Updates

I have not written much of substance lately. (I guess you could argue that I have never written anything of substance- and you would be correct.) I have 20 minutes to write something and instead of writing one topic that is trying to be funny or witty, I am going to kind of give you an update of our world.

Andre. Still working a lot. He started soccer the last few weeks which gives him a chance to get rid of the mounds of stress that they keep heaving on him at work. We went to watch him a week ago and I was trying to help Tanner tell which of those men who are all dressed the same was his dad. “There he is, he just kicked the ball. Oh there he is, he just hit the ball with his head. Do you see him there sitting on the ground? He just slide tackled that red guy.” It was weird because for the 10 minutes that we were actually watching the game, Andre was involved in every play and touched the ball about 30 times. I don’t think Tanner really was ever sure that he saw his dad. We are starting the endless cycle of Yard work again. Andre ends up doing most of it and I hope it is another stress reliever instead of a stress inducer. He ripped up a huge overgrown bush thing the other day and found about 20 golf balls hiding in it. (Not to mention the thousands of spiders that went scurrying off looking for another home.)

Janelle. I started working more for my neighbor this week and it is great but stressful. I am working for my neighbors that run Highlite Photography. I am trying to learn the graphics side of it and preparing the pictures to go on the web. Mostly what I have done the last few weeks is learning how to run their office. They have three girls and they were off track the last three week. So Mindy, the mom and main office stuff person, had to try to entertain her kids and do her job. So she asked me to come over and make phone calls, and do office stuff for her. I went over during Alex’s nap and when Tanner was at preschool on Monday- Thursday. The problem with that was that that is my most productive time of the day. That is when I clean my house and do laundry, check my email, write blogs etc… So none of those things got done and I felt a little stressed all week. But it was just a little stressed. I really want to be able to work a few hours a week for them. It will help and has already helped with my sanity. And I feel good about adding a little to the income of our family instead of being the main spender of the family. (Actually it is fun to be the main spender too!) The two Saturdays before Easter they had a bunny come to the studio and every half hour had kids come in their Easter finery to let a bunny sit on their laps for pictures. They turned out cute. I worked a lot on those days. I like working Saturdays better because Andre can be home with the kids and I don’t have that worry about them. Did I mention that I got a double stroller? I am trying to walk more often and Tanner really does need to be pushed still. My walks were not very long when he had to ride his bike or walk. Because the purpose of my walks is for exercise, I needed a double stroller. Alex likes it because he likes to grab Tanner’s head.

Jaxon. Yea! Jaxon does not have training wheels anymore! A couple of weeks ago our neighbor (who just barely got his training wheels off) was playing at our house. We were all in the front yard and I asked it I could borrow friends bike for a minute. I had Jaxon sit on it and I held on to the handle bars. I showed Jaxon how you have to keep your feet on the ground and not rely on the training wheels to hold you up when you are stopped. I showed him how to position the pedal at the top and push off the ground with the other foot. Then I ran with him the length of the yard about 3 times. Then I told him he had to wait for Dad to come home because he is a faster runner. That night the friend was over again and Jaxon borrowed his bike and said, “Dad, watch!” He just took off. He has not crashed or fallen once. A couple of posts ago I said that Jaxon’s favorite thing was riding his scooter. Not anymore! Jaxon is permanently attached to his bike. Jaxon is off track for the next two weeks. For those of you fortunate enough to not know what that is, see previous post titled Stapling. So I am glad because We don’t have to have the crazy mornings of hurry get ready for school. Don’t worry. We will still get up by 7:00 evry morning because my children do not know how to sleep in. Jaxon borrowed his Aunt Joey’s copies of “The Magic Tree House” books. He is excited to read all 34 during the 14 days off of school. (I don’t want to tell him that it will probably take a lot longer than that!) He has read almost all of the first one already. Jaxon has a friend at school who is totally into Yu-Gi-Oh cards. If you don’t know anything about that, you know about as much as I do. So Jaxon got some cards and he is intent on spending all of his allowance money on more cards. We went to a toy store yesterday and showed him all the other things he could buy with his money if he wasn’t so obsessive.

Tanner. Tanner loves to snack. All he wants to snack on is Go-gurts. He wants to eat one every 20 minutes. I realize that kids his age do not like to sit down and eat only three organized meals (see previous blog about Tanner not eating meals). I started a new thing yesterday called the snack box. In the box are many pieces of paper with one item of food on it like carrots, apples, fish crackers. All of them are foods that Tanner will eat and some of them are his favorites like lollipop and go-gurt. So every time Tanner wants a snack we pick a paper and that is what he gets to snack on. That way we don’t argue for 20 minutes about what snack Tanner is going to eat. He either eats the snack box snack or nothing. So He is getting mostly healthy snacks and there are enough fun foods that it keeps him happy. This week Tanner has finally mastered putting his seat belt on. That makes me really happy. It makes leaving to go somewhere a lot easier. Tanner is also really excited about riding a big bike with training wheels. He does a really great job. This last few weeks we have been introducing our kids to Star Wars. All of Jaxon’s friends love Star Wars and I figured that Jaxon should have some idea of what it is. Tanner is a bit young but you can not tell Jaxon that he gets to watch a super exciting new movie and Tanner, you have to go sit in your room. So Tanner is loving Star Wars. Maybe even more than Jaxon!

Alex. Remember in a previous post I mentioned that Alex just got a new tooth and it did not seem to affect him? Remember that my other kids were really sick and grouchy the whole time they were growing teeth? Well a few hours after I wrote that post, I decided that I was wrong. It was affecting him. The poor little guy has not been the same. I have a dentist friend who swears that there is no correlation between getting new teeth and getting sick. Then why do my kids ALWAYS get sick when they get teeth? Alex has never had more than a sniffly nose in the 10 ½ months of his life. Ever since that first tooth made it’s appearance 5 weeks ago, we have made 4 trips to the doctor. And he know has three teeth just barely poking through. He has had 3 different fevers over 103. He has had an ear infection (his first one), and yesterday he was diagnosed with a yucky “hand, foot and mouth” virus. So I don’t know about this virus, just that it causes sores to be all over his little throat and high fevers and can cause a rash on his body. Basically he is miserable and all I can do is give ibuprofen. Today he woke up with no fever so that is a good sign! But that is why I have 20 minutes to write this. Alex finally went to sleep and everyone else is still at church! In between being miserable he is beginning to walk! He walks between mom and dad and occasionally gets 2 or 3 steps in there that is totally on his own. He tends to lean forward too much so he loses his balance. He loves it though and he looks so proud as he is walking.

Midnight and the fish. Jaxon named his fish midnight, but never really named the babies anything. So we just call them the fish. We have three fish. They are black and they are Platys. (If that means anything to you.) Every other fish we have ever owned have died. We decided that are really hardy fish. But then something happened that made me decide that we have evil fish! I hate to be gross, but everything that dies in our tank usually is partially eaten by the time we notice and take it out. I figure that that is a natural thing. Last week we got two snails to help with the algae that is growing on the inside of the bowl. A few days ago Tanner had a nightmare and I went in to comfort him. I just had to stay with him until he fell asleep again. I was watching the fish. There were two fish kind of hovering about 2 inches from the white snail. Every couple of seconds they lurched and rammed into the snail. I walked closer to see if I was imagining it. The fish of course, realizing they were being watched, swam away and hid. That poor snail didn’t move for 2 days and I thought it was dead until today when it was crawling around again. I think that our three fish are killing the other living things in our fish tank! They wait until night when they think we are not watching to do their evil work!