terrified of water as every bathing experience he had ever had was not fun or pleasant in the least, I know I adopted a child who did not know how to chew solid foods though he had a mouthful of teeth, I know I adopted a child who's birth mother LEFT him at the hospital to die and never once looked back to see if he was alive. These are things I know, and a person telling me (or whoever her intended audience was) it was wrong of me to give that child a family, food, teach him to speak, teach him to walk, teach him that baths are not torture and that he will ALWAYS have a mother, father and a big brother and a whole host of extended family to care for him is wrong makes my blood boil.

Today I attended a birthday party for another Ukrainian born child, at that party where two other Ukrainian adoptees besides my own. Four boys who will now have the best medical care, the best therapies, and birthday parties every year. Four boys who will have the chance to grow up in families that value them, families that will cherish them when their home countries and birth families did not. Does that woman who wrote that blog really think that is wrong? Would that blogger really think that these children are better off in an orphanage? I hope not.

I do understand that most of her anger was directed at domestic infant adoption, I do not discount the heartache that the birthmothers go through, but to be so irate against adoption in general I do no not understand. Acting as if infertile couples were the devil's spawn and that they could only see her as a womb. I just really want to ask that blogger does she honestly understand the pain that infertility brings to a couple? Can she put herself in their shoes and walk a mile or five, or go through the gauntlet of medical tests, probing (all of which are too personal) and the constant questions from family and friends as to when your going to start a family or add to it.

Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now. Those blogs got my goat.

One more item that's gotten my goat is that crazy lady from TN who put her kid back on a plane and dumped him at the MOE (Ministry of Education) in Moscow. Again, I don't know what was going on in that household, and frankly I don't care. If she honestly felt there was a safety issue with the child being in her home there were so many better options available to her. At the very least she could have gone to the nearest police station and said I can no longer care for this child, or admitted him to a pyschiarict unit of a hospital. I really do hope that every charge that can be brought against her and the grandmother happens. I do feel sorry for the boy that was shipped back to Moscow like a pair of shoes, the bio child of that woman as I would imagine he'll end up in foster care now (hopefully he has some normal family members that will care for him) and my heart goes out to all those PAP's (prospective Adoptive Parents) in process as it appears at the very least there will be a severe slow down if not an outright stoppage of Russian adoptions for a while.

Well my brain garbage has dumped. You can probably tell from the amount of type-o's, grammatical errors and simple misspellings I'm tired.

That Smell is Me

You see I've been spending massive amounts of time at the barn since the weather started warming up. I'm there 4 days a week barring things like dentist appointments etc. I seem to have a miasma that is a blend of ammonia, manure, hay, and horse. It doesn't really bother me to be honest but the boots I work in REEK and they usually end up in the van as a home or I forget them so when the windows are rolled up and the sun is out - well you get the picture. Don't get me wrong though I LOVE IT.

The lessons are doing well. It seems I rarely ride the same horse more than a few times in a row, but it seems to be doing me well at learning to ride. If your a horse person you know each horse has his own quirks and gaits vary.

On top of all the barn living I've put in a small garden. For all the nastiness of this house it has a perfect sunny spot for a garden. I have early crops planted, turnips, lettuce, radish, peas and carrots. Once I've gotten everything prepped which took forever it's now starting to sprout and according to the seed packs I should have some veggies in about 60 days.

What I'm most excited about is a little vacation Hubby and I have planned. My mother-in-law is going to fly down and stay with the boys while we go stay at a cabin a couple of hours away. The place we are staying looks like it will be very peaceful as it's on a working horse/cattle farm and they only have two guest cabins along with their main house. The place offers long trail rides that I plan on taking advantage of, is on a river that is floatable with a canoe so we may take the canoe, fish and there are several tourist traps nearby. Our real goal is to simply sit on the porch with a glass of wine/beer and watch the animals graze and enjoy quiet which is a rare commodity here.

Sonny Boy had his first baseball practice today, he is playing machine pitch. I'm excited as it seems to be the first sport he's taken and interest in. He did play soccer in the fall but I don't think he was too thrilled with it, however baseball he's actually going out into and practicing. He has had some blips lately, not following rules and testing boundries so he's been grounded so much I think he might actually forget how to play some of his video games.

Igor is starting to really be a pest lately and showing his rear on occasion. Nothing horrible, but it does cause me to grind my teeth on occasion. I think what his habit that makes my blood boil is the constant questions; " Mom why you got that pencil? Mom what you cooking? " two minutes later " Mom what you cooking?", "Mom why you stand up? Mom why you go to baffroom?" AAAAAAA I totally realize this is all normal and good but OH MY it is so wearing to have every breath questioned through the day and I feel I must respond because he really is doing this just to learn.

Well, I must really get to bed, I've been up very late the last few nights doing a whole lot of nothing and it's catching up with me so off to the shower I go to wash away the barn