It's getting real.
We went Saturday and picked up the kids. Third visit. Was very excited that they were excited to see us. Big hugs and kisses. We got there at the same time as last week. This week, we decided to hit a mall. There was a Build-a-Bear and an Inflatable Wonderland. The foster mom needed us to buy a couple of shirts for Dalton. The mall was perfect.
We had a real good drive over. Turned on the kid's music station and had fun singing along to the Spiderman song, the transformers song, and Yellow Submarine. We got to the mall and the kids saw something I don't think they had ever seen before - an escalator. Watching them figure it out was fun. They had so much fun, they didn't even realize that the Inflatable Wonderland was at the bottom.
When they saw it, they FREAKED. They went hog-wild. It was pretty great for Lori and I because we could send them in to one of the inflatables and let them go for awhile. There was only one way out and in, so we knew where they were. We monitored to make sure there were no tears, blood, or fights. We saw Dalton reach a level of happy we'd never seen before. He did bellyflops, flips, slides - just had a blast. Bailey had fun, too, but she's usually happy. We expected to spend an hour or two wearing them out - turned out to only take about 40 minutes. They wanted to play on the escalators some more.
We walked through the mall and stopped at a few stores. Dalton is the fashion expert of the family. He has a good grasp on what he thinks is "cool" and "not cool." He has an eye for hats. Bailey, of course, can find the shoes in 1.2 seconds of entering a store. We made it to the food court and the worn out kids got some Chick-Fil-A nuggets down. We made our way to Sears and bought some clothes.
Lori and I have no clue about children's clothing sizes. Is a size 7 a child's small, medium, or large. What is a 5T? Toddler? Tall? So - we had to actually LOOK at the clothes to see what fit. I would hold the shirt up to Dalton's back to see if they were too long. Bailey quickly picked up on it and became the fashion coordinator. It was pretty cute and she actually helped pick out a shirt.
We could tell Bailey wasn't feeling in top shape and Dalton was pretty tired too, so we cut the trip short (no Build-a-Bear this time). A good trip back home and we were back by 1 pm. Several of the kids came out to the back porch where we were talking and we got to watch them interact with each other. It really is amazing how that family works together to get things done. I got to meet most of the girls. One of them crawled in Lori's lap and made her rock. I snapped some photos and chatted with some of the older girls about school. We stayed for about 45 mintues and figured it was time to get.
Lori and I did some shopping to complete the kids' rooms. We had a nice dinner, seeing that it was our last Saturday night as a childless couple. Spent the rest of the weekend preparing.
So.....we're down to the home stretch. All the close parties have been notified. We're thrilled that we've connected with the kids the way we have. We started working on discipline
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