This ball's droppin' too. (100)

That's a lame New Year's Eve reference. And I just realized this is my 100th blog post. Fitting? Maybe.

A lot has gone on since my last regular post. The kids have been seeing their mom more than us in the last couple of weeks. They got to celebrate Christmas with her and we even got to stop in for 90 minutes on Christmas Eve morning. We brought over a picture frame with the kids pictures in it and a CD with a bunch of their pictures with us. We saw them content and happy.

We also got to talk to their mom for about 40 minutes. She started to ask us questions and then got up, went to her room, and came back with a pad and pen. She started writing down everything Denielle was saying. It was pretty cool for a couple of reasons. I got to sit there and watch her write everything down and Denielle got to build a better relationship with her. That's something we've both wanted. Denielle has had to be the bearer of bad news a few times because of our schedules. I, on the other hand, have mostly been the drop-off/pick-up person who gives a quick update and then receives the quick summary of the visit.

Mom may be completely full of it, but I really think she's trying to change. She told us several times on Christmas Eve that she sees two totally different kids now. She sees that what we're doing has changed Miss S and Lil C for the better. I even gave her a list of 33 things we've done to provide structure and love for them.

During Miss S's last week of school, I told her I'd take her out for lunch if she had a good week...no bad attitudes and no incidents at school. She messed up Monday afternoon. She was very bummed and I was disappointed. After talking to Denielle about it, I decided that it would be a perfect opportunity to talk to her about grace. I explained that grace means you get something you don't deserve. I told her about how we deserve to spend eternity in hell because of our sin, but that God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to take all our sin and die on the cross so we could spend eternity in heaven instead. I made sure to hammer home the fact that we don't deserve heaven but God gave it to us anyway, because of Jesus. She seemed to follow along but didn't get the connection until I told her that I'd give her grace for Monday.

She had a great rest of the week and earned her lunch date. I gave her the option of McDonald's or Red Robin. She'd never been to Red Robin but after I told her about the awesome burgers and the bottomless fries, it was a no-brainer.

Let me stop for a second and tell you that it's still hard for me to get used to being with black kids. Not because she's black, but because we stick out like a sore thumb. I'm a 6'-1", 204lb white guy walking in with a 4', 50lb black girl. EVERYBODY was looking at us...and we were standing next to a dwarf (is that PC?). Anyway, she milked it for all it was worth. She ate two full plates of fries and we did their games on the kids menu together. I even brought the camera and got a great picture of us before we indulged on our food. She even got a balloon from the server and was waving at everybody as we walked out.

I also got to spend a lot of time rough-housing with her and Lil C. They loved it. I was chasing them around, throwing them on the couch, and just wrestling. It was fun being the fun dad and not just the rules dad.

Tomorrow I'll give you a brief rundown on the schedule that I was hoping to talk about tonight...thus the "ball droppin'" reference.