A bit of an update

Well hello, you good-looking readers. It's been a while but you haven't aged a bit.

Things have been pretty nonstop for us for the last several months. June alone has five birthdays, plus we had a million appointments and some court stuff and work and life. Here's a brief rundown of the major events, before I disappear back into the crowd:

• The baby had chronic ear infections for months and it super sucked. We finally got her scheduled for ear tube surgery. We even got on a waiting list and had it moved up several weeks, but the day before the surgery both kids came down with hand, foot, and mouth disease, which is majorly gross, so we had to postpone back to the original date of July 30. She recovered well from the surgery and hasn't had any more ear infections, but immediately after the surgery she started cutting her eye teeth several months ahead of schedule, in order to keep up with her nighttime waking schedule.
• Things are moving forward with M's case. They scheduled a trial for her dad, but he surprised us by surrendering at the pretrial hearing last week. We agreed to four visits a year and really hope he chooses to remain in M's life. We had a court date for the mom to surrender yesterday and we had a really good talk with her about our joint wish for M to get to know her, but unfortunately she chose to leave before we saw the judge. It's a horrible and heartbreaking thing, to sign away your rights to your kid, and we understand, even while we're disappointed. They scheduled a"default date " for October. If the mom shows up and surrenders that day, cool, she gets a legal obligation from us to allow her two visits a year. If she doesn't surrender or doesn't show up, they'll start a trial that day to terminate her rights. I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that it is now just a matter of time until she's freed for adoption. The dad was always the wild card, and his surrender eliminates any possibility of M going with him. After things happen in October, we'll be switched to an adoption worker and start the long, paperwork-heavy process of finally adopting our daughter.
• In a few weeks we are going on our first actual family vacation. We are going to the Jersey Shore and hoping for good weather. I tried to watch Jersey Shore as a research project, but it's not on Netflix anymore so I guess we'll just have to wing it.

I miss blogging, but not as much as I miss sleep. See you soon, lovelies.