Well...

We have foster kids again, all is right with the world. It's a fascinating story and I will share it with you all someday. I'm excited to say two beautiful, brilliant, and bilingual young women now live with us and we had a very fun evening. Aimee is so good with girls, no matter how they are feeling about moving in with us a shopping trip turns them into BFF. We had our first interaction with the Phoenix public school system today...that will be interesting. Fun quote of the night - "You kind of look like the King of Queens". Fun activity of the night - Fuego en la Sangre

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Posted in: family,foster care

So I have not felt much like blogging lately...

But here goes. I'm sure you know that the girls are gone, it hasn't really affected me the way I thought it might. I miss them, intensely sometimes, but it's not like I thought it would be. Maybe it's because we have the babies coming; maybe it's just because I was meant to be a foster parent. I hope it isn't because I have some personalit disorder like the pdych said. I have always know that I have trouble expressing some emotions, especially in certain situations, but part of me just feels like they can find something 'wrong' with everyone-i mean it's in their own best interest really if you think about for eveyone in america to have a diagnosed problem, That way if you lose it and shoot up a school they can say 'see, told you so' and if you just live your life normally no one will ever call them on it. Either way, I'm happy I'm not suffering about the move anymore. I had two really good cries, one was hysterical in fact, and I'm just sort of at the point of a dull ache in my life which I think is good two weeks out. I am excited about new foster kids, outr house is this strange bizarro land with no kids. Luckily we are going to be innundated with company over the next few weeks and then we're going to florida. Jessie is here right now (yay!) and I'm super happy she decided to stay over the weekend, it sucks having visitors when you have to work the whole freaking time. Jeremy came over and we played dirty probe last night, that's always fun! Whale's vagina! I have more to say, but this is getting very long and I'm on my blackberry so I don't want to push things. Later!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

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oh man

So today has been the day to end all days. First of all, I hurt my back playing FREAKING volleyball...I am getting so old. I had to take the day off of work yesterday to just lay on the couch and recuperate. It sucked; I mean, I got to watch like 15 episodes of the West Wing but it still sucked. I have so much to do around the house and I can't hardly freaking move. Blargh! So just to keep this short (because So You Think You Can Dance is on) this morning Mercedes freaking went ballistic. If you haven't seen her lose it I can't even explain it to you. Screaming at the top of her lungs...like ear piercing, blood curdling screaming. She was kicking the bed, kicking the walls, kicking the doors. It was awful. So, I put her in the crib. Call me an asshole, but I just can't stand a 5 year old acting like that. So I put her in the crib. Frankly, I'm not sure if there was any other way to keep her from hurting herself. So she had to go to school and hadn't stopped crying, I just picked her up and put her in her car seat. All told, she didn't stop screaming and crying (and kicking the back of my car seat ) until I left her in her classroom. She was so embarrassed to be left in school with messy hair and no shoes, she shut herself up immediately. Then we get home tonight, she goes ballistic again (after promising me she wouldn't do it anymore). Dangit man. It was so bad this time, she actually did hurt herself. She kicked her wardrobe and wound up cutting her ankle on the corner. I finally got her to calm down and we talked about how to punish her. She actually impressed me and told me in a calm voice that she really didn't want to go to bed early (sometimes when she throws fits we make her go to bed early, basically stay in bed all night) and we came up with a new kind of punishment (because she agreed that she needed to be punished for throwing a big ole fit). So, we entered the world of writing your name X-hundred times on a piece of paper. Heh heh, tell me I'm not destined to teach. We sat down at her desk and I showed her how to write her name across the top of a piece of lined paper (3 times...Mercedes is one heck of a first name) and told her she needed to fill the front and back of a piece of lined paper. So she really attacked it, and spent an hour writing. Meanwhile, Mariah and I had a fun night; pizza for dinner and a game of "I got your booty", which is basically tickle time. Then when Merc finally finished Mariah went ballistic. Argh. At least they spread it out. Arrrgghhhh! It kills you to just hear non-stop screaming for 3 hours. Bleh. I want to get drunk.

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Posted in: family

In a funk tonight

I don't know why, I'm just in a rotten mood right now. I can't really explain it, I had a good day at work and I am having an enjoyable evening with the wife and kids. I don't know why this happens to me, but I just get in a funk sometimes. I had an interesting conversation with Adam today. Actually, it feels like I spent most of my day at work talking with Adam about various things. I'm not sure if I'll get to my scheduled task in the 'garden' tonight, but I'm hoping to at least get some plumbing supplies at the Depot after the girls go to bed. Hopefully I'll get up early in the morning and get out there before everyone else is up and about. Thankfully, it seems to be 'cooling' off a little bit. I think we're officially in monsoon season now.

More later

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Posted in: family,friends,hobbies

Ahhhh, Sweet Relief

Aimee's home. Finally! I do not do well when I am away from her. I don't often think about it this way, but we've been together for 10 years. Freak! It's hard to imagine that I've spent almost a third of my life with my wife. Not in a bad way, it's just unreal that all of the stuff in my life, including my entire time in school and growing up and learning to talk and what no, was only twice as long as the time I've been with Aimes. Anyways, it is difficult to be apart from her for even a night, weeks are unbearable. I'm so thankful that my mom was in town when Aimee had to leave. Aimee managed to watch the kids by herself for a week but I could never do it. She is amazing!

