A day of peace and quiet! 😉

Today is the 4 month anniversary of Nam’s adoption. It’s hard to believe it has already been one-third of a year since he joined our family! But it is also getting hard to remember what our lives were like before he arrived…he has become such an integral part of our existence.

This week has been quite exhausting! I have a newfound respect for single parents. With Dennis and Ricky gone, I have had Nam by myself during the day, plus I’ve had to do all of the driving to pick him up. Trying to keep up with my normal chores, keeping him entertained, and dealing with any and all discipline issues has worn this old woman out! He was REALLY good Wednesday and Thursday. But I think he didn’t realize how long Dennis was going to be gone, and it started getting to him yesterday. He was really missing Grandad, and it definitely showed up in his behavior. I was ready to hand him off to Sheila last night and have a weekend to myself!

The guys made it all the way up to Carbondale, CO, near Aspen, yesterday and are headed back to Bayfield tonight. They expect to be home sometime Monday. I was hoping they would make it back then, since I kept telling Nam Grandad would be home in 3 days yesterday. We ended up calling and talking to him for a few minutes yesterday morning, which helped for a while. But afterwards, when he got upset, he would cry that he wanted to go see the snow with Grandad! I showed him on the map how far away it was, but I don’t think he really understood the concept.

Tonette was out of town this week and needed to get some medicine to her mom, so Thursday, we dropped by on our way home from FW to pick it up at the pharmacy and take it to Brookdale. As usual, Nam charmed everyone that we came in contact with! He is such a friendly little guy! Then we took the medicine to the office manager at Brookdale and dropped in to see Memaw and Pawpaw for a few minutes. Daddy had received his final refund check from an insurance policy that Momma had had (and had never been canceled when she died, that I’ve been working on trying to take care of for the past few months), and he said he needed to take it to the bank. I suggested he just endorse it and let me take it for him (so I could just go through the drive-thru and not have to get Nam in and out again). Bobbie also had a check she wanted me to cash, but she told me that I could just give her the money on Sunday. So, we ran those errands and then headed to the house. After lunch (and a good nap), we went to Walmart to buy a few groceries. Nam loves to operate the portable scanner that they now have. He does a really good job, too! Thursday night, I cooked chicken pot pie for supper and also prepared a (frozen) dish of mashed cauliflower with garlic and bacon bits. Nam ate two helpings of the pie and cauliflower, and then grabbed the serving dish of cauliflower and finished it off! I just love to watch this kid eat! He has a good appetite and eats such a wide variety of food (unless he is distracted or upset!).

Sheila has been working with Nam on learning everyone’s names (hers, mine and Grandad’s, and Nam’s full name). It is so cute to hear him tell you that he is Nam Josiah Gerrald! He really likes his middle name. Sheila read the story of Josiah from his children’s bible to him, so he knows he is named after a king. He does really well at remembering Sheila’s name and my name. For some reason, he has trouble remembering Dennis’. We have also been working on learning to catch a ball. It looks like he has never even had the opportunity to play with any kind of ball before. We have a tennis ball that we’ve been using to teach him. He is picking it up pretty well, but he gets so excited that he starts jumping around while he tries to catch it…which doesn’t work and frustrates him. He is also starting to turn into an outdoor-loving kid. He wasn’t very interested in playing outside when he first arrived from Vietnam. That’s probably because it was so much colder than he had ever experienced! Now that spring is just around the corner, he is loving going out to play. He really loves going to the park…especially when there are other kids to play with there. It really warms my heart to see him starting to act like “a normal kid”. He has made SO many adjustments and had to learn SO many new things, but he has really handled it very well!

Thursday night was Sheila and Nam’s night to spend the night. I normally fix pancakes once a week when they are here, so Friday was it. Nam ate 4 (small) pancakes for breakfast, and then wanted another one plus his bacon (that he didn’t eat at breakfast) as a morning snack. That kids LOVES pancakes! Yesterday afternoon, we decided to bake cookies. He wanted Snickerdoodles, so that’s what we did. He helped me mix up the dough, then I scooped and shaped it, and he rolled it in the cinnamon-sugar mixture and placed it on the baking sheet. He really likes being involved in whatever anyone is doing. I have a wooden step ladder that I keep in the kitchen for him to stand on. It reminds me of when I was little and used to “help” my Grandma Mahaffey in the kitchen. As Vicki F. likes to say all the time, “making memories”.

This morning I slept in until 7:40! What a luxury!!! I have quite a bit to get done today (writing a court report, doing laundry, cleaning house, and baking a cake for tomorrow), but I have all day by myself to get it all done, so I’m not getting in any hurry. I may not even get out of my PJs and robe until noon!

Since it would have been just me and the folks tomorrow for Sunday dinner, I invited Anita and Sherrod over to eat with us. Sherrod will be great for keeping the folks entertained! I don’t know about anyone else, but when I’m around someone a lot, I run out of things to talk about. Therefore, our Sunday afternoons are pretty boring! It will be nice to add another couple into the mix to liven things up.

Well, tonight we “spring forward”. I do NOT like time changes! It doesn’t affect me as bad as it does Dennis, but it does take a few nights to adjust. Sheila is actually looking forward to it this year. She is hoping that with the change, Nam will start sleeping until 6-6:30, instead of getting up every morning at 5-5:30! It will also give them more time in the evenings to do things together before it gets “black” outside. I hope the time change has no ill effects on you, and that you all continue to enjoy the joys of watching springtime arrive. (The pear trees, here, are gorgeous right now!)