STATUS UPDATES

Everyone keeps emailing to ask when the CNN broadcast will be. We actually don't know ourselves. This is what Lifetime says about it:

www.lifetimeadoption.com/highlights/html

That's birthmom Nicole in the website photo!

So I think it will be hard to catch it on air, but it will also be posted on youtube in October or November, I think.

Around here, it's busy. Or, well, sedentary. Both Vanessa and Keenan have colds, which means I'm sitting up with Keenan most every night in the recliner and all day long, too. So I'm feelin' kinda cray zee. Yes. Loco mama.

Yesterday Keenan was extra clingy and sick - he screamed his head off in the car seat on the way to Vanessa's preschool and back. Then, at bedtime, I passed him to Daddio so I could (ahem) pee and brush my teeth, but I couldn't even get that done without Keenan losing it and Daddy handing him back in a hurry. He has a lot of phlegm stuck in his chest and I imagine that it's ending up in his tummy since he can't hork it out properly. The poor guy.

Nanners, on the other hand, is barely detained by her upper respiratory malarky. She's turned some kind of corner at school - all grown up, like a big girl now - and is sleeping in her own bed in her own room all of a sudden. She is also more than half way weaned and potty trained, if you call voiding in the garden potty training. At least she can go without a diaper and not have an accident.

(That's Aunt Betty in the photo - she and Uncle Wally were in town a few days to escape the fire smoke in Pasadena.)

As I sit and hold our newborn and spectate as our toddler pulls the house apart, there are a few other things going on. We have a mouse under the kitchen sink. The cat has no idea. The cat has a gaping, draining abscess on his forehead. The Caddy is in the shop and we are digging our new ride (Honda Pilot). Keenan rides in the middle of the back seat and Vanessa rides in the way back, like a high school student.

Keenan is starting to smile for us. The little dear! And if I hold him up to look at me I can say, "Can you take your HAND and touch my NOSE?" and sure enough, he has herky-jerky motions, but he gets the job done. As Grandma Patty says, "He likes to be held," and he sleeps with his hands up. He had his first bath submersion in the big bath tub and he liked it a whole lot. Keenan can sit propped up and he's alert and looks all around wide-eyed and somewhat surprised-looking when he's not nursing up a storm.

Daddio and his coworkers wait patiently for some word on the Head Coach job at Cal Poly. Mum's the word from the A.D., who is apparently keeping her cards close to her chest. None of the three coaches has even been contacted to set up an interview yet. Sooooo, we all wait and wonder.

Jack leaves for France this week for a competition with Auntie Shea-Shea. Our French student camper Fleur and her mom will be able to meet them at the track meet! Oh how I wish Vanessa and Keenan and I could go this year, but no, maybe next year. I will surely not be posting on the blog until he gets home to rescue me!

Last weekend we missed a huge family wedding. Debbie, the Magic Aunt's daughter Sarah married Katsu in Rhode Island. We were bummed to have to miss it. We hear the bride and groom were stunning, the wedding was like a fairy tale, and everybody danced.

In other family news, we have our nephew Andy on the brain. He's in Afghanistan, patching up wounded Marines. He's one of four Navy medics in this photo, which was randomly noticed by another military mom who knows Auntie Anne and Andy.

Out of the hundreds of unnamed photos that come across the wires from the war, this one happens to have Andy in it, holding a gun for heaven's sake, in the top right corner. Even hospital corpsmen have to know how to defend themselves and their country, and they pose together so no one can tell who the medics are, so I won't point him out exactly.

Word is, Andy has written notes to the family saying that he feels like he's at camp. After two months in Afghanistan, he said he thought the time had flown by like it had only been a couple days. He had to wear his boots for two week straight, even while he slept, presumably because a soldier could lose his life if he has to pause to fiddle with his laces when a strike happens.

Andy also said he's witnessed some miracles. One involved a bomb (pardon my lack of jargon) planted in the ground that one of his buddies triggered. It went straight up in the air and would have surely killed a few people, but it turned out to be a dud. The soldier lost his hearing, but even that came back after a half day.

Lately the heat has been intense - up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit - which is surely near deadly for our pink skinned redhead. He has been getting worn down, especially in the sleep department.

Auntie Anne had Psalm 91 on her mind when Andy deployed.

"A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you."

So if you find yourself thinking of cousin Andy out there in Afghanistan, please send up a prayer that he'll have restorative sleep and come home to us safely at Christmas time.