Cookie refers to me as "Ho-Ho". I thought she was saying "hold" but her foster mother said that she showed Cookie a picture of our house and said it was "Heather's house". A while later they asked her whose house the picture was and she said "Ho-Ho". They got a new car and she was now able to see out the window better. Well, now she saw a particular house and would say "Mommy!" every time she passed it. They weren't sure if she meant me, or her birthmother... so I sent a picture of my house.

We got a minivan today. We'd been looking since we knew we were intervening in the case. The quest was to find a minivan that wasn't TOO old, had TOO many miles or was going to cost TOO much more than what we would get for our truck.

Eight months later, the planets aligned. Today we traded our 2004 GMC Envoy XUV for a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan. It's a shade of blue just shy of neon. *eyeroll* and the one thing we truly didn't want to compromise on was leather seats... but we did. We didn't WANT a DVD system so that worked in our favor. But now we have a vehicle that can absolutely fit 3 carseats. Hallelujah.

Of course, I didn't sleep at all last night (literally--not at all) just trying to reconcile taking on MORE debt. The difference between the vehicles wasn't even $4,000 but we don't HAVE it. It could've been $500. Wouldn't matter.

And the fundraiser got cancelled for lack of response; but I think we're going to try to do it online as a silent auction... or maybe even eBay. I need to start working on eBay listings. I paid for the August plane ticket with eBay sales. Maybe we can raise another one that way.

As for Cookie, she was sick again. And the doctor doped her up on antibiotics again. I can only imagine what this is doing to her little digestive tract and how much damage control will need to be done as a result. I hesitate to ask the current foster parents to put her on a probiotic because I know that with all the illness and antibiotics she may have massive intestinal yeast problems and the probiotic could make her vomit. Managing from that point forward would be hard to do THROUGH other people and really, if you're not familiar with it--it DOES sound like nutjob stuff.

But I am worried about it. The foster parents HAVE said that she still has a reaction to milk. I think they said only if she gets a lot of it--I can't remember, I just know she still reacts to it. So we'll have work to do. Thankfully we're completely dairy and soy free here--so WE won't have any adjusting to do. And I'll be sure to find out what her favorite foods are at her current home and whatever it costs to replicate in irritant-free foods... well, we'll just have to do that while she's adjusting. But we've seen how trace amounts of irritant foods can affect behavior and development. I'm anxious to get her home.