Nurface Becomes Nursery

Here's the boys helping me sand my Great-Grandmother's old dresser so we can paint it. Just a few days ago the HUGE desk that inhabited half of Zephan's room made it's big move to the garage. Up until now the room has been half nursery and half office: we affectionately called it "the Nurface".

Now the big ol' desk is in the garage and the dresser is moved in. We still have a bit more work to do (notice the mail slots are still on the wall) but the move is more conducive for 4 small ones sharing 2 rooms. They have more space, although my poor hubby has now completely lost his office.

It was inevitable, I suppose...

Levi is still bunking with Solomon and Malachi, however. He's not about to relinquish his big boy status, thankyouverymuch. The nursery is for babies. Although, he will visit Zephan's room periodically to play and pillage.

In other, adoption-related news, Zephan had a visit with his birth mom today. The first one in 10 weeks. The agency couldn't find her for a time, but did finally track her down. I guess she gets supervised visits, "until placement is designated". Which is basically some paperwork to send here and there for signatures and nods of the head from the mucky-mucks.

The caseworker picked him up, kicking and screaming and brought him back 2 hours later, puffy-eyed and snotty with a garbage bag of belated Christmas gifts. There was a card that said, "Merry Christmas. I sure miss you, but I know you're happy...and that's all that matters." She signed both her first name and "mom". Made me sad for her.

Zephan's been clingy and dazed all evening. I hate it. I'm glad that Micah's home to tote him around while I fix dinner and do dishes.

I'm looking forward to the end of these - why are they prolonging these visits? It's hard on all parties.

We also sent off the PO Box address so that Levi's birth dad can write him twice a year as stipulated in our adoption mediation. Those letters should be interesting. They'll probably just go into a shoebox until he's....let's see......retired? Yeah. By the time he's eligible for social security we should feel OK about giving them to him. And it's nice that our mediator wrote that we can ditch the letters and shut down the box if we deem, for any reason, that they aren't in Levi's best interest. And we don't have to send pics. Which is good as we found birth dad's myspace page. It's written for him to spread the news of this poor innocent man's unjust incarceration. It also has pics of Levi and him and Levi as a baby and says his birth name. I will not have new pictures of my son on that stupid page. Makes me mad.

"And this is the last picture taken of my little boy before they came and took him..."

Cry me a river.

Didn't want to mention any reasons they would take your child into protective custody, huh? Because they probably just came to your doorstep and demanded that you hand over your beloved firstborn with absolutely no reason.

OK. Calming down, now. Taking breaths. Levi's just fine now. Running around in his Superman jammies with his little 'fro bouncing on top of his adorable little head.

Still makes me mad, though.

I'll keep you "posted"....