The First Week

Last Monday was the last day of school. It was also the middle of my HC's first week at his new job. He really likes it, but the 45 minute commute is pretty rough. So he's gone for 12 hours, sometimes more, depending on required overtime, like a call at the last minute. But he did see a moose. I didn't believe him at first, but then he whipped out the camera phone. It was blurry, sort of like those pictures of Sasquatch. You can sort of tell what it is if someone tells you first, but the "moose" looked like a cross between a deer and a horse. He promises that it really was and said it was a female and he suspected a newborn in the bushes, but being someone who enjoyed life, he decided to observe from a distance. What a smart guy.
Erin had another virus that kept us from doing her entire allergy testing. My HC also had to go back to the doc for another physical, since a letter was required. Then it was back to the allergist on Wednesday for Erin's followup and Ian's blood tests. Ian was a trooper and did great. All the nurses said how well he did. I guess they get a lot of screaming and hysterics. He cried a little, but the stickers and sucker and post-visit Hot Wheel from Walmart worked its magic. We find out the results at our next visit. Erin is on her no milk/wheat/egg diet for 6 months. At the end of that, she might go on a rotation type diet where she can have one item every 4 days. Taken in small doses, she may build a resistance to it. He also cautioned us to be aware of the development of more allergies, like rice and potatoes. I refuse to think about that. If we have to do without much more, we'll be stick figures.
As it is, we got a cookbook called "Sophie-Safe Cooking" by Emily Hendrix. She grinds up oats in a chopper and makes her own oat flour. Then you can make muffins and pancakes and cornbread. Every recipe in this cookbook has been great so far, though we are still adjusting to the texture of oat flour. The porcupine meatballs are a raving favorite so far. And the apple muffins. The cookbook is "A Collection of Family Friendly Recipes that are Free of Milk, Eggs, Wheat, Soy, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Fish and Shellfish." Perfect for us and such a gift from God! Try going for 2weeks with no carbs and you'll get it.
On Wednesday, we came home from the allergist in Tahlequah and went on The Great Road Trip of 2009. My HC had been summoned to Little Rock, AR to do the PT portion of the hiring process for the Arkansas State Police. They're like Troopers in other states, but they get to do more than just traffic. He had to report at 8am and do a jump, sit ups, pushups, a sprint and a 1.5 mile run. He passed with flying colors, though he does admit to having difficulty with the 24 situps. And he was pretty sore the next day. :)
Immediately following the run, they had to go inside to do a written test. We find out in about 4 weeks if he passed. If he does, it moves on to the next phase: Background Check. Then they contact everyone you've ever known (according to my HC) and ask them questions. He is nervous about this part.
ASP is hoping to be able to form an August academy. If not, the academy won't be until January (Aaah!). :(
It was a long drive home. It took about 4 hours, though who knows for sure since we stopped so often. There are gorgeous rest stops in Arkansas, though, for the record.
One even had a creek that we played in. And did I mention the Cracker Barrel at almost EVERY exit?! Oh yeah.
Living in Arkansas won't be so bad at ALL.
Friday we recovered. No one wanted to go anywhere.
Saturday was a workday and Ian had a party to go to; the fire chief's son turned 6 and had his party at the fire station. You should always have a healthy respect for invitations that say "Prepare to Get Wet". Water balloons and I'm not sure, but there may have been a fire hose involved.
I'm not sure because we dropped Ian off and stayed home to clean it because we had a showing!!!
And later that day, we had an offer. It was 10K below the asking price and with a lot of extra demands that we were supposed to pay for.
Today we counter-offered. We'll see how it goes. If it is successful, they want a June 30 closing date. Wa-hoo.
It's been a busy week.
Next week is the library program.
I regret that I don't have the blurry picture of the moose to share. Maybe I can convince my HC to email it to me. hehehe.

A New Room

Sickness is bad enough, but lately another problem of ours has been sleeping arrangements. A little clarification. After Erin was born last year, she mostly slept in the room with us. We had our bedroom set up in the laundry room/play room/back add-on with the sliding glass door/back door. Comprende? Thus, the baby's room was empty and unused. When it started to get cold, we decided to move Ian's room into the smaller baby's room and move us and the baby into Ian's room. Then we could close off the back room and save some money on our gas bill. And we could be closer to the baby stuff instead of having to change a diaper on the other side of the house. A year later, we have this problem.

If/when Erin wakes up in the middle of the night, she rolls over and sits up. She looks through the crib bars and sees me sleeping in the big bed 3 feet away. She stands up, jumps up and down and screeches like a banshee until I get up and get her. Then, we either have to walk and sing or lie down in the big bed and go to sleep (ha ha on #2). Since she's been sick, it is a tossup as to whether or not she'll go back to sleep without a commotion.


Since I have 2 children, sometimes I have to get up to go to Ian. I have noticed this: when I'm not in the room and she wakes up, she looks around and lies back down. She Goes Back To Sleep!
So for the last month I have found myself sleeping on the couch in the living room at different times of the night so she will go back to sleep. This has worked for all but 2 cases. One was the breathing episode and the other was a prelude to some really nasty diarrhea, so I can conclude that this method will work in all but dire circumstances. My HC may or may not be sleeping in the room during this, since he works evening/night shift, but even if he is in there sleeping, he can sleep through everything except a wet bed. But last night, he couldn't go in the room to sleep because the baby was just lying there awake, staring at the lava lamp. I had been sleeping on the couch, trying to wait for her to drop back off so I could go back to sleep (I can practically hear people rolling their eyes, but don't worry a solution is nigh) and my HC was home from work. It was about 6 am before we faced each other and realized that we had to do something about this. Finally. After 5 or 6 weeks of sick and not a full night's sleep for any of it, I am not looking my best and my reaction time is frankly embarrassing. My HC just wants to get in bed without being screeched at. It was quiet, so we sucked it up and decided to be the parents and to get in bed. Screeching commenced. My HC went straight to sleep. I was left to console, carry and sing to our noisy bundle.
So today after church, we moved.
After lunch and naptime, we cleaned out half of the back room and moved our bed back into it. Then we moved my HC's wardrobe and my drawers. The rest will follow eventually. Then I headed to walmart to get a rug, some blinds, a clothing rack (I will really miss the closet in that room, but I miss my sanity more. I need sleep!) and other things that we needed to make the rooms habitable. I'm pretty sure the tub of candy corn jumped into the cart all by itself.


So I have been cleaning and arranging Erin's new room and after supper she went in there and uttered a big "Hi!" to her new corner of toys and played until bedtime. The monitor is up next to my bed and my bed is on the other end of the house in an entirely different room. I am SO ready for this.
I am praying so, so hard that this is going to work. But either way, I am not going to miss the couch at all.

Inevitability

There are things, I've found, that are as predictable as finding freckles when I look in the mirror.

--Erin will always find a way to spit up right down the neckline of my shirt.

--Whenever there is inclement weather, the chief will not come to work.

--As soon as things start getting romantic, one (or both) of the kids will cry.

--The most perfect dinners will be eaten as leftovers.

--Chris will get called out most holidays.

--Mom will call on the phone as soon as I get in the bathroom.

--The last roll of toilet paper will be gone when you most need it.

--The library books I requested will all get in after we move.

--Chris will get great job offers as soon as we decide to move (actually there were 3 opportunities!).

--As soon as we pull out of the driveway, someone will have to go to the bathroom.

--As soon as he gets in bed, Ian will need ______ (it could be anything).

There were others that I was thinking of, but these are the ones foremost in my mind. I'm sure there's some kind of order to all of it. :) Other topics for today were: Gack! It's Monday! Chris gets Monday and Tuesday off, so this is the first day of his work week (thus, Monday). We have decided to just register Chris for the May classes in FL that he needs to be FL certified. We were hoping that the house would have sold by now, but oh well, it's just been 6 weeks on the market. We still have time. We are expecting to sell the house while we are gone at this class in FL, just because it can't happen while we're actually HERE! Of course not! But it's okay, really. As long as it sells, we don't really care how. Still thinking that once the dopers get the word out, it's only a matter of time.

I need to go get Erin's flu booster shot and am kind of balking. Chris is talking about getting his Hepatitis B shot and charging it to the town. The only rub is that it's a 3 shot installment. The second is a month after the first and the third is five months after the second and we definitely do NOT plan to be here still in five months. Please Lord! I do not know what the future holds, only that God has it in his hands. But I really really want to be settled in with the new job and house by the kids' birthdays! That's July 23, 24. Either way, whatever happens, it will be interesting to see how it all comes about.

Well, Erin is up from her evening nap. The picture, by the way, is from middle school. I think it was 8th grade at Busch Gardens, Tampa. With me are my best friends Heather and Christine. We still talk. Happy Spring!

I'm Makin' Waffles

Well, I caught the cold that everyone else has had and am very coughy and runny (no Blue Beast for me, thank the Lord) and bleary-eyed.

But we got our waffle iron yesterday from UPS. While I was racing around the house trying to find some pants (hey, it was early!), Ian calmly opened the door, received the package, said "Thank You!" and brought it to me, wildly flailing about in my room trying to stuff both my legs in the same leg hole with no success. Baffled, I looked at Ian with the box in his hands and then looked out the window to see the back side of the UPS truck as it drove away. Uh...okay. So we have our waffle iron and this morning, fever or no fever, we had waffles! And just to be clear about this, Ian ate 3. I made a bit of a mess, since this is the first time I've used one of these (just the one at CCC in Cathcart and those waffles are huge). But we are slowly making our way through our 2 half gallons of Mrs Butterworth that we got from Sam's.

For house selling news, we are still trying to keep the house clean just in case Coldwell Banker calls about showings. Chris and I joked last night that we would have 2 showings on the day when I was the sickest and didn't feel like doing anything. We'll see. I feel somewhat better after showering. Good thing, because tonight is our group trip to Golden Corral in Fayetteville and I need to be able to eat my money's worth. :) Gotta review my spanish though, because all the grillmasters and buffet workers there are spanish and you need to know how to convey medium, rare, etc or you'll get a rubbery, overdone steak.

For our neighborhood excitement for the week, the next door neighbor's pitbull snapped his line again and had some sort of altercation with the trash guy. So Chris was summoned and almost got to tase the dog (which is better than the family getting sued for the dog messing someone up), but the dog was picked up by animal control before he got to. Ms Geraldine, the old lady across the street, called to tell me about it, since Chris had to leave to deal with an accident involving a Rent-a-Center truck backing up over someone's car. Ms Geraldine told me first that the dog bit the trash guy, but changed it to "he like ta bit that trash man" so I wasn't sure what exactly had happened. This isn't the first time the dog has snapped his line and he is very territorial, as we have found because we live next door. Eek.

We also got Buddy's Frontline and I'm excited about having a flea-free dog, since he will be in the Jeep with us on the trip down to FL. And he will then be outside at whoever's house, so flea-free is a great thing, with spring/summer coming on.

Well, we've got errands to do today. The usual bank, post office, KK's (Kwik Kountry) for gas, the library if the books I ordered are in, etc. I told Chris last night at bedtime that if we move too soon, I'll have to cancel all my book requests (sob, sob!). He didn't look very disturbed or concerned by this announcement. I don't see how he can be so unfeeling. I've been waiting since December for a couple of these books, since I'm #2 in the queue. Hmph. But that's okay, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Oh, and yesterday, while Chris was serving warrants, one of those interesting citizens, reeking of interesting odors, asked Chris if our house really was "fer sell." Chris told him that it was. "So where ya movin' to next then?" "Florida!" That got his attention. "Really now?" Chris assured him. "Yes, as soon as our house sells, you won't have to deal with me any more." The man practically jumped into Chris's arms. "I KNOW SOMEONE WHO'S LOOKIN' FER A HOUSE!" he shouted. "Well, we've got a sign out front with a number on it," Chris told him. Chris is very confident that the house will sell soon, even if all the dopers get together and everyone puts 1,000 bucks in. I am very amused by this prospect and we are waiting to see what will happen.

There's always the joked about option of putting a jar in the local gas stations "Help Goforth Move!"

It came!

Okay, let me just let out one more whoop and I'll settle down some. Remember that big packet of stuff (and big chunk 'o' change) that we had to send off to see if Chris's academy hours would transfer to FL (so he won't have to go through academy alllll over again)? Well, we got our packet that says it transferred and he is free to take his 2 week course whenever (just as soon as we sign this paper and send it back...)! After all this fretting and doubting (at least on Chris's part) we finally got one more thing check marked on our Moving List. Now if only the house would sell....but now it can, because everything is happening in the order it should. Can't think of anything else that needs to happen before we sell (besides finding boxes from somewhere and packing everything up....), so NOW we're ready to MOVE! WOO HOO!

Everything else, however is just as normal as ever. We had a lazy weekend (pj day!) where I didn't even cook and did some laundry and general cleanup. Ian had a friend over to play on Saturday and we only had to separate them once (a fistfight over something or other). Ian is a formidable guy, even though he's younger and smaller than poor Girric, who is not as aggressive and is happy doing quiet things, but will defend himself if necessary, if the cause is important enough (usually he is just aggravated by Ian, though). It was interesting to watch them interact.

Ian has finally moved along in his play! The next stage! Role play and using his imagination. Before everything had to be concrete and literal. Now, he makes his trains do noises, talk to each other and the normal boy thing of horrific crashes and life-or-death scenarios. Last night though, he fell off the chair backwards (horsing around) and hit his head on the floor. After sufficient rocking and sympathy, Chris told him that he knocked a 'hole' in the floor, don't you see it? And pointed. Ian looked at him incredulously and inspected the floor from my lap. Chris proceeded to walk over it and 'fall' in the hole and roll around on the floor, as good as any stunt work you'd see in Indiana Jones. Ian laughed so hard he almost fell of my lap. Chris did this a few more times, until Ian decided that he was going to brave the 'hole.' He did his own version of falling in the hole and it was our turn to shout with laughter. Between me and Chris, we've got quite the actor in training. All those camp skits have really spawned an interesting next generation. Can't wait until Ian starts rewriting song lyrics, though Chris has already started and Ian is fascinated (we'll save that for another post). Ian fell in the hole for the next ten minutes and rolled all over the place. Then he wanted me to try it. I am not much for stunts and I told him that I didn't want to get a boo boo by falling into the hole. Ian's solution? "Fall slowly, Mommy. Fall very, very slowly." So I got up and did a slow motion (with the appropriate sound effects) fall into the hole, complete with bouncing. Ian didn't laugh, but Chris did! This is the real reason why it's good to have a partner while raising kids, so somebody will actually laugh at your jokes, because Mommy is never very funny. Not like Daddy, anyway (no fair!). So our two guests last night were warned about the hole when they came in and no one else was hurt. ;)

Not to be generic or anything, but I have to remark on the weather. Saturday was gorgeous. Windy, but it actually got up to the high 60s. Beach weather, baby! Everyone and their grand kids were at the park, so we didn't go. Nothing like having to wait in line for everything and not even get to see Micky Mouse, so we stayed home and Ian did some manly yard work with Chris outside. Sunday, it was supposed to rain some, but it still started out warm (72! Wonder of wonders!), then went downhill. Big old winter storm hit us last night with a bunch of rain and a rapidly dropping temperature. It stormed all night long, with rotating clouds, a flood warning, tornado warnings (tornadic activity, ahem), and thunder and lightning. We lit all our kerosene lamps in preparation for possible power outage. This morning, it was still raining and the temp was Still dropping. Now we have a wintry mix outside (rain/ice/snow) and it is a whopping 32 and Still dropping. We are supposed to have 4-8" of snow, but we'll see. Chris and I would love to get 8" of snow, at least to see, once. And we could make snowmen with Ian and take a bunch of pictures. But we have been assured constantly by the locals that it Never hits us. (is that an invitation or what?) So we are left to hope. :)

Feeling fuzzy, and I'm not talking about my legs

Yep, there comes a time when the day after starts getting hazy, like trying to look through heat waves on asphalt and the world around you just starts to look all wavy-looking and it's time to sit in the shade for a while. After 2.4 hours of sleep, it's the night after and it's time for me to sit down. The morning was rocky, since Ian got up at 7am and was very bright-eyed, as he usually is. Erin still woke up about every hour, crying and straining and gassing up a storm. She had three potty diapers today (none loose, so that's good)* and finally stopped crying so much when we went to the park. She snoozed while I wheeled the stroller around the track as much as Ian would let me without having to go rescue him from the top bar of the jungle gym and help him go down the 'fire pole.' It was very chilly, even though the sun was shining and I was ready to go way before Ian was, but he was such a good boy this morning while Mommy zombied about and Daddy mimed being awake before taking the baby and snoring with her in the chair (it was so cute I had to go lie down). Ian played video games and played trains by himself, probably happy for the uninterrupted play time (you know how Moms like to nag when you're just getting to the good part of your book, game, video game, movie, train track, car ramp, etc.). Anyway, since it wasn't too awfully bad outside (the sun was shining! We who are not in Florida salute the sun whenever it comes out!), we went to the park. Anything to get Erin to stop crying and catch up on her beauty sleep. She did not want any food today that was not milk, even though I tried.

The bonus part of the day came when I was in the shower, trying to remember if I had shampooed my hair or not and the phone rang. It was our real estate agent, giving us an update. From what Chris told me, when the agents do a company walk-through, they bring a checklist and afterwards tell the seller what they can do to improve the house to sell faster. Our house made it through with flying colors with only one infraction and all agreed that the house was well priced and expected to not be on the market long (HOO Ha!). Our improvement was that the laundry room/possible 3rd bedroom/Ian's train room was drafty and there was condensation on the sliding glass doors. Therefore it was decreed that we should put real doors there instead of the sliders for better insulation. I agree, but we are not about to fork over 5 or 6 hundred smackeroos when it's going to sell anyway. I don't like the sliders either because they freeze shut and lock behind you when you shut the door (see previous post for eye-rolling details), but oh well. Our agent also told us that she has had 4 calls to inquire about our house from the sign out front as well as one person from out of state contact her after seeing it online who is interested in seeing it [or just buy it and pay us an extra $15,000 to be out in ten days; what movie was that from? Father of the Bride II. hahahahahahahahaha. Ok, getting tired) in the next week or two. Either way, she said to expect more showings (that doesn't sound right) in the next week or so.

Chris is having me check our bank account daily (hourly, minutely (I know that's not right. I'm not THAT tired, but it just sounded funny), whatever) to see whether or not his Florida Dept of Law Enforcement (FDLE) application to transfer his academy time to FL has been processed. We figure that they'll cash the check before they do anything else and I guess someone's on vacation or something because it's probably still sitting in somebody's inbox (or worse, still sitting in the Westville Post Office underneath something) begging to be opened. Now, I know, I know, they tell you to give them 6 weeks for processing, but come on! It's been almost two weeks already. Chris is excited and worried that he went to the one academy in the known world that doesn't transfer. Silly.

Regardless, he is still having me check the post office every day without fail, a sure sign that he is excited, because if it were up to him, he would check it once a week and the mail would be stuffed in the box like intestines are stuffed in the body, once you get them out, it's about impossible to get them all back in* (we tried in A & P lab, didn't we Rachel?). We have decided that at our new house in FL, we really would like to have a mailbox. Really.

For Papaw's amusement, Ian compensated for not being able to pee in the Walmart bathroom drain by peeing in the bathtub drain today while I was rinsing out the tub before bathtime. He was very proud of himself. He also made an attempt to sit on the toilet without his little potty seat, where he tried for a couple of seconds before grunting and announcing "I can't do it like this," and running out of the bathroom naked. The naked part didn't have anything to do with his potty preferences, he just likes to be aired out every once in a while, probably more so when it gets warmer. He is discovering the changes in his body parts due to changes in temperature and it is so much fun to relay these incidents to Chris later. It really gives us some good laughs. Can't help it if your kid is just so cute, can ya?

Anyway, back to the Baby Noodle. After the park, she conked out in the swing (after crying some more) and slept for more than 4 hours. I woke her up around 8:30 so she could eat (I was about to explode*...yikes) and then she was awake, sort of. She enjoyed having her diaper changed and really whooped it up in the tub. But I think her cold hit another stage because she is all red-eyed and bleary and just looks hung over (again, my concept of hangovers is completely general, since I have never had one and try to avoid others who do due to their sensitive natures during that time). After her bath, which was refreshing (those Soothing Vapors) but again, the bubbles just taste gross, because she kind of made a face and spit them out and didn't try them again (and yes, I did clean the tub thoroughly when Ian was finished, thank you very much). Then it was PJ time and hairbrushing time and feeding time some more (we had a lot there to consume) and then it was full bellytime. Kind of like puppies or kittens with their big full bellies taking a nap in a sunbeam except she was on my lap and lolling around all limp and sleepy. No wailing, I enjoyed it.

Yay! I thought. Chris gets off at 10. Well, around 10:20 he comes in and tells me that Berry (who went to work today) took a huge dump in the back of the patrol car (Berry is now grounded for a couple of days, at least) and it stunk so bad that both Chris and his rider were gagging and heaving. The situation was so desperate that Chris actually floored it and beat the train across the tracks in his rush to get home and hose out the backseat. Even after he had hosed out the dog cage, it Still Reeked. Berry is known for his intestinal problems. Chris came in still breathing deep through his nose, told me that his rider had suddenly remember other things he had to do, and grabbed the Febreeze air freshener and will probably empty the entire bottle in the car. This is one of those times you think, "better him than me!" and then feel bad for thinking it because you know that as soon as you start getting smug, one of the kids will take a dump on the floor and you'll be left to clean it up alone. But okay, I know I'm starting to get punchy. Thanks to everyone who have been praying for the kids (and me). We are on the mend! We have to be. I can't think anything else. Zzzz.

*This is where I put the disclaimer that not much grosses me out, so I will and do talk freely about various bodily functions and patterns. Apologies to the faint of heart.

Want a House? Buy ours!

If anyone feels the sudden urge to move to a teeny town in Oklahoma and live inside the city limits between two rental houses, buy ours! For an extra zing, you can save yourself the time and trouble of looking at listings online. I will save you.

http://www.cbfaucette.com/PropertyDetail.asp?L=31477775&R=PropertyList.asp

There. That's the cleanest our house has looked since before we moved in. And that was before the new floors, when the kitchen still had seriously nasty carpet. We listed our house on Friday, but it didn't even get online until today and voila! The agent called a bit before noon and asked us if another agent could show our house today. When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I nodded, then remember I was on the phone. "Sure, Okay!" I shrieked, trying not to sound too excited. When I hung up the phone, I then started flight-of-the-bumblebee mode, in a frenzy to clean everything up. We'd been gone almost all weekend, so it was kind of extreme for a while. But it got done. We were out of the house by quarter till 5 and then it was in God's hands. The fact that we got a showing on Monday and we filled out the paperwork on Friday was miraculous, to say nothing else. We weren't expecting anything this soon, but bring it on! Now comes the terrors, the shakes, the 'Oh No!'s.

Because if we sell the house, then we have to move. Uhhhhh. Right. Why didn't we remember this important fact sooner? No, we want to move. Really. No, REALLY. But that requires energy and boxes and U-Hauls and long long loooooong car trips with a small boy and a baby girl. And then where will we live? We need a JOB! We need certification! We need Sonny's! Ok, now we're focused. We move = Sonny's. Got it. I feel better.

Now we just wait and see whether or not God answers our prayers waaaaaay before we expected Him to. Either way, the memory of Sonny's will sustain us. :) Mmmmmm....riiiiiibs.