This Brought To You By General Contracting Today

Our normally scheduled programming of whining till the cows come home about the whereabouts of our second daughter currently living somewhere in China has been interrupted by general contacting fun. I apologize since I'm pretty sure no one truly cares about roofing shingles and the exact placement of cable wires and light switches.

However, it is big news here over on the cul-de-sac. Just ask the neighbor children. Apparently I've been paying decent money to entertain several children with bulldozers, wet mud, loud nail guns, and mushy cement for the last 4 weeks. I'd go door to door and charge the nominal fee as payback but I've heard that there are a few mothers of napping babies that might hunt me down in in gang land fashion to whip me for employing noise makers during the 1pm nap time hour. I'm keeping a low profile to avoid civil unrest...and to protect me from the most vicious of all human creatures, the tired mothers of un-napped children.

So, as I breathe quietly here behind the picket fence I'm watching this....
















And this....


Riveting, I'm sure if you will not be the ones cozying up to that future built-in window bench to watch the cardinals chase the robins through the window.

Oh yes, I almost forgot one more thing. How could I forget it as it aged me about 10 years? I took Ava to a large public park this afternoon by myself since the Muffin Man is off once again trying to earn buckets of cash to pay for my little "let's add a playroom" idea. I admittedly let my guard down for 1 minute and started chatting it up with another China adoptive mom. She had an 11 month old and I was simply smitten. I looked up from my baby haze and Ava was gone. I circled the play area three times. Running faster each time. No Ava. My heart started beating fast, really fast. I was scanning the crowd for weird looking men. (Stereotype I know but I was panicking.) I was now running in circles trying to remember what she was wearing, I could not. I was screaming Ava Ava Ava after the third circle. The other mothers and fathers stood still not knowing what the hell this crazy lady was screeching about. I saw another play area off in the distance but never once thought she would stray that far, she is only 4 and this play area was clearly a few minutes run from where we were. Scurrying from swings to large slide I made my way screaming for her. I'll be damned if that little kid wasn't happy as pie making a new friend at the top of a 2 story clubhouse slide. I swear I did not know whether to kiss her uncontrollably or yell at her for wandering off. I gained composure, and did a little of both. I felt like a complete idiot. Slacker mom for sure.

We had a long talk about being able to see Mommy at all times in public, running off is bad. It will put her mother in the crazy house. We took a big chill and made our way home. Now I am letting her walk the new roofing shingles on the addition....just to keep things interesting. Later we are going to play with matches.