Alrighty, I was just checking the website and noticed that we don’t have another journal out there for the year 2008 so here we go.
What’s new? Let’s see, Nicholas is now 9 years old and Zachary will turn 6 next week. Are they growing up fast or what? They are both out of school now and are successfully moving onto the next grade level when school starts again in about 2 weeks.
Mackenzie is doing very well. Sometimes in April or so, she caught an illness called the hand-mouth-foot disease. No, this is not the foot-and-mouth disease that cows get. It’s actually an illness that little toddlers get. Basically, it’s a combination of sores on your hand, mouth and foot accompanied by very high fever. She was miserable for about a week. During that time, she couldn't eat, drink or sleep which caused her to be hungry and sleepy. And when the little one doesn't get enough of food or sleep, she can be very grumpy. One of those nights, she wouldn't sleep so I had to stay awake with her the whole night. During the day, she was constantly held and refused to come down. She had cold sores in her mouth, mostly on the roof of her mouth and high fevers.
After she got all better from that illness, she wouldn't eat much solid food. I guess she associated food with pain so she was always drink milk from a bottle. During her 18-month check up, the doctor suggested that we not give her the bottle and use sippy-cups instead. By doing this, she should eat more food because she’s no longer filling herself up with the milk. Well, the very next day, the bottle disappeared during the day. We only gave her a bottle at night right before she goes to bed and when she cries in the middle of the night asking for milk. This has encouraged her to eat a bit more and is now pretty much back to normal.
In the last month or so, she has begun to talk. Her favorite word is “outside” because she loves to go outside. She is not an indoor person. At my parents’ house, she loves going outside into the garden, picking flowers, and playing with the sprinklers. At home, she loves to drink water out of the sprinklers, pick the miniature roses, and ride the tricycle. Other words that she can say are “dada,” “ky ky” for Nicholas, “ya ya” for Zachary, “po po” for my mother, “gong gong” for my dad and finally “ma me” for Mommy. For the longest time, she was able to say everyone else besides me. My mother has been spending some time with her practicing Mommy so she now can call me too. There are quite a few more words that she can say, but I don’t want to bore you with the list.
You know she’s a girl because she loves stuffed animals, especially the ones that she sleep with, He He (a pink horse that she got from Lauren and Midge), Mo Mo (a fluffy little cow she got from Uncle Richard and Auntie Carla) and Bear Bear (a teddy bear that she got from UCD when she was in the hospital at two weeks old). One thing she loves to do when she goes outside is pick flowers. At my parents’ house, she would pick the wild flowers that are growing around the lawn. At home, she’ll go pick the roses and all the other flowers in the flower beds. She scares me when he goes and picks the roses because she doesn't know to avoid the thorns on the bushes. She just starts grabbing and pulls as hard as she can to break the branch from the bush. After she picks it, she’ll smell it and then bring it to us, if we are around. And she looks so happy when she’s picking flowers, like a sense of satisfaction.
Well, soon approaching (next week) will be Zachary’s 6th birthday. He just finished kindergarten and is exited to move onto 1st grade. When school first started, we were afraid that he would not do well since he likes to throw those temper tantrum frequently. Well, he’s a much more mature boy now, at least at school. At home, he still throws those temper tantrum; however we are slowly teaching him why he shouldn't be acting that way. His birthday party is next weekend and hopefully some of his classmates will come and join the fun.
Zachary overall is doing really well in school. He seems to pick up new concepts very quickly and is adapting to homework every day. There are times when he doesn't like to do his homework because it’s not challenging enough. Zachary is one of those who only likes to do something for a few minutes and then wants to move onto the next hottest and newest item.
Nicholas just had his 9th birthday party a few weeks ago. Can you believe he’s already 9? And to top it off, he’s almost my height. I've always said every since he was little that he would outgrow me by the time he’s 10. Now, I don’t know if he’ll really outgrow me at 10, but it won’t be that many more years before he does. He is turning out to be a very tall and handsome young man. He still loves to play with video games.
Their newest hobby is skating and swimming. For their birthday, we bought Nicholas new roller blades and Zachary new roller skates. Michael and I also got a pair each. The other night, the whole family went skating in the back yard. It was an interesting sight because Michael and I have not gotten into skates in years. It took a little adapting before we got the hang of it again.
As a celebration of another good school year, we took them to the movies to see “Wall E.” It was a pretty good movie. Both boys enjoyed it and it was nice for us to be able to spend some time with just the boys. I mean, we see them all the time at home after work, but they have their own things to do while we do our own things. We don’t spend a lot of time together as a family doing something so it was a nice. Mackenzie didn’t come along because no way was she going to sit through a whole movie without wanting to wonder off.