Have you ever fired someone?

Well I have now!  This was a very interesting situation, a year ago we gutted our master bathroom and we were going to slowly put it back together as we had the funds to do.  Well two weeks after gutting it we got the initial referral of the sibling set that we unfortunately had to turn down. Since we decided to stay on the sibling list we decided to put off the bathroom and sock more funds away.

Well since the adoption is over and we started having the funds again, we decided to finish the bathroom.  Normally we are DIYers, we don't want to pay people to do what we can do.  But with Randy's schedule, is just wasn't possible.  So we hired a handy man who is a jack of all trades to put the bathroom back together, the plumbing, the electrical, everything.  We are going from a 3 piece bath to a 4 piece bath.  So there was quite a bit of work to do.  We settled on a price and we gave him a deadline, of Friday the 23rd.  I was to be the one supervising because I am home.  So day 1 he came on time, but after 5 hours had an excuse that he had to leave because of family.  So he left but promised to be back at 8:30 the next morning.  The next day, 8:30 comes and goes, I call and he claims that his son missed the school bus, and would be there asap, but didn't show up until 11:30.  After 4 hours stated that he had to leave again, and then mention that his kid didn't even go to school that day, my wheels start turning then.  Promised to be here at 8:30 in the morning again.  Next day again late, I call and he was in a "car wreck".  Didn't show until 11:30 again!  But did work a full day and actually got some work done.  Promised to be here at 8:30 again the next day.  Again didn't show until 11:30.  When I left at 2 to go get Camden from school he called me and said that he was done for the day and would be leaving.  By now I am fuming, and I told him that he needed to stay and finish and that we were paying him good money, and he said, no you are paying me fair money. 

Now I am really angry!  I told him to meet me at the house in 10 minutes and we would discuss this situation.  When I got home he told me that he didn't appreciate me telling him what to do, and that since I was a stay at home mom it wasn't a big deal when he arrived because all I did was stay home.  Now it had been raining for 4 days straight during this whole ordeal and the kids had been stuck in the house for 4 days straight and they were going NUTS!  I was already upset and this really got my goat.  I have made a vow about a year ago to keep my temper under control no matter what, because as a redhead the temper can come!  Then he proceeded to tell me that he makes his service calls in the morning and then he does his bigger jobs after that, so I caught him in a lie, so I asked him if his kid really missed the bus, and he admitted that he had lied to me.  So after making a stupid comment about me being a stay-at-home mom, lying to me, and saying that our money is only fair, I told him that he needed to get his things and leave. 

He then had the gall to ask me for the full contract wages for the whole job, I told him he was crazy, we paid him half, and he didn't even do half the work.  He packed up and left.  I then called Randy at work and told him that I fired the guy, and he was very proud of me!  Unfortunately now we have to finish the bathroom ourselves, but the guy did get done what Randy couldn't do, the plumbing and the electrical.  So my parents came up this weekend and we got the painting done on the new drywall, the first layer of the new shower base, and we laid the in-floor radiant heat so I can toasty toes in the winter! 

We would of gotten further, but the guest bathroom that we had been using, busted a drain pipe this morning so we had to fix that this morning before my parents left and Randy had to work today.  That was a mess.  The joy of copper plumbing!  It will eventually burst.  I will post before and after pictures when we are done, it will be a few weeks though now, oh well!  We went a year, what is a few more weeks!

But now I have the weird experience of firing someone, hopefully that never happens again!

Dasha's 2nd Birthday!

Today was Dasha's Birthday! She is a St. Patty's baby, it is also our 5th wedding anniversary! We went to Little Monkey Buziness for a party and Dasha had a blast. I will leave you with a few pictures of her day. It is also exactly 3 months home, and we are doing so much better, I am amazed at the turn around.

What would you do?

So I have a new behavior that Dasha has been displaying that is not desired.  When she is playing inappropriately with a toy, i.e. throwing, hitting, or jumping on the couch, yeah, she has taken a few headers off the couch with that last one.  I warn her, then if she continues, I remove the toy.  Or remove her from the couch.  Her reaction is to reach out for the nearest toy she can find and proceed to throw it, kick it, or start banging on the coffee table.  This leads to an immediate time out.  I put her in the corner in the living room and make her face away from me and then I sit with my back to hers to keep her in time out.  She screams, cries, etc, then when she calms somewhat I make her say sorry, and then she has to go pick up whatever she threw, then we kiss and hug.  The bad part of this is she is extremely stubborn.  It will sometimes take her 10-15 minutes to say sorry.  But I have been making her say sorry.  In some ways this is what I do with Camden, and some ways not.  I don't sit with Camden when he is in time out, etc. 

My question is, what is your opinion?  Am I making too big of a deal out of the throwing, kicking?  It is definitely a battle I want to fight, throwing and kicking is not acceptable to me at all, but are my expectations too high right now.  She can say sorry, and she will go pick up the item after the time out.  It is just weary and I hate the screaming.  She still wants to cuddle and sit with me after the fact so I don't feel that it is damaging the bonding going on, but I just don't know.  Maybe I am just making too big of deal out of this.  It is day 4 of Randy working straight, so by this time I am usually going a little insane by now!  Though on the 27th I will really have my hands full, we will have 10 people in the house for a week.  That should be fun.....

Pink Eye

Dasha now has the lovely experience of pink eye under her belt.  She has had a runny nose and sneezing the past few days and I thought maybe allergies.  There is just so much unknown that you get when you adopt internationally and at her age.  You don't know if they have allergies and that is normal etc.  Well yesterday her eyes started draining.  Yuck, I suspected, but wasn't ready to confirm and she wasn't rubbing her eyes etc.  So I didn't take her and thought that I would have Randy look at her this morning.  He checked her out this morning and he thought allergies also.  I had to take her in anyway today to get her second round of shots so I asked to see a doctor also.  As just going in for the shots was just a nurse visit.   So the doctor came in and the look on her face was like ohhh, that's not good.  Dasha's eyes were really swollen and draining and it was an almost instant yep she has pink eye!  So now we get to put what we call liquid gold in her eyes three times a day.  We call it liquid gold because it cost $60 a bottle and the bottle is so tiny you could easily lose it in your purse.  Our insurance wouldn't cover it, but the doctor gave me a card that took the price down to $20.  Still expensive for eye drops but I see improvements already!  But boy does she hate the eye drops she SCREAMS in anger and starts shaking she is so mad at me.  It is hard prying a 2 year old eyes open to try and get the drops in!

She also got 3 shots today, this was better today than last time, she cried but didn't go into full meltdown like last time, so an improvement.  We have 1 more round in 6 weeks and then she is all caught up on shots.  I will be very happy when she is all done with that!

Photo Session of the kiddos!