In the last update that I wrote, I mentioned that Lauren and Midge were moving down to Elk Grove and was going to live in our rental house. Well, today, I’m going to write and say that they are moving back up to Oregon tomorrow so we will have an empty rental house. Anyone interested?
Long story short, they don’t like Sacramento and the surroundings. They are use to the mountains and the beauty that’s around them, like the river and the trees. In Elk Grove, all you see are cars and houses. They also like to be able to let the cats outside, but are afraid that the cats won’t be able to get back to the house (getting lost). After some discussions with all the kids, they have decided that it’s best for them to move back to Oregon and maybe try this again in a few years.
Remember, two updates ago, I wrote about Mackenzie catching some kind of illness called the hand-mouth-foot disease. Well, we think she might have had it again. Let me rephrase that. I know she had it again, but I don’t think what she had (this time and last time) was hand-mouth-foot disease. I think she might have been too dehydrated and just developed a bunch of cold sores in her mouth. Needless to say, she wouldn’t eat for a week or so. Actually, she doesn’t really eat at all even if she doesn’t have those cold sores. I think it might have something to do with her mouth hurting, but also because she’s just stubborn. The only way you can get her to eat food is to sit her in front of the TV, turn on Wow Wow Wubbzy and try feeding her. The first bite is always hard because she’ll resist you and is she good at saying “No” and turning her head. She still won’t eat much at my parents’ house. Michael created a DVD of Wow Wow Wubbzy and we took our DVD player over there to play it. I even bought her a Dora chair to sit on so that the same environment would be simulated to try to see if she would eat.
Okay, the top three paragraphs were from the beginning of the week. Here’s the update from the end of this week. She won’t eat PERIOD. For the past month or so, I’ve been able to get her to eat at night while she sits in her chair watching Wow Wow Wubbzy. In the last few days, she won’t eat at all. We’ve tried many different things and food, but she’s just stubborn and won’t eat. Two nights ago, I had this little battle with her to see who’s more stubborn. I tried to give her some food; she won’t eat so off goes the TV. Then she complains so I tell her that if she eats, she gets the TV back. So, I turn the TV back on and try feeding her; same result, not going to eat. So, off goes the TV again. This goes on for maybe 10 minutes or so. Next comes the time out punishment. Either she eats or she can stand by the wall. Every three minutes of so, I ask her if she’ll eat and every time, her answer is “No” and shakes her head. This goes on for another 20 minutes or so. Finally, I gave up and told her to stand there until she wanted to start eating. Michael thought that the whole thing was cute because of the way she and I were having the conversation. Eventually, Michael took a shot at it and got her to eat half a bottle of baby food.
Okay, on to a less headachy topic, the boys. Both Nicholas and Zachary are doing well. They’ve been in school now for more than 1 month and seem to be adapting to 4th and 1st grade. Zachary is adapting to eating lunch at school. He’s learning to eat faster so that he doesn’t run out of time for lunch. Zachary normally takes his little time at home when it comes to any meal. At school, he’s only given 20 – 25 minutes to actually eat lunch. The rest of the time is spent on play. If he doesn’t finish in time, then he will either have to save it for recess later or throw it away. Zachary takes a homemade lunch to school (a sandwich, a snack, and a drink) during most of the week. Friday is the one exception because it’s cheese pizza day at school so he’ll eat that instead. Nicholas is the opposite of Zachary. He buys most of his lunch from school and only requires lunch from home either 1 or two days of the week.
Michael is doing well too. He’s started a new schedule at work. He goes to work at 6 AM in the morning and goes home at 2 PM so that he can pick up the kids from school. After that, he helps the kids with their homework. Of course, in order to be at work by 6, he has to be up around 5 PM so he goes to bed earlier now. It’s better that he does this crazy schedule instead of me because there’s no way I can get up every morning at 5 AM to go to work. I barely want to get up at 7 AM each morning so 5 AM for sure is out of the question.
Me? I’m okay. Since Michael goes to work early, I have to take all the kids to school and to my parents’ house. We get up around 7 AM. I’m trying to get the boys into a routine each morning. Nicholas pretty has it down, but every now and then will forget. Zachary… oh, Zachary! That little one is just so like me in the morning. Gotta drag him out of bed every morning and takes his little time doing everything. I have to ask him every 5 minutes what he’s doing and if he’s done yet or else, we’d be late every day.
At night after work, I have to pick up Mackenzie and do any shopping that’s needed for the house. Sometimes, I’ll stay over at my parents and eat dinner since most of the time, the kids and Michael would have eaten dinner by the time Mackenzie and I make it home.
What have we been up to lately? Not much. We had a few birthday parties this month and we went to the State Fair on opening day. The kids all had lots of fun, even Mackenzie. She got to see a lot of different animals and actually pet a few of them, like a rabbit and a cow. There is this ride over at the kids’ side that is powered by cow manure. Well, at the end of the ride is a young cow and she loved running back to look at it. Nicholas, Michael, my older sister, and three of my nieces went over to the “big people” side after dinner to try out those rides while the rest of us stayed at the “kids’ area” with the rest of the little ones. Since there weren’t really a lot of people there at the fair, the kids got to go on the same rides multiple times. I think the one phrase I said the most at the fair was “Again?” I mean, there are rides that they went back to 4 or 5 times in a row.
Some of you probably heard on the news about the riots and disturbances that they had on opening day. We were there, but most of the issues were the main gate and most of us were fair from the main gate so we didn’t see or hear anything. We just played through the whole thing. My brother-in-law, John, did get to see some of the action. He left and was going to come back around 10 PM and that was about when the issues occurred. Also, Karen was leaving around 10:30 (since John couldn’t get back in) and they got to see some of the action. As for us, we stayed at the park until the wristbands that the boys had expired (at 11). Overall, they all had lots of fun and plenty of rest the next day.
In two more weekends, we are going to go on our first family camping trip ever. We’re going with some family and friends and it’s going to be near the ocean. Mackenzie will not be coming with us though. She’s too young right now so she’ll be staying with my parents until we get back.
After camping the next biggest thing will be our 10 year anniversary. Can you believe it? Michael and I would be married for 10 years come October. Now, how many of you thought we were going to last this long with you first saw us together? To celebrate that, we will be taking a vacation to Cabo, Mexico. One of our friends are getting married there too so we’re killing two birds with one stone. Of course, in between there’s bridal showers, bachelorette party, birthday parties, and Halloween. It’s going to be one busy fourth quarter for us.
Well, enough writing for today. Sorry for not writing for so long. My easiest excuse is that I have no time, but reality is that I’m lazy. Hopefully, my laziness will not get to me too much where I don’t write again this year.