Photo courtesy of flickr. Click on the image to be taken to the photographer’s album.

We are still working on the adoption paperwork. We have met with the social worker a few times, and completed a lot of the paperwork, but we still have some more to do. For one, we haven’t been able to get in touch with our town police to get our fingerprints done. They just don’t return our calls (I know, nice) and they’re not there all of the time so dropping by has proved futile as well. We have to start looking for other options since waiting for the background check and approvals once the fingerprints are in usually takes the longest.

We have been going every week to a full-day training class for the past three weeks. Tomorrow is the last one. It’s been pretty intense. We have learned a lot though, so it’s been worth it (not to mention it’s required!).

That’s about all for now!

I finally learned how to upload videos from my camera to my computer, so once I learn how to get them here on the blog I’ll add some. It was very interesting to look at them all – some are from when Jaden first came home and others are more recent. I’ll get something together and post it before we’re all old and gray!

The good news is that I did get two publications (a gift… and another gift– or at least that’s what I tell myself), and one revise and resubmit, which essentially means, “It sucks, but it doesn’t suck enough that we’re going to outright reject it. We’re just going to make you work your @$$ off to rewrite it, and then maybe we’re going to tell you it really does suck. Or maybe not.”

So you take that chance on the “maybe not” and spend 4 months re-writing, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll have something (good) to show for all of that insanity.

“And why on earth do you want to put yourself through this?” you ask. One word: tenure. Ah—the golden ring we are all grasping for. Will I get it? Now there’s the rub. Stay tuned… we have another two years before we will know for sure.

In the meantime I go to work like a good little soldier and when I’m not in my office or in the classroom I am at home writing, writing, writing… re-writing, re-writing, re-writing….until my eyes close. Then I usually wake up in a cold sweat and finally go to bed. After I eat some chocolate.

So what does this all have to do with Jaden? Nothing, really. So here’s some pictures to make up for it. The obviously fall-ish ones were taken at his last school photo session in September, and where he is wearing the red sweater was from the photo session in Feburary. What a cutie, if I don’t say so myself!!!!

The password is the same as for the blog, just without the last letter (evidently snapfish cannot handle one more letter in their password).

click here: snapfish

So that’s why I am here now, since the format made me want to type a blog entry, sans distractions. I am realizing now as I type this on a completely blank screen that all the little icons that peer out at me from behind whatever window I’m working in, and even the picture on my desktop, can be a distraction to trying to write. Evidently that is the purpose of this word processor. No frills, no distractions.

The only drawback I can see so far is that you have to have bionic vision to see this teeny tiny little print on the screen. There must be a way to change it. I’ll go seek that out, in the meantime: g’night everyone.

I’m back. I have not figured out how to leave this screen and save my work. If I leave now and don’t figure out how to save first, well you know what that means.

Since you’re still reading this……….. that means I figured it out.

I was on my way to pick up Jaden from school (daycare) when they called to say he had fallen and was hurt (why didn’t I leave 10 minutes sooner!?). This is the second time in two weeks, and both times he fell flat on his face, albeit for a different reason and in a different location each time.

This time he was running with the velcro on his shoes not completely done and somehow tripped over the hanging strap. The problem is that he didn’t try to put his hands down to break his fall, so he fell flat on his face. They said his bloody nose was so bad it even scared the teachers. The lump on his head this time is twice the size it was two weeks ago – and two weeks ago it was the size of a golf ball.

I was so worried about him when I picked him up that I headed over to the doctors’ office but they had already closed. I called Neville to see if he thought I should take Jaden to the ER, but he said the closest ER is not equipped well for children and I should call the pediatrician’s on-call doctor first. When the on-call doctor called me back, it was actually the nurse. She said as long as he doesn’t start staring into space, and doesn’t get a high fever, he should be fine— it’s the back of the head that causes great concern. The front of the head is pretty stable. He’s in the bath right now getting ready for bed—- I’m not going to sleep tonight, I just know it.

I’ll have to talk with the early intervention people to see if the falling without putting hands out is something to worry about. We had this problem when Jaden started walking, which they said was because he didn’t crawl for long before he started walking. Without the practice on the floor, his reflex to use his arms when he fell wasn’t great. At the time they had us practice ‘wheel barrow’ walking with him, which fixed the problem in almost no time at all, but I feel like it’s happening all over again. I know it was only two falls but you should see him. He looks like he’s been beaten up. Ugh. Parenthood. Couldn’t one of you have warned me??

SO – I uploaded a bunch of pictures from my Dad’s camera to Snapfish (I haven’t even moved my own pictures from my camera to the computer yet). I’m going to try something different (again?!) with the pictures. My family always shares pictures on Snapfish, and adding them to slide.com was proving so torturous that I didn’t spend any additional time adding them to snapfish, so I am way behind uploading to snapfish. I have to eliminate one step, so if linking the blog to snapfish is successful, I might have my solution.

The pictures are in a group room called “Blog Photos.” The link to the room is jadensjourney.snapfish.com/snapfish and the password is the same one as for this blog, minus the last letter. You should only have to put in the password once – each time after that as long as you sign into Snapfish you’ll have access to the pictures. Let me know how it works!

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