BLOGGING AWAY!!!!!

Here we are. Mom, A, J, T & K. This is what I wish my family could be all the time!! I have had A, J & T since September 2004 and K since February 2005. We have so much fun and laugh! I love them all so much!!! I truly wish they'd never have to leave.

No drama today, can you believe it? I'm pretty excited about chores, though! We had a family meeting on Sunday afternoon and delegated new chores. The daily chore list consists of:

1. Loading & unloading the dishwasher
2. Setting & clearing the table & vacuuming the kitchen & dining room
3. Vacuuming the living room and hallway
4. Gathering & taking out the trash

These are the daily chores so the house gets vacuumed everyday and I don't have to do it. But I'm stuck with cleaning the bathroom and that's not a pretty job when you have a teenage boy in the house! The 7 & 3 year olds don't help either! I have to do laundry, too. That is my least favorite job, but I get the best feeling when it's all done. But the feeling only lasts until bath time!

Bath time....reminds me of a few stories:

J used to be able to take showers. Now he has to take baths. You don't know how many times I've caught him taking a shower standing outside the tub. He has the shower going full blast and is bending over the tub washing his hair, water everywhere. He couldn't understand what was wrong with that. Then there are the times that he's went thru a whole brand new bottle of shampoo in one bath. When I told him that he would have to pay me for the shampoo, he got very upset because he said that was "expensive, like $100". I had to hide my laughter with that one. He's done both of these things several times. I just want to say, "HELLO!! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!!!!"

Those are just a few of the stories of J!

Ok, so now I'm blogging............

A friend of mine thinks because I have a boatload of kids living in my house, I have lots of stuff to blog about. Well, she's probably right! I'll tell you a little story about my house and then a story about the drama du jour.....

I am 40 & divorced and decided two years ago to become a foster parent. I have since then had 19 kids in & out of my home. I guess I probably do have lots to talk about!! I currently have 6 kids with me. They range in age from 2 - 14. Here are the boys....B-14, J-7, I-3, T-2. The girls are K-9, A-9. A, J & T are siblings and I've had them for almost 2 years. A & J both have ADHD and do we have fits & fights and arguments. Believe me they keep me hopping!! Throw in the 2 & 3 year olds and the hyper 14 year old........Don't even get me started.

On the way home from daycare yesterday J decides to tell me that a little girl in his group at daycare gave him a "5 dollar bill", not $5 mind you but "a 5 dollar bill"!! This was for him to play games with at the bowling alley. I don't give the kids extra money to spend on the extra activities because then I'd never have money for anything. They go somewhere just about every day. Today was the IMAX. It cost $6 each to go and when you have 3 in the same daycare it can get costly......anyway, I digress! J decided it would be ok for this little girl to give him the money so he spent it playing games and "bouncy balls"! I kid you not! He brought home 6 bouncy balls!!! 6!!! I'm not quite sure why he had to have that many! Anyway, he still had "$1.85" of her money (all in change) so I told him that he had to take it back to her this morning. He wasn't to give it to the little girl but to take it to the teacher to make sure the girls parent's knew she was giving her money away. So I put it in a baggy for him to take to school. As we're leaving the house this morning, I make sure he has the money. He emptied it out of the baggy into his pocket. I asked him to give it to me so I could make sure it was all there. He decided that since his big brother (from Big Brothers & Sisters) had given him some change, he said that some of it was his and not hers. Then somehow 40 cents now belonged to another little boy, Ian. Have no clue who that is!!! But I explained that it wasn't his money he had to give it back and since he stole the girl's money that he was supposed to take back to her, he now had to repay the entire "5 dollar bill"! He did NOT like that! Any suggestions on how to handle that?

That is just one of the kids' morning! Needless to say, I'm exhausted by the time I leave my driveway!!!