This post is written on behalf of my sister.

A few weeks ago her 3 year old foster son, the child she was about to adopt the following Monday, lit a small fire in her kitchen while she was using the bathroom. At the time, her foster son was watching TV in the livingroom and she did not think it would be a problem if she closed the bathroom door for a quick few minutes.

When she got out of the bathroom, he was still sitting on the couch, so she felt good that all was well. Unfortunately she found out a little later on that he had gone into the kitchen and quickly lit something and threw it in a drawer.

This could have happened to anybody.

The agency immediately took her son away. She is heartbroken. This child has been in her care since he was 4 months old. He was a crack baby. She spend most of his baby years rocking him as he painfully withdrew from the drugs his birthmother so carelessly put into his body as he was being formed.

He has behavioral problems, but he also is the exact opposite - he is the most loving, kind, playful, adorable, cute as a button boy you'd ever want to meet.

He is a part of her family and ours. Now he is somewhere, we don't know. He just celebrated his 4th birthday without her, without his friends, without anyone familiar to him.

And she's heartbroken. It is going to take at least a year for her to fight to get him back. The agency is saying that she should not have left him out of her sight for those few minutes. She is a single mom and has an older daughter that she adopted.

What she wants is for a family to adopt him now, so that he wouldn't be shuffled around from foster home to foster home.

If anyone knows of a family that would love a beautiful boy, please contact me at:

thuth@hotmail.com

My Life Updated:

Firstly, My husband can breathe now. We are all done with the plague and the plague is all done with us.




Secondly, I went to visit my parents in South Carolina recently for a family reunion of sorts....all of us children got together. (Except one brother.)



My mom took up a strange hobby when she retired, she shoots pistols. She also packs one in her purse which is kind of scary.




While I was there, my sister was telling me a funny story about when she and my mother went to a shooting range recently and the manager of the range was showing my sister how to shoot. He left them both alone together in the same cubby to shoot at the targets.



During that time my mom had an itch on her back so she reached under her shirt and scratched it.



Later on the manager came back to check on them and panicked. He apologized over and over again to them saying, "I'm so sorry, nothing like this ever happened before." My sister and mother were confused. He was about to call an ambulance when my sister looked at my mom's back and saw a perfectly round blood stain spreading. It looked like she had been shot, when in fact, she just scratched open a scab. They all got a good laugh.

During the visit I got to see my little nieces from Colorado, my baby brother's children. It was so wonderful to see them, I don't get to see them too often. Whenever I go to Colorado I find if very difficult to breathe. That and the fact that I don't possess the funds I used to so I can't just travel across the country whenever I'd like.



My youngest niece, age 4, looks and acts exactly like me. In fact, when I was younger I used to suck on my left index finger upside down. She does the same thing! You wouldn't think that something like that passes on through genes, right? Weird. Looking at her was like looking at a mirror 46 years ago.



So my family and I went to sit by the ocean one day. I really miss the ocean now that I live in Northern Connecticut. It was so relaxing and beautiful.



My littlest niece (the clone of me) got a little sunburn. When we got back to my parent's condo my mom said she had something to help sooth the burn. She slathered on some cream and my niece started complaining about it. When my sister-in-law looked closely at the bottle of cream my mom used she quickly washed it off. My mom had put on hair remover. Ouch! She won't have to worry about any unsightly back hair for awhile.



Lastly, my daughter and her fiance came to visit this weekend and she helped fix my header and give me a new look. Yeah!

Finally, Yew Nork Babe has her head back.

He can't breathe

Yesterday I attempted to work a full day at the Court, but I only lasted 3 hours. This plague is very clingy...it won't let go.

I've shared it with my husband and he's been in bed for 2 days repeating the same phrase over and over again, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe". While I was at work yesterday he e-mailed me "Dear Wife, I can't breathe", just so I'd remember that he can't breathe.

I'm going to make another batch of my Famous Matzoh Ball Soup this afternoon.

Here's the recipe if you'd like. It's a secret recipe from my Jewish Mother's Aunt Rose, so shhhhhh:

2 chicken breasts, bone intact
3 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
1 heart of celery
4 carrots
3/4 cup of fresh parsley, stems removed
enough chicken broth to cover chicken and a few inches more- or use water and chicken bouillon (Knorrs bouillon is the best)
black pepper to taste
Matzoh meal

Put everything in the pot and boil, turn to simmer for one hour then remove the chicken, take it off the bone and put the chicken back in the pot.

Keep the soup simmering while the matzoh balls are being made. The recipe for matzoh balls is always on the package and if you can find the kind that is just matzoh meal and not matzoh ball mix it tastes better.

And just in case you can't find Matzoh Meal in your local store, you may take some dry macaroni, put it in a ziploc bag and break it up in little and big pieces and add that.

Enjoy!

I have to go check on my poor husband now....I hear him mumbling something about not being able to breathe.

I have the plague. And I'm under the influence of Heavy Duty Over the Counter Drugs....for grown ups! Usually, I take a children's dose of something and I'm knocked unconscious for 12 hours straight. I tried that this time but the plague just laughed and said,"Yeah right". So out came the big stuff, along with the hallucinations. The last thing I remember last night was Michael Phelps teaching me to swim the breast-stroke.

This plague started on Friday with a sore throat of epic proportions. A fever followed that had me hot and freezing cold at the same time. My husband said that last night the neighbors knocked on our door asking me to stop the snoring already....he kids.

I've been in bed for two days straight.

Even my famous 'Matzoh Ball Soup That Cures All' hasn't worked.

There is no way I can make it to work today, so I'm staying home.

Hopefully, I can reunite with Michael Phelps so he can show me some more swimming pointers or he'll introduce me to his mom.....I'm going back to bed now.

Today if my Father-in-Law's 71st Birthday.....Happy Birthday Dad.

My husband and I have written and sent out all of our wedding thank you notes weeks ago, yet there is one more to write, my father-in-law's. Every time I start to write it, I don't even know where begin. He has been so generous, so helpful, so supportive, always there when we need him, always praying for us and making us laugh.

There aren't any proper words to use in writing the note that even come close to how grateful we are for him - and all he's done for our wedding.

All I have so far is 'Dear Dad'.......

So the card sits on my dresser and stares at me, daring me to finish.

Labor Day ReCap

To celebrate Labor Day, we decided to rent a canoe and paddle around Lake Pocotopaug, East Hampton, CT. The lake is pronounced 'poke-a-tee-pog' and, like all good lakes, has a few Indian legends behind it.

As we got closer to the lake I noticed white caps, which indicated that it was too windy outside for a canoe ride. I wasn't about to be all involved with a tipped over canoe, especially after just reading 'The Shack'.

So my husband suggested watching the boaters put their boats in the lake. "How uninteresting", I thought. But the kids seemed okay with that.

We sat at the boat docking beach and watched.

And yes, it was very entertaining, I imagine more so due to the wind factor.

I've never had the pleasure of having to un-hook a boat from a boat-trailer....or try to back up a truck with a trailor attached into a lake, but yes indeed they do make for funny scenes to watch.

How did you spend your Labor Day?