I have over 11,500 page views

but lets be honest, half of those were probably me. ;)

So, lots of incredible (both good and bad) things have been happening lately. I contacted social worker with recent changes, including MJ's lack of all medicine except allergy stuff (which we will also be testing to see if its necessary eventually), and her new boyfriend. Ms. B's response was so unexpectedly strong that hubby and I were shocked and a little offended.
She felt that with MJ's oversexualization, a boyfriend is beyond the pail, but didn't account for our overprotectiveness (which I corrected in the next email). She also felt that any medicinal changes should be thoroughly tested before being carried out, but later decided that if the pediatrician thought it best, and the school had no problems with MJ, then it was fine, but she still needed documentation.
She asked our opinion on contact between MJ and her mother, and though I was very conflicted, Hubby said 'We have to say what's best for MJ,' and we voted against it. Honestly, MJ has reacted so badly to her mother's name and her mother as a subject at all, that we just avoid talking about her except in the past tense, like 'when I was a little girl, your mom ______'. She likes those stories, but if her mom did something bad, she feels compelled to defend her mother's actions, despite it being completely unrelated to her. It's a serious concern, her aggressive yet obsessive feelings towards her mother.
Speaking of mothers, MJ informed me an hour ago that she is going to start calling me 'Mom' and Hubby 'Dad'. I think she was expecting an exuberant response, but I kept it neutral, and said 'If that's what you want to do' because of a bombshell Ms. B dropped.
Turns out, parental rights have NOT been terminated. Which means we can't adopt her until they have been, or until the parents sign releases agreeing to allow it (I seriously doubt Cin would be willing to). While they don't seem to be aiming to reunite MJ with her mother, it makes me worried, especially since they seem so reluctant to grant us custody. I sent a follow-up asking how we could ask for custody and what we would need to do to gain it. I was under the impression that if we continued to get along with MJ, that custody would come with time, but maybe I was fooling myself.
Which all kind of comes to this: MJ totally expects us to adopt her. She's looking  forward to it, and talks all the time about 'when you adopt me'. We haven't pushed it on her, and we don't constantly talk to her about it, because we want her to feel loved whether she's legally ours or not, but damn it, I think we both were expecting to make her ours eventually. So this was a heavy blow to me. Hubby is still confident that Cin will do something to mess things up for herself, giving us access to littlin', but I'm not so sure. I think we could easily light a fire under Sissie, and she could make some rapid-fire changes that will fuck up our hopes. Hubby doesn't want me to mention our response about contact to Cin until court either, so that her lawyer won't be prepared to combat it. I feel like that's underhanded and wrong, but possibly necessary to keep this from becoming a tug of war for MJ.

Ahem. Less serious topics:


I like that song alot. The beat and the voice are both things I like.
For Halloween, I decided days ago that I would be a fallen angel and MJ was supposed to be a bumblebee, but her costume was a little big on her. So today, she needed a quick costume for her daycare and we picked one up at the Walgreens right next to work. She ended up picking out a 'Dark Angel' so she could match with me (since I'm also an angel). I kept looking at a devil costume that I couldn't help thinking would be adorable on Hubby. MJ was very against it at first, until I came up with this scenario: But you see MJ, if I'm a fallen angel, and Hubby is a devil, then you being born a dark angel makes sense! You'd be our offspring!.... And then whoooo boy she was completely on board. So we picked up the costume later tonight after garnering Hubby's agreement. She was very excited to be our child.
In fact, she role-played it, and I played along (because it was an easy role play for me) calling us Mom and Dad, and 'trying on Daddy's horns' and 'playing with Mommy's halo' and stuff. It was totally adorable. I'm gonna have to take pics of Halloween at this rate....



MJ thinks that song represents her. I think she could be right. :) It all depends on her.
Her boyfriend is cute. He's all awkward and at the stage of just beginning to notice females, and seems totally sweet. I hope neither of them hurts the other. They call each other almost every day (on my phone, damn it).

MJ has a 3 day 2 night trip to a Camp for school this week, from Monday to Wednesday. We're nervous, but also excited for a little alone time. We have lots of plans for movies...

MJ and I went garage saling today. I bought four lovely little storage stackers for $2 (altogether) from an older, gossipy, yet sweet lady near my job. MJ traded the skirt she was wearing for a dress the woman was selling (it was weird, but I've done weirder stuff and MJ wanted the dress more than her skirt, so it was okay). We also got a brand new velvet coloring poster of a house in a tree for 25 cents. It was a good day.

We all had dinner together at a mongolian grill, but it wasn't the best place. I didnt like the way they cut up their veggies, but the quality of the food was quite good. Poor MJ got jalapenos thinking they were okra, and found it difficult to eat her food. My food was delicious. Hubbys seemed good, but a little spicy cause he also got those spicy things.

AFterward, we dropped MJ off at daycare again (she was begging for it) and went back to the haunted house we had to leave before because of MJ. This time we were able to go in the slaughterhouse, and it was really fun. I finished (leading) our first run through in 6 minutes. Unfortunately (for Hubby) it was at the cost of him getting shot in the butt with blood. I thought it was hilarious and litterally bent over laughing. Our second run through (we could go twice) I forced Hubby to lead the whole time and we purposely went the wrong ways to see what they had. The zombies were very touchy feely (not in a bad way) and essentially covered us in goop and blood. It was very fun.

After we got out, Hubby really wanted a shower, but I really wanted to go to a store to see people's reactions. We went to Walmart, where Hubby commented about us becoming one of those pictures in the 'only at Walmart' articles. People looked thoroughly freaked out in some cases, and just stared in others. I just smiled and talked sweetly (which made Hubby laugh all the harder) and pretended nothing was wrong with either of us.
Then we stopped at McDonalds, because I'd gotten hungry again. Some younger african american boys stared at us, and started asking what happened, where we went, did we do paintball, etc. I answered them, but Hubby kept saying it was probably sold out, so I gave up my advertising stint.
Then, despite Hubby's protests, we went to pick up MJ from day care (at 11 pm) still covered in gore. Her reaction was awesome. She frantically tried to avoid touching us, and started getting out of hand with her comments. Eventually I threatened not to let her call her bf tomorrow, and she immediately stopped her antics. It was a little scary.

And now I'm too tired to write much more. I can't think of another song that came out recently that I want to share, so I'll post this medium-interesting one. Goodnight!