On another note, I had a fun 4th of July! We had a young adult party at my house that turned out to be a lot of fun. I have got to get a Wii, that thing is so freaking fun. We swam, we played games, Nicole pretended to be Alyssa so Mariah could get to sleep. The kids love playing with Tyler, I wish they could spend more time together. Beth et al took Mercedes to see the fireworks and she had a freaking great time. I got a 'smoking' deal on a bbq smoker at Lowe's (hahaha) and we cooked 2 chickens and a pork shoulder (Actually just the butt heh). I made my own rub and had it goin all day. Ironically, it isn't hard at all to keep the temperature up in Phoenix in the summer. So, 6 hours later we had some awesome smoked chicken at the party. 12 hours in, mom and I got the pork butt off and shared some unbelievable pulled pork sandwiches (at 8:30 pm heh heh)

Finally, today was the first day that our new pastor was at worship. Part of me didn't want to like him, just because I was so close to Gary, but I have to admit he is pretty fantastic. He seems like quite a character, has red hair and a serious accent (MinnesOOOda I would say) and gave a great sermon. He apparently ran out of time in the first service, so he just didn't give a sermon! Wow! I had to go into his office after the service and set up his computer and I had a chance to chat with him briefly. I am honestly looking forward to working with him. I will also say, that his office is decorated very nicely. It looks like his couch and chairs are from Ikea, very modern. I also noticed that he has some very funky curtains hung up. Cool beans!

More later!

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Posted in: church,family

Someone has a case of the Mondays :(

Well, it's Monday. I guess the only good thing you can say about Mondays is I get to work from home. It's nice to not have to get up and get cleaned up and head into work on Monday mornings, it's sort of like having a 'practice' day for the rest of the week. Get up, get the kids off to school and come back home with a donut from QT (Krispy Kreme yay!) and a Diet Coke and sit down to the computer to go over my email from the weekend. I have a pretty nice office at home, but it can be hot as blazes this time of year. Plus, it's on a separate A/C ( a window unit) and I can just feel money burning out of my wallet when it runs during the day. Anyways, it's quiet and Aimee and the kids know not to really bother me when I'm in there working os it works out well.

In other news, my mom is here this whole week. Yay! It's so nice having her around, I wish sometimes that she just lived here with us :( The girls love having a grandma so much, and it's so nice to have family around. I don't even think we'd mind having her just live with us in the same house...heh, she'd probably go crazy though having to live in our house with our crazy style.

Life has been interesting lately, we have a lot going on and it seems like we have no one to talk to about it all. I know some of the reasons why, but it just seems like the Wickershams are alone an awful lot these days. On top of that, I have been sick for like 3 weeks now. I guess I need to break down and just go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor though. I know I have friends that are doctors, so I'm sorry if you read this. I think I have written about this before, but the doctor always tells me two things. "It's a virus and there's nothing I can do." This is sometimes accompanied by, "I'm going to give you antibiotics for no real reason other than you might get an infection to accompany your virus." This really pisses me off, btw. The second is, "You're too fat." Now, I know I'm fat but I really don't think that every illness I've had since I was 15 stems from the fact that I'm overweight. Apparently, I'm 'morbidly obese' because I'm 5'8" and I way 200 pounds. Even when I was really trim and fit and ran and did Aikido 3 times a week I weighed 180 pounds. Ironically, I went to the doctor then when I was hard as a rock and in the best shape I've been in since college and the doctor told me I was sick because I was too fat. Whatever, I won't keep ranting about this, my point was just that I'm sure when I go to the doctor they're going to tell me I have a virus and I'm too fat and that's why I can't get rid of this rattling cough I've had for 3 weeks.

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Posted in: family,friends,work

Tomorrow is the day

Well, tomorrow I have my meeting with the District Committee of Ordained Ministry. This is the group of people who will go over everything I have done so far and decide whether to certify me for ministry. Without their approval, I won't be ordained in the UMC. This is sort of the first 'real' test I have to see if I have what it takes. I had to take a crazy amount of Psychiatric exams and I have been meeting with a mentor for almost 8 months. I am really curious to see what it is like. On one hand, I want it to be a bit of an adversarial process because if I'm not fit for the ministry I want to find out sooner rather than later, but on the other hand I know I am being called and it is hard for me to seek the approval of people who don't really know me very well. Oh well, we'll see! I hope that I am able to communicate well, I have been wicked stressed out and emotional for the past few months and I hope I can be myself and be honest about everything.

In other news, I got a B in my history class. I am really thankful for the grade, I'm not sure I deserved it. Now I just have to keep plugging away at my New Testament class and get through all the videos before the summer ends. I'm so thankful that the prof let me take an incomplete!

Peace!

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Posted in: interests,